Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(60)

I laughed. I couldn’t keep it in. I laughed right in her face. “So that’s your deal,” I told her, my tone scathing. I just couldn’t believe that she was even more worthless than what I’d pegged her for. “You’re a spoiled little brat that never grew up. Your daddy gave you everything, and look what you became. A whore for bags?”

She actually had the nerve to try to slap me. I saw it coming and caught her wrist mid-air.

“I am nothing like you,” I continued as though she hadn’t just taken a swing at me. “The fact that James has money worked against him with me, not for him, and I couldn’t give a flying f**k about handbags. You need a little dose of the real world, little girl, and I hope you get it.”

The door burst open, and James strode in, his eyes wild, four security guards behind him. He didn’t even look at Melissa as he had her escorted out.

I did, meeting her glare for glare as she stormed off.

Finally, I met his eyes. I knew what I’d find there. Enough concern and fury to make me tense.

“That’s f**king it. You aren’t going to the bathroom without security ever again.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. It was Melissa. She’s hostile, but hardly a threat to me.”

“She threw a f**king drink at your head!”

He was really working himself into a rage, I realized.

I moved to him, burying my face in his chest. He wrapped me in his arms. It was an automatic response, enraged or not. I thought that said a lot.

“I’m perfectly fine. We had an enlightening conversation, actually.”

“Oh?” he asked, his hands running over my back possessively.

“Yeah. I found out what her deal is.”

“I’d love to hear it.”

“She’s a spoiled brat,” I said simply.

“Huh.”

“And a whore for designer bags.”

That got a real laugh out of him. “She must really like handbags,” he said, a smile in his voice.

“I would hope so, since she claims she blew a sixty-year old just to get one.” I don’t know why it struck me funny when I said it, it really was just sad and pathetic, but I couldn’t make the statement without laughing.

It must have been contagious because James started laughing just as hard as I was.

Stephan found us still laughing when he burst in the door, breathless. He pointed at James. “That was mean. You had me scared to death that she’d disappeared, and here you are, laughing and joking, and not bothering to call the search off.”

“My bad,” James said, still laughing. It must have been that tension relieving type of laughter, because I couldn’t stop mine either.

“What’s so funny?” Stephan asked, his face breaking into a smile at our delirious laughter. He was always quick to shake things off.

“Melissa blew a sixty-year old for a handbag,” I gasped out. I knew it was bitchy to repeat what she’d said, but it was Stephan, and I just didn’t care anymore about being a bitch where she was concerned.

His brows shot up, his grin widening. “That’s hardly surprising, but I may turn you saying that into my ringtone.”

“Why?” I asked him.

“Because I can’t imagine a time of day where I would hear you saying something like that and not smile. So, did you two finally have it out?”

I nodded, still trying to hold in my helpless laughter. “She thought I was a gold-digger like her, just being sneaky about it. It insulted her oh-so refined sensibilities. I called her a spoiled little brat and a handbag whore.”

That made Stephan laugh as hard as James and I. “Oh God,” Stephan gasped. “I love that you said that to her. She had it coming.”

We rejoined the party, and I felt more relaxed after the strange little confrontation. I hadn’t imagined that having it out with Melissa would actually turn out to be a tension reliever for me. Maybe I needed to do that more often.

We didn’t tell our other friends about Melissa’s little confession. That would have felt like petty, mean gossip, even if it were the truth. Melissa’s character spoke for itself. I didn’t need to be its messenger.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mr. Distant

James came home from working on Wednesday strangely tense and quiet. He was intense as he made love to me that night, his eyes full of…something. I couldn’t identify it, but it worried me. And going to bed without him ever clearing it up worried me even more.

My worry didn’t let up the next morning when I woke to find him turned away from me. He was nude, a whisper of a sheet playing low on one dusky hip. Even concerned, I had to admire that sleek play of muscle along his naked side. I never got to see this side of him. I stroked his hip with a hand.

He flinched away, still sound asleep.

My first instinct was to back off, to give him space. I could well understand the need for space. But I was beginning to understand him well enough to know that space wasn’t what he wanted, or even what he needed.

I pressed my body against his back, rubbing my hand over that sexy golden hip. I nuzzled into his neck.

He stiffened, then relaxed against my touch. “Bianca,” he moaned. I had to check again to see if he was sleeping. He was.

“Bianca,” he said again in a rough whisper. “Stay, Bianca, stay. Please.”