One Night Wife (The Confidence Game 1)

“That’s assault with a deadly weapon.”

Someone laughed at that, saving Fin the effort.

“I glassed you. I think you’ll live.” It wasn’t like blood was pouring out of him. And since that’s often what happened with a head wound, she felt safe saying he was in no danger of permanent damage, except to his ego.

“Kiss and make up,” another voice called.

No chance of that happening. Cal wouldn’t be happy she’d caused a scene. Maybe this was how their fake relationship broke up. How much was a cab out of here going to cost? She could steal a golf buggy, since she was already on a crime spree.

One of Alex’s posse took a look at his head. “Just a scratch,” he declared.

Another of them jumped in front of Fin. “Hit me. Go on hit me. Then I’ll know you love me.”

He shaped up, dodged, and weaved. He was drunk or high; it was hard to tell. He was as despicable as all the rest of them.

“No one is ever going to love you, honey.” Despite the way her hands shook and her eyes watered, her voice was impressively steady.

He clutched his heart and moaned, went to his knees, hamming it up. Alex roared with laughter, cuffed his friend on the back of the head; they grappled and fell to the ground, and just like that the drama shifted. Now it was all eyes on the wrestling match.

Fin stepped around them, not sure what she was feeling, just wanting to get away, to kick someone, scream, cry. People shifted to let her pass. Someone said, “You’re awesome.” And then there was Cal coming into the tent at a run, concern slashed across his features.

She stopped a little apart from him. He’d warned her, tried to stop her leaving his side, and she’d seen what Alex was like with her own eyes, and still she was mad at Cal. Burning, vibrating with it. Mad at every man in the history of the world who took it upon himself to presume he had a right to touch a woman without permission.

He opened his arms to her. “What happened?”

She shook her head. She was shaking, but she didn’t want him to hold her. She would rattle apart. “Alex.”

The one word was enough. Cal was a brewing apocalypse, fists up, face contorted in cold fury. “Are you hurt?” He was scanning the space behind her.

“No.” Her dress wasn’t even torn. She snapped her fingers in his face and gave him the walk away signal. “I handled it. You’ll make it worse.”

“It can’t be worse.” His jaw was so tight, he barely got those words out.

Yes, it could. These people could have her charged, sue her, screw up her entire life. “I hit him. I made him bleed. How much trouble am I in now?”

He moved in closer. He didn’t try to touch her, except with a look heavy with regret, remorse and other desolate emotions she couldn’t process. “You’re not in any trouble.”

That couldn’t be true. “I assaulted our host.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, literally holding herself together,

and she didn’t need body language lessons to know that.

“Alex is not going to remember what happened. If he does, it will morph into a legendary exploit where a woman flipped out over a little show of affection.”

“I don’t think so.” A man drinks, he didn’t mean it; a woman drinks, she was vulnerable and should know better and every woman knew that was the double standard. And no man forgot being humiliated.

“A tussle with a woman is nothing for that prick. Won’t stop him doing it again to someone else tonight. I will take him apart and fucking bury him in a way he’ll never see coming.”

There was something almost medieval about the way Cal spat that out. It made her shiver. “I should leave.”

“I’ll take you home now.” He held his hand out.

She didn’t take it. If she left now, Alex won. He’d expect her to run. She’d never get Paris’s money. The Prosper Dog Food empire could help thousands of women feed their families, send their children to school, live safer, healthier lives.

“You never told me you were with Paris.”

Cal dropped his outstretched arm. “I’ve never been with Paris.”

“I don’t believe you.”