Page 11 of Wade’s Wrath

She twisted the engagement ring around her finger. The three-carat diamond caught the light. Frank had selected it without asking what she liked. Everything about their relationship had been chosen for her. The restaurants they ate at, the clothes she wore, the details for the wedding she ran out of, and her entire future were all chosen for her. Harlow pulled the ring off and stared at it in her palm.

Wade appeared on the other side of the bar. “You okay?” he asked.

She nearly laughed. Was she okay? “No.”

“That’s fair,” he said.

She looked at the ring again. “Do you have a lost and found?”

Wade raised an eyebrow. “Yeah.”

“Put this in it,” she said, sliding the ring across the bar.

Wade stared at it and then back at her. “That thing's probably worth more than my truck.”

“I don't want it,” she insisted.

“Sell it and keep the money to start over,” Wade said.

“I don't want his money,” Harlow breathed. “I don’t want anything from him.”

“Pawn it and donate the cash,” he said. Harlow paused because that wasn't a terrible idea.

“Who would I give the money to?” she asked.

Wade shrugged. “Women's shelter.” Her eyes lifted to his. Something about that suggestion made her chest ache.

“Okay, I like that idea,” she breathed.

He pushed the ring back toward her. “Then keep it until you can do that.”

Harlow closed her fingers around it. “Thank you,” she whispered. Wade nodded. He didn't make a big deal out of it, and she liked that about him—which was dangerous. She couldn't afford to like anything about Wade. Not his rough voice, not the tattoos covering his arms, not the way he seemed to notice every time she became uncomfortable, and definitely not the way he'd pointed a gun at Frank without so much as blinking an eye. Harlow had spent years around men who bragged about their power, but Wade didn't have to. His was simply there.

“Ready?” he asked.

She looked toward the windows. “Are we really going to your house?”

“Yep,” he breathed.

“You live alone?” she asked.

“Yep,” he said.

“Any girlfriends I should know about?” she questioned. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and Harlow immediately regretted asking. “That isn't what I meant.”

“Sure it wasn’t,” he said. He smirked at her, and she wasn’t sure if that pissed her off or turned her on.

“I was asking because I don't want some woman coming home and finding me sleeping on her couch,” she insisted.

“I have no girlfriend, no wife or fiancée,” he said. His gaze dropped pointedly to the ring still in her hand. “Apparently, you're the one with the fiancé problem.”

“Former fiancé,” she corrected.

“Good.” The word came out so quickly that Harlow blinked. Wade seemed to realize it too, and something passed between them—warm, unexpected, and dangerous.

Harlow looked away first. “Do you have a couch?”

“Yeah,” he said.