Fury pounding through my veins, I advanced on the two secret lovers. The fuckers. Chris turned to face me, oblivious as to my intent. Or perhaps not entirely. He tried to raise a hand, but too late. With fingers curled tight and muscles tensed, I swung. My fist drove into his perfect straight nose with awesome aim. Pain resonated up my arm as blood gushed from his nostrils. Man, there was a lot of it. Niagara would have been jealous.
Wow.
Chris yelped, doubling over, hands covering his face. From behind me, Vaughan’s hand descended upon my shoulder. It seemed everywhere people were yelling. Sure, my knuckles hurt. But it was pure satisfaction curving the smile on my face. I slowly stretched out my fingers, flexing them. Painful, though they all worked. Nothing broken. Far out, I’d actually hit someone and I couldn’t think of anyone more deserving than my own fiancé. The room was a whir of action, everyone on their feet. Lots of noise. All I could hear, however, was the pounding of blood behind my ears.
Only one last thing to do before I was truly free.
Such an obnoxiously large diamond ring. Not me at all. I wrestled it off my finger, dropping it at his feet. He looked up, eyes crimson and face a bloody mess. I’d done that. Me. The nothing to which he’d been referring. My most likely demented smile grew even wider.
“Fuck you, Chris. We’re done.”
* * *
I had no idea the police could arrive so fast. It was like the old joke about pornography giving young women unrealistic notions of how long it takes a plumber to arrive. One minute Vaughan sat holding ice to my hand, the next I was facing the long arm of the law.
Boom.
The cop who questioned me turned out to be an old school friend of Vaughan’s (who in this town hadn’t he gone to school with?). Officer Andy seemed sweet and somewhat amused by the whole situation though he hid it well. What with my entire statement consisting of “Hell yeah, I did it,” however, my hopes for remaining at liberty were low.
I hovered in the front doorway, keeping an eye on Chris and Co. Much was ado in the front garden. Samantha had been loudly pushing to charge me with assault while attempting to break the sound barrier via her shrieking.
More than a few neighbors had gathered to watch.
Apparently, according to Samantha, I’d turned into a dangerous criminal out to destroy her family (truthfully, I just wanted to escape them). Also, I apparently made Moby Dick look anorexic and I needed to get a life.
She was probably right about the last one.
Her husband, meanwhile, paced back and forth along the small garden path speaking on his cell. There was a lot of head shaking and mumbling. Off to the side stood Paul and Chris, heads huddled together. The latter’s nose was stuffed full of Kleenex to stem the flow of blood. His once pristine white shirt suit was covered in the stuff. All in all, he looked a ruin. It suited him.
“Here,” said Vaughan, draping a checked button-up shirt over my shoulders. “Put that on.”
“I thought your luggage got delayed.”
“Yeah. I lied. Didn’t want you covering up.”
“Ha.” I smiled. Then I stopped. “I am sorry about all this.”
He shrugged. “Had nothing else planned for tonight. What’re they all up to?”
“Ah, well,” I said. “Ray is on the phone to his lawyer trying to best assess how to destroy me while doing damage control to preserve the good Delaney family name. Samantha, meanwhile, is over there busily trying to push your friend, Officer Andy, into hauling me away in cuffs for assaulting her son.”
“Shit.”
Chris looked up, giving me a truly malevolent look. Hate filled his bloody face. To think I’d been about to marry the asshole. At any rate, no matter the provocation, the chances of him letting me get away with hitting him were nil to none. His pride would demand I be punished.
No, he was just letting me stew with this show of deliberation. Jerk.
To think I’d believed all of his sweetness and light for so long. I really needed to bang my head against a brick wall at the earliest opportunity. Try and knock some sense into myself.
Paul tugged on his arm and they returned to their intense heart-to-heart. They actually made a nice-looking couple, Chris with his dark hair and chiseled face, and Paul with his Nordic good looks. Pity about the general acts of bastardry surrounding the entire affair.
“Why hasn’t he, do you think?” asked Vaughan, studying all the people standing in his front yard.
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Hmm.” He huffed out a breath. “You’ve got shit taste in men, Lydia.”