“Hey, I’m Emily. Are you ready to or—” Her eyes swept the table and stopped on Lachlan. They went impossibly wide and incredibly bright. “Lachlan! I didn’t know you were coming in.”
“Em.” He inclined his chin. “We’re ready to order.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks went red as she scrambled to hold on to her pen. “Of course. I was just…surprised. It’s been a little while, but that’s okay, you’re here now, and that’s great.”
As she stood there taking orders, inching closer and closer to Lachlan, her cheeks burned brighter. She kept casting him furtive glances, and when everyone had ordered, she touched his shoulder, whispering how happy she was to see him.
It was obvious to me, and probably everyone at the table, he had fucked her. Maybe he was still fucking her.
No one asked him. He was Lock, the impenetrable wall. If he wanted us to know something, he’d tell us. Otherwise, it was his.
I ripped my hand out from under his and placed it on the table. Jealousy surged from the black pit within me to the surface. It put me on edge with the desire to destroy. If he didn’t leave me be, he’d be my first victim.
I took a long drink of my water, crunching a mouthful of ice. Conversation went on around me, but I was numb to it. My mind was too busy scheming, forming ideas of ways to hurt Lachlan, to humiliate poor, blushing Emily.
I could trip her, make her spill a tray of drinks.
Tell her manager I saw her spit in my food.
Inform her her preciousLachlanwas fucking me too.
I could ruin her—I almost craved it—I didn’t even know her.
“Elsa,” Lachlan said under his breath. “I can hear you thinking. Stop.”
I crunched on my ice and schemed. It was the only way I could stop myself from succumbing to the evil. While part of me wanted to lash out, a bigger part of me hated that this feeling still thrived in me.
I wasn’t a kid anymore. I could feel this without acting. Besides, Lachlan wasn’t mine, so why did it matter that he’d brought us to a restaurant where one of his hookups worked? It didn’t. It was none of my business.
All my ice was gone, and the tension emanating from the giant beside me—who seemed insistent on keeping his bicep pressed against me—was too much for me to bear for even a second longer.
“Let me out,” I said lowly.
“Don’t,” he murmured.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said loud enough for the table to hear. “Please, let me out before I piss myself.”
“Such a lady,” Helen teased.
“Why thank you,” I replied. “I think Lock must enjoy golden showers since he won’t let me out to go to the bathroom.”
That got him moving, grumbling in protest as he slid out of the booth. I made a break for it as soon as I was free, striding through the diner to the alcove where the restrooms were. I stayed in the ladies’ room as long as I dared, fixing my hair and rubbing some of the sand out of my hairline. My mom wouldn’t approve of me being out in public after gettingdirtyat the beach, but she wasn’t here, and I looked cute.
Cuter than Emily.
Gah! Why was my brain such a damn twat?
I pulled open the door to leave the bathroom and almost ran smack into the object of my cat-scratch jealousy. Emily was standing just outside the alcove, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Hey.” She shot me a smile. Her cheeks were still rosy, and only deepened as I took her in. She had nice tits. Bigger than mine, for sure. I bet he liked them, the asshole.
“Hi.”
“So, you’re friends with Lachlan?”
That was it. I was never calling him Lachlan again. She could have the name.
“I know him,” I said.