Page 48 of Icy Cold Death

That caught her off guard.

“Pardon?”

He explained.

“Well, Claire, it takes two people to commit adultery, and if you think I’m going to walk away and sleep with your sister…”

She went there.

“We look alike.”

Only, he wasn’t having it.

“Oh, I see. Then you think I’m shallow and that’s the only reason I’m with you is the outside. Why are you married to me then?”

Her heart was racing.

Claire didn’t like where this was going. The panic was setting in.

“Are you leaving me, Beck?” she asked, hating to say those words.

He was honest.

“No. You’re leaving me. You don’t trust me, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why. I haven’t broken your trust. She may have, but you’re being overly wary of me, and I am not a cheater.”

She stared at him.

When she opened her mouth, he stopped her.

“I get that you’re angry with her, but, Claire, it’s changing you. We all see it. You’re becoming…her. You’re becoming suspicious and jealous. That’s why she stole your boyfriend. She coveted him, and he wanted to be coveted.”

That was a sucker punch to the solar plexus.

He wasn’t finished.

“You’re guarding me like a stray dog who won’t let anyone near its food. You’re growling at your brothers, and telling them to choose. That’s not you, Claire. That’s anything but you. Your brothers love you, and they are fighting for you. We’re being made to be the bad guys.”

Claire wanted to cry.

There were only a few things that she really loved in this world—her husband and daughter, the family they made, and her brothers.

It was all she had.

When Lianna stole her fiancé away, it broke her.

The men in her life, Julian, Connor, and Justin, put her back together again after the fact.

He kept going.

In for a penny.

In for a pound.

“You were a bitch today at work. You snarled at everyone, and I have to work from home because god forbid I’m in the same room with your sister. You assume I’m going to jump her and have an affair.”

Claire tried to justify it.

“She stole a man from me, Beck. That hurts beyond anything.”

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