“Sure thing, man.”
They fist-bumped each other.
Then Royce gathered my hand again. Squeezing it hard. “It’s time.”
Nerves scattered, a bluster of energy, excitement and worry and dread. “It was nice to meet you all,” I said with a little wave.
“Great to meet you,” went up in a small chorus, and I let Royce lead me through the throng of toiling bodies.
Laughter and conversations were getting louder and louder as drinks were poured freely from the open bar. The mood growing rowdy.
Royce shouldered through, edging deeper into the crowd before taking two steps up out of the sunken room to a higher level.
As soon as we got to the top, Royce stopped in his tracks. Though there was no missing the way his spirit lurched out ahead. Hatred blazed from him, so acute I could feel it blasting through the air.
I froze at his side, my focus moving to where his attention was fixed.
Cory Douglas.
Nausea sloshed in my stomach, and bile rose in my throat.
Suffocating sickness.
I was again hit with the urge to run.
Royce squeezed my hand in a vice grip. Tucking me close while we watched Cory move through the crowd in all his cocky arrogance. Smiling his fake smile, dimples denting his carved cheeks.
Was it wrong I was almost relieved when I saw he was with a woman, her hand twined with his as they strutted through the group?
The woman I knew from pictures as his wife.
She was super tall, brown hair so dark it was almost black, cut in a sharp, long bob that swung around her slender, toned shoulders. She wore a red dress that was cut at different angles, a dipping neckline that lanced to the side, one side of the dress shorter than the other, a trapezoid cutout revealing her ribs on the right.
I was pretty sure he’d plucked her out of a magazine because she looked like a supermodel.
Part of me wanted to rush her. Grab her by the arm and shake it, warn her of who was lurking under that charisma and charm. The other part felt trapped. As if I’d gotten stuck in a tragedy, and I didn’t know how to get out.
Royce’s nostrils flared, and his hand clamped down on mine, so hard I winced. Or maybe I was just wincing because Cory was slowing, too, his attention raking over the two of us. His attention locked on where our hands were woven.
I swore I saw it.
Something flashing through his eyes.
Something sinister.
That was the blip of a second before a smirk was pulling to his perverted face, and he wrapped an arm around the woman in the sort of scornfulness that wasn’t hard to decipher.
The woman’s dark eyes dragged over Royce in a flicker of familiarity before she was turning her face.
My attention jerked to him, just in time to catch it, just in time to know.
Agony written on him. Deep gashes of turmoil.
Murderous animosity.
Anguish squeezed my heart, and my knees went weak.
But I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t help from searching the woman who shifted in discomfort. I nearly puked on her shoes when I saw the X that barely peeked out from the cutout in her dress. Her scar faded to just a shade lighter than her skin.
Oh my god.
My hand went to my mouth, and Royce must have felt me getting ready to splinter because he towed me down the hall without saying anything. His dress shoes and my heels clicked on the marble, echoing in our haste, my pulse stampeding in a slosh of trepidation.
So loud I was hearing a dull hum start up in the back of my head.
“He won’t touch you,” Royce growled beneath his breath.
Shards of broken glass.
Razors and knives that impaled the air.
“Just do not leave my side,” he commanded.
“Is he . . . does . . .? Is she?” I tried to catch up to the question, to force some sort of coherency out. Fighting the feeling that was sinking to the pits of my spirit.
This feeling that there was something bigger—uglier—than I’d understood pushing up from the gaps. Winding in and invading.
I refused it. Didn’t want to give it any credence. I wouldn’t allow Cory Douglas to steal any more of my joy.
“He won’t touch you,” Royce reiterated.
Low and hard.
I got the feeling he was making the promise to himself.
Royce’s hand squeezed down on my fingers, breaths turning shallow and haggard as we reached the doorway. Elevated voices echoed out, a buzz and a thrill spilling out through the cracks.
Royce straightened, steeling himself with all that power he exuded like a forcefield, and he tossed open the double doors to the massive office.
Inside, it was decorated in deep browns, ornate mahogany wood, a cow-print sofa, the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned two stories edged in thick upholstered drapes.
The entire space gave off the vibe of pretension and authority—Nashville style.