“Wh-hat are you talking about?” Patrick Eden’s blustered. “I’m not familiar with your ghetto, street lingo and—”
“Oh, cut the crap!” Delilah couldn’t stand it anymore. “Did you send those gangbangers to kill your daughter or not?”
“Of course not!” Patrick Edens shouted right back, proving he wasn’t such a hoity-toity, keep-my-cool-under-any-pressure kind of guy after all. “Why would I do that?”
Before Delilah could utter another word, the elevator doors opened behind them with that melodic ding-dong, and a man who belonged in the centerfold of a women’s magazine strolled into the opulent foyer. He was over six feet of blond-haired, blue-eyed, well-dressed, homina-homina-handsome, but something about the way he carried himself made Delilah’s hackles twang to life.
“Uh-oh,” Mac muttered.
“What?” she asked, turning to frown up at him.
“This just turned into a traditional backwoods goatfuck.”
“Huh?” She lifted a brow, watching as the new arrival hesitated before advancing farther into the room. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Mac murmured so far beneath his breath it was hard to hear, “that if I’m not mistaken, that’s Eve’s ex-husband.”
“Um, hello, everyone,” Mr. Universe/Eve’s ex-husband addressed the group before focusing on Eve. “Jesus, Eve, what in the world happened to you?” His demeanor actually appeared concerned, and that was the first time Delilah had seen that particular expression on an ex-husband’s face in regard to an ex-wife.
“I was attacked at a bar,” Eve said, her expression loudly broadcasting her dislike of the man.
Ah, now that’s more like it.
“How awful for you!” Mr. Universe cried, stepping toward her.
“Don’t you lay on hand on me, Blake,” Eve warned, glowering.
“Why, Eve,” the man looked genuinely shocked, “what’s gotten into you?”
Before Eve could answer, Patrick Edens spoke up. “Sorry, I didn’t call you back and cancel, Blake,” he said. “This,” he waved a dismissive hand at the group, “just showed up on my doorstep.”
“That’s quite all right,” Mr. Universe…er…Blake said. “I actually postponed other plans when you initially called to tell me Eve’d bailed on you. It’ll be a snap to reinstate them and—”
“What the hell are you two doing together?” Eve interrupted, staring daggers first at one man, then the other, her color so high Delilah worried the poor woman might just stroke out.
“We went in on a mutual business endeavor a few years back,” Edens answered. “There’ve been some recent developments we need to discuss. And when you canceled on me, I thought it was as good a time as any to call Blake over for a meeting.”
“A mutual business endeavor, huh?” Eve rolled in her lips, nodding her head. But it was obvious even before she said, “Between my father and my ex-husband; why am I not surprised?” that the association between the two men bothered her.
“This, uh, this appears to be a family affair.” Blake raised his hands. “And since I’m no longer officially part of the family, I…I think I’ll just show myself out.” He turned to leave but hesitated, glancing over his shoulder once more. “I really am sorry to hear about what happened to you, Eve” he murmured, then added, “but what can you expect from hanging out in biker bars?”
And what was that? The party line for snobby rich folks or something? And just when Delilah was about to bust out, this time for real, with oh no you didn’t, a thought occurred to her. “Wait a damn minute,” she declared. “How did you know she was attacked in a biker bar? She never said it was a biker bar.”
“Because Patrick told me where she’d decided to spend her evening when he called to invite me over,” the man said.
Oh, hell. Mac was right. This was a traditional backwoods goatfuck…
Chapter Fifteen
“You!” Eve screamed, jumping toward Blake with her hands curled into fists, her mind burning with so much rage she could barely see beyond the red haze clouding her vision. Of course, that red haze didn’t affect her ears, so she had no trouble hearing Blake’s surprised squawk of pain when her well-practiced right jab landed on the bridge of his nose.
Crunch! Cartilage cracked beneath her knuckles, and a bright burst of white-hot agony reverberated up her arm to explode in her shoulder. She paid it no mind as she reached back with her left fist to follow that first punch up with a second aimed straight at Blake’s soft belly. He wheezed a cartoonish, “oof,” as he bent in half, one hand holding his stomach, the other coming up to cup the blood draining from his nose.
Okay, so…she’d lost it. She’d absolutely, positively lost her flippin’ mind. And even though a part of her was standing outside herself, watching as she hurled punches like a bantam-weight boxer, she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. Not when her brain was screaming, after everything he put me through! After tricking me all those years ago! After ruining any chance I had at happiness, now he has the audacity to try to…to try to kill me?
She wanted to scratch his eyes out, rip his heart out! She wanted to scream and scream and—
Two strong arms wrapped around her from behind, bodily lifting her away from Blake’s folded form. She struggled against the embrace, her blood boiling through her veins like molten lava, her reasoning and restraint burned down to ashes from the roiling inferno of her heartache and fury.
“How could you?” she wailed at Blake even as she tried to wrestle out of the human vice clamping her arms against her sides. “After everything! How could you?”
“Stop this, Eve!” she heard her father command. And there was a time she’d have followed his order without a second thought. A time she’d have wilted like a lily to be yelled at in such a way. But, boy, oh boy, was that time ever gone.
Briefly she registered the shift in paradigm, but she barely paid it a fleeting thought. Because, suddenly, all the years of manipulation, all the times her father had disregarded her wants and needs in order to forward his own desires, all the pushing and prodding and wheedling flashed through her overheated head like a slideshow projector set on overdrive, and she turned on him with a snarl. By the way he stumbled back, his hand jumping to his throat, she knew the bitterness she felt in her heart blazed clear and bright in her eyes despite the fact that her hair hung in front of her face.
“Shut up!” she shrieked at him, blowing like the time she’d run the Chicago marathon in just over four hours. “This is your fault, too! You pushed me at him!” She jerked her chin toward Blake who was staggering back against the wall, still cupping his ruined nose in his hand as dark red blood seeped between his fingers. “You wouldn’t stop badgering me until I agreed to go out with him!”
“You’ve gone f-fucking cr-crazy!” Blake wailed, blinking against the tears pouring from his eyes.
Something inside Eve, something she’d never known existed, something feral and bloodthirsty smiled at the carnage she’d created. She opened her mouth to scream at him that the jig was up. That no amount of blustering or deflection was going to save him now. But then she heard Billy growl behind her, and she realized he was the one who’d yanked her away from Blake. He was the one who’d kept her from beating her ex-husband to a bloody pulp…er…bloodier pulp. And she didn’t know whether she should thank him for the effort or give him a taste of what she’d just given Blake.