Page 131 of Spark

If only she’d do us all a favor.

Jaden was smirking from a far as I took Regina’s hand and placed the iced filled napkins over her knuckles. She whimpered and sniffled as I held the ice in place. It wasn’t even broken and she was crying like it was the end of the world.

“Thank you, Darren. That’s so nice of you,” she said, sniffling back tears. But the moment her eyes flashed a look of victory towards Jaden, I flashed a smile of my own.

Increasing the pressure of the ice against her hand, Regina gasped as I regained her attention. “Ouch! What are you-“

“You ever make a swing at Jaden like that again and I won’t hesitate to let her beat the ever-living shit out of you. You understand? Matt’s cousin or not, I won’t stand for it.”

“Ow, ow! You’re hurting me!” she cried.

“Do you understand?” I reiterated through gritted teeth, pushing down on her injured hand.

“Ow! Yes!”

Upon her words, I instantly removed the pressure of the ice, took her other hand and placed it on top of the ice to keep it still and released her.

“You should learn to play nice, Regina. It will suit you better.”

Her only response was to bite her quivering lip as she looked up at me in disbelief. I shook my head and turned away from her to take Jaden by the arm and lead her away.

“Well played, Jaden, now let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Ugh, now? But things were just starting to get interesting!” she whined sarcastically.

“You can brawl with Regina another time, but right now I’m looking to cash in on a debt.”

“Ha!”

As we headed for the door, Matt came walking towards us, obviously unaware of his cousin’s obnoxiousness.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes looming over toward Regina still standing by the house with the ice on her hand.

“Control your cousin, Matt. Apparently, she likes to throw punches and miss.”

“Ah, shit,” he sighed. “I’ll take care of it.”

As Matt headed off to Regina, I waved goodbye to Dan and Katherine and escorted Jaden out to the front of the house, Clive and Owen not far behind us. Once the valet had brought the cars around, I ushered Jaden into the passenger seat before buckling myself in. I couldn’t have pulled out of the driveway fast enough.

“First things first. What did Regina say to you to cause that fiasco?” I asked.

Jaden chuckled. “She wanted to know what my intentions were.”

I snorted. Even I couldn’t deny the hilarity in that.

“What did you tell her?”

“I took a page from your book and told her my intentions were none of her business.”

I smirked.

Brat.

“I imagine she took a page from your book and hated that answer?”

Jaden nodded. “So much so that she felt the need to call me a gold-digging whore who’d better watch her back because apparently Regina is capable of anything.”

I snorted again. “That was when you busted out laughing, right?”

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