I caught sight of the enraged face of my protector and my pulse fluttered. Jonah Dunn. The older brother of the boy I’d dated in high school, the one whose mom had crocheted my favorite blanket.
The boy who’d been killed in a car crash.
The scar bisecting his face was more prominent thanks to the angry flush. His dark eyes were no lessdeadly than Boyd’s, and Jonah had his polished walking cane pressed across Boyd’s chest. Yet I didn’t fear Jonah.
“Stay out of this, asshole.” Boyd’s handsome but plain face was turning red.
I inspected my now ex-fiancé like he was an ant. There was nothing exemplary about him and the effect wasn’t from his looks. He had to work hard not to be ordinary, and he stepped on other people to get to the next level, be it through perceived charm or his manipulative personality.
What had I seen in him? Why had I stayed?
I was so stupid.
My sisters had been so ready to help me ditch my nuptials. They’d seen it.
Had everyone been able to discern the dim future I was sprinting into but me?
I’d seen what Boyd wanted me to see. A nice smile, a good job, and a mellow attitude. All false but the smile, thanks to Invisalign.
Boyd tried smacking Jonah, but Jonah batted his hands away while keeping Boyd pinned to the wall like a bug in a display. Accurate.
Boyd bared his teeth. He tried to kick, but Jonah’s knee twitched and Boyd was so damn proud of his freshly shaven balls he instantly went still.
“I’ll call the cops,” Boyd huffed.
I stiffened. Boyd had connections. He had power. Jonah wasn’t known in Bozeman. He was barely known in Bourbon Canyon anymore.
I couldn’t let Boyd walk away from hitting me. I couldn’t let more than me be humiliated by this man. “Boyd, you’re going to go into the chapel and announce that today is canceled. You’re not going to trash myname or I’ll march right out and tell them how I got the red spot on my cheek.”
I didn’t have to look in the mirror to know that my left cheek was blazing.
Jonah jerked and smacked Boyd’s head against the wall, like the reminder infuriated him. I... didn’t mind.
“My family isn’t dealing with the fallout,” I continued, secure in Jonah’s hold on him. I’d let Boyd bulldoze me enough. “If you give them any shit whatsoever, I will tell my brothers—allof them,” I stressed so he’d know I meant Myles and, by extension, his brothers too. “And I’ll be their alibi.”
Boyd’s face was now magenta.
“What is going on here?” Corinne’s scandalized voice rang down the hall. She was storming in our direction. An angry monarch in a shiny pewter dress and three-inch matching heels.
Jonah didn’t let go. He stroked his dark gaze down my body, leaving a hot flush behind. “You okay?”
His deep growl sent shivers across my skin, cooling the heat he’d caused. His scruff-lined jaw was hard enough to be carved from stone, but I could only make out concern in the black depths of his eyes.
I nodded. A lie.
His eyes narrowed, pinching the scar that ran near the corner of his left eye.
“Get your hands off him before I call the police!” Corinne’s volume would draw attention. I didn’t want to be on display, stared at. Pitied.
I didn’t want to be a spectacle. It would be my parents’ funeral all over again. I had to shut her up. “I didn’t realize your son made a habit of hitting women.”
Her steps stuttered, and her righteous expressionfaltered. Then she lifted her chin, back to commanding mother of the groom. “I didn’t realize you made a habit of lying.”
“Keep telling yourself that while you announce the wedding’s off.” I pointed at my smarting cheek. My heart was hammering against my sternum. The anger was dying and the desperation was growing. I didn’t want everyone to see how deluded I’d been. They’d known he wasn’t good for me, but they couldn’t have known he was this bad. Calling off the wedding was exposing enough. “Boyd knows what’ll happen if he shit-talks me.” I lifted my chin toward Jonah. “You can let him go.”
Jonah’s eyes were still narrowed. He hadn’t looked at Corinne once. He turned his hard stare on Boyd. “Get out of my goddamn sight, and I won’t hit you the way you hit her.”
Shame burned along my skin. I dropped my gaze to the floor as Jonah stepped back, keeping between me and Boyd as much as he could, and jerked his cane from Boyd’s chest.
