Page 67 of Defying Ella
“You gave her your number,” I said, my tone flat and my gaze dropping to the ground. “We’ve been free for less than ten minutes, and you’ve already set your sights on your first conquest.”
Jared smirked. “I work fast.”
“You don’t have the decency to wait until I’m away from you?” My voice shook as the red-hot heat of anger finally swept in to save me from the confusing pain radiating from my chest. “I spent aweektrying to make you feel better about yourself, and you can’t waitten minutesbefore finding someoneelse to fuck?” My voice rose until I shouted the last part in his face.
All movement around us stopped. Jared went from a relaxed, confident rock star to the anxiety-ridden man beneath the mask in the blink of an eye.
“Els,” he whispered, shuffling closer to me. “Keep it down.”
“Why?” I snapped, raising my voice instead. “So you can avoid attention? Why the hell should I care? You clearly don’t give a shit about me.”
He winced. “I didn’t say that.”
“No?” I dragged out the sound, my brows climbing in challenge. “What the hell do you call hitting on some random, less than a day after making love to me?”
“I wouldn’t say — ”
“Love? Well, I bloody would.” I stepped back, my hard gaze sweeping up and down his body. “But I guess you’re just a better actor than I gave you credit for. Who would have thought the drummer could act?”
The barbs kept spewing from my lips, coating my mouth in ash. I hated it, hated the tiny winces he failed to hide as each one landed, hated that I whittled away at everything I’d built in the last few days.
What else was I meant to do? Let him throw me out with the rubbish without so much as a protest? That would never be me, and if he thought he’d get away with that, he shouldn’t have touched me, not at home or here.
“You know this won’t stay between us, right?” I whispered, almost scared to give voice to the real consequences of our situation.
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not keeping this bullshit from my sister, which means that by the time we land, the entire band will know how far you’ve pushed your luck.” Slowly, the emotion drained from my voice, drained from my body. The fire of anger turned tothe cool burn of numbness. I would never let a man floor me. I would survive him, no matter how long it took. “We get home, I don’t want to see you. You don’t go anywhere near my sister.”
“That’s going to be fucking hard considering Dan’s attached to her hip.”
“I don’t care. You don’t set foot in her flat. I’m going to be a regular feature at her Saturday lunch date with the girls, I don’t want to so much as sniff out your cologne.” His jaw shifted as my eyes drove daggers through him. “Do I make myself clear? You live your life, I’ll live mine. Make sure they don’t fucking intersect.”
“Or what?” he growled, crowding closer.
But for the drone of the snowploughs, silence engulfed us. I couldn’t tear my gaze from his angry green eyes. Call it a final masochistic act to memorise every line.
My stomach flipped. The thought of hurting him made my heart ache. Stupid, considering all he’d done to ensure my hatred. Nothing made sense, so why did I have to?
“I know enough to make your worst nightmares a reality, Jared.”
His face went slack as my meaning landed.
“You wouldn’t,” he whispered. His face went white, and I bit my tongue against the urge to take it all back.
“Don’t test me,” I snapped instead.
I’d never follow through. Maybe.
“You want to fuck your way around the world? Stay away from my sister. Stay out of my way.” My bravado failed and I averted my gaze as my eyes started to burn. “You owe me that much, at least.”
He tipped his chin and I turned away, putting a pin in the emotions battering against the numbness encasing my heart and mind.
“How do we get out of here?”
I scanned the area, noting the ice-entombed cars. They’dmade good progress freeing them, but it would be at least another half hour before they could get a door open to try and turn the engines over. The thought of driving one of them to the airport didn’t fill me with much faith. I didn’t need to add any more injuries to my tally today.
Jared cleared his throat. “Mia’s going to drive us to the airport. Andy arranged for them to deal with returning the cars to the rental agency.”
