Page 111 of The Scandal You Started
No, that was because ever since that night, something about Rayna had changed.
Her smiles were brighter, more tender. They branded his soul a little deeper. Her laughter waltzed around his ears for longer, so unabashed and inviting. She still hadn’t initiated a hug, but she let him hold her a little tighter and sank back into his arms when he bothered her instead of immediately telling him to go back to doing his chores. She grumbled about being too hot but buried her face in his chest anyway and inhaled before melting against him.
Oh, she was still a teasing, mouthy, wicked woman who enjoyed mocking him far too much, but it was impossible to truly be offended by anything she said. In fact, Dominic loved the way they bickered and taunted each other. It always led to him hauling her close and her twisting and laughing until he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her quiet.
It was perfect.
Everything about her. Everything they were becoming.
His hope was swelling by the second, making a future where they were married seem vividly possible.
Nothing could have dampened his spirit.
Or so he thought.
The two instant messages sitting in notification boxes on Rayna’s locked phone screen evidently proved otherwise.
Jake:
Thank you for arranging this
I’ll see you Monday
Suddenly, Dominic felt like his world was crumbling under his feet again. Cracking and shaking as earthquakes of anger, fear, and jealousy juddered violently through brittle bones.
He clenched his hand tightly around the small device as the screen faded to black. The pinched, pained planes of his face reflected back, so ferocious he almost didn’t recognise himself. But then again, he’d never felt such acute betrayal in his life.
He hadn’t been snooping on Rayna’s phone.
He was on the sofa facing the big TV screen in their sitting room with a bowl of popcorn on his lap, waiting for her to return from the bathroom so they could carry on watching the murder mystery movie they’d started that evening.
Her phone had been on the varnished coffee table next to his when it buzzed. He was getting better at using the device, but its functions still baffled and shocked him from time to time, so he startled at the loud sound.
He thought it’d been his own smart mobile, but when the second buzz echoed, it was Rayna’s phone that lit up around the edges of the screen. He picked it up out of curiosity.
Only to be punched in the heart.
Rayna was still communicating with Jake.
Worse yet, she’d made plans to see him.Again.
She was hiding them from Dominic.Again.
Why?How could she?
Was she truly intending to betray him so?
He dully registered the flush of the downstairs toilet over the thunder of blood in his ears as he tapped the screen to wake it upagain. It went black after a dozen or so seconds. He tortured his aching heart with the truth of her actions one more time.
Soon after, the clack of a door opening and closing filtered through, followed by hurried steps.
“Okay, you can press play again,” Rayna said, entering the wide rectangular room, but she stopped short of the coffee table.
A marbled cream rug lay under it that matched the fabric of the two sofas that occupied most of the room. The curtains were drawn over the bay of windows on the right, but the light from the TV, the corridor, and two lamps placed by either sofa lit up the darkened room.
She edged a step forward. Her eyes dipped from the device in his hand up to the expression he didn’t bother hiding. “Is that my phone?”
“Why isJakesending you messages, Rayna?” Dominic growled through his teeth.
