“I know he’s been with other women,” Roux said, taking deep breaths to calm her frayed nerves. “He is Steve Aimes, notorious womanizer.”
“You’re okay with him screwing around on you?” Azura blurted.
“Not cool, Roux,” Iona said. “You deserve better.”
“He wouldn’t screw around on me. I mean I know that before we . . . got together . . . that he used to be with other women. A lot of other women, but now?”
“This was two days ago, dummy,” Azura said. “Are you still okay with it?”
Roux’s knees buckled, but Raven caught her to keep her from sinking to the floor.
“Not possible,” she said. “I was with him almost all day. He couldn’t have . . .” But how long would it take for Steve to find a woman willing to fuck him? Ten minutes? Ten seconds? “Let me see.”
“Maybe now isn’t the best time,” Lily said, massaging Roux’s shoulders in what she probably thought was a soothing manner, but which scraped Roux’s already raw nerves until she wanted to climb out of her own skin.
“Let me see!” Roux demanded.
Once she saw, she wished she hadn’t.
The room in the background was very familiar. She’d slept in it the night before, after all. The man sprawled naked across the bed was also very familiar. She happened to know his body as well as her own. The woman with his cock down her throat wasn’t Roux, however. Roux couldn’t see dick-sucking bitch’s face clearly, because the majority of her image had been cropped out of the picture and the camera angle was terrible. The next picture—yes, there was more than one—showed the woman rubbing Steve’s cock against her gaping pussy.
“Oh my God,” Raven gasped.
The next showed the woman with her tit in Steve’s mouth.
“He is going to pay,” Azura growled. “No one treats one of my sisters like this. I hope he fucking enjoyed that repulsive dick of his while it was still attached to his body.”
Azura squirmed her way through their tight huddle and forced the door open. Iona caught her before she could escape.
“Roux decides how we proceed,” Iona said. “Not you.”
Roux decides . . .
The next picture showed the woman straddling Steve’s hips—their bodies undoubtedly joined. She was holding her breasts as she fucked him. The tattoo on the woman’s forearm caught Roux’s attention. She didn’t have to see her face to know who it was.
“It’s . . . it’s T-T-Tamara,” she said, her tight throat strangling her.
“What?” Iona spat.
“The journalist?” Raven asked, her voice squeaking. “Steve’s sister-in-law? The woman he supposedly hates? That Tamara?”
Roux nodded and handed the phone to the nearest hand, unable to force herself to look at another image. “I recognize her tattoo.”
“Maybe she photoshopped herself on him,” Sage said quietly.
Roux tried to cling to that possibility, but how would Tamara have pictures of him naked in that particular room in order to doctor dirty pictures in the first place?
“I need to talk to him,” Roux said, shoving everyone out of her way and stumbling out of the hot and stuffy dressing room. She rushed forward, running toward the exit. They hadn’t made it too far from the bar where she’d left him behind. There was no sense in her wondering what had happened when she could ask the son of a bitch herself. Her sisters caught up with her quickly, some trying to stop her, others offering support. She was so blinded by fury and hurt that she wasn’t even sure what was being said to her, who was holding her hand, who squeezed her shoulder, patted her back. Roux burst through the front door of the bar and several patrons glanced up from their drinks in surprise. A quick look around told her that Steve was no longer there.
“Can I help you?” the bartender asked.
“There were four men in here earlier,” she said. “Long-haired. Tattooed. Did you see where they went?”
“Sorry, luv. I just started my shift.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far,” Lily said. “I’ll call Jack and ask where they are now.”
“No,” Roux said. “I don’t want Steve forewarned.” She figured he’d be more likely to tell her the truth if he didn’t have time to fabricate lies.
“Maybe we should spread out a little,” Azura said. “The first one to find him gets to kick him in the nuts.”
Iona crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw set in a harsh line. “I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”
“He’ll still be able to talk,” Azura said. “He’ll just be doing it as a soprano.”
Sage and Azura headed across the street to check the pubs there. Iona and Lily went back the way they came, and Roux headed farther up the street with Raven trying to keep up.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Raven said. “Why would he do that with her? He hates her.”
Supposedly. It sure didn’t look like he hated Tamara when they were alone together. Roux squeezed her eyes shut, trying to erase the vile images from her mind, but it was no use. If anything, the pictures of him with that odious bitch became even more vivid when Roux’s eyes were closed.
Roux entered the next bar. The guys weren’t there, but the bartender remembered them. They were headed in the right direction. Unless they’d chosen a chaotic path. Maybe she should have allowed Lily to contact Jack. This hunt could be a huge waste of time. The next bar was also Steve-free, but he’d been in that one too.
“They must be chugging their drinks,” Raven said, scurrying behind Roux as she marched toward the next bar.
Roux’s anger wasn’t cooling. The longer she looked for him, the more enraged she became.
They must be getting close; there was a hell of a loud party going on in a bar up the street.
“What am I going to say to him?” Roux asked Raven, struck suddenly with overwhelming emotion. She couldn’t allow herself cry in front of him. Cheating assholes weren’t worth a single tear.
“I wouldn’t say anything,” Raven said. “Let him talk himself into the deep hole he belongs in. He knows what he did. He just didn’t think you’d find out.”
Roux stopped walking a couple of doors down from the pub and squeezed her bullet in her hand. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and another to steel them.
“Why would she post those pictures online?” Roux said, her anger cooling long enough to allow her more logical side a moment to ponder.
“Bragging rights,” Raven said.
Roux’s eyes narrowed. “That does sound like her.”
“And she probably wants you guys to break up.”
“I hate to give her what she wants,” Roux said, her heart twisting. She loved Steve; that hadn’t changed. But could she forgive him for this? If it had been any other woman in the world, maybe. But Tamara? Argh! How could he?
Raven squeezed her hand. “Are you ready? I’ve got your back. But if you want to call our sisters and wait for them, we can hang here on the sidewalk until they get here.”
Extra backup would be nice, but Roux was already losing her nerve. She’d never been able to hold on to rage for long.
“Show me the pictures again,” she said, waving a hand toward Raven’s purse. She wasn’t sure where hers had gone. Hopefully one of her sisters had it.
Raven took a step back. “What?”
“Show me!”
“I don’t think—”
“I’m not all that pissed off anymore, and if I go in there now—”