Chapter 20 #2
“Just sit.” I motioned for my unwanted guest to stay where she was as I passed. “I’ll make coffee, then we’ll talk.”
She half-rose from the couch to catch my hand before I passed out of reach. “…Can I stay here tonight? I don’t want to go home. I don’t know what he’ll do to me if I do.”
“You can't stay.” I pulled my hand from her grip. “Penny and I are leaving in the morning for the fifth Oath. Let me make some coffee, and we’ll figure something out.”
There wasn’t anything to figure out, except how to make her lose interest and get her out of my house without earning her ire. There was a delicate balance between putting her off and offending her, and I wasn’t confident I could manage it. But distance would help.
I retreated to the kitchen and the kettle and a task that was so routine that it soothed some of the anxiety creeping in. It was enough of a distraction that I didn’t notice Violette had followed me until I turned to put the coffee on the stove to steep and she was mere inches away.
I jumped back, wincing when the edge of the counter bit into my hip. The water sloshed inside the kettle, and before I could even think to swing it around to fend her off, she grabbed my forearm and dug her fingers in.
She looked up at me, feigning innocence as if she didn’t have me pinned like a wounded animal while she readied the killing blow.
“Thank you, Kit. For being here for me. For always being someone I can trust and rely on.” When she smiled, the amusement in her eyes ruined her attempt at sincerity.
“I wish you’d stayed. I wish you’d never left, because then we would be married by now, and I wouldn’t have picked the wrong man.
I’d be safe with you. You would never let anyone lay a hand on me. ”
She yanked on my arm at the same time she hooked her free hand behind my head and dragged me forward. Before I could register the movement, her lips crushed against mine.
The kettle hit the floor with a clang as I wrenched my arm out of her grip. With both hands free, I brought them up between us and shoved her away. She stumbled into the table and cried out when she knocked her wrist against the edge of it, but she kept her footing.
I wanted her to fall, to feel as vulnerable in that moment as she always made me feel. To make her fear real just long enough to remind her that she wasn’t as invincible as she thought she was.
Nausea churned in my gut as I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. My hands were shaking, and I curled them into fists in a failing effort to still them.
“Why would you do that?” I asked, vindicated when she flinched at the edge of steel in my tone.
She licked her lips and straightened. Whatever confidence she’d come here with was shaken, but not completely gone.
She cradled her wrist to her chest as she took a step forward. “What do you mean? You know we were always meant to be together. We were inevitable.”
I wasn’t about to let myself get cornered again. As she advanced, I stepped sideways until I could turn my back to the rest of the house and open space.
“You’re married,” I hissed, “and I’m…” I caught myself before I gave away more than I was prepared to. She’d find out about Penny and me soon enough, if she didn’t know already, but this wasn’t the time. With a steadying breath, I set my shoulders. “And I’m attached.”
She scoffed again and kept up her pursuit as we crossed into the living room. “Whoever she is, she can’t possibly compare to me.”
“He is leagues beyond you, Vi.”
She drew up short, and her mouth fell open as her eyes grew wide. Genuine surprise. Not an expression I was used to seeing on her.
“Not Levitt,” she said softly.
“Not that it’s any business of yours, but no. Not Levitt.” I gestured to the front door. “I think it’s time you left.”
She shrank under the weight of my rejection and stammered, “But I just got here.”
I continued on my way to the door. “And you’ve already overstayed your welcome. Get out.”
“Kit, please—”
“I said, get out.”
“You can’t send me back to that man. You don’t know what he’ll do to me!” Her voice rose to a near shout, and the desperation in her tone was genuine. But she wasn’t afraid of Merrick, just of failing in whatever she was attempting to do here.
I stopped at the door, pulled it open, and pointed outside. “If you’re really in trouble, go talk to your brother. That’s where you should have gone in the first place.”
Violette crossed the living room with quick, angry steps.
“Don’t come back here,” I said as she passed.
Out on the front stoop again, she set her shoulders back and stared me down. “If Merrick kills me, that’s on your head.”
I slammed the door in her face, then called through the wood, “I can live with that!”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. It was dangerous to make an enemy of Violette Yost, and I’d done exactly that. All my intentions of playing this carefully and staying on the right side of her fury had gotten lost under my own.
There would be consequences. All that remained to be seen were how dire they’d be.