Page 51 of Pedal to the Metal

He shakes his head then meets my gaze with his one good eye. “Trust me. I’m saving more people than anything else.”

“How? Who? This sounds ridiculous Ace!”

“I’m saving you, Londynn! And your relationship!” He almost shouts.

His words hit me like a bucket of ice cold water. I think I knew last night what that look had meant but I’d been too scared to admit it to myself. “What do you mean?” I whisper.

“I mean that if I tell who did this then Jagger will blame himself and you and your relationship. It’s how he’s wired, to take the blame. He’ll lose because he’ll push you away. You’ll lose because he won’t let you back in and you’ll both lose your relationship. Jagger is happy for the first time in years. I won’t be the one to take that from him.”

“It was Ryce, wasn’t it?” I ask him, but I already know the answer to my question. Ace merely turns his head away from me and I feel the tears burn my eyes. I turn and head for the door. Imanage to get out to my car before the tears start to fall because Ace is right, I’m about to lose everything.

Chapter 28

Londynn

Once I get my emotions back under control I start my car and head back towards Santa Monica. The drive takes longer than normal with the morning traffic but when I look at the time I see it’s still too early for Ryce to be up and moving around. He rarely gets up before noon. As I pull into his driveway I notice his car, so I know he’s home. When I reach the door, I knock instead of ringing the doorbell. At least this way his housekeeper will answer it and I don’t’ have to worry about him trying to sneak out to avoid me if he is awake by chance.

After his housekeeper lets me inside I head up the stairs to his bedroom. I knock and pause only for a second. It’s not like I haven’t seen him naked before. However, when I enter I’m slightly shocked to see Alivia pulling on one of Ryce’s shirts. “Londynn?” she asks looking as shocked as she sounds.

“Alivia.” As I scan the room I see Ryce coming out of his closet.

Alivia steps towards me. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

I hold up my hand up to stop her from talking. “I don’t care Alivia.” Which was the truth. I didn’t care what either of them did. I had only come here to get the answers I needed, to help Ace. “I came here to talk to Ryce.”

“Aww…baby you know I’ll take you back but I’m keeping Alivia on the side," he says with a wink.

“Oh please! I didn’t come here for that I came to find out why you and your band of assholes attacked Ace.”

“Ace?” he asks playing innocent.

I shake my head at him but while I’m shaking my head I notice a dog tag laying on his desk. It’s a silver ace of hearts card. I recognize it because it belongs to Ace, I know because Kynleebought it for him. She was so proud she made him show it to me the night I first kissed Jagger. “He was wearing that the night you nearly killed him," I tell him pointing at the dog tag lying on the desk.

His head falls back in laughter, he continues to laugh until he grabs his side from an ache and even then, he has a hard time controlling it. When he finally regains some composure, I have to wait for him to catch his breath. “I’m sorry, well not really but it’s just trying not to take credit for Ace is hard.”

“Why? Why Ace?” I ask him.

“You.” He simply replies while taking a seat in one of his chairs.

I can’t figure out what that means. I would get that if he had jumped Jagger but why Ace. “No, that doesn’t make sense. If it was because of me, you would have jumped Jagger.”

“Oh! I would have loved that! Unfortunately, he wasn’t the one that walked into Red Hott.”

“So, you just attacked Ace because he walked into a strip club at the same time as you?” I ask him while he reclines back in the chair like all of this is no big deal.

Ryce shakes his head. “No, I jumped Ace because he cost meyou.”

I roll my eyes at him, “How do you figure that?”

“Well, you see the night of the charity ball I came back for you but when I got there I saw the taillights of Ace’s blue Hellcat leaving. If he hadn’t picked you up then Jagger wouldn’t have returned, and I’d still have you on my arm instead of Alivia," he says motioning towards Alivia who is sitting quietly on the bed. I can’t believe his audacity, to talk about trying to get me back with Alivia in his room. Obviously, they are more than just friends. “I came back that night to make it up to you.”

A hard laugh escapes my mouth and it seems to shock Ryce. “Make it up to me? How the hell could you make it upto me Ryce? You cheated on me in the hallway of the charity ball, forced me into a car while you drove drunk and recklessly, verbally and physically abused me then you drove off leaving me stranded on the side of the road with no cell phone or purse, in a ball gown and heels in a not so safe part of town. How could you make up for that? Even if Ace hadn’t shown up to help me there was no fixing that. It wasn’t his fault that we ended, and I got with Jagger…it was yours. You and your actions ended us.” Ryce studies me for a long time. “You know you’re lucky that someone showed up for Ace.”

“Doubtful," he grunts.

It sends my already high anger into a boiling state. “He could have died! And it would have been your fault! Yours, and let me guess who was with you…Justin, Marcus and probably Damon.”

“Yeah and?” he asks like it’s not a big deal that someone could have died, and it would have been their fault.

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