Straightening his spine, he took a step in front of Mallory like he might know how to protect her. Like she mightneedprotecting, especially from someone like him.
The roll of her eyes and the way she stepped away from him to slip into her condo would’ve had a smile breaking free if I hadn’t narrowed in on the glassiness of those blue eyes before Mallory had turned.
But I had. And it had that anxiousness surging and mixing with the anger steadily unfurling in my chest as my focus shifted back to the man in front of me.
“Right,Davis,” I said through gritted teeth and enjoyed the way his eyes flared far too much when I stopped just in front of him. “Thought I told you to forget my wife. And yet...here you are.”
Davis’ throat shifted with a forced swallow. Unease and uncertainty seeped from him as his gaze shifted to the side, unable to hold mine, before he started glancing behind him to look at Mallory; only then noticing that she was no longer standing behind him.
“Yeah, unless it’s a bullet coming at her, she doesn’t need you to step in front of her for anything. Ask me how I know.”
“You’re crazy,” he said, voice lacking any weight. “I don’t know who you are, but I think—I don’t think you should be here.”
A breath of a laugh left me just as Mallory stormed out of her condo, slamming the door and locking it as she did. “Let’s go,” she softly seethed as she started my way.
I reached for her, letting my hand trail her waist and across her stomach as she stalked past me, and felt my pulse kick up at her soft inhale and the way she leaned into me. Brief, but so telling.
But instead of following her, I stepped even closer to Davis and dropped my voice low. “You’re trying to date my wife—the girl I’ve loved for nearly a dozen years. When someone does that to you, then come tell me I’m crazy.” Letting one of my brows tick up, I added, “Last warning: Stay away from Mallory.”
Without waiting for a response from him, I turned to head for my truck and a fuming Mallory Monroe.
My favorite.
As soon as I was in the truck, she turned on me and said, “We were drugged.”
My head slanted at the unexpected claim.
I’d been worried she’d pull us back ten spaces from where we’d been this morning. I’d been sure she would’ve unleashed all that typical Mallory fury for stepping in where she hadn’t needed me. Butthis?
“Sorry, what?”
“In Aruba,” she said through clenched teeth. “That night. We were—” A choking sound left her, and I reached for her just before heavy tears slipped free.
The still-foreign sight of this girl crying stilled me for a moment before I curled an arm around her waist and pulled her as close as the center console allowed. Cradling the side of herneck with my other hand, I dropped my forehead to hers as her bodyshookwith the force of her sobs.
I wasn’t sure anything could’ve shocked me more than seeing Mallory break. But seeing her like this? Clinging to my forearm as she struggled to just breathe around the tears choking her?
It terrified me.
“Peach, talk to me,” I begged as I lifted both hands to her wet cheeks, all while her head rocked against mine.
When she didn’t, or couldn’t, offer anything, I lowered my voice to a gentle murmur. Slowly breathing out questions and pleas, and giving her long, torturous minutes to respond between each. “What do you mean,we were drugged? How do you know? Tell me what broughtthison.” I brushed at the relentless tears meaningfully and felt my chest wrench at the next choked cry that ripped from her.
Just as I started begging her to give mesomething, everything she remembered from that night in the room came pouring out between soft sobs and shaky, heaving breaths.
From the way we’d repeatedly come together, as if, after so many years of repressed love, it’d felt wrong to have any kind of distance between us. To the inconspicuous water bottle she hadn’t thought twice about because she’d assumed one of us had brought it back to the room. To the partial conversation that hinted at a much larger one—similar to ones we’d been having this past weekend, just without all the accusations and mistrust. To the way everything had turned so quickly...
From her not being able to speak and the room spinning. To my words slurring before I’d seemed to figure it out. My panic. My fear as I’d tried to help her before everything had ended.
“What would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there?” she asked as she gripped my forearm tighter. “Whydidn’tanything happen? Even with you being there? It doesn’t—it doesn’t make sense. And we—” A strangled sound caught in her throat. “Gray,we were happy. We were so happy. And I twisted everything. Assumed the worst. I destroyed?—”
“No, no, don’t,” I said over her. “We’re not doing that.”
“But it happened,” she seethed as she pulled away from me. “You can’t pretend the last three months didn’t happen.”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “But we made it back to each other, even without your memories of that night. Lingering in the pain and misunderstandings of what happened is only going to hurt us now.”
Mallory sucked in a shuddering breath to respond, her head already shaking, only for her movements to still before her stare snapped to me. Brows drawn close, grief and denial lining those bright blue eyes as she studied me.
