Page 60 of Peaceful Chaos

"No," Raven says.

I give her a sympathetic look. "We have to check it out. I know you trust him, but we have to make sure."

"That's not what I mean," she cuts me off. "I'm saying there's another possibility."

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and opens a text string. "I was careless, but at the time I didn't think anything of it. Now, it stands out as something other than her being a nosey bitch."

I scroll through the texts, each one seeming more desperate to get Raven to go out with her. Then, about an hour before Damien took his plane out of Devil's Crossing is a message clearly stating I wasn't here with her.

Javier reaches out his hand, and I pass off her phone. "I need to know everything you can tell me about this person. What is J short for?"

"It's how she wrote her name and number on my syllabus. J is short for Jenna," she answers.

Lucien's head snaps up, and our eyes meet. "That dumb bitch."

"Can you share with the class? I'd really like to know what sparked that reaction," Raven demands.

I lick my lips and try and shove down the anxious feeling that this is going to royally fuck up my relationship with my wife. "She's kinda my ex."

"Your ex? I thought you didn't do relationships before me?" I'm treading on the thinnest of ice if the cool tone she's speaking to me with is any indication.

"Raven," I groan and shove my hand through my hair.

Lucien claps me on the shoulder. "Take her home. You don't want an audience for this. And hide the breakables."

I glare at him. "Thanks for the assist, fuckface."

He's right, though. This is not a discussion I ever thought I'd have to have with her. It's the most ancient of histories, and I had buried it under so much other shit I hadn't thought about it in a long time.

It won't feel like old news to Raven though. I stand up and offer her my hand. "Come walk home with me. I'll tell you everything."

* * *

She'squiet as we take the path back to our building. I don't know what she's thinking, and it's bothering me. Being out here could be causing her to remember the explosion, or she could be so focused on what I might tell her she's not even thinking about it.

For once I'm okay to let her spin her own tales, because what I have to tell her is so much worse.

It only takes a couple of minutes to make it to our building, and I don't try and start the story until we're safely behind the door. I unlock it and hold it open for her.

She brushes past me, and I long to grab her and remind her why we're so good together. I can't use sex to escape right now, not until this demon from my past is vanquished once and for all.

Raven takes a seat on the edge of the sofa while I pace on the other side of the coffee table. Her nails dig into her palms and she stays perfectly still while I can't stop moving.

"I'm imagining the worst over here. Tell me what you need to say, and rip the fucking band aid off already," she snaps.

I nod and sit in one of the chairs facing the sofa. "Jenna was one of Damien's house staff."

Her blue eyes seem to drain of the fire I normally see in them and become glacial. "One of the maids you used to fuck, I take it."

Again I give a short nod. "Unlike the others, she's the only one I used more than once."

"How much more?"

I take a deep breath. "When I couldn't get away from the manor or when there wasn't anyone new around."

"So quite often then," she says, almost to herself.

Another nod. Neither of us had much of a history prior to becoming a couple. We weren't virgins, but when it came to any emotional attachments we were both blank slates. All of this happened before she came back, the last time was over a year before she came to Devil's Crossing in fact, but it still feels like I somehow betrayed her.

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