Page 66 of Big & Bossy

“And you don’t give a shit.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I took a step back, keeping my eyes locked on his. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t give a shit about,” I snarled.

The wind whistled through the garage as I turned. I needed to get to dinner, needed to get to her, and all I was doing was allowing this to make me even later. Fuck it, I thought, and headed straight to the goddamn drivers side.

“You’re actively hurting her!”

I turned on my heel, my hands curling into fists. “And you’re not?”

His eyes widened, the little red veins almost darkening. “I’m not the one who fucked her and tore her into pieces.”

Anger burned the back of my throat in an instant. “Don’t talk about things you know absolutely nothing about,” I spat, throwing my bag and keys onto the passenger seat and slamming the door shut without getting in. If this is what he wanted, then fine. “You want to sit there and act all high and mighty, act like you have everything figured out, act like you know who she is and what happened between us — but you have no goddamn clue the shit we’ve been through. You don’t know where I’ve been. You don’t know who I am.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, his sneer forcing my hand, forcing me to move. My vision tunneled, my mind overriding every normal thought. “I know enough about you to know you’re a piece of shit, sorry excuse for a man. I know enough to know that you don’t deserve her. I know enough to know that you don’t have her best interests at heart, that you’re just going to break her again, that you’re going to chew her up and spit her out for fun?—”

Pain exploded through my knuckles as a thwack echoed against the concrete around us.

Blinking through the haze, my vision slowly came back, revealing a bloodied-nosed Harry on the ground, his upper half held up by his elbows. Wild eyes met mine, the same shit-eating grin stapled to his cheeks, and — yeah, his nose was broken.

But he laughed.

“God, she’s going to love this.”

My body moved again of its own accord, reaching down to fist the front of his hoodie and haul him to his feet. I walked him back, shoving him against the concrete pillar two spaces down my car, and spat in his blood-covered face. “You knew better, didn’t you?” I sneered, pulling him forward before slamming him back into the concrete. “You wanted this. You practically begged me.”

Blood coated his teeth as he spoke. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he laughed. “You’re just digging your own grave, Jack.”

“Do you want to fucking join me in it?”

My hand left his shirt, only to bloom with pain again as it collided with his jaw.

He caught himself against the pillar, spitting blood and saliva out of his clenched teeth. “Fucker,” he rasped, wiping his face with the back of his arm and hissing from the pain. “You probably would have done this to her, too.”

Nope. No, no, no.

I saw red.

Taking the front of his hoodie in my hand again, I acted on instinct. I fisted it, held on for dear life, and wrenched him from the pillar before releasing at the last second, sending him skidding across the concrete ground beneath us. The distance closed as I followed, one booted foot hitting him square in his ribcage with an audible crack.

And another.

And another.

It took everything in me to stop. Every ounce of control I had after sleepless nights and endless work. I left him there as he spat blood and cackled, clinging to his ribs. I must have broken at least two, if not three. Must have done enough damage to keep him down.

“You’re fucked up, man,” he yelled to me as I opened my car door. Red coated the front of him as he slowly, achingly, pushed himself up to a seated position.

“Yeah, well, I warned you and you still made me late.” I flexed the fingers on my right hand as I slid into the driver’s seat, the smallest droplets of blood leaking from the broken skin.

Chapter 32

Mandy

Me: Where are you?

I stared at the unanswered message between us as my phone lay silently on the dining table. The people around me hummed and spoke in low voices, each enjoying their own meal with whomever they’d come with that had actually shown up. Lingering glances from the waitstaff burned at the edges of my vision, and all I could do as I sat there alone with a glass of wine and a basket of bread was feel like I was only cheating myself.

Thirty minutes had passed since the time our reservation was booked. He’d warned me he was running a few minutes behind, but this long? He wasn’t even answering his phone.

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