Dax had made her feel more in the past twenty-four hours than Blake had in a year and half.
“I want a few minutes alone with you, please.”
There it was, the demand wrapped up in politeness. He’d loved to use that tone on her when she wasn’t doing what he asked or thought she should be doing. Like when he’d told her to sell the bakery, and she’d told him to fuck off.
“No.” Dax’s voice was concrete.
Blake simply smiled as he gave Dax a lazy once over.
“And you are?”
“An Alpha you don’t want to piss off.”
Blake laughed, but the was no humor in it. The sound made goosebumps raise over her arms. Inside, he was stewing and getting angrier by the second. She could tell by the way the vein on the side of his neck popped and the tension lines on his forehead. Allie could barely stand still. She was anxious and antsy to get Blake out of here so she could resume life as normal. The longer she was in his company, the more irritable she became. All he did was remind her of the pain, humiliation, and blatant self-hatred he’d inspired in her.
“I have nothing to say.”
“Yes, you do!”
There was a shift in the air after Blake’s outburst. Tension rolled off Dax with a kind of palpable vibration that Allie swore she could feel in the free space between them. His nostrils flared and his fingers flexed as if he were holding himself back from something. All she needed were these men to transform into bears and hash it out inside her store. She still hadn’t recovered from the raccoon damage.
She’d placate Blake and get him the hell out of here before all hell broke loose.
“What do you want, Blake?”
She could barely breathe with both men getting tenser by the minute. She brushed past them both and went to the coffee bar. With trembling fingers, she began to fill the sugar packets. The back of her neck tingled as Blake shifted in her direction. Dax mimicked his movements, eyes riveted on his rival. Another low rumble shook the air, the intonation full of threat from Blake. From the corner of her eye, Allie saw Becks grab her cellphone off the counter and wrap it in her palm.
How had things gotten this tense?
Blake shot a hand through his brown hair. “I want my money, Allie.”
She whipped him a look. “What are you talking about?”
Blake’s hands sliced through the air and he made a disbelieving face as if she were jerking him around. “Come on, I know you’ve heard that I’m getting married. I’m sure it burns you considering how often you begged me to buy you a ring.”
At one time those words would have gutted her but now... she felt nothing but a mild ambivalence. It wasn’t true; they’d rarely spoken about marriage and she’d never once pressured him to get engaged. No matter what she said, he’d turn it around on her, so she didn’t reply.
He shook his head and crammed his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to marry you, Allie. I did. But it was always one thing after another with this, thisplace. And then when I gave you the money for the convection ovens and you made no attempt to pay me back, I knew I couldn’t marry a woman who would take advantage of me like that.”
Her face went cold, her lips numb. She was so stunned; she couldn’t respond right away.
“You didn’t give me the money for anything. You... you gave me the ovens as a birthday gift.”
She recalled how he’d had the delivery men wrap the twin ovens in a huge red ribbon and bows, and probably paid them extra to sing, ‘happy birthday,’ to her while they rolled them in. She’d drooled over those ovens since deciding to open Sticky Sweet, but the cost had been prohibitive. She’d mentioned it once to Blake and he’d surprised her with the purchase.
Never had they talked about the ovens being on loan instead of gifts.
He snorted a laugh. “Marybeth warned me the bakery was going under and you’d have an excuse not to pay.”
Her brow furrowed. “Marybeth?” What did she have to do with this?
“Come on, Allie. No man gives a woman an eight-thousand-dollar birthday gift. I mean, Allie, honey, you were never worth that.”
There was a crash as Dax pushed away from the table he’d been standing by and tipped it to the ground. In three big steps, he was nose-to-nose with Blake with an impassive expression that made him seem deadly.
“Outside.” One word. Uttered with such force that Allie gripped the counter behind her.
Blake’s nostrils flared as he glared unflinchingly at Dax. She shouldn’t care if her lover gave her ex a taste of his own behavior. On a purely vindictive level, she wanted to see the inferior shifter get his ass beat. But she abhorred violence, especially if it was because of her.
