Wicked as Lies (Wicked & Devoted 3)

One-Mile followed his line of vision and peered at the TV.

There it was, very famous bombshell Shealyn West kissing someone who definitely wasn’t her co-star and reported off-screen lover. It wasn’t a scene from a TV show, and it wasn’t a mere press of lips but a full-on, ravenous invasion as the man in shadow wedged her against a car with his body and plowed into her mouth like he owned her.

Zy didn’t have to look twice at the profile of Shealyn West’s mystery man, just like he didn’t have to guess anymore who his teammate on the West Coast was supposedly guarding.

Instead, Cutter Bryant looked like he was getting busy.

“Son of a bitch…” Walker growled.

“You’re seeing this, too, right?”

“Impossible to miss.”

“We both know who that is. I’m not hallucinating?”

“Nope.” And the sniper sounded beyond pissed.

“Lucky bastard. Damn…” Zy muttered. “But I feel sorry for his new fiancée. He’s never looked at Brea like he wanted to do that to her.”

At that observation, One-Mile looked ready to tear Cutter’s head off. In his shoes, Zy would be, too, if his rival was chasing a woman who had just committed herself to a fiancé now enthusiastically sucking face with one of the sexiest women on TV.

“Oh, I feel sorry for her, too.” But what Zy heard in One-Mile’s tone was pure determination. “Bye.”

“Where you going?” Zy called. They weren’t fucking done talking about Trees.

But Walker clearly had other ideas, because he didn’t answer, just walked out the door.

Zy would have gone after the asshole, but his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it free with a snarl—until he saw the call was from Tessa.

By mutual but unspoken consent, they’d both done their best to keep their distance for the last two months. He couldn’t stop himself from staring. He’d caught her staring, too. Hell yeah, he missed her. And hell yeah, he still wanted her. But he couldn’t do a damn thing about it for another nine hundred sixty-one days.

So if she was calling now, something was wrong.

“Tessa?”

“Zy?” Her voice shook. “Please come. I need you. I’m afraid. The police won’t help, and Cash is threatening to kill me.”

At five sharp, Tessa left the office, not just because it was Friday and not just because she looked forward to picking up Hallie from daycare every day so they could spend some quiet mommy-daughter time together.

Today, she needed to escape Zy.

It had been too long since they’d talked. Really talked. Not small talk. Not office business. And she missed him. She craved the sense of safety when he wrapped his arms around her. She ached more than ever to feel his touch.

And from Trees’s phone conversation she’d overheard, it sounded as if Zy and Madison might double-date tonight with him and one of Madison’s friends. Tessa, on the other hand, would spend her evening alone with her daughter and a man she could barely stand the sight of.

These days, talking to Cash was as enjoyable as talking to a dead houseplant, so she avoided it—and him. When she’d returned from Daddy’s funeral, he’d left her place an absolute disaster. Cash had been passed out in the middle of her bed…with an empty bottle of vodka on her nightstand. She’d confronted him about his backslide into addiction, and they had fought before he finally apologized. She probably should have thrown him out that night, but Tessa had been too emotionally exhausted. Thankfully, he’d gotten off his ass and cleaned up his mess. Since then, he’d been slightly more conscientious, even tickling Hallie’s ribs every now and again to make her giggle.

But he had to go. She knew it. He probably knew it, too. She suspected that was the reason he’d given her a wide berth since.

After picking up her daughter, Tessa carried Hallie to the car and tucked the baby into her seat as the sun was setting. After a quick trip to the grocery store, a drop at the dry cleaners, and a few other errands she’d invented to avoid going home, she treated herself and Hallie to a dinner out at a favorite family-friendly diner. She found a reason to hit the drugstore, then accepted a spontaneous invitation from her bosses’ sister, Kimber, to take the kids out for ice cream. She enjoyed the woman’s company…and she’d do anything to avoid Cash until she was sure he’d be wrapped up in his game.

After she and Hallie finished off a strawberry cone, Tessa bid the gorgeous redhead and her adorable kids a farewell, then headed to the place she couldn’t avoid anymore.

Tessa let herself in the front door—which Cash hadn’t bothered to lock—expecting to see him slouching on her sofa, thumbs pounding his controller as he attacked whatever he’d supposedly been paid to play—an arrangement she still didn’t understand. Instead, she found him facedown on the sofa, snoring like a chainsaw, an empty bottle of vodka on her coffee table.