Page 63 of The Scandal You Started
“It has everything to do with me when he was acting so familiar with you in front of me. And you let him—”
“Of course I let him. He’s my friend!”
“Friends do not look at each other the way he regarded you!”
Silence rang around them as his last word snapped off the painted walls.
A flicker of something akin to pain waned the line between his brows before his expression darkened further. “He held you and gazed upon you as if he had known your touch before.”
Her heart tripped over the truth, and she went a little too still and quiet before realising that gave her away more than any words ever could have. Not that she’d intended to lie about Jake. She just hadn’t wanted to tell Dominic anything.
But he saw it, his scowl lifting in bitter understanding. “He does.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement. And there was nothing for her to say in response.
“Were you intimate with him?”
Rayna clenched her teeth over a rise of renewed anger at the accusation in his tone. As if she’d somehow cheated on him with Jake.
“I don’t owe you any explanation.”
“Were you or were you not, Rayna?”
“So what if I was?”
A shadow cast over his face. “How?”
“What?” she said with a sarcastic grin. “You want me to give you all the details?”
“Yes.”
She stared, lips parted, then scoffed. “Just actually fuck off.”
“Tell me the truth, Rayna. What happened with Jake?”
“He didn’t fuck me, Dominic,” she rumbled, squaring up to him. “There. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to know? That we didn’t have sex?”
He clearly wasn’t happy with her answer. If anything, his irises looked alight with ten times more jealousy. “But you are not simply friends, are you? You lied to me.”
“Oh, get over yourself.” She ripped her arm free. “How exactly did I lie to you, huh? By not telling you Jake and I kissed?” Dominic froze, but she cocked her head and drove on. “Something that happened before I even met you, which you have neither a right to know about nor a right to be jealous about.”
“You kissed him?” he uttered hoarsely.
She tipped her chin defiantly. “Yeah. We kissed.”
“Then how can you call him your friend? When it is evident from the fact you have kissed that men and women cannot be friends.”
“Because a kiss doesn’t change the fact that neither of us has asked to be anything more than friends.”
Silence. Heavy, vibrating, and bitter on the tongue.
Then Dominic rubbed a rough hand over his jaw and shifted on his feet. “I do not want you talking to him again.” Rayna’s mouth collapsed. “You are not to see him either. And take his phone number off your smartphone.”
Bubbling molten lava erupted through her veins, and she reacted with a furious jerk forward. “Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me what to do? When it’s got nothing to do with you who I kiss, who I fuck, and who I’m bloody friends with.”
“How can you say that, knowing how I care for you?” he roared.
That wasn’t fair. He was using his feelings to trip the switch of her guilt as if she’d done something wrong, and she hadn’t. She hadn’t. But…
