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They were too busy glaring at each other, eye to eye, the anger between them thick.
“You know what else she knows?” Vaughn threw back. “That I married someone I can’t stand because I was too weak-willed to stand up to my father’s business partner. Yeah, she knows that too.”
“How dare you?” Brooke seethed. “How dare you share intimate details of our marriage with some stranger. She doesn’t know me! Or you! You’ve been together, what? Five minutes?”
He steeled her with a look that could have cut glass. “She’s not a stranger. She knows more about me in a month than you’ve learned in ten years. And you know what? Maybe that’s partially my fault, because I didn’t love you enough to let you in and show you the real me. But don’t ever fucking say she doesn’t know me. She knows, because I actually fucking love her, Brooke. With every damn piece of my heart, I love her.”
Brooke, finally giving up on getting anywhere with Vaughn, whirled and glared at me with blazing eyes.
I wasn’t sure what my face was doing. I was a mess of confusion. Half shocked by Vaughn saying he loved me. A quarter confused and wondering if he actually meant it or if it was just to hurt his ex.
And a quarter smug.
Because I was petty like that.
She laughed bitterly. “You poor dumb bitch, in your cheap clothes, standing there thinking you won something because he claims to love you. He’s my husband. It’s me who lives in his house. Sleeps in his bed. Me who wears his ring. He’ll never be yours.”
Something inside me snapped. Any attempts at being civilized were thrown out the window. The Saint View underdog in me howled to be let free, and fuck if I was going to do anything to stop her. I stepped up, many inches shorter than the other woman, but I didn’t care.
“That might be true but, bitch, my panties are still wet with his cum. Are yours?”
Brooke’s mouth dropped open in outrage, but I was already sliding into the car and pulling the door closed.
It was a low blow. But sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do.
Vaughn got in on the driver’s side and started the engine, revving it hard to drown out Brooke’s shouts.
I leaned over and cranked up the volume on the stereo system, and in a roar of noise, we left Vaughn’s old life behind.
27
REBEL
In Vaughn’s bed, I slept until early rays of light streamed in, making sleep impossible.
For me at least. Vaughn seemed to have no such troubles, sprawled out on his stomach, back bare and warm to the touch, even though the morning was chilly.
I’d fallen asleep, emotionally and physically exhausted after running through the woods and the drama at Vaughn’s parents’ place. I’d barely even given a thought to the fact we’d set fire to a man’s house with him inside.
Or maybe I’d fallen asleep so easily because I couldn’t dredge up an ounce of regret for what we’d done. I’d had a moment of panic, but now, in hindsight, without adrenaline making me waver, I didn’t feel regret.
Just power.
And a safety that came with knowing Hugh couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.
I stuck my head into Kian’s room, but he still wasn’t home, his bed perfectly made. I ducked into our adjoining bathroom to pee and washed my hands with the fruity-smelling hand soap. My makeup bag sat on my side of the sink, my bright-red lipstick sticking out of it. I plucked it from among the mascara tubes and foundation sticks and uncapped it.
In big, blocky letters, I wrote on the mirror. Where are you? I miss you.
With a sigh, I tossed the now ruined tube of lipstick in the bin and wandered out into the house again. At the bottom of the stairs, in the entranceway, envelopes and junk mail had been shoved through the mail opening in the door. I scooped them up on my way to make coffee, sorting through each one and discarding them when they weren’t of interest.
I switched on the machine and leaned a hip on the edge of the counter. “Bill. Bill. Junk. Bill.” I tossed each offending item onto the countertop beside me. I had coffee steaming in my mug before I finally got to the bottom of the stack.
Beneath a flyer for a local plumber who claimed to have all my pipe needs covered, a white card had only one sentence typed on it in black ink.
You’d look pretty with your throat slit.
The card fluttered from my fingers, breath stalling in my lungs. I snatched it up again, flipping it over, but there was nothing else. No mention of who it was from. No postmark.