Page 196 of Hateful Games

“Everyone is starting to stare, Nova,” she softly warns, wearing a relaxed expression. Standing in front of me, she wraps her arms around my shoulders, fingertips grazing the back of my neck. “Will you come with me? I want to get a drink.”

Kissing the corner of her mouth, I reply, “Of course.”

Giving me a grateful smile, she hooks her arm around my elbow and turns toward the direction of the bar. Her feet falters, her spine going rigid as a stone when her father coldly orders from behind.

“I would like a word alone before you leave, Rosalie.”

“Is that a request or an order?” I muse in an impassive tone. “Either way, my wife isn’t going anywhere. I believe I told you, you would need to go through me before ever talking to her. Need I remind you again?”

“Rosalie!” he hisses to her, his face turning blotchy.

“Any conversation you want to have with her, you can have in front of me.” Staring down at him, I threaten, “And don’t even think of approaching her behind my back or raising your voice at her. I don’t take kindly when anyone insults my wife.”

Leaving him fuming on the spot, I guide a stunned Rosalie to the bar. “What do you want to have?’

“Nothing. I just wanted to get us away before you punched my dad.”

“I can always punch him without an audience.”

“Don’t piss him off on my behalf.”

“And what?” My voice is tight with anger. “Let him get away like he’s been doing all these years?”

Rosalie skirts her gaze away from mine.

They snap back to mine in horror when I confess, “Also, stop hiding your scars. I’ve already seen them.”

“What?”

“The cigarette burns on your right inner thigh.”

“I don’t know what you—”

I cut her off with a glare. “Was it another tactic of your father to discipline you?”

Staring at me for the longest seconds, she brokenly answers, “No, because it wasn’t him. And I’m not having this interrogation by you here. It’s none of your fucking business, Nova.”

“You’re my wife and it makes it my business, whether or not you like it.” Crowding her against the bartop, away from prying ears, I tell her in a no-nonsense tone, “You will tell me who did that to you. I want the name so I can put him two feet into ground, where he belongs.”

Apprehension shades her eyes and she gulps. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care, Nova?”

I tangle my hand in her hair and profess against her trembling lips, “Because no one puts their hands on my woman and deserves to live.”

“You mean it,” she states numbly.

“I mean it.”

Our connection breaks, gaze drifting to the front of the ballroom, when we hear my father clink his glass. He calls for everyone’s attention and searches for us in the crowd. Once he sees where we are, he invites us over. Followed by Rosalie’s parents.

“Come,” I tell Rose, my gaze conveying we aren’t done with the conversation. She presses her hand into mine.

Mihir’s face has returned to its noble mask he wears for the foolish world. Meanwhile, Lily gives me an apologetic smile. Yet she didn’t once defend her daughter. A life with an abusive father and a neglectful mother is what my Rose has suffered.

Her breakdown at my parents’ place finally making sense.

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