He leans in and plants a welcoming kiss on my cheek.His voice dropping to a low, menacing whisper.“I don’t know what the fuck you’re up to, but you just sealed your fate,” he hisses, his fingers gripping my arm, the pressure just enough to be a warning.“Follow through with this little plan of yours, and while it might be a public embarrassment for me…” He steps back, smiling ostensibly, sliding his fingers down my cheek to wrap them around my chin.“…you will lose everything.I’ll personally make sure of it.”His charming smile is gone, replaced by a chilling certainty in his eyes.
Forced to absorb the full weight of his promise, my carefully constructed resolve crumbles.Panic, raw and icy, floods my veins.
He can take Maddy’s Place.
He can ruin me.
My plan suddenly feels naïve, reckless.A child’s fantasy against his ruthless power.The faces in the booth blur; the club’s thumping bass fades to a distant pulse.My breath catches, trapped in my tight chest as the fight drains out of me.
He wins.
He always wins.
His eyes narrow slightly, and a flicker of cruel satisfaction crosses his face at my surrender.
And it’s that flicker.That arrogant assumption of victory and the visceral revulsion of his thumb pressing into my chin…
It finally ignites.
With a sharp movement that surprises us both, I yank my chin free from his grip.My head snaps back, and I meet his stunned gaze, my own eyes blazing with a fury that feels brand new.
He blinks, his expression tightening as surprise morphs into outright anger.Every person in the booth behind him is now utterly still, watching.
I open my mouth, ready to unleash hell, to burn his fake world to the ground right here, right now—
“Sorry I’m late, love.”
The voice, unmistakably Matthew’s, slices through the charged air.My half-formed words die on my tongue.
A thrill, pure and electric, shoots through me.
Matthew?
Here?
What—?
He’s by my side before the questions can even fully form, moving with a fluid grace that belies the tension coiled in his frame.One arm snakes around my waist, fingers spreading firmly against the bare skin of my back, pulling me securely against the hard line of his body.
He leans in, his lips brushing my temple.“Should’ve realized it sooner,” he whispers, his mouth close to my ear.“This is my part to play.Nobody else’s.”He presses a firm, proprietary kiss to my jawline.
Matthew lifts his head, but his arm remains a steel band around my waist, anchoring me to him.
A united front.
He doesn’t look at me.His attention, sharp as forged steel, is locked entirely on James.And in that instant, as I feel the unwavering challenge radiating from him toward the man who just threatened to destroy me, the meaning of his words crashes down.
He doesn’t know about my plan.
All he heard were my bitter words from that morning: I can handle a little make-out session.
He thinks he’s here to be the ‘other man.’To spare me the humiliation of it being a stranger.
He thinks we’re playing James’s game.
The booth is a stunned vacuum where only the pounding beats of the club exist.The friend whose name I can’t recall looks bewildered.Candice looks shocked, her eyes bouncing between the three of us.James is rigid.His face is a mask of disbelief that cracks to reveal the unadulterated fury beneath.
Matthew has just thrown a grenade into the middle of my battlefield by playing a part in a script I just set on fire.
