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Frustrated and angry, my voice comes out sharper than I intended. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
Mary’s face falls. Mother’s is etched in disappointment.
‘You.’ Alice, finally meeting my eyes, burns a hole through me with their ferocity. ‘Come with me.’
Not waiting for me to acquiesce, Alice grabs my forearm and pulls me into the hall toward the dressing rooms. Finding the large one at the end, she pushes me inside, slamming the door and resting both hands on her hips.
Her very clearly defined hips.
‘I get that you’re mad.’ Her eyes, rimmed with eyeliner, shimmer with rage. ‘I knew it as soon as you walked over like you were on the warpath.’
Shifting my gaze to the mirror, I find my expression is as dark as the slash of bruising around my eye.
She jabs in me in the chest. ‘But I don’t care how mad you are, you do not talk to my niece like that.’
The stab of guilt about Mary forces me to counter-attack. ‘What are you even doing here? And with Mary and my mother?’
Lips that match the red of her dress turn down.
‘Listen, I did not want to come here. But seeing as you—’ she jabs me again ‘—didn’t want to tell your mother the truth, I couldn’t figure out a way to say no.’
The bruising around my eye throbs as does the spot on my chest she keeps poking. ‘If that’s true you should’ve at least called and let me know.’
She grabs a Chanel jacket laid out on the dressing room’s chair and rummages through its pockets. Rising, she thrusts her cell phone in my face. ‘Oh, you mean the twelve calls and eights texts I sent that you never answered?’
Damn it. My teeth clack together, increasing the pain in my face. I’d put my phone screen down with the ringer off on my desk. A failed attempt to ignore Chase’s onslaught attempt at communication.
Alice’s nostrils flare and it hits me that I’ve never seen her so upset. ‘Everything was fine until you showed up acting like a raging bull. If you had just ignored us we’d be gone by now.’
‘So this is my fault?’ I’m drawn back to Alice and her mascara-thickened eyelashes. Her make-up agitates me in a way her dress doesn’t. I can’t pinpoint it, which only agitates me further. ‘It isn’t enough that you promised an annulment then blackmailed me into staying married. Now you’re breaking your word about not wanting my money by buying a whole new wardrobe.’ I advance a step, bringing us an inch apart. ‘You say one thing then do another.’
Instead of backing down, Alice rises on her bare tiptoes trying to get eye-to-eye with me. ‘You’re one to talk. First you act like sleeping with me was beneath you, then make out with my nipples on an airplane.’ Her chest, clearly defined beneath the tight, thin fabric, rises and falls in rapid succession.
‘Yes, well, around you I’m racking up a lot of regrets.’
There’s a stunned silence as Alice’s cheeks heat to the color of her dress. The expression on her face more painful than the throbbing around my eye.
‘I…’ Words fail me as I watch her wide eyes narrow and her hands curl around the lapels of my jacket.
‘Regrets, huh?’ She pulls herself against me, my body relishing her touch, absorbing her heat. ‘Then what’s one more?’
And just as the portent of personal disorder I believe her to be, Alice slams her lips to mine.
Even as surprised as I am by the near-violent kiss, it doesn’t take me but a second to fall into the embrace. To remember the way small pants of breath escape her mouth as I tilt my head to deepen the kiss. The soft moan when I palm her ass with both hands and thrust my body against her.
No panty lines. She’s either wearing a thong or nothing at all under this scrap of fabric labeled a dress. Either scenario is enough to have me backing her against the wall and tugging fabric until I can wedge my knee between her legs and press.
The steady undercurrent of anger in our embrace ignites into something else as her hands stop pulling my jacket toward her and start pushing it off me.
Once it’s off, her body is that much closer to mine. But not close enough.
Still pressing my thigh against her core, I pull the dress up further until the sight of her bare ass in the mirror behind her and her pussy riding my wool trousers bring me to my knees.
Literally.
I hook one leg over my shoulders, her thatch of dark curls centimeters away.
‘T-Thomas, I—ah!’
