Page 65 of Tempt My Heart

ChapterThirty-One

“Well?” Rose demanded and Ali was grateful to have semi-consciousness as an excuse not to answer. “Who the hell is this guy?” she said, gesturing to where Jared was being hauled out of the dirt by EMTs. “And what the hell happened to Ali?”

Out of everything that happened, she had to say she was most happy about the fact that Rose had called her by her nickname, like they were friends. She just hoped she hadn’t screwed things up between them all with Jared’s scheming.

“Um,” Ali said as she tried to sit up and swayed, blanching as the world dipped in and out of blackness. “Basically,” she retched and then forced her eyes open. “He’s my ex- boyfriend and he was just being a collosol-coolaasal—” she frowned, trying to get her mouth to work. “—Big asshole. We tried to tell you but the cops thought Christopher was selling cocaine.”

Denver bit his fist as Rose’s eyes grew wider. “I know it’s not funny how concussed you are, but it also kind of is, just a little bit.”

Christopher scowled but didn’t move towards him and she realized he was being restrained by a cop.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she slurred, her eyes rolling as she fell back towards the ground. “Lethimgo—he loves me.”

* * *

“It’sgood to know that law enforcement is systematically useless at every level,” Rose was saying to the closest officer with a voice like sugar when Ali came to. “Just as sloppy as expected. Thank you, sir.”

Ali would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. She wasn’t even sure the officer knew he’d just been insulted. Rose crouched next to her, eyes haunted like she was reliving another night like this.

“I’m okay,” Ali said gently. “Just a couple of bumps and bruises. I’m sorry if we ruined your day.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rose chided, wrapping the silver blanket tighter around Ali’s shoulders. “I heard you got a really good kick in.”

“I did,” she confirmed and Rose smiled darkly.

“Good for you.”

Christopher had been talking with David for the past twenty minutes and Ali was hoping that if he was mad at anyone, it was her and not him.

David clapped him on the back and she let out a breath of relief only to tense further as they approached. “Ali, I’m so sorry that this happened,” David said, his brows drawn together as he ran a hand through his dark blonde hair. “If we had known what that guy was asking of you we would have tried to help you guys take care of it.”

She blinked. “You’re not… mad?”

“Only at myself.” He smiled and there was more than a little bitterness there. “I’m sorry that you guys couldn’t come to us, and that we didn’t notice anything was wrong.” Christopher protested and Blake shook his head. “No man, come on. My relationship with Rose is about more than just this one day and we would both rather have known you were safe and happy than have made you feel like you couldn’t be honest.”

Ali didn’t know what to say and it seemed Christopher didn’t either.

“I mean, you could have lost your mom in that fire and for what? So we could keep one journalist outside the gate?”

Rose gasped and turned to Ali in concern but she patted her hand. “My mom’s okay. She was out of town when the house burned down.” She hadn’t realized how ridiculous that sentence was until she’d said it. “I’m really glad you’re not pissed at us and I would love to talk to you both more about this, but right now I’d really like to go to bed.”

Christopher was there in an instant, wrapping his arm around her waist as he helped her stand.

“Of course. Just don’t be a stranger, okay?” Rose murmured and she wrapped Ali in a surprising hug as she nodded.

The walk back to their room felt like a blur, and when they got to the door she realized Christopher had started carrying her at some point. He carefully placed her down on the bed before pulling off the weird-smelling blanket and unzipping her dress.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I’m just so fucking sorry Ali.”

Her mind was foggy but she was alert enough to grab his wrist when he tried to walk away.

“Stay.”

“I let you down. I said I’d protect you—”

“Stay,” she sighed and he lay back next to her, fully clothed.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” he said quietly and she mumbled a reply as she drifted off to sleep.

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