Page 73 of One Kiss Isn't Enough
“Who are you?” It’s the first question I imagine Daniel asking when I tell him what happened.
“Cody Walsh. Your boyfriend knows who I am.”
“Fiancé,” I correct him.
His forehead scrunches when he stares down at my hand, the one lacking a ring, and subconsciously, my thumb runs over my ring finger.
“Congratulations,” he comments. His demeanor has completely changed with every passing minute that he scrutinizes me, trying to determine where my place is in this world.
Truth be told, I have no idea what he’ll find; I’m still trying to figure that out myself.
“Addison Fawn … soon-to-be Addison Cross,” he says but doesn’t infuse any type of emotion into the statement. It’s only matter-of-fact. “Any relation to Bethany Fawn?”
Confusion travels over my face as I try to recall a Bethany of any sort.
“Oh, you don’t know that either? She’s the woman Jase, your fiancé’s brother, has been seeing.” Again, I don’t answer, and I try to keep from giving him any response in my expression. He only smirks as he walks past me, letting me know to tell Daniel he said hi.
“Will do,” I manage to bite out without an ounce of resentment as I accept his challenge.
I didn’t know Daniel’s brother was seeing anyone. I sure as hell don’t know a Bethany Fawn. Apparently, I don’t know a lot of things.
What I do know is already destroying me.
DANIEL
A hint of lemon in the wood polish invades my lungs as I breathe in deep, gripping the armrests of the wingback chair.
I can’t look at my brothers, neither of them. I’m breaking down. The farther away Addison is, the worse I crumble. If they look too closely, if I speak too loudly, they’ll see every fucking crack.
Too bad I can’t help myself during this bitch of a conversation.
“We have a soft truce.” Carter’s voice is calm, but he knows my reaction will be anything but.
“Fuck that,” I say, letting the darkly spoken words fall without looking at either him or Jase. I stare past my brother and into the woods that line the property through the paned window behind him. The shades of green blur as my blood heats with anger.
“He stays out of our way and we give him details. That was the truce.” Carter speaks in time with the tapping of the pen in his hand on the desk.
“Going up to Addison and scaring her isn’t exactly staying out of our way.”
“He scared her?” he questions me and I don’t have time to push out the snide remark: How the fuck else should she feel?
“Maybe we pissed him off with the last deal? We didn’t exactly keep our word,” Jase says carefully, and I can feel him watching me, gauging my reaction with every syllable, but I use everything in me to stay still and not give them any more than I already have.
Leaning forward, my throat is dry as I speak clearly to both of them. “He walked up to my soon-to-be wife. He tried to get to her, to get in her head.” My back hits the chair as I force myself to stay seated and not turn over every piece of furniture in my brother’s office. “He left like a coward before I could get my hands on him. I want his fucking head!” My pulse races as I lose control with the last sentence.
We own this town. We own the cops.
Cody Walsh is supposed to be easy. He’s supposed to be predictable. All that went to shit last month. Just like everything else.
Carter ignores me, or at least he ignores my anger to instead direct his comments to Jase. “If Walsh is pissed about what we did, he’ll get over it. We do what we have to.” Facing me and hardening his voice, he asks me, “What exactly did he say to her?”
“That we killed that prick. That he knows I’m a murderer and he knows she’s not okay.”
“That’s how he said it?”
Carter’s constant questioning makes me inhale sharply as I straighten my shoulders and stare him down, not giving him a single word in response. Not trusting myself to speak.
“He still needs us.” Carter speaks first.