Page 72 of In the Dark

“Jasmina,” I said her name cautiously, but when her eyes snapped to mine, they looked just as I expected. Lethal. Vicious. Full of war. “My viper,” I said slowly, quietly, and almost soothingly, “let Demi go.”

This was not what the other woman had signed up for.

“Why should I?” Jasmina asked through clenched teeth. “I told her I would gut her if she came here, and here she is.”

“Because I invited her and told her she would be fine.” I stepped out of Demi’s reach and grabbed Jasmina’s arm to pull the knife from Demi’s throat. Of course, Demi immediately cried and coughed and bent over in sheer theatrics.

Neither Jasmina nor I even looked at her. Instead, my viper yanked her arm from my grip and stood there with her chin raised and her hands on her hips, the knife still in her hand. I could tell she wanted to cuss me out, and really, I deserved it. I’d invited Demi to try to get Jasmina out of my system, but now I knew there was no way that was happening.

She was a goddess standing there, her blue highlighted hair cascading down her back in waves, eyes twinkling with hate in the dim light. “If you have the audacity to invite other women into the home I sleep in, their deaths should be on you, and you should be outside like the dog you are, Knight.”

Her words were cutting, but I couldn’t deny it. When I took a step toward her and put my hand on her cheek, she flinched back as if it were painful. It caused a visceral reaction in me.

I’d really hurt her this time, and my touch didn’t spark the heat we always had between us.

And then Demi whined, “Callahan, she almost killed me.”

All I could say was, “Yes, but Jasmina’s right. It’s my fault she almost did. Not hers, Demi. My wife and I need a moment. Leave us.”

She gasped and then threatened, “If I leave, I’m not coming back.” She had tears streaming down her cheeks while she was still on all fours.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Jasmina answered for me, never looking over at the other woman.

Demi pouted at me with glassy eyes like she thought I might argue.

The thing about arguing with my future wife was I already had scars to prove I shouldn’t. So, I kept my mouth shut, and Demi growled before she got up off the floor. “This is embarrassing, Cally! I thought we were building something. I thought she was just going to be a contract wife.”

I hadn’t corrected Demi before and had skirted the question because I knew it wasn’t true.

Jasmina was more than a contract.

She wasn’t nothing.

She was everything.

She ruled my mind, my thoughts, and my soul already, and the only reason I’d had Demi over was to try to overcome it all, but now I knew it was impossible.

“I am only going to be a contract wife.” Jasmina shrugged, not looking to correct anyone. “And even still, you should respect yourself enough to know you’d be the other woman in this situation. Or at least respect that I’m another woman with a heart just like you, and I have to be with him.”

Demi immediately wanted to argue that. “You’re the other woman. Do you know he agreed that your family—”

“Get out, Demi,” I cut her off. “Now.” And she was smart enough to whisper something like she would call me in desperation, but she hurried out of the room and down the stairs, leaving me and Jasmina staring at one another.

“Well, Knight. I’m already a contract wife. Want to tell me what my family is too?” Jasmina asked softly, the moon from the window casting a pale light over her skin. She looked almost angelic—except for the knife in her hand.

I shook my head, feeling a bit desperate to remedy the situation. I wasn’t a man who’d ever been whipped, but I felt like it now. I was a dog with his tail between his legs, looking for any sort of redemption. So, I scrambled. “The Ruiz name has always been infamous, Jas. When someone speaks of it, they don’t necessarily mean—”

“I’m a Ruiz through and through.” She shook her head and then looked down at her knife, spinning it in her hand over and over as she continued, “You trying to exclude me from what I am doesn’t make a person’s statement any better or right, it just makes them ignorant. Wouldn’t you agree?”

And wasn’t that the truth? Had someone tarnished the Knight name, I would have said the same.

I sighed and combed a hand through my hair. “I agree.”

She hummed and then met my gaze. “You agree with what, exactly?” She lifted a brow like she wanted a whole-ass apology, and I wasn’t stupid. I would give it to her if it meant I could be forgiven, if it meant she wouldn’t flinch away from me the next time I touched her, if it meant she wouldn’t look at me the way she was now.

“That your husband can be a dumbass? That this whole night was a mess I wish I could take back,” I admitted.

“Let’s use the right words, Knight. Contract husband. Nothing more. A business transaction.” She reiterated exactly what Demi had said earlier, and I winced. Even when Demi had said it initially, it’d taken almost everything in me to not correct her.