She struggles in my grip while muttering, “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
Evie’s watching her nervously, clutching the purse I didn’t see her reach for. My heart pangs, seeing how nervous she looks.
“For insulting you.”
“And touching her things,” I add sharply.
“Yes. Please let go of me now!”
I relax my fingers and drop my hand. The girl takes her friend’s arm and drags her away from us faster than I expected her to be able to move in those wedges. In a blink, they’re disappearing into the crowd.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Evie says, unable to meet my eyes.
“Yeah, I did. I can’t stand women like that.”
Her cheeks are red, but I can’t tell if it’s from what just happened or the alcohol I can smell on her breath. I’ll assume both for now. Especially when she shifts and looks behind meto where I know Roman’s got to be watching and brooding. The colour deepens until she resembles a tomato.
“Come on, we can talk about who those girls were and whether or not I’m going to be chasing them down for a proper beat down once we’re out of here,” I add, taking her hand.
After her uncle reams my ass out for making a scene, I’m sure.
13
ROMAN
I should be tastingdust by now from how badly I’ve been grinding my teeth.
Ushering Evie and Brielle out of the club, I keep my focus on my niece rather than the warrior of a woman beside her. If I let it stray for even a second, I’m going to have her Velcroed to my chest, and I can’t imagine how I’d explain that. Not to her, Evie, or myself.
I’m hard enough to bust a hole in my pants as I grunt at the men making eyes at the two of them, not giving half a shit as to how barbaric I sound. I can’t make much sense of what I just saw, and that’s doing my head in. Sure, itseemsobvious enough. Brielle saw a woman bothering my niece and stepped in to protect her. What I can’t figure out is why she’d put herself into that position when she didn’t need to. I didn’t expect her to interfere at all, and that was my mistake.
Not only did she interfere, but she had that woman’s hair wrapped so tightly around her fist that her knuckles were white. For half a second, I was worried there’d be a bloody clump of it hanging from her fingers and we’d be spending the night in the police station.
Swallowing a thick knot in my throat, I shoulder open the door and wait for the two of them to step outside before following suit. The wind whips between us, giving me a much-needed chill.
“Sooooo, how mad are you on a scale of one to ten?” Evie slurs, glancing up at me.
“I’m not mad.”
Brielle’s bold laugh is another nail in my coffin. “I’ll rate your lying skills as a three out of ten.”
“I’d have to agree. He’s really bad at it,” Evie adds.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook just because he’s pretending he isn’t mad. I want to know who those girls were.”
I risk a look at Brielle. She’s staring at Evie with a demanding look that I already know is going to have my niece giving in without a push.
With a click on the key fob, headlights flood the dark pavement, and I hear the doors unlock. Before I have a chance to open the passenger door, Evie’s diving into the back seat. She quickly pulls the door shut and flashes me a thumbs-up before working her seat belt across her torso.
Brielle snorts, shaking her head at her. “She’s not getting off with me that easy.”
“Why does it bother you so much who those women were to her?” I ask, my voice betraying how confused this situation has made me.
She lifts her green eyes to my brown ones and tucks a red wave behind her ear. “First of all, those were immature girls, not women. And second, why wouldn’t it bother me? I don’t stand for bullies.”
“You didn’t need to insert yourself like that. I would have intervened.”
