Chapter 11 #2
Zachary figured it was probably the opposite. He could see the way that Joseph was noting the differences in Romily. All that smooth, lean muscle she’d built, for one thing. Her shoulders weren’t stooped and hunched anymore. She wasn’t skinny and frail.
Not one part of her looked haunted.
“I see all your running and hiding hasn’t agreed with you much,” Joseph continued in that same too-intimate, half-sneering way that made Zachary want to beat the man with his own bike.
“But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you work on getting that weight back down.
A trim body is important, Romily. How many times have I told you that? ”
“I’ve moved all my things out,” Romily told him in an admirably neutral tone. “And I’m filing for divorce.”
“You and I both know that’s never going to happen,” Joseph said, shaking his head like he pitied Romily . “I won’t allow it.”
“Hey. Buddy.” Zachary shook his head, standing there on the step below Romily and still taller than her. “The days of anyone giving a shit what you allow or don’t allow are long over.”
But the guy didn’t move his gaze from Romily. It was like he didn’t hear Zachary. Like he didn’t see the massive stranger standing at his front door, clearly capable of ripping him to pieces. It was almost impressive.
“What are you thinking, Romily?” Joseph asked softly. “Showing up at our house with this person?”
“The thing is, you’re so much scarier in retrospect.” Romily stared right back at Joseph, holding his gaze in a way that Zachary could tell the other man didn’t like. “Because standing here right now, looking at you again, I don’t have the slightest idea why I ever found you anything but sad.”
Joseph didn’t like that. He took a quick step or two in their direction, but Zachary moved even more fully in front of Romily. Then he folded his arms, and watched as Mr. White Bread got a good look at all his tattoos and all the muscles they adorned.
“This isn’t going to go the way you think it is,” Zachary told him, matter-of-factly.
“I get that you’re the kind of douchebag who gets off on beating up a woman whose smaller and weaker than you.
Two things about that. One, Romily is neither small nor weak.
She could kick your ass right now if she felt like it, and honestly?
I’d cheer her on. But two, and more imminently threatening to you, is me. ”
“You’re threatening me?” Joseph looked at Zachary then, as if he’d won something.
“Fascinating. You look like a criminal. I don’t think anyone in this neighborhood wants criminals wandering around.
All I have to do is make one call you’ll be hauled away.
” He looked back at Romily. “And then we can see how tough you are, my darling wife.”
“Yeah,” Romily said with a laugh as Zachary gathered himself, prepared to handle this. “None of that is going to happen.”
And then, to Zachary’s astonishment, as Joseph took another step closer to them Romily went and placed her body in between the two men.
When Zachary tried to move forward, she held him back. Or rather, she held out her arm and he didn’t push right past it.
“He’s not worth it,” she told Zachary, though her gold gaze was fixed on Joseph. “Let him call whoever he wants. But don’t lay finger on him. Can’t you see? That’s what he wants. He’s a coward.”
“That I can see with my own eyes, baby,” Zachary said.
It was hard to say which part of that Joseph hated more. The coward or the baby.
“You’ve forgotten your manners, Romily,” he said in that creepy, condescending voice of his.
Once again, Zachary wanted to take him apart. And also, again, Romily held up her arm. This time, she took a small step toward Joseph.
Zachary knew he wasn’t the only one who felt the shift in the air.
Joseph fell back a step. Romily stood taller. Zachary didn’t have to have been present for this marriage to understand what was happening here. She wasn’t cringing.
And her douchebag ex didn’t know what to do with that.
“Such tough guy in private, aren’t you, Joseph?
” Romily was saying. “Such a big man when you’ve tricked a woman into falling for you so you can switch it up when she finally trusts you.
What a power trip. But face to face with a real man, the only thing you can think to do is tuck your tail between your legs and call the cops. Pathetic.”
It was clear to Zachary that Joseph had never heard her say anything like this before. The look on the other man’s face was priceless. His mouth actually fell open.
He was tempted to take a picture.
“Besides,” Romily continued. “If anyone’s going to swing on you, Joseph, it’s going to be me. I think we both know I owe you a few.” She laughed when the other man actually blinked and stepped back yet again. “What a sad little coward you are. I never want to see you again.”
She started toward the car and Zachary went with her, aware that Romily was still making sure that her body was between Zachary and Joseph.
Joseph bared his teeth, but he didn’t follow after them. “This isn’t the end. I don’t know why you think you can just come here and make demands.”
The best part now, Zachary thought, was that the guy clearly hadn’t realized that they’d gone inside the house and taken what was Romily’s. That would be a little gift for him later.
He loved that for Joseph, really he did.
“You’ll be served papers on Monday,” Zachary told him.
“Respond or don’t respond. It doesn’t make a difference.
But I’ll tell you this. If I were you, I’d think long and hard about how you want this to go.
Because sooner or later, the divorce is going to happen.
If I were you, I’d make sure that it was easy. ”
Joseph bared his teeth. “Are you threatening me again?”
“I don’t have to make threats, asshole,” Zachary told him. “All you need to do is remember that I’m your worst nightmare. I’ve already been to prison. More than happy to go back. There’s nothing about you that scares me or ever could. And now I know where you live.”
“That sounds like a threat!” Joseph threw at him.
“Honestly,” Zachary said, grinning in a way that made the other man shrink back, “I kind of hope you do make it hard. I really do.”
Then he made sure that Romily was safely in the car, door locked. Only then did he round the hood, climb in and drive her out of the past at last—and straight on into their future.