Breaking Him (Love is War #1)(52)

He didn’t let me get far, but when he tried to touch me, I fought him.

He wasn’t deterred, hugging me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. He buried his face in my neck. “Not true,” he finally spoke.

He was out of breath from the struggle. At least I hadn’t made it easy on him.

“You’re letting your insecurity get the best of you,” he continued. “You’re a fighter, yes, but that is far from all that you are. And I do see all of you, Scarlett. You’re more to me than a challenge.”

“What, then? What am I to you?”

He moaned and kissed my neck, which was about the fastest way he could weaken me. “My angel.”





CHAPTER





TWENTY-SIX


“Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we’ll find it.”

~Sam Levenson





PRESENT


Dante joined me at the butler’s pantry, pouring himself a fresh scotch.

Tiffany hung back a beat, looking unsure, before she approached us and reclaimed the glass of liquor she hadn’t been drinking.

Dante gave her a less than friendly look. “Can you give us a minute? I need to talk to Scarlett. Alone.”

She did something odd then, something I didn’t understand. Her fake nice facade slipped for a second, and she gave him a very hard look that felt to me like a warning. “You sure you want to do that?” she asked him.

I was looking back and forth between them, for once completely lost on the nuances of what was going on.

“Absolutely,” he pronounced, turning his back on her.

I smiled as she walked away. “You two don’t seem to get along so well anymore,” I noted gleefully.

“We sure as hell don’t.”

“You were engaged to her,” I pointed out. I was provoking him purposefully. He knew it and I wanted him to.

“I was engaged to you too. Didn’t do me much good, did it?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to? If it did you no good, it’s on you.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” he noted bitterly. “I forgot I’ve been painted as that guy. Serial fiancé. Because that adds up to you. I’m the guy that makes promises and doesn’t give a damn about them, right?”

“Of course you are. Are you denying it?” I felt my temper boiling up from the bottomless place inside of me, that place that was so full of rage it could feed itself indefinitely. It was only ever looking for an excuse to erupt.

He didn’t deny it, at least, which was perhaps the best way to defuse my ticking time bomb of a temper.

We gave each other a moment of silence. I didn’t realize Dante was stewing in his own temper more than giving space to mine until he said, “How long have you been seeing him?” He was looking down at his glass.

I just stared at him. Somehow, even with all of our history, knowing the ins and outs of him, he still managed to surprise me. “Excuse me?”

“Man-bun from your apartment. How long have you been seeing him?”

“I’m not doing this with you.” I was infuriated at the very notion that he thought he was entitled to know even one thing about my love life.

“Does he mind sharing you? Does it bother him to go to your house to see you while you’re still filled with another man’s cum?”

It was an effort not to show him the reaction he wanted, but I kept my expression neutral, my tone even, “My God, you are out of line.”

He was leaning with casual ease against the counter, his posture nonchalant.

The eyes he turned on me were not nonchalant.

They were livid. Wild. “Did you f*ck him after I left?”

“You’re a lunatic,” I spoke quietly and vehemently, “an absolute raging lunatic,” I repeated, “if you think I owe you one single answer about any part of my life.”

“He was in that TV pilot with you years ago. Have you been seeing him since then? For years?” There was so much accusation in his voice, as though he had any right at all to feel betrayed.

The sheer gall of it floored me.

“That is rich,” I enunciated slowly. “Here you are, staying in a house with a virtual stable of your exes, and you have the nerve to act possessive of me?”

His jaw clenched, he stared me down.

“You have me sleeping under the same roof as the home-wrecking whore that ruined us, and you have the balls to think you deserve answers from me?”

He looked genuinely taken aback. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Tiffany is staying here. At Gram’s house. With me here. Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t f*cking know! Why the f*ck is she staying here?”

That knocked some of the fight out of me, and I found myself studying his face for deceit. “You really didn’t know?”

“No, I really didn’t, and it makes no f*cking sense. Why wouldn’t she stay with her parents?”

“Renovations, she said.”

“Bullshit. That place is a mansion. There’s no way they don’t still have spare rooms. And if somehow that isn’t a lie, why doesn’t she stay with my mother? Those two are practically joined at the hip.”