Jenna Black - Speak of the Devil

I wasn’t even sure if it would be better for Brian to think I had cheated on him than to know the truth. But I couldn’t bear for him to think that.

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm myself, knowing that my next words were crucial to whether our relationship could survive this blow. “What happened between me and Adam wasn’t in the least bit sexual,” I said carefully.

Brian laughed bitterly, and he allowed himself to look at me once more. I almost wished he hadn’t, because the combination of pain and fury in his eyes was more than I could bear.

“Don’t bother lying to me,” he said. “Your face is an open book, remember?”

“Yes, and I’m telling you the truth. Adam did whip me, but it wasn’t sexual. It was about as far from sexual as it’s possible to get.” For me, at least. I still remembered how the thought of what he was about to do to me had aroused Adam, though he’d told me the arousal didn’t mean he wanted to have sex with me, and I’d believed him.

“Save it!”

“But Brian—”

“If you’d told me the truth about it from the beginning, I might have been able to find a way to forgive you. I assume it happened while we were broken up.” He shook his head. “But no, you made a point of assuring me the two of you weren’t lovers.”

“We weren’t. We aren’t.” Once again, I reached for him, and once again, he evaded me.

“It’s over, Morgan. I could put up with your bitchiness and your unwillingness to open up to me, but I can’t deal with you cheating on me.”

“I didn’t cheat on you!” I cried, knowing I sounded desperate. “Just let me—”

“Stop lying!” he bellowed, and his face turned red with his rage. This time when I reached for him, he actually shoved me away. Not hard enough to hurt me, but easily hard enough to shock me into temporary silence.

He reached into the manila envelope one more time, pulled out an eight-by-ten photo, and shoved it at me. I felt like an elephant had just sat on my chest, and it was all I could do to breathe.

The photo was of a couple locked in a passionate kiss. The man’s hands were on the woman’s ass, and her arms were wrapped around his neck, one hand buried in his black hair. Their faces were obscured because they were kissing, but the woman had my hair color and style, as well as my telltale sword tattoo on her lower back, and the man certainly had Adam’s height and build. Worse, they were standing on the doorstep of Adam’s house.

I shook my head, barely able to find enough voice to muster a weak protest. “This is a fake. I never—”

Brian didn’t even let me finish. He dropped the envelope and the photo on the floor, then turned away and stormed out my front door, slamming it behind him so hard my teeth rattled.

I fell to my knees, clutching my abdomen, unable to absorb the enormity of what had just happened. I wanted to cry, needed to cry, maybe even to scream and break things. But all I could do was kneel in my foyer, trying to remember to breathe as I stared at the faked photo that had just destroyed something precious.

I don’t know how long I knelt there, swimming in misery. Long enough for my knees to ache and my feet to fall asleep. Eventually, I staggered to my feet, pins and needles jabbing fiercely at me, and moved the pity party to the sofa, where I could be more comfortable in my despair.

I knew who had to have sent Brian that envelope, of course: Barbara Paget, PI to the rich, famous, and vindictive. She’d even warned me, in a way, that time I’d spotted her snooping outside Adam’s. She’d said it was going to get worse, and that she was good at her job. Of course, what she’d done had been well over and above her job, and surely against the law. I don’t suppose it’s against the law to falsify an incriminating photo as long as you’re not using it in court, but it was clearly unethical. And the note had said she’d found traces of my blood on a whip in Adam’s house. I didn’t imagine she’d come by that evidence legally. What kind of moron would break into the house of the Director of Special Forces, especially when he was a demon?

A desperate moron , Lugh’s voice whispered in my head. Remember the sister at The Healing Circle?

I remembered, all right. I remembered speculating on how Barbie could afford to keep her sister in such an expensive facility in her line of work. She must have been well paid for tearing my heart out of my chest. I wanted to track her down and beat her into an oozing puddle of goo, but getting arrested for assault probably wasn’t in my best interests.

Of course, if Barbie had broken into Adam’s house to acquire evidence of our supposed affair, she might have left some evidence behind herself. Wouldn’t it be lovely if Adam searched the room and found a hair that could be matched to Barbie’s? It probably wouldn’t mean a whole lot of jail time or anything satisfying like that, but it could put her reputation in the toilet, where it belonged.

I forced myself to my feet and trudged to the foyer, picking up the envelope that Brian had dropped. I shoved the note and photo in the envelope; then, without giving myself time to think about what I was doing or whether it was wise, I headed out to Adam’s place.

There were lights on in the house, and both Adam and Dom’s cars were in the small private lot across the street, so I knew someone was home. However, it took about ten rings of the doorbell, which Adam had finally gotten around to fixing, before anyone came to the door. The small part of my brain that was still working told me the delay in answering the door meant I’d come at a bad time, but that didn’t keep me from hitting the buzzer over and over again.

The door swung partially open to reveal Adam, his hair mussed, his feet bare, and his shirt misbuttoned. Yup, I’d interrupted something all right. And I didn’t give a shit.

“This had better be good,” he growled at me. His glare should have reduced me to a pile of ashes.

I couldn’t meet his eyes, unable to bear that look when I was about one wrong word away from shattering into a thousand tiny pieces that could never be put back together again. I tried to think of something to say, some way to broach the subject of what Barbie had done, but I couldn’t seem to form words.

“Shit,” Adam muttered. “I guess it’s not anything good.” He sighed heavily, then opened the door all the way. “Come on in.”

I stepped inside and saw Dominic leaning against the wall in the foyer. He didn’t look quite as disheveled as Adam, but he’d obviously dressed in a hurry, and his face was flushed. For half a second, I worried that Dom might react as badly to the falsified photo as Brian had, but I shook the idea off. For one, Dominic knew exactly what had transpired between Adam and myself. For another, his relationship with Adam was a lot more solid—and, let’s face it, more healthy—than mine with Brian.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I had a childish urge to throw myself into his arms and bawl my eyes out. Dom is probably one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met, the kind of guy who would always know the right things to say. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and blinked rapidly.

Instead of answering Dom, I invited myself into the living room, taking a seat on the couch and hugging a throw pillow to my chest. The guys followed me, Adam sitting on the opposite end of the couch, Dom once again leaning a shoulder against the wall. I glanced up at him.

“Why don’t you come sit down?” I asked. I could hear the strain in my voice. I tried clearing my throat, but it didn’t help. “This might take a while.”