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The limo she’d used yesterday pulled up. He led her to it, yanked open the door and rasped, “Get in.”
Every nerve in her body jangled in warning of imminent… exciting danger. Her mouth dried as she looked up at him. Despite his ferocious expression, her heart squeezed for him.
He stared down at her, his teeth bared in complete, emotionless savagery. “Would you like me to repeat the request?”
Leia slid inside the car, wincing when she inadvertently leaned on her injured wrist. Noah slammed the door and reached over to secure her seatbelt.
For several minutes, he stared down at her damaged wrist in silence. Then he lifted it gently and turned it over, examined every inch of the bandage. His jaw clenched, and the corners of his mouth quivered with rage. “Is it broken?” His words were so gruff, they were barely coherent.
She shook her head. “No, just a sprain.”
“Did you have it checked out?”
“The doctor at the hotel examined me earlier this evening.”
His gaze sharpened. “Hotel?”
“I’m staying at The Celestial. I… moved out of the Palm Beach house this morning.”
He inhaled and exhaled, his eyes never leaving her face. “In an hour or so, when the urge to kill isn’t riding me so high, you and I will have a very long talk.” He started to rest her wrist on his thigh, then cursed when she winced again. Carefully setting it down, he pressed a button. A compartment slid out from beneath the seat. He grabbed a packet of pills, popped out two tablets and poured a glass of water.
“They’ll help with the pain.”
She swallowed them.
After putting the glass away, he cradled her hand on his thigh and yanked his bow tie free. Tossing it aside, he opened the first two buttons of his tuxedo shirt and rested his head against the seat.
Silence reigned for almost twenty minutes before she realized he didn’t plan on speaking.
Leia couldn’t keep quiet, not when one question burned holes into her. “You didn’t answer me before.”
He slid her a glance, which still held an unhealthy amount of fury. “Sorry, I must have been off my head with rage. Ask away.”
Beneath the waves of volatile energy flowing from him, she nearly faltered. “That… that redhead…” She licked lips gone dry and tried in vain to calm her nerves.
“What about her?”
“Did you fuck her? Not tonight, I mean. In the past. And before you think of denying it, let me remind you that two people who’ve fucked have a way of looking at each other that makes it un-fucking-deniable.” She spat the words out.
His jaw flexed. “I wasn’t going to deny it. Yes. I fucked her. Back when she was my shrink.”
“Were… were you going to fuck her tonight?” Why the hell was she doing this, driving poisoned knives between her own ribs?
“Frankly? Yeah, the thought did cross my mind.”
By the savage satisfaction in his eyes, she knew her raw, anguished reaction to that news was plain to see on her face. She tried to snatch her wrist away. He imprisoned it against his thigh, the other curling around her nape.
“You can’t handle seeing me with someone I fucked longbefore I met you? I’ve watched you take that ass-wipe’s side over and over again. I’ve spent every night this past week drinking myself into oblivion because I didn’t want to think that might be the night he finally crawled into your bed. So don’t you fucking dare look at me with that broken look in your eyes.”
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Noah watched her lips quiver and resisted the urge to smash his fist through the window.
He raised her arm until her delicate, bandaged wrist dangled between their faces. “He did this to you this morning, and you didn’t call me. For that, you will pay. For now, you will reassure me thoroughly and repeatedly until I’m satisfied that you’ll never be alone with Snyder again.”
“I wasn’t planning on it, but not seeing him at all… that’ll be hard to do since we work together.”
“Not fucking good enough. I want your word, or we do things my way. And don’t think I won’t know, because I will.”