Start a War (Saint View Psychos #1)(43)

“Get off me! Get off!”

Vincent watched Caleb writhe on the ground for a moment before he squatted down beside him.

In his arms, Little Dog went crazy, barking, growling, and snapping at Caleb’s face.

Vincent’s voice was barely a murmur when he spoke. “When I get off your hand, you’re going to take your cheap ring, get in your car, and then forget that Bliss ever existed. You say her name, I will end you. You think her name, I will hunt you down and put a bullet through your skull. You so much as accidentally drive past her on the street, and I will chase you down, gut you, and feed your intestines to my dog.”

Vincent stood and removed his heavy boot from Caleb’s mangled fingers.

I stared at Vincent’s profile in shock.

Caleb scrambled backward until he hit his car. His cheeks blazed with red spots, and he clutched his fingers to his chest. Two were bent at very unnatural angles, and blood dripped down his arm, soaking the cuff of his button-down shirt. “You think you’re so tough? Wait until you hear from my lawyer. Then we’ll see if you’re such a big man.”

He got into the car, but his gaze narrowed in on me through the open window. “You’ll be at the company dinner on Saturday night. You will smile. And then I’ll fuck you in the coatroom like the dirty whore you are. I’m not scared of your bodyguard here. He’ll be in jail by the end of the day. So don’t think you can hide behind him.”

Caleb spat out of the window, put his foot down on the accelerator, and sped through the parking lot with a squeal of tires and exhaust fumes.

Vincent watched him drive away and then turned to me. “We’re late for work. Shall we go inside?”

All I could do was nod.





16





BLISS





Vincent walked inside the daycare center like he and Caleb had just had a chat about the weather.

It took two hours for my fingers to stop trembling.

As predicted, Josie and Sarah had heard everything. They’d practically had their noses glued to the window when Vincent and I came inside. Vincent had greeted them in his usual formal way and then gotten straight to work, going over some number skills with Kellan and his little friends.

Josie had stared at him in a mixture of terror and awe. Sarah had swallowed thickly, whispered a hurried, “Are you okay?” But when I’d nodded, she’d scuttled off to the opposite side of the room, giving Vincent a clear berth.

Josie eventually got herself together enough to pin me with a solemn stare. “I have meetings this morning with two potential families. And then I’m taking a long lunch that will very likely involve alcohol after what I witnessed this morning. But when I return, we need to talk.”

I could only imagine how that conversation was going to go down.

Josie got busy with her meetings, and I took my cue from Vincent and threw myself into teaching and playing with the roomful of preschoolers.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Vincent until Josie had seen out her visitors, shot both of us dirty looks, and then taken herself to lunch. As soon as she was gone, I set my group of kids up with Play-Doh and plastic shaping tools and snuck over to where Vincent had his kids, including Kellan, competing in an obstacle course he’d made in the outside play area. We stood side by side watching the kids chase each other around, letting their squeals and laughter wash over us.

“I want one,” Vincent said eventually.

I glanced up at him. His dark-brown hair flopped across his forehead, and he brushed it back absently with the back of his hand.

“One what?”

“A child.”

It didn’t hugely surprise me. Most people who worked in this industry, male or female, really liked kids, and if they were young enough to not have any of their own, they were probably using the job to fill that ‘clucky’ void inside them. “You’re good with them. They like you.”

“I like them, too.”

We went back to watching the kids.

“I’m really sorry about this morning,” I said eventually. “Caleb…”

“Came to a center full of small children, your place of work, and threatened to end you. He also called Little Dog a rat, which she is clearly not. I think that says all I really need to know about Caleb.”

The frost rolling off Vincent was like opening the door to a freezer. But I instinctively knew it wasn’t directed at me. I could practically still feel the warmth of his body as he’d held me at his back, putting himself in the firing line of Caleb’s rage and insults.

I still remembered how good he smelled. That gentle cologne was intoxicating even now. “I just wanted to say thank you. For what you did. And for what you said.”

Who else would want your ugly, fat ass?”

“I do.”

He’d said it with such conviction that Caleb had believed it. And so had I.

For all his uniqueness, Vincent was classically handsome with his clean-shaven, chiseled jawline and dark features. He had an intense, broody quality to him that would draw the eye of any woman. But this softness inside him, his adoration for a group of kids he’d only known a week, and the way he’d put himself on the line for a woman he barely knew, was what made him truly attractive.

He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I meant every word. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, Betha— Bliss. I would have made good on my threats then and there if there hadn’t been a roomful of witnesses.”