“Excuse me,” Jennifer said haughtily. “I’d like to take my friend home if it’s all right with you.”
“It isn’t,” Archer said, his voice low, fierce.
“What?”
Spencer held his stare for one more heartbeat before Archer’s hand fell away, and he turned to face Jennifer. “I’ll take him home.”
Jennifer shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”
Did she look panicked? Or was Spencer anticipating the worst? Had she drugged him again? Was she worried someone might find out?
Or was she just being the overbearing, righteous bitch she’d always been?
“I’ll talk at you later,” Archer called to the blonde still sitting in the booth before planting his enormous hand in the center of Spencer’s back and urging him toward the door.
He walked. He wasn’t sure what else to do. Not because he was scared, though. Archer Halliganshould’vescared him. The guy was a beast. He could likely crush Spencer with one hand.
“I’ve got a room at the B and B,” Archer said. “You think you can walk?”
Spencer nodded.
“Good then. It’s a nice room. Not all that big, but it’s got a bed. You can have it. I’m used to sleepin’ on the floor.”
The man’s words continued to play in his head as he walked. “I can call an Uber.”
“And risk that woman showin’ up at your place?”
Good point. Spencer hadn’t thought about that.
“You don’t like her much, do you?”
“Not even a little,” he muttered.
“Ex-girlfriend?”
“My brother’s ex-wife.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?” Spencer knew it came out defensive.
“She just acted like she was … familiar.”
“She is,” he admitted, hating the taste of those words.
“Y’all have a thing before?”
Spencer would later blame it on the alcohol, or the fury he felt from having to deal with Jennifer, or the hatred he felt for that bitch, or maybe from the fear the mere sight of her caused, but before he knew it, he was blurting out his deepest, darkest secret to a man he didn’t even know.
“No,” he grumbled. “The bitch raped me.”
Chapter Twenty
“You’ve been quiet,” Simon said to Violetas he was driving to her house.
It was late, but not as late as he’d anticipated. The wedding reception was cut short when Jessica James started having contractions. She claimed they were Braxton Hicks; everyone else thought she was in labor. Simon was on the fence as to which way to lean. But he knew one thing for sure: if anyone could stop labor from occurring by sheer force of will, he had a feeling Jessica James could. She’d certainly done a good job of denying it—adamantly and loudly—as they helped her out to her boyfriend’s car in order to take her to the hospital.
After that, the party pretty much fizzled. So here they were.
