Violet was lying straight to his face. Not only was she lying to him, she wouldn’t trust him with whatever line of crap Joel had threatened her with.
Just the guy I found in the washroom.
Bull.
She’d tried this deception already and their feelings for each other had known better, and had developed into love. He loved her. He damn well knew she loved him. But she didn’t trust him. She will never trust you. The admission stung his soul and every part of him that he’d opened for her.
When Ryder stepped toward Violet, he did it so fast she didn’t have the chance to retaliate. He wanted to kiss her. Only he wasn’t playing this game with her every time she got scared. Whether it be Joel or herself. If she couldn’t trust him, there was nothing left between them except lies.
He gripped one arm and pulled her body against him, so she couldn’t look away. Forced to look into his eyes and remember what she was letting go for her pride...and her fear.
“You’re throwing away the only person who will ever love you as completely and wholly as I do. I can’t pull you out of the shadows if you don’t want to leave. Cower here with your pride and your fear if that’s what you choose. But don’t tell me you are still in love with him and sure as hell don’t tell me that what we have is nothing more than a bathroom bang.”
Ryder watched her shadowed blue eyes register every last word and he thought...he hoped...maybe she would confide in him. Hoping this distrust would be the last, together they could conquer the world, or at the very least their hearts.
But then Violet iced her emotions. “If that’s what you have to tell yourself to accept what I’m saying, so be it.”
Ryder let Violet go. “You’re responsible for destroying your own happily ever after.”
Ryder walked away.
He couldn’t decide who he was angrier with, Violet or Joel. Joel for bringing up the distrust or Violet for not taking the plunge and stepping forward into their future.
Ryder couldn’t force Violet’s hand, but he sure as hell was going to put Joel in his place. That selfish son of a bitch was keeping them apart. For what? What reason? Because Violet was once his wife? A wife he never loved and treated worse than an enemy. Bullshit. It wasn’t acceptable. How dare Joel have his happily ever after and rip Violet’s away from her at the same time.
Ryder found Joel back inside the pavilion with his soon-to-be wife fretting over the red marks on his face that matched the red sheer ladybug wings sweeping across her back. Joel deserved worse. Much, much worse.
When Joel caught sight of Ryder, he smiled like he’d won. Won what? What are you after? Ryder sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
As Ryder approached, she turned toward him and the black spots across her nose and under her deeply black lined eyes, crinkled at Ryder’s expression. She was oblivious of the details conspiring between her fiancé, Ryder and Violet, but not of the face itself.
Control yourself. Get out of the public.
Ryder didn’t want to cause distress to Missy, and more so, he didn’t want to interrupt the guests at a party Violet’s family was hosting.
He stopped beside Joel and grabbed his arm, pulling his ear close to his head. “This goes one of two ways. I announce your kiss to Violet right here, right now in front of Missy or you man up and walk away with me.”
Damn coward.
Ryder honestly wasn’t sure what he would do, but the pansy manned up, kissed Missy’s cheek and excused them, leaving behind a baffled little ladybug.
They didn’t walk the distance back to the resort. Ryder stopped outside the pavilion.
“Listen, Ryder, I’m sorry−”
Ryder’s anger flared as he turned to face Joel and his first instinct was for his fist to make contact with his condescending smirk. “Cut the shit,” he said instead. “We haven’t really got the chance to talk about Violet privately.”
“I don’t really see that there’s anything to talk about. Whatever Violet told you, is likely not true. She paints a picture of her life in the form of what she wants others to perceive. She is more like her father than she knows.”
Ryder inhaled the beach air so deeply his lungs hurt.
Don’t punch him. Punch him square in the bloody jaw. The little shit deserves it.
“You don’t know a damn thing about her.”
The leer across Joel’s face fell. The frown added more age to his face. “And you do? What you’ve been sleeping with her a whole of a week? Two weeks? I was married to her for years.”
It wasn’t Joel’s business how long they’d been together and Ryder wasn’t satisfying that asshole by correcting him. Even if he wanted to tell Joel that Violet hides herself from the world because of Joel, at the same time, he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how his actions affected Violet.
“If that’s your perspective of Violet, then you only know her skin deep. That woman is so much more than the mask she wears around people she doesn’t trust.”
Joel’s jaw twitched at the insult. “Now, you’re an expert on my marriage?”
Ryder shrugged. “If that’s what you call a marriage.”
Joel’s hands fisted at his side.
Ryder narrowed his eyes at Joel.
Hit me once.
Ryder would take him down before he lifted either of those fists, and Joel knew it.
Joel freed his fists and exhaled the breath he’d been holding. Then his condescending smirk returned and Ryder had the urge to remove it.
“Blame me if you want. Maybe she realized you’re only skin deep.” Only because that’s what you told her.
“What did you say to her?”
“If you know her so well, go ask her yourself.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Because you don’t like her answer. Because she put her mask on and shut you out. Welcome to the world of Violet Caliendo.”
The way Joel said her name, mirroring the condescending way Ryder had said it to Violet’s face, revealed the source. Joel had been feeding Ryder bullshit about Violet from the day he married her. Why? What had he gained by fueling hatred between them?
Ryder was finished playing games with Joel. So many games. He didn’t care that guests lingered by the door in the distance. In three steps he had Joel pinned against the pavilion.
Joel’s sly laugh droned in Ryder’s ear.
“I will find out what you’re hiding,” Ryder said.
Joel laughed.
“If you hurt her, the next time we meet it won’t be a friendly tap against a wall.”
Joel glared at him. “This one’s not on me. It’s on you.” he said. “Besides the three of us, Robert was the only other one who knew and he took it to his grave.”
Knew what? Took what to his grave? What did Ryder, Joel and Violet have in common? Why would it be on Ryder?
“Took what to his grave?”
Joel shook his head. “Not my place to say.”
Ryder grinded his teeth together. He got his answer. Joel had said something on Violet, but while he thought it was a threat, he couldn’t be so sure. Joel was a constant liar, so maybe everything he was saying wasn’t even true. How could this possibly circulate around Ryder? What the hell was going on?
Ryder needed to talk to Violet again.
“Like I said, if I find out you hurt her, I’m coming after you.”
“Is that a threat?” Joel asked, sounding like a threat of his own. It fell short with Ryder. Beating the shit out of this slime and taking the consequences with the law wasn’t an issue with Ryder.
Ryder moved his face so close to Joel the tips of their noses brushed. “Yes,” he said through clenched teeth, then shoved Joel hard against the wall and walked away.
“Was it a cold chill between the legs?” Joel called after him.
Son of a bitch.
Ryder turned to find Joel brushing off
his outfit and pulling at the front of his shirt. Ryder barely took the whole scene in. There were only four large steps between them and Ryder’s fist landed where it had been begging all night.
“Explain that to your fiancé.”
Ryder left.
Finding Violet would prove to be unsuccessful, however Ryder knew one person who would know what the hell Joel was talking about: Eliza.