Fixing Justice (31 page)

Somewhere along the line she’d started to fall for the panty-chasing playboy and reluctantly admitted that he wasn’t quite the upper class snot she’d painted him as. The thought made her sigh. After everything she’d been through the past year and the way the press had hyped a shit-ton of presumptions into a character analysis that made her seem like something she wasn’t, it pained her to realize she had done the same to him. To say she felt like a hypocrite was an understatement. Still, there was no denying he’d been a class A jerk. Snarling at him to never speak to her
ever
again was partly due to his shitty attitude, and also because she was having a hard time wrapping her mind around pretty much everything that happened between them.

Someone behind her cleared his throat. Really? Oh, for God’s sake,
someone
? That was the best she could do? She rolled her eyes at her own foolishness. Tori knew exactly who was trying to get her attention.

“Victoria,” he rumbled. The sound of his voice flowed over her senses like a soft shower of warm water.
Dammit.
Well
, she thought,
there’s nothing to do now except turn around and deal with him
. Throwing down her pen while shuffling a stack of notecards, Tori stood but took her damn sweet time responding to his presence.

The minute she faced him, she knew she was in over her head. There wasn’t enough anger or hurt in the known universe to distract from how handsome he looked. Even with several days’ growth on his face and a wardrobe choice that wrecked her thought process completely, no one had the right to look so gorgeous, or so dangerous. Dressed in head to toe black, he wore a t-shirt stretched taut across the spectacular abs she knew lurked underneath and a pair of black jeans that molded to his thighs like a second skin. She wasn’t sure if he was wearing the pants or if they were wearing him.

All that black highlighted his fair coloring and made the tattoo on one of his biceps stick out like a sore thumb. It also matched the dark scowl on his face, something she had but seconds to ponder before he leapt at her like a beast stalking its prey. Snatching the glasses from her face so quickly she flinched, he glared at her like she’d just committed the ultimate sin. Jabbing his finger at her he barked, “You said you wouldn’t do this anymore!” Two seconds later he snapped the frames in half and tossed the pieces on the floor.

Defensively crossing her arms across her chest she fixed him with a withering glare. The memory of him spanking her and demanding she never hide behind her clothes again played out in her mind. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Oh my God, was she insane for saying that? His ice blue eyes turned dark and stormy, pinning her to the spot.

“You know exactly what I’m referring to.” With each precise word he spit out, his expression turned more and more dangerous. He took a step toward her and if it weren’t for the desk right behind her, Tori would have retreated in haste. Whatever bravado she’d hoped to portray deserted her in a flash.

“Whoa, dude. What the fuck?” she heard Alex mutter darkly.

Draegyn’s head snapped around to his friend. “Stay out of this Alex.”

“Uh – yeah. I don’t think so. Tori are you okay?” Alex asked with obvious concern.

She felt like she was being held in a tractor beam with Draegyn’s dark gaze boring into hers. A devilish imp in her subconscious was urging her to keep on provoking him but common sense and her boss’s worried presence helped hold her tongue. Tearing her eyes away from Draegyn, she looked at Alex and feigned a calm smile. “It’s fine. Really.” She probably should have stopped at that but she didn’t. “Mr. St. John has a problem with how I dress….”

“What?” Alex boomed, turning an angry glower on Draegyn. “Please tell me you didn’t actually say that. Goddammit Drae.” The tension swirling around them went off the scale right then and there.

Snarling like a wounded animal, Draegyn suddenly grabbed her arm, forcefully pulling her toward him as if he intended to march her out of the room. “Leave it Alex. This is between Victoria and me.”

Tori struggled to free herself from his grasp although she knew it was a losing battle. Aware that Alex was moving to get in between them, she yelped, pretending distress, as if Draegyn’s grip was hurting her. Just as she knew he would, her outburst made him quickly drop her arm.

She glared at him and rubbed at her arm. “Um, sorry but, there is nothing between you and me.” Oddly, she didn’t feel much satisfaction at the harsh, sarcastic jibe.

“Drae,” Alex warned. “Back off.”

“No!” Turning dark eyes on her he hissed, “We’re going to settle this right now.”

“There’s nothing to settle, Mr. St. John.”

“Stop with the mister shit Victoria. You know damn well we have to talk. Now!” He made two mistakes right then. Trying to order her around and looking her up and down with an expression of disgust. “I mean, look at you! What the fuck are you wearing?” he swore.

Tori quietly considered the plain blue slacks and oversize sweater she had on and couldn’t hide from the accusation he’d hurled at her. She’d returned to type after their return from Vegas, dressing down and basically schlepping about like a fashion casualty. It had been too much for her to start dressing differently especially since the only reason she’d bothered in the first place was to shock the man shouting at her. Tears burned in her eyes.
Dammit.
She couldn’t afford to cry right now. With her emotions spiraling out of control from several days of no sleep and little food, it was all she could do to not kick him in his shins. Everything went to hell in the next heartbeat.

Alex stepped up and put his hand on Draegyn’s shoulder, muttering under his breath, earning a stern glare from his friend. When Draegyn went to snatch his arm away, Tori was standing close enough to get hit by the backlash as his elbow slammed into her chest, knocking her back a step. Then the yelling started as the two men went after each other, with Alex angrily chastising Draegyn’s actions, and Draegyn barking at him to mind his own fucking business.

She didn’t know why she did, but Tori took the excuse of the two men hollering angrily at one another to burst into tears and run frantically from the room, knocking over a chair in her urgent retreat. Somewhere in the commotion she’d also managed to squeak out an “I hate you!”
Shit.
This was turning into a banner day.

“What in the goddamn fuck is wrong with you?” Alex yelled.

Drae’s equilibrium was quickly unraveling. When he’d approached Victoria he wasn’t sure what would happen next, but at Alex’s urging he knew he had to try and diffuse their antagonistic situation. Other people were beginning to notice and comment on their odd behavior.

Whatever he’d planned to say flew out the window when she’d turned to face him and he got a good look at her. Fury blazed to life as he took in the ugly glasses and dowdy wardrobe. In
his
mind she’d promised not to dress like some spinster librarian anymore and finding her doing just that had enraged him. That and the unavoidable fact that he’d been longing to see her again. Be around her. Listen to her voice and drown in those chocolate eyes once more. Finding her in little brown mouse mode struck him as a
fuck you
, directed at him and him alone.

“I’ll tell you what the goddamn fuck is wrong with me! Those glasses,” he yelled pointing at the broken pieces on the floor, “are a joke! Did you know they were fake? She doesn’t even need them.” He was pacing back and forth like a caged animal looking for a victim or escape. Either would do. “And those clothes! Jesus Christ, Alex. You know that’s all bullshit, right?”

Alex was clearly furious with him and shouted, “So? What fucking difference does it make to you? Where do you get off acting like that, Drae? Shit. It’s not like you to make somebody cry.”

“I’ll tell you what difference it makes to me,” he bellowed. “She’s my goddamn…..”

Alex cut him off before he could finish the sentence. “Watch it buddy. You are stepping pretty far over the line.”

Drae raked his hand repeatedly back and forth across his head feeling like it was going to explode any minute. In the angry silence that followed he could feel Alex’s mind working over-time.

“Wait a goddamn minute,” Alex snarled with bared teeth. Two seconds passed then, “Oh my God!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “She’s your goddamn
what
, Drae? Holy fuckballs! What did you do?”

“Shit.”

“I’m waiting, Lieutenant,” his former commanding officer bit out. The reminder was meant to put him in his place, which it did quite effectively. Some habits die hard.

The two battlefield brothers stood silently, eyeing each other. Alex with his burly physique, barely containing his disapproval, ready to knock his fucking lights out and Drae, all restless, edgy energy and a guilty conscience as he fought for control before he made things worse. Throwing his hands up in surrender, Drae groaned, “Wife. She’s my wife.”

Alex’s jaw almost hit the floor. It would have been funny under different circumstances. He even blinked a few times and shook his head as he absorbed what Drae had just admitted. “Uh…”

“Yeah, exactly,” Drae muttered, shocked at how easily the word
wife
rolled off his tongue.

“You and Tori are
married
? When?” The dawning realization of when hit him before the question was fully out of his mouth. “Vegas?” At Drae’s shaky head nod, Alex blanched.

“In all honesty, we didn’t so much get married as we had a moment that many hours later revealed itself to have been a wedding ceremony.”

“Jesus Drae. I hope you never get called to testify for anything because that explanation sucked a bag of dicks. Want to try that again?”

“Look, it’s a long story and since it obviously involves Victoria, I don’t want to say any more. It’s partially her story to tell so let’s leave it at that.”

“Well, this explains a lot.” Alex glanced at the doorway that a crying Victoria had just exited from. “Does anyone else know?”

“Fuck no! Well, one person knows, I suppose. I called Ted Collins and asked him to look into the legalities and see about how to clean this mess up.”

“An annulment?”

Drae couldn’t believe the heated flush that worked its way from his feet to his face. When he winced and muttered an inelegant, “Uh”, Alex looked like he was going to throttle him.

“
Ah fuck
. You didn’t! Did you? Goddammit Drae.”

His world had become overrun with a series of firsts and an unending parade of uncharacteristic behavior since the moment Victoria had wandered into his life. Even so, he was surprised when all he could do was hang his head, not so much from mortification at what he’d done but because the truth was much deeper than that. He’d made love to Victoria. A couple of times and had not been able to diminish the impact of that or the way it made him feel, no matter how angry he’d been at what happened later. “I’m handling this, Alex,” he tried to explain.

“Really? From where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve pretty much lost your damn mind. If by handling it you mean holing up for days off the radar and then coming here and in five short minutes managing to assault an employee and make her cry, then yeah. You’re fucking handling it.” For good measure, Alex pointedly kicked at the broken glasses on the floor.

Drae honestly didn’t know what to say or do. Everything he’d ever thought about himself was suddenly no longer valid. With his legendary cool in tatters there didn’t seem to be much he could cling to as normal. Yelling at Victoria as she stood there with her chin in the air, daring him to mess with her, had not been one of his finer moments.

“One of us has to go and check on Tori. Make sure she’s not packing her stuff, or worse, plotting your murder.”

At the mention that she might up and run away from him, Drae tensed. He didn’t want her to leave, an admission that gave him uncharacteristic butterflies in his gut.
Fuck
. The woman was scarier than a whole team of bad guys. From his days on the battlefield to some of his agency assignments, he was used to feeling off the chart adrenaline. Kept him on his toes. This feeling however was wholly different. And he didn’t know how to deal with it.

“I’ll go find her.”

“Are you sure, man? Don’t want to get into your business Drae but maybe it would be better to let things settle down. She seemed pretty pissed off.”

What a mess. “Yeah, I know.”

“Alright. I’ll stay out of it for now, but know this,” his friend glowered at him. “I like Tori. Don’t fuck this up, Drae.”