Page 203 of By A Thread

“I had no idea,” I said, feeling the knife twist in me. Betrayal was the theme of the day. How many times could a man have his legs swept out from under him before he didn’t get back up?

“I need to take care of something,” I said, abruptly rising.

* * *

“You look comfortable,”I said, my tone too bland for her to pick up on the anger I was choking on.

Ally looked up from her cocoon on my couch and grinned. “Your fault for having such comfy furniture,” she teased. “Want to bring your dinner in here and snuggle while you fill me in on all the gossip?”

This charade of affection turned my stomach.

I tossed my phone in her lap.

She picked it up, grinned. And that knife in my guts twisted again.

“Wow. I don’t look half bad.”

“Care to explain?” I asked, my tone was deceptively mild. I wanted her to lie to me so I could call her on it. Because there were only two reasons why she’d be in Christian James’s photo on a bed, in an unzipped dress staring at the camera as if it were a lover. As if it were me.

“Well, I can’t explain all of it yet,” she said. “Because it’s a surprise. But this is what I was telling you about Wednesday at lunch. Faith and I went to his studio for that shoot.”

“Are you fucking him or using me?” I asked, my throat raw.

Ally blinked, and I watched the color slowly drain from her face.

Good. I wanted her to hurt like I hurt.

She took a breath and let it out. “You’re stressed and exhausted. I’m going to give you one free pass. But, Dom, you don’t get to make accusations like that,” she said quietly.

“Oh, I don’t get to ask why you were in his bed, half-dressed? So which is it? Fucking him or fucking me over.”

She unwound herself from the blanket and came to her feet. “Nothing happened,” she said icily. “Where is this even coming from?”

“Insta-fucking-gram. That’s where. Seems you’re becoming quite popular.”

“There is nothing going on between me and Christian. We’re friends. He did me a favor, and I did one for him.”

“Was the favor posing half-naked on a bed or fucking him?”

Ally wasn’t the kind of girl to bitch-slap someone. And thanks to my red tunnel vision, I didn’t even see her fist fly until it connected with my face.

The new pain was a welcome relief from the wound inside me.

“How dare you,” she hissed.

I grabbed her wrist and hauled her against me.

Her breath caught as our bodies collided, and I hated myself for going stone fucking hard against her. My dick had zero self-respect. I wasn’t so sure about the rest of me.

“Why were you even alone with him in a room with a bed?” The idea of her and that charming, slimy son of a bitch on a bed together ripped me apart from the inside. Even if he was just taking pictures of her.

“Do you realize how ridiculous this is? I wasn’t alone with him. And if you weren’t so busy trying to hang me for imagined crimes, you’d notice that was the same set for the video shoot the online content team set up last week. I was on set.”

She was trying to tug her arm out of my grip, but her free hand was curled into my shirt, holding me against her. I felt a trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth, and my tongue darted out to taste it. Ally’s eyes followed the movement. Her lower lip trembled, and I wanted to sink my teeth into it. I wanted to kiss her until she hurt the way I hurt.

Forget my parents—we were the fucked-up ones using a fight as foreplay.

I let her go and took a deliberate step away.