Page 79 of Resist

“And you are?” And the minute the words are out of my mouth, my thoughts connect. Ryker’s report. Roxanne. Red haired.

Oh. Shit.

“How did you even know . . . ?” I ask.

“When you make a scene at The Club like you did,” she says with a curl of her lip, “men talk.” She studies me and then rolls her eyes ever so subtly. “I suggest you don’t get aspirations in your head of becoming Mrs. Ryker Lockhart. He doesn’t take love seriously. He doesn’t care.”

“Neither do I,” I say with a shrug and a wide grin as every part of me is shaking in anger and confusion over how she found me and knows the connection between Ryker and me. “We’re a perfect match made for each other, then.”

Her laugh is loud and dramatic. “He’s going to use you and then throw you out.”

“Just like he did you, I assume?”

Anger flashes across that cosmetically perfected face of hers. “He loved me. What we had was different.”

I angle my head to the side and allow my stare to unnerve her. I can see with each second that ticks by she realizes her veiled threats don’t faze me. And then I smile softly and take a step closer. “Different?” I ask innocently.

“Yes, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Didn’t you just say he doesn’t believe in love? If that’s the case, then how can you say he loved you?” I shrug and take a step back. “Guess that’s where you screwed up.”

“You’re nothing but a—”

“This is where I point out that regardless of what you think I am or am not, I have him . . . and you . . . don’t,” I taunt.

“You bitch.” She lunges toward me, and I jump back.

“I’d rather be a bitch than crazy.”

And with perfect timing, Ahmed turns the corner. “Everything all right back here, ladies?”

“Perfectly fine,” she says, straightening up, fluffing her hair, and then smoothing down the rumpled fabric of her pencil skirt. “I was just leaving.” She takes a step forward and glances around as if she were here for other reasons. “This place has no class.”

With a huff, she stalks out, and Ahmed follows her retreat with a whistle.

“What’s that all about?” he asks.

“Crazy ex-girlfriend,” I mutter.

“You got a man now, Vaughn? Woo-wee. Damn, it’s always the quiet ones.” He laughs as he takes a step backward before nodding and getting back to what he should be doing—work.

But I give myself a moment and lean against the wall and take a deep breath.

How in the hell did Roxanne find me? Who at The Club told her I was there?

I rack my mind to try to figure out how the connection was made between Vaughn Noname and Vaughn Sanders.

And yet somehow Ryker has made the connection from Vee to Vaughn.

Somehow Ryker found me and took images.

I grab my cell to ask him. To demand to know if he told Roxanne about me in an effort to get her to back the hell off him.

But I slide it back in my pocket without making the call.

The last thing I need in my chaotic life is to be in the middle of their drama. I don’t need a crazy ex more pissed off at me than she already is. In fact, I probably should have been smarter in what I said to her than the knee-jerk reaction I gave.

Being drawn into their bad breakup is not what I need. I already know it’ll end poorly, and I don’t want to be part of the collateral damage when it does.