Tears welled in my eyes as I pulled back against his hold, his hands crushing my wrist.
“Chad, please,” I gasped, “you’rehurtingme—”
Not just my wrist, but everything. The pieces I’d just begun to glue back together… they were splintering all over again. Like I had made no progress, like Chad would always be there, poisoning any growth I made.
He pulled harder on my wrist causing me to stumble forward as he turned to look at me, grabbing my face in his hands, pressing on my jaw.
It hurts.
It fucking hurts.
“Now is when you shut the fuck up and get in my fucking car. Do you understand?”
Tears finally began to fall down my cheeks, leaving wet streaks as they trailed over his fingers and down his wrist.
“Do you know how easy you had it?” he snarled. “All you had to do was stay home, look pretty, and eventually be a fucking mother. That’s it. But no. You couldn’tgive me that. You had to ruin it. You had to ruinme.”
His words cracked against me like a whip.
“You know men have needs, Harp. Biologically, we’re wired differently. We weren’t made to stay with just one woman.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run.
But I was paralyzed.
“I hate you,” I managed to choke out.
Before Chad could react, a blur of white and gray barreled into him, ripping his hands away from me as he was tackled to the ground.
I stumbled back from the force, falling on my ass.
Looking up, I saw Ambrose was now on top of Chad, punching him in the face. One blow after another he growledas his fist connected with Chad’s jaw, a grotesque wet cracking sound drowning everything else out.
Chad fumbled to push Ambrose off, but the man was a solid, immovable wall of muscle. He was solid and unrelenting.
He was every bit of rage I felt.
“Ambrose,” I said in a throaty whisper.
He didn’t stop. He just kept hitting him. Over and over again.
“Ambrose, stop,” I said again, this time louder as I scrambled to my feet.
Finally when he stopped, leaving Chad a broken and bloody mess, he stood up but didn’t face me.
“Never touch her again. Never come near her again,” he growled, his hands dipping into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. “If I ever catch your scent upon my Flower again, I will show you the meaning of hell.” Ambrose tossed a business card on the ground next to Chad’s face. “Feel free to contact legal.”
I froze.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared at his back.
Flower.
Fucking Flower.
“You—” my voice cracked, like the final piece of whatever held me together finally shattered. “You called meyourFlower?”
Ambrose turned slowly, his eyes widening as his brows pinched together in worry.
