Page 29 of Undeniable
“Are you okay?” I leaned against the sink next to hers, itching to pull her into my arms and tell her I had her back.
But her body language was giving off warning signals to stay away.
“The man who helped me, is he your father?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s nice.” She wouldn’t look at me.
At least someone thought Kurtis Allen was a decent man.
“He was recently released from prison.” No sense in keeping that a secret. “He has a gambling addiction.”
She shuddered and looked at me through the mirror, not shocked at my admission. “Are you here to gamble with him?” A hint of revulsion sat beneath her shaky tone.
I wasn’t in the restroom to spill my truths. I needed to know she was okay. Then I noticed redness around her bicep area.
Fury blazed through me like wildfire. “Midnight,” I said softly, “Josh hurt you.” I fisted my hands at my sides.
“Stop calling me that,” she gritted out, jaw tight.
“Your arm is red.”
“I’ll be fine.” She grabbed a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and patted her face dry. “Why are you here?”
In that moment, the feisty woman who’d kneed a guy in the balls seemed fragile.
“Bailey asked me to give you a ride home.”
“Of course she did.”
The door squeaked open.
“Mazzie,” a woman shouted.
She cringed. “Greta is about to fire me.”
Sure enough, Greta stalked in and crossed her arms over her crisp white shirt. “Lucas, what are you doing in here?”
“Go,” Mazzie said to me. “You can’t save me again.”
Maybe not, but I wasn’t going to give up. I assessed Greta for a long beat, tempted to try to save Mazzie’s job. But as angry as Greta was, I didn’t want to make matters worse for Mazzie.
So I pushed a hand roughly through my hair, my pulse staccato. “Mazzie, I’ll be waiting for you at the front entrance.”
She might protest, but she was riding home with me, even if I had to throw the stubborn woman over my shoulder and carry her to my truck. Because the thought of letting her walk away again was like getting hit by a hard tackle, wind knocked out of me with no time to recover.
10
Mazzie
Twenty minutes later, after a heated exchange of words with Greta in the ladies’ restroom about the incident with Josh, she’d ordered me to sit in her office to wait for her. Apparently, she had to talk to Mr. Blackwood.
I chomped on a fingernail, pacing her sterile office, replaying the argument with Josh.
“Why are you with him?” he’d asked. “He sleeps around.”
“And you don’t?” I fired back.
