Page 6 of Hale's Pawn
I side eye him. I shake my head, trying not to snicker. “I didn’t lose her. Not like it's hard to find Ainslee Bishops here.”
“Ainslee Hale,” Jagger corrects.
Karessa LeClaire, Jagger’s fiance, coughs, choking on whatever it was she was drinking. Jagger leans closer to her and pats her back. “She okay?” I ask Jagger.
Karessa looks up at me and I look at her. She’s very pretty. Stunning even. Jagger was right, she does favor Rihanna. I break eye contact and stand to go look for Ainslee. She’s probably somewhere trying to escape this damn place and leave me to suffer alone. Yeah right. I’m not dealing with these damned people. I need a damn drink but I drove here like a fool. I walk away from the table and make my way towards where that creepy little walkway is. It may look cute to everyone else but for me, shit looks weird. Like a creepy, serial killer type of vibe. I hear voices and I don’t catch everything in the conversation, but clearly I keep running into people talking to Ainslee recklessly and I’m more annoyed that she’s letting them. Isn’t she the one with the smart mouth?
“You’d choose Eli over me, Lina? I’m your best friend,” Ainslee says and even though she’s trying to appear tough, that mask has already slipped away. I can see the tears pooling in her eyes.
“I didn’t have to try so hard to choose, Ainslee. You made it so easy for me. For us. Eli is everything and you’d give all that up for what?”
A tear slips out of Ainslee’s eye and she wipes at it aggressively. “You know why I had to, Lina.” Which indicates that she confided in her about the whole arrangement deal.
“Weren’t you supposed to go to the bathroom?” I announce my presence. Ainslee quickly wipes any evidence of tears from her face. Why doesn’t she want me to see them?
“I did,” she says and I know she’s lying. I narrow my eyes at her. One thing I hate is lies and liars, however you want to put it, and she just lied to me about the most basic thing ever. “Let’s just go back to the reception,” Ainslee says, trying to move away from her ex without touching him.
“Shut up,” I say to her. Ainslee looks up at me like a deer in headlights, then her face morphs into something deadly. I’ve never seen this expression on her face. She doesn’t say anything. She just glares at me. “Eli, is it?” I address her ex. “Get the fuck out of here. I won’t say it twice. I’m going to pretend to be hospitable for the sake of not fucking you up.”
Reaching out and wrapping my fingers around Ainslee’s wrist causes her to suck her breath in but she says nothing else. I turn to leave but then I turn back around to look at the two snakes. “You and my wife’s relationship, be it friendship or whatever the fuck this is, is over. Lina, you’re pathetic. As for you, Eli, let me catch you making eyes at my wife again, bitch. She’s not Ainslee Bishops, she’s Ainslee Hale. Respect that shit or get put down.”
“Get put down?” Eli repeats, acting like he’s going to do something about it.
“Like a fucking bitch,” I say nonchalantly. I eye Eli up and down and then turn to leave, but before that can happen, Mikonos appears, practically out of thin air. He isn’t looking at us, but past us. The look in his eyes resembles Ainslee’s just a moment ago. He tucks his chin in towards his chest and he looks like a predator stalking his prey. I know that neither Lina nor Eli have moved. Mikonos takes one step forward as if in a haze and Ainslee’s hand shoots up, touching his chest. It’s like a switch goes off and if I wasn’t looking, I would’ve never noticed it. If you would have asked me, Mikonos doesn’t have any emotions, but clearly he does with Ainslee.
Mikonos smirks without looking down at Ainslee, he’s still looking past us. “I’ll kill anyone who hurts Ainslee,” he declares. “I don’t care if she likes you or loves you. I’ll let her hate me for the rest of her life but whoever hurts her will be six feet under.”
Ainslee says something to him in a language that I’m sure is Latin, meaning it’s not for any of our ears. Mikonos finally takes his eyes off the idiots behind us but then he directs them towards me. I can see his warning as clear as day but I mean, I’m not trying to hurt her. Shit, I was forced into this.
“Don’t move or do anything, Oran,” Ainslee says, as if she knows I was about to ask Mikonos what the fuck he’s looking at. “Don’t even speak,” she says calmly, a little too calmly. “None of you do a fucking thing.”
Ainslee grabs the lapel of Mikonos’s all-black suit and pulls him closer to her face, placing her forehead on his. It takes him a minute but then he fully snaps out of whatever trance he was in. His smirk transforms into a grin and he rolls his eyes over to Ainslee. They look at each other, communicating with their eyes. I’m tempted to ask about their familiarity, but I’m not picking up any tension or sexual tension for that fact. They don’t say or do anything. Mikonos is the first to pull away. He kisses Ainslee’s forehead and then he’s gone like he came. Silent as ever. Way too silent for me, especially as I watch him walk away without making a sound, even with his dress shoes. He must be where they got the silent-but-deadly definition from.
“Thank you for saving me, us, Ainslee,” Eli shamelessly says. Ainslee clears her throat, squares her shoulders and walks out of the walkway without speaking.
I follow her and she’s walking towards the reception but we need to get some shit down, so fuck that. “We need to talk,” I say to her.
I grab her wrist and she tries to pull back, “Let go.” Ainslee grits through her teeth as I continue to go in the direction of the parking lot instead of the reception. Fuck it.
“You found your voice?” I taunt her as we get to my car and I let her go.
“I didn’t need you.” Ainslee raises her head up and looks at me.
I cock my brow. “Right and that’s why you were on the verge of tears?”
There’s a look in her eyes, one that I want to decipher because that’s just who I am, but she beats me to it. “Just leave me alone,” Ainslee grits through her teeth.
“Shut up and get in the fucking car.”
Ainslee glares at me and she takes a step away from me, like she’s heading towards the venue. I yank her back to me and lift her by her waist. I slam her ass into my car, grab her face with my free hand, and kiss her hard. Ainslee makes a surprised sound but she matches my energy as she kisses me back just as hard. Her hands find their way into my hair again, but this time I don’t care. I groan as I press into her warmth, getting some of my frustration out. The second Ainslee moans, I pull away and force her to her feet. I press the fob, unlocking the door. I open the passenger door and shove her little ass inside. I watch as her ass bounces and I smirk at her as she situates herself. She glares at me, ready to pounce, and I shut the door. When I get in the car, Ainslee narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t do that. Don’t sneak attack me and don’t push me into the fucking car.” The authority in her voice is fucking sexy but it doesn’t scare me. It simply turns me on.
“You chose me and here I am, showing you just what you wanted. You’re in my world now, Mrs. Hale. I make the rules. Deal with it.” Ainslee puts her seatbelt on with the dramatics and I peel off before she can even respond. The second I feel her about to say something, I speed up and not a peep from Ainslee is heard. We arrive at my home, away from everyone. “Get the fuck out.”
Ainslee sighs dramatically and I’m beginning to wonder if she does everything in a dramatic way. Like would she moan my name just as dramatically or can I make her scream it? We get out and I watch as her hips sway. For a small thing, she has curves. Curves that I want to see without clothes. I shake that thought out of my head as I let us into my home. I walk past her in the foyer as the lights come on. Ainslee stands there on her phone. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting an Uber to go to a hotel so I can be left alone,” she answers.
I cock my brow at her and watch her for a moment. Is she testing me? I take the couple of steps towards her and yank the phone out of her hand. I lift my arm up knowing she can’t reach it even if she wanted to. “Where do you think you’re going?” I taunt her.
