Page 42 of Sex, Lies, and Margarita Mixes

“Have you ever been in love with someone else while you were in a relationship?”

The air goes still. The tequila goes heavy in my stomach. Chase’s eyes are on me.

Steady. No panic. No flinching. Just… there.

I realize what he already knows.

I haven’t.

Not even close.

I shake my head. “No. I’ve only been in love once.” I nod. “With him.”

A satisfied and feral smile covers Chase’s face.

I take the shot anyway, because that kind of truth…That one’s just for us.

Sasha goes to spin again—when the door abruptly swings open. We all whirl. No one but us is supposed to be here.

A voice cuts through the deck like a rusty blade. “Well. This looks like a fun little disaster.”

We all stare at the door while I gasp. My voice is practically a banshee screech as I say, “Holden?”

What the fuck is he doing here?

The guy who did such a number on me, I swore I’d never trust a man again.

Until I did. Until Chase.

My blood goes cold. The tequila and my temper make me hot. Before I can react, I hear the soft sound of a chair scraping back. I see Chase stand.

CHASE

* * *

I don’t even think. I’m on my feet before he finishes his smug little line.

“Well. This looks like a fun little disaster.”

Holden.

The human version of unseasoned chicken and emotional gaslighting.

And he’s standing in the doorway of the retreat house like he belongs here, like he isn’t the reason Roxy had to rebuild her confidence from rubble. And the reason my marriage has been insane for the past three and a half years. He broke her and I’ve been trying to piece her back together ever since.

I will snap his jaw if he so much as blinks wrong.

Roxy doesn’t move but I can feel it—her spine’s stiff. Her breathing’s off. Her tequila haze is… gone.

She’s triggered. I’m activated. And he’s already dying in my head.

“Wrong house, man,” I say.

My voice is calm. I am not. He smiles like he doesn’t hear the warning.

“Still have an attitude, I see, macho man.”

I step forward. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of pace a lion makes before the kill. “You’ve got five seconds to back out the way you came in. Or I stop playing nice.”

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