“Can you help with the zipper?” I asked, turning my back to him.
His finger hit the bottom of the zipper when I heard a click.
My eyes went to the door in confusion. And then dread.
As Lewis Warren walked into the room.
Penn
37
“Fuck,” Natalie breathed next to me.
My eyes followed hers to find Lewis standing in the doorway.
He stopped with the door ajar as he took in the scene before him. The disturbed rose petals. Me zipping up Natalie’s dress. The fact that I was shirtless with my pants still undone. The open bottle of champagne. The room he’d purchased for their romantic evening. Which we’d used for our own escapade.
His jaw set. His hands balled into fists. His eyes turned murderous.
“What the fuck is this?” Lewis demanded.
He glanced between us, waiting for one of us to explain, to give some rational explanation for what he was witnessing, but I sure as fuck didn’t have one.
I calmly slid on my shirt and jacket and turned to him. “This is exactly what this looks like.”
“Penn,” Natalie hissed.
He took one more glance at us. At our state of dress and the way I stood just a bit in front of her. His eyes caught on Natalie’s discarded underwear. He lost whatever semblance of calm he’d had before he barged into the room. It shattered from his cool exterior. The mask slipped finally. Finally. And the real Lewis surfaced.
He barged across the room, clearing the distance in three quick strides. Then, he swung on me. I had seen it coming and dodged the first swing, but Lewis wasn’t holding back and landed the second one in my gut. I wheezed as the hit knocked the breath out of me.
Distantly, I heard Natalie yelling. Telling Lewis to stop. But it was just me and him now.
My fist connected with his face. Pain seared through my knuckles as I cracked his jaw sideways. But adrenaline pushed me forward, and I’d deal with that later.
He hit me again—in my ribs this time—and I gasped at the pain. But I didn’t care. I rushed him, knocking him backward off of his feet and throwing him to the ground. I landed on top of him and threw another fist into his face.
He swung his body to get momentum and jabbed his elbow into my face as he rolled me off of him. My lip split on contact, and blood dribbled down my chin.
Then, suddenly, Natalie was between us. Screaming in our faces. And her voice broke through.
“Stop! What the fuck is wrong with you two? This isn’t how we handle this. Stop it! Stop it!” she shrieked.
She was standing between us with her arms spread wide. Her blue eyes manic and afraid. My eyes drifted back to Lewis, who looked as if he was about to launch himself at me again. But he wouldn’t go through Natalie.
I slowly got to my feet again. My chest was heaving, and I brushed at my split lip with the back of my hand, wiping the blood away.
“Can we act civilized instead of like fucking animals?” she yelled at the both of us.
Personally, I had no idea how she wasn’t pummeling Lewis herself. She had gone from hysterics and hyperventilating to this in a pretty quick span. I knew that she wasn’t okay. That all of this would hit her like a freight train once she was alone, but damn, she was fierce.
“Sure,” I spat out.
Lewis held his hand up. “You call fucking him behind my back civilized?”
“Don’t fucking talk to her like that,” I snarled. She might be cool, but I wasn’t.
Her eyes narrowed at Lewis’s condescending tone. “You have no idea what this is about.”
But Lewis was already looking at me again. “This is a new low for you.”
I stepped forward, drifting into Natalie’s personal space. I wanted to get her away from him. His anger was directed at me, but it could shift in a split second. And it’d burn white hot before she’d even get a chance to call him out on his bullshit.
“Is it really though?” I asked with a laugh. I put my arm around Natalie, sliding her out from between us and to my side. “I told you that I’d do what was best for her. You just didn’t realize that we differed in what that meant.”
“Penn, stop it,” Natalie growled. She shook me off. “This is my fight.”
I didn’t listen to her. This had been a long time coming. A long fucking time. Longer than she probably even realized.
My friendship with Lewis had always been a tenuous thing. It had been built on secrets and competition. Loyalty born of the fact that we both knew enough to bury the other, but the fight would be to the death if either of us ever tried. It wasn’t a real friendship. And I’d known that the minute he went after Natalie.