Page 35 of Scandalously Yours

Kristopher

Pissed off didn’t even begin to explain the level of anger coursing through my veins. Hayley had gone and told Alessia that I had almost caused someone to commit suicide. While she hadn’t been completely wrong, it wasn’t her place to run her damn mouth. Yes, Kenzie Broderick had been a pawn in a childish game that Jonas Courtland and I had played back in high school. Many others had too, but none of them escalated quite like this one. It started off innocent enough with the two of us taking boring girls and making them popular by association. At the time, I didn’t know that my best friend had actually fallen in love with this girl. I still don’t know why he didn’t say anything because the end goal had always been for him to bed her, then I would post it for everyone to see.

Kenzie had seen it, and she’d rushed out to the roof where everyone thought she meant to jump. I remembered standing in that hallway when rumors of what she was doing spread like wildfire. A sense of regret had passed over me, and the guilt nearly did me in. I tried to go to the roof to talk her down, but Jonas had gotten there ahead of me. Before he had tried to talk her down, he’d leveled me with a look, then hauled off and punched me.

Dumbfounded, I just stood there and let him hit me again. By the third blow, the haze had cleared. Jonas then rushed onto the roof, and I’d still been standing there tasting my own blood when she was put on a stretcher. She was then wheeled down the same hallway full of gossiping kids. It hadn’t been the only thing to happen that day. Jonas emerged from the roof, and after talking to the police on site, he grabbed me by the neck, then pinned me against the bank of lockers. On occasion, I could still hear the clanging of the metal door as I was slammed against it.

“What have you done?” he’d asked me, the bewilderment and anger mixing together in his voice.

“Nothing that we hadn’t agreed on,” I’d replied, then tried to muscle my way out of his grasp.

“These games.” Jonas seethed. “They stop right here, right now.”

I had gotten the message, and when I nodded, he finally released me. It had taken weeks for the two of us to mend those fences. Back then, I thought it was a complete over exaggeration, yet the guilt still followed me to this day. I was constantly reminded of what might’ve been every time I saw my best friend with his girl. They were together now, so everything had worked out, but thinking about how many years I wasted being miserable with Hayley, Jonas had lost the same amount of time without the love of his life, and all because of me and what I had done.

It’d been something I had drunkenly admitted to Hayley back in the beginning of our relationship when I thought the two of us would be together forever. She’d also confessed things about herself, things about her sexual proclivities that she couldn’t share with family or friends. At first, I had thought she had been just talking, but the first time I tied her to the headboard, she came so hard. I knew then that she had been telling the truth. It was likely one of the only times in our relationship that she had.

“I want to be roughed up, Kris,” she kept telling me afterward until I started to do the things she’d wanted me to do to her.

It had started something I wasn’t prepared for. That was around the same time that she started stepping out on our marriage. At first, I had been oblivious, but after a while, the rumors began. I had started to pay attention to what was being said, and it’d been the first time I had hired a private investigator to tail her.

“What are you looking for?” he’d asked me.

I had shrugged before responding, “Anything. I don’t give a damn whether it is pictures, emails, or phone messages. Just let me know what you find.”

It hadn’t taken long before the evidence came flooding in. When I saw her in the arms of not just one man, but others, and sometimes at the same time, I knew whatever we had was over. As a Titan, I had women throwing themselves at me, left and right, but until meeting Alessia, I had never touched another woman. The temptation had always been there, though. Sometimes, I wanted to do something to hurt Hayley, but that would’ve been what the younger me would’ve done. I had grown and matured since then, and I supposed it had been what made me forgive her for the indiscretions, even though I would never forget. She had betrayed me, and the vows we had sworn to one another.

“You’ve been staring at that glass all damn night,” Caspian remarked.

“This bastard must think he has telekinesis or some shit,” Jonas added, and I looked up and flipped them both off.

“I did that once in a movie,” Anton added, and I shook my head.

The only quiet one was Mason, but the grin on his face showed his obvious amusement. I had watched most of these men as their women slayed them, and even though I was married, none of them had actually thought it would last. I knew they were all waiting on me to find my own dragon-slayer, and little did they know that I had already found her. The irony was that I couldn’t have her.

I finally picked up my drink and tipped it back. When I emptied it in a few swallows, I slammed the empty glass onto the table. “Another,” I barked out to the nearby waitress.

“So, what is your deal tonight?” Jonas asked me.

I let out a heaving breath. “Hayley’s running her mouth about me again.”

“You haven’t just divorced her gold-digging ass yet?” Mason asked. The blond finished his drink, and when the waitress returned with mine, he grinned at her. “Bring another round for us all.”

I waited for the woman to leave, then sighed. “I told you that we’re trying to get through this separation—”

“You have lived in your own place for almost a year. I would say that things are over,” Caspian pointed out.

“I know, and I am regretting ever agreeing to such an asinine thing in the first place.”

“What’s she doing?” Anton asked, before finishing his drink while we all awaited the next round.

I hadn’t told these guys about Alessia yet, and I wasn’t ready to do so. I needed to protect her at all costs, especially since Hayley knew where she lived, and had already confronted her once. “Just being the queen bitch that you all warned me about.”

“I still can’t believe Elsa hangs out with her.”

It wasn’t surprising since the two women grew up together and their families ran in the same circles. Maybe she saw something in my ex that others couldn’t. Outside of those other women in Manhattan’s high society, no one else even associated with her. I couldn’t blame anyone, because if I had been wiser, I never would’ve either. My entire marriage would just have to be chalked up to a life lesson learned.

“Your woman has a big heart,” Caspian replied to Anton. “Paisley loves hanging out with her.”

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