Page 31 of Bad Little Bride

“So are you, like, his best friend or something?” Maybe she meant his work wife? I guess some men have those, though the only ones I know of are really just mistresses in disguise.

“No, I meant Iwashis wife, but I’m not anymore,” she shares with a smile as if that’s that and it’s all good.

It is not all good.

She was his wife?

He wasmarried?

“Let me just—” I pause, trying to dig into her mind with my damn eyes. “You two weremarried. As in you and Enzo.”

“Yes.”

“But now you’re…not.”

“Exactly.” She grins.

I do not smile back and after a moment, she realizes we’re not having a fun, friendly conversation.

That I’m annoyed.

Angry.

And some other things I refuse to mention.

Slowly, she rises. “Maybe I should?—”

“Since when?”

“Go,” she finishes, leaving the blunt smoking on the edge of my desk. She reaches for the door handle that has apparently yet to be locked and goes to yank it open.

I smash, lift, and throw a sharp piece of porcelain, stabbing and bouncing off her wrist.

She jolts, spinning to glare at me, a small drop of red rolling down her knuckle. “What the hell?!”

What the hell is fucking right.

I push to my feet. “You two were legally married?”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re divorced?”

“Yes.”

My eyes narrow and I pick up a second piece of porcelain. “Yet you still live in his house.”

Her expression grows cagey, her knuckles whitening over the knob.

My stomach rises, threatening to spill what little contents it holds as my limbs begin to shake. A thought crosses my mind, but I don’t want to voice it.

I don’t want the answer to it because if it’s what I think it is…

She goes to leave, and my knees bend with the need to stop her, but I don’t. I hold strong…until she’s crossing the threshold of my door and breaks my cool.

I dart forward and shout. “When?”

I expect her to take off in a rush, something about her giving away how truly different she is than me. She might be gorgeous and built the way a woman should be, similar in my age or not, but she’s weak in ways I’m not, and that was clear in theexpression she gave me, one that told me she has just realized maybe she made a mistake coming to my room.

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