Chapter 31
It's Lisa. Her face has been drained of all color and she stands there with her mouth open.
"Seriously?" She slams her glass down, the water sloshing over the rim before it topples and breaks. "How could you do this to me? Here? In front of everyone!"
She doesn't wait for an answer and storms off toward the backrooms.
The room fractures, then, everyone whispering, giving looks, the entire place thick with scandal.
The euphoria drains out of me in one brutal rush.
I kissed a married man in front of his whole family, with Richard's ring strangling my finger.
"Alright, alright! Let's keep it moving!" Mara screams over the music and claps her hands, then waves frantically in one direction. "Shots at the bar! Everyone, go! DJ, crank some Italian disco!"
"Ben!" Antonio's bark cuts from across the room, but I can't see him. "Go find Lisa."
Ben whips his eyes to mine, torn between holding me and doing the right thing.
I tell him to go, and turn before he says anything, because I have to go find Richard. I have to explain.
I push past the blur of tuxedos and sequins, searching for his height and shape, then glimpse him just as he steps out into the night air.
The second I burst through the doors, the city swallows me whole. The cold air slapping my face. Wet stink of pavement. Honks. Some crazy person screaming at the corner.
My stupid heels slow me down, so I try to kick them off, but the clasp won't budge. Screw it. I run anyway.
By the time I catch him, Richard's at the curb, one arm stabbing the night sky, summoning a cab.
He stops it right away, opening the back door, but I scream, "Wait!" and his shoulders lock up.
He says something to the driver and steps out while the car waits behind him.
Slowly, he turns, our eyes meet, and something inside me stops cold.
He looks at me, utterly disinterested, smoothing the cuff of his sleeve.
"I didn't mean to—"
His hand lifts, shutting me up and his voice comes out too slow. "Didn't mean to what? Completely humiliate me? Tear us apart publicly?" He steps closer, thrusting his phone inches from my nose, with a photo of me and Ben kissing, arms tangled, incredibly inappropriate.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how I handled it, but you said you wanted to see how Ben treated me, and you didn't even allow me to get close to him—"
"You really thought that's what I wanted?" He snorts, like I'm an idiot. "No. I want you."
"But we didn't agree to this! What you said at the table, all those horrible lies—"
"And you weren't a liar to me this whole time?"
"I'm sorry. For what I did. I don't want to make excuses—"
"No excuse could fix how shameless you are. Unfortunately, for once, I went against my better judgment."
The hiss of his words burns worse than a slap.
I open my mouth to say something when suddenly, his hand clamps down on my shoulder.
"You have the nerve. Do you know what I can do to a man who walks into my life and tries to ruin it?” Richard calls behind me and pulls me back. I stumble into him before spinning back to understand what's happening.
Ben's cutting through the honking cabs, the throb of lights at night, like a force of nature. His chest is a storm about to break, fists clenching by his sides.
After all that fury tonight, this can't end well. I have to do something.
I try to step aside, but Richard doesn't budge. His grip digs into my skin, making me wince.
Ben's voice thunders through the last ten feet between us. "Take your fucking hand off her, or I'll snap it at the wrist, make sure you never touch anything again."
"Classy. Real classy," Richard calls at Ben before his eyes cut into me. "This is what you want? A nice life with a thug?"
By the time Ben's with us, I summon all my strength and wrench Richard's hand off my shoulder, rubbing the spot.
"Thug?" Ben snorts, almost amusedly.
Then his voice drops, and those dark eyes flash with fire. "I'm a goddamn demon when it comes to Emma, and you should be on your knees thanking whatever god you believe in that I've kept the leash tight tonight."
A shiver rakes my spine, because that wasn't a metaphor—that was something you hear before the lights go out.
"No, Ben. Please, go back. Please," I say, but Ben doesn't even move, holding Richard in that unblinking gaze.
Richard darts his eyes to me. "Exactly what I'm talking about. All anger, no class. You really think he can love you in any real way? He'll devour you."
"At least I won't starve her. She didn't look herself when I saw her."
I step between them, my hands on Ben's chest. "Ben. Please, let me handle it."
Richard scoffs behind me arrogantly. "Handle what? He's no hero. He's a failed husband, chasing what's not his because he's bored."
Ben’s eyes flash with god-wrought fury.
He touches my shoulder, moves me aside with a gentleness that only makes the moment more terrifying, then takes two heavy steps forward.
He has to tilt his head down just to meet Richard’s eyes, and somehow that tiny angle says everything.
"You. Don't. Own. Her," he grits out. Then he lets out a little mocking snort, staring Richard down. "You never did. She's been mine since the day I saw her and you've known it every second."
Richard's nostrils flare—barely a flicker, but enough to know Ben's words struck home.
He squares his shoulders, anger winning over instinct, and steps in anyway, despite Ben’s shadow swallowing him whole.
"The law still sees her as my wife. And you? You'll be gone in a year. She'll crawl back to me, you'll see."
Ben's eyes narrow with that quiet kind of contempt reserved for the pathetic. "You think she'll crawl back to you? Keep dreaming. She'll be busy screaming my name ten times a day while you're scrolling through old photos."
Richard's jaw ticks and his fists curl. For a beat, he looks as though he's crazy enough to try deck Ben.
Then his face goes all ice. "That's your flex? That you can fuck her well?"
"You're missing the point," Ben says flatly. "I touch parts of her that you never cared about. So when she screams for me next, it won't be just sex. It will be relief. Because I'll give her what you never could—freedom."
Richard freezes, the truth landing square in his gut.
When he finally talks, it comes out tinner. "You think she loves you? She's a scared little girl who can't think for herself. I was the one keeping her sane. She needs order. Not chaos in a leather jacket."
My mouth drops.
Scared little girl...
Unable to think for myself...
"What the hell, Richard?" I whip to him then. "How can you say that? After claiming that you loved me? Is that what you thought of me all this time?"
I hate that my eyes water before I can stop them, but it hurts. Sure, I cheated on Richard, I hurt him, too, but not because I hated him. This sounded like he hates me.
Ben's hand moves before I even register it, his thumb brushing away the tears rolling down. "Don't waste your tears on this asshole, baby. He's not worth a single drop."
I'm shaking, not from the cold, but from the truth crystallizing in my chest into ice.
I swallow hard and face Richard, my jaw tensed. "I see it now. It was never love, was it? You chipped away at everything—my clothes, my voice, my choices—until I didn't even know who I was anymore. I mistook you choosing me for love and should have never married you."
Richard looks at me like I've transformed in front of him from trophy to trash.
"Screw you," he spits.
I wipe the last tear and hold my chin high. "No, you won't. You didn't for a long time anyway."
Ben snorts at him, pride all over his face that I'm his girl.
Richard seems hollow at this point as his eyes blink hard, like he can't believe I said that.
Then his mouth twists, he turns to Ben and his eyes pinch. "You know what? Keep her. But remember, what you're holding? They're my scraps."
Ben moves before the words even settle. His fist cuts through the air—raw, brutal—his knuckles white, the swing in his shoulder lethal.
Not the hand that's been worshipping me—this is a weapon.
My breath seizes. The world slows down.
If it lands, Richard won't just go down—he'll shatter.
If it lands, Ben will destroy his life, too.
And Richard isn't moving—he stands there, knowing it, daring Ben to draw his blood, so there is no way back for him.
"Ben! NO!" My scream rips out of me as I try to jump in between them. "Don't!"
But Ben's eyes are focused only on Richard, his whole body angled to end him.
Then another loud voice echoes from behind—Carmela's.
"BEN!"
At the last possible second, Ben wrenches back, muscles straining, his rage trembling against my palms as I try to push him back.
"Don't! Please, don't," I say frantically. "You'll ruin your life if you hit him. He isn't worth it."
Ben's eyes burn into Richard, his jaw ready to snap him in half. "Asshole doesn't get to talk about you like that."
"He's broken. He wants us hurting with him."
"Don't care. I'll paint the pavement with his brain so he doesn't even think that again," Ben grits out.
"No. Ben. Look at me. Look at me—" I hold his chin and angle it down to anchor him to me. "He wants to see us ruined. We can't give it to him. Stay with me. Me only. Okay?"
Ben's chest heaves, his nostrils still flaring, but he nods.
Behind me, Richard gives a condescending snort. "You really are a better match with him."
I turn to Richard, who slides into the waiting cab.
"You think you've won, but you haven't met my kind of patience," he says before the door thuds closed, and then red taillights smear through the rain, disappearing in the night.
I stand there, shaking, Ben's heartbeat wild thunder beneath my fingers.
Then Carmela's voice cuts behind him again, shrill with panic. "Ben! What the hell is going on?!"
Ben drags his hands over his face and blows a long breath, trying to compose himself before he looks back.
"Ben!" Carmela screams again, her voice trembling. "If you don't come here right now, you'll be seeing me in the ER tonight because you killed your mother!"