His arms folded, he stepped onto the deck. “I always knew you had a good poker face, Vee, but I didn’t realize how good an actress you were until just now.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“You didn’t even flinch when Heather told you about me and her. You took that news far too well.”
“How did you think I’d take it?”
He snapped his mouth shut, as if to bite back words. “You didn’t even look shocked.”
“Oh, it was a surprise, given that you always claimed you hated her, but it’s not a bad surprise. If you make each other happy, that can only be a good thing for both of you.”
“I’m not buying that you’re really so blasé about this. I’m not just some ex. We’ve known each other a long time. We were friends, lovers, engaged. We have a lot of history.”
“Yes, history. That’s all.” I narrowed my eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you wanted me to feel hurt. But that can’t be the case, can it? You wouldn’t really do that to someone with our ‘history,’ would you?”
His nostrils flared. “Why him, Vee? Why, of all the people in the fucking world, would you marry Davenport?”
I felt like groaning. “Owen, will you just let it go.”
His brows flew up. “Let it go?” he echoed, crossing to me and standing far too close. “I could have handled losing you to someone who’d be good to you; who’d love and adore you and give you all the things you need and want from life. I could have handled that, because I’d have known that you’d be happy. But Dane Davenport—”
“Is my husband. My husband. I love him. And I’m done listening to you badmouth him. You don’t have to like him. You don’t have to like that I married him. You just have to stop fucking whining about it. Butt out of my life and concentrate on this thing you have with Heather.”
“Fuck Heather.” He lunged and slammed his mouth down on mine.
Anger surged through me in a hot rush. I shoved him back and slapped him hard across the face. “You prick. Don’t you ever touch me again.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
At the sound of Wyatt’s voice, I looked to see him stood in the doorway, his face like thunder. Melinda stood slightly behind him, her mouth agape. Heather was beside her, smirking—not at me, though. No, the bitch was smirking at the person who stood at Wyatt’s side.
“Dane,” I said, my voice low.
He didn’t look at me. His unblinking gaze was locked on Owen, dark with fury. He slowly and fluidly stalked toward him like a panther—a predator closing in on its prey.
Glaring at him, Owen lifted his chin, belligerent. “If you think I’m going to apologize—”
Dane’s fist snapped out and connected with Owen’s jaw hard enough to make him stagger backwards. Damn, that was going to leave one hell of a bruise.
“Bastard,” spat Owen. He balled up his hand and took a clumsy swing at Dane, who easily dodged it and then punched him again. Before Owen could retaliate, Dane dealt him a hard blow to the temple that knocked the shithead right on his ass.
Watching my ex pick himself up off the deck, I winced at the deep cut above his eye. Ouch. He’d need a few stitches for sure. But I wasn’t feeling very sympathetic right then.
“Maybe you should do something, Vienna,” said Melinda, sidling up to me.
I gave my foster mother a helpless shrug. No one with a brain would try to get between Dane Davenport and something he wanted. And right then, what he seemed to want was to pummel my ex-fiancé into the ground.
I would not at all be opposed to that.
Owen had been something of an asshole lately. Today, he’d gone too far. He might not have made himself as problematic as the others who were set on separating Dane and me, but he’d certainly had this coming.
Melinda turned to her husband. “We can’t just stand here.”
“Why not?” asked Wyatt. “Owen should have known better.”
Why yes, yes, he should’ve.
Dane stared the prick down. “I warned you, didn’t I? I warned you time and time again to stay away from her, but you didn’t listen,” he reprimanded, his tone soft. “Worse, you pulled this shit. For someone who claims to care for Vienna, you sure don’t show it.”
Owen clenched his fists. “I do care for her, she’s—”
“Not yours,” Dane finished. “They’re my rings on her finger. It’s my name she’s taken. It’s my bed she shares. She is mine. So whether you care for her or not isn’t fucking relevant.”
Owen swallowed. “She was mine first.”
“And you should have held tight to her. You didn’t. You let her go. That was your mistake.”
“I did what was best for her.”
“No, you did what was best for you. You might have cared for Vienna, but you didn’t put her first. She was never your priority.”
Owen nostrils flared. “I was young back then. A kid.”
“A kid who wanted the space to pursue his ambitions. She gave that to you; she didn’t curse you for it. And how do you repay that? By trying to break up her marriage. You think she’ll thank you for that? That she’ll want someone who’d do that to her?”
My ex’s jaw hardened. “What I think … is that Vienna deserves to be loved. You’ll never love her—you don’t have that in you.”
Those words stabbed me right in the chest … because they were true. Dane didn’t love me. Never had. Never would.
I shouldn’t care. I wasn’t supposed to care. And I definitely didn’t like that I did. But I’d gone and fallen for my fake husband. Yeah, I was that stupid.
Dane sighed. “So you’ve said before. I didn’t care what you thought then; I still don’t care now. You’re of no interest to me. And you’re of no interest to her. You need to man the hell up and accept it, because I won’t have you playing these games with her. You’re going to leave here, and you’re going to stay away from her.”
Owen jutted out his chin. “You don’t get to dictate what I do.”
“When it comes to my wife, I absolutely do.”
“You won’t keep her in the long-run, you know. She’ll see that I’m right about you eventually. Then she’ll leave you.”
Dane tilted his head, looking at him curiously. “Now why would you think I’d let her do a thing like that?”
Owen’s head jerked back. “You can’t force someone to stay with you.”
“Vienna knows I’d never let her go.”
Damn, Dane was so good at acting that if he hadn’t been so clear to me that he didn’t want a real marriage, I might have believed him.
“She’s just a possession to you,” Owen insisted.
“My most prized possession, as it happens,” said Dane. “And I have every intention of keeping her. Deal with it. Accept it. Leave her alone. Get rid of this dream you have of winning her back. It won’t happen.”
“And if I don’t stay away from her?”
Dane’s mouth curved into a cruel, chilling smile that almost made me shiver. “I’ll make you wish you had.”