Chapter 11
DESIREE
The sound of my own name coming out of his mouth makes my damn skin crawl.
Lizzie’s beaming, her hand tucked into his arm like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Thankfully, she doesn’t see what just happened. She’s proud to introduce me to a man who already knows too much.
“You good?” she asks, her smile slipping just a little.
“Just a long day,” I say, finding a version of myself that doesn’t want to jump across this bar.
I look at Bryce, or Fredrick, or whoever this motherfucker is pretending to be tonight, and I wait for him to blink.
I wait for the fear to show. It doesn’t.
He was vetted for one private room, not my best friend’s life, and he knows what I’d have to explain to drag him out into the open.
The sheer, unfiltered audacity in his eyes tells me he’s been waiting for this exact moment.
“Desiree,” he says again.
He reaches for my hand this time. I don't want to give it to him, but Lizzie is watching, so I let him take it. He doesn't just shake it. He takes my hand, holds it half a second too long, and has the nerve to stroke his thumb across the center of my palm.
This bold bitch.
“Lizzie’s been keeping you a secret,” I say, pulling my hand back the second he lets me. “I didn’t realize she was hiding someone so... attentive.”
“She made it clear your opinion matters.” His smile widens like he’s enjoying the sight of me struggling.
Lizzie laughs, completely oblivious, and starts leading us toward the table.
The hostess seats us in a booth near the back, and the leather of the seat feels like a trap as I slide in across from them.
The space feels too small, too crowded, his presence taking up every bit of the atmosphere until I can’t breathe.
Lizzie’s phone vibrates on the table, her mother’s picture lights up the screen. She sighs, looking at the name, then at us.
“I have to take this. If I don’t, she’ll call the police thinking I’ve been kidnapped. Give me one minute?”
“Take your time, baby,” Bryce says, dropping his voice into a tone so sweet it makes my stomach churn.
As she slides right back out of the booth, she gives my hand a quick squeeze before heading toward the back. The second her heels stop clicking on the floor, the whole vibe at the table changes. The mask doesn't fall off, but the man underneath it starts to show his teeth.
He doesn’t say anything at first. He picks up his water, takes a slow sip, and watches me over the rim of the glass like Theodore’s absence changed something between us.
The pure gall of this jackass.
“What the fuck, Bryce,” I whisper, rage packed tight behind every word.
“I had to see Honey somehow since I couldn’t get my private one-on-one consultation.”
“Don’t fucking play with me. You tried to book that shit before this dinner, and you’ve been in Lizzie’s life for months under a name that isn’t yours. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be anywhere near her.”
“And why not? She’s not hard to want, Desiree. She’s outright gorgeous.”
Setting his glass down, he leans forward, invading my space. He just keeps pushing his limits.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Bryce.”
“Does he even know I’m here?” he asks, in a voice way too smooth and empty of any fear. “No privacy of our own even with Alpha gone?”
Before I can even process the disrespect, I feel it.
His shoe moves under the table, pressing into the inside of my ankle first, then higher, like he wants to see if I’ll move first. “If you don’t move that crooked, big-toe having ass foot, Bryce. Right now—”
“I thought you liked when I'm bold. You told me that yourself.”
“I told you that in a room where you knew your place. This ain’t that.”
“Rooms change when he’s not in them, Honey,” he whispers.
“Not with me still in them, they don’t. Try me again, and Lizzie won’t be the only one learning something tonight.”
His shoe presses harder against my leg and catches the hem of my dress. I clamp my knees together before he moves another inch.
“My last time telling you. Move your fucking foot.”
“Or what, Honey?” His smile stays in place.
This isn’t my typical boy toy anymore. He’s acting like a man who’s realized the gate is open and he wants to see what he can take before it closes.
“First. Stop calling me that,” I warn, my hand locked around the edge of the table because putting it across his face would give Lizzie too much to walk back into.
“Second, you are insane, you know that?”
His lips curl up even more like I’ve just confirmed something for him.
He really thinks this dress, the table, the booth, the low lights, the fact that Lizzie is somewhere around the corner talking to her mother, and Theodore being across the world have all created some little pocket of opportunity for him.
Poor tink tink.
He’s mistaken privacy for weakness.
“You keep saying that like you want me to deny it,” he says.
“I want you to remember where you are.”
“I know where I am.”
“No, Bryce, you don’t. That’s exactly the problem.”
I pull my leg away from his shoe and cross my ankles under the table. For Lizzie, the server, and anybody passing close enough, I keep my appearance pleasant. My hands stay in my lap. Barely.
“You’re sitting here using a name I don’t know and names you didn't earn,” I hiss.
“You took an invitation into a private space with rules and acted like my man not being here gave you room to forget them. You think because I value my privacy, you’re safe from the consequences of being this disrespectful. ”
His smile loses a little shape.
“Did I miss anything?” I ask.
“You think she needs to know everything?”
“I think she needs to know enough.”
“Enough about what? About me? Or about you?”
The question catches me off guard for a beat, like he almost has something.
If I tell Lizzie everything, I don’t just expose him. I expose myself. Theodore. Our choices. A private part of my life that belongs to me because I decided who could see it and under what terms.
Bryce’s funky ass knows that.
He’s counting on it.
The corners of his lips ease their way back upwards again.
“You came here because you thought my privacy would protect you,” I say.
“Desiree.” He puts fake concern on my name, trying to make himself sound reasonable.
“Whatever you think Theodore leaving did for you, let that shit go. You don’t have access to me. You don’t have the right to my time, my clinic, or my best friend. And you damn sure don't have the right to one word that belongs between me and the man who actually knows what to do with me.”
His face hardens.
“You act like he owns you.”
I pop my neck backwards, blowing a breath through my nose as I let out a laugh.
“See, that’s how I know you don’t understand a damn thing you were invited to witness.”
“I understand enough.”
“No, you watched a woman submit and thought that meant she was available for taking. That’s why you’re sitting here sounding stupid as fuck.”
His fingers flex on the table, too close to my glass.
“Don’t test me in front of her,” I say.
Bryce sits back a little. “And what are you going to tell her, Desiree?”
With my elbow on the table, my fingers rub under my chin, side to side, my nostrils flare out of irritation.
“That you know me?” he asks. “Or why you know me?”
My peripheral catches Lizzie turning back toward us, phone still in her hand, apology already forming on her face.
We have seconds.
I lean forward one last time, keeping the smile right where it needs to be since my best friend is almost close enough to read me.
“You are going to sit here and behave like the man she thinks she brought. You are going to keep your hands as well as your feet to yourself. And when this night is over, you are going to leave her with respect, because whatever you thought you came here to do, you have already made this a problem your black ass is too weak to handle.”
His mouth barely moves. “And if I don’t?”
Lizzie slides back into the booth right beside her precious funky Fredrick.
“Sorry,” she says. “Mama was acting like the garage code had a plot twist.” She checks between us, her smile already searching. “Y’all okay?”
Bryce turns to her first, smooth as ever. “Oh, yeah baby, we’re great.”
I look at him.
Then at Lizzie.
My best friend is so happy. So hopeful. Still sitting close to a man who has no idea how much grace my love for her has bought him tonight.
I pick up my glass and give Lizzie a slight stank face with a small shake of my head.
“For now,” I say.
She laughs, thinking I’m teasing.
If she only fucking knew.