Page 76 of Keeping Ruby

Adrenaline thunders in my veins as I chase her to our room. She slams the door in my face, and I roar as I thrust it open to find her already at the bed, a pillow between her hands and fire in her eyes.

She throws it at me. I dodge it, but she’s already lifting another. The second pillow sails by my head, and when I get close, she abandons the pillows to slam her fists into my chest. The last time I’d seen her like this had been the day she’d destroyed the room I’d first put her in. She’d been a wild thing then, too. A spitfire of temper and fear.

There is no fear now. Just rage.

Why? Why won’t she talk to me?

“You asshole!” Unfallen tears glisten in her eyes.

“What the fuck happened?” I roar, catching her wrists in my hands. She’s so tiny, so breakable. And I’m so fucking mad.

She lifts a knee, grazing my nuts before I block her. Rage flares inside me and I twist her around, pinning her back to my front as I demand again, “Tell me what happened, Ruby.”

“Fuck you.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her curse. Not even in the beginning.

“Wife,” I warn. “I’m at my limit.”

“What?” she smarts. “Are you going to throw me back in the cellar?”

“No,” I say with a calm I don’t feel. “But I will throw you over my knee, and beat your sweet ass until it’s ruby fucking red. You won’t sit for a week. And when I fuck you, I’ll make sure I fuck you from behind to remind you what happens when you act like a little brat.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me,” I growl, not caring that she hasn’t said the words yet, I know it’s true. My grip on her tightens. “Now, what happened?”

She throws her head to the side, glaring at me over her shoulder. She’s a spitfire. Exquisite and damn infuriating. “How many times did you fuck Anya while I was in the cellar.”

I stiffen with realization. The fucking bitch. If I got my hands on Anya ever again…

“I never fucked her while you were in the cellar.”

“Liar.” Her body is trembling with the potency of her emotions. Or maybe it’s my own body.

“The last time I fucked her was the day before you arrived.”

It’s her turn to stiffen. “How serious were you?”

“It is in the past.”

She tears her face away from mine. “She was to be your wife, wasn’t she? Before me?”

As angry as I am with her behavior tonight, the quiet pain in her voice now dismantles my rage. She’s been difficult lately, emotional and sensitive.

I want to tell her no, that it had never been my intention to make Anya my wife. But that wouldn’t be true, and I don’t want to lie to her.

“She wasn’t supposed to be there tonight.”

“Oh, God.” She sucks in desperate gasps of air. “You were going to marry her.”

“I hadn’t proposed to her.”

“But you were going to.” Her knees buckle, but I catch her, sitting on the bed with her body captured in my lap.

“I was, yes. But not because I ever loved her. She was—she fit a mold.”

Quietly, brokenly, she says, “She is beautiful.”

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