Taking the Leap (River Rain 3)

Habitually, and unwisely, I cut in to share, “Marchioness, and Mum’s that, since my grandfather died and the title went to her. I’m just an…erm…uh…” I swallowed as his angry expression deteriorated, which was kind of a miracle, just not the good kind, and I forced out, “lady.”

He clamped his mouth shut, obviously now so furious, he no longer trusted himself to speak.

“I’m seeing I should have shared some things with you,” I said quietly.

“Ya think?” he bit sarcastically. Then demanded, “You got nothing deep to give, Alex?”

“None of that matters,” I told him the truth.

He swung an arm with finger pointed at the TV. “It matters to her and her fifty million fucking viewers, of which, my mother is one.”

I shut up.

He crossed his arms on his chest, and I didn’t know how it could be this way, further, I wasn’t scared, still, it had to be said, if you didn’t know him, that position was scary.

“I told you I used to be engaged,” he noted.

I nodded.

“What I didn’t tell you was, we were over when she couldn’t deal with me losing my legs.”

Oh dear.

We were here.

I never expected to be here.

But now I was.

Hell.

I took a deep breath and informed him carefully, “I feel at this juncture I should tell you that Chloe shared that.”

The air in the room, already heavy, bore down suffocatingly.

Rix was the source of it and clearly immune to it because he talked through it.

“Well, she left about two minutes before I called your ass to get it down the mountain.”

“Peri?” It came out on a squeak.

“Yeah, Peri,” he confirmed.

Ulk.

Peri had just been there.

I shut up again.

“Now, Mom and Dad are fuckin’ thrilled you’re in my life. Peri, though, who’s been in touch recently to see if we might find our way back to each other, we can just say that she wasn’t feeling it all that much.”

I wouldn’t tell him, but still, I was kinda happy about that.

However, his reaction to Peri finding out about us had me concerned.

“Are you…is it…do you think—?” I stammered.

I was struggling.

Rix helped.

“Do I intend to give it a go with her?”

Another nod from me, this one glum along with terrified (Chloe said no, but she wasn’t Rix, and he’d know).

“Babe, she dumped my ass when I lost my legs. So that would not be no. That would be fuck no.”

Right.

Like Chloe said.

Phew.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Still, she wore my ring. I loved her once. She says she still loves me. And recently, she’s been back in touch. So, you know, I might have wanted to give her a heads up I got a woman in my life before she sees it along with fifty million other people.”

“You don’t have a woman in your life, Rix.”

If the air in the room was suffocating before, it was afire now.

“I don’t?” he asked in a deceptively even, calm voice.

“Well—” I began.

“If you say we’re fake I’m gonna fuckin’ lose…my…goddamned…shit.”

I shut up again because first, it seemed like he was already doing that, and second, I was confused.

Because we were fake.

“So, yeah,” he continued. “Twenty minutes ago, Peri stood where you’re standing in a home we once shared, and I told her I was with someone else. Then I absorbed her justifiable, and I’ll add, Alex, pretty extreme hurt that she’s been texting now for weeks, and I didn’t care enough for her and what we once were to give that to her in a personal way before a friend of hers phones her and tells her to watch that fuckin’ cunt on YouTube.”

He used the c-word.

He didn’t shy away from cussing, far from it.

But he respected women (when he wasn’t bossing them around, that “them” being me).

Oh boy.

“And that did not feel good, for her or for me,” he continued. “But it can’t be lost on you my parents went through watching their son lose his legs, lose his fiancée, lose his career, go through four different kinds of therapies in getting back up on feet again, just not his feet. So the fact that some pretty redhead with a cute dimple is out kayaking with him and making him smile is going to bring them insane amounts of relief.”

No, that wasn’t lost on me.

“Rix—” I started quietly.

“Baby,” he whispered sinisterly, “don’t say my name sweet like that right now. You. That dress. That hair. Those legs. The shoes. Your voice. You gotta know you can get away with a lot. But this…” He shook his head. “No.”

Now I wasn’t feeling dismayed that he’d been through all he’d just been through because I was procrastinating on my side of our getting-to-know-you business.

Now, I was slightly confused.

Though, the area between my legs knew precisely what was going on if the sudden dampness I felt there was anything to go on.

Then, he started walking toward me on an arc, which forced me, when I automatically started retreating, away from the door and into the room.