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Roux lifted an adorable designer purse and checked the price tag. Fifteen hundred pounds! Surely the decimal place was off. She did some quick mental math on the exchange rate—two thousand bucks. Who the hell would spend two thousand bucks on a purse? That was a mortgage payment on a nice house. She set the purse down carefully, afraid that if she scuffed it, she’d be forced to buy it.
“You could get that for yourself,” Raven said.
“And make payments on it for two years? No thanks.”
“Put it on Steve’s card. You know you want it. It’s so cute.”
Actually, no, she didn’t want the reminder that she was broke. It was bad enough that she couldn’t afford to buy him those socks he’d requested.
Maybe she could afford to add the bag’s adorable matching coin purse to her collection. She squinted at the tag, hoping to make the price smaller. Eighty pounds? For a fucking coin purse? Perhaps she should start collecting thimbles instead.
Iona, who was trying on hats as if she’d been invited to a royal wedding, reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “Google alert,” she announced. She had dozens of them set up so that she’d know what anyone was saying about the band or its members on the Internet. She’d been getting a lot of them over the past couple days as people who’d attended the Download Festival had been posting about them. There had been a few slurs, but most of the attention had been positive.
“Will you stop obsessing?” Azura tried to take her phone from her hand. “We’re supposed to be having fun as sisters today, not as bandmates.”
Iona’s eyes widened, and she glanced at Roux. Azura peeked at Iona’s phone over her shoulder. Her face also registered shock before she looked at Roux. Iona clutched her phone to her chest and took a deep breath before stuffing the device back into her purse.
“You’re right,” Iona said. “Play today, work tomorrow.”
“It was about me, wasn’t it?” Roux said, digging through her purse for her own phone. All she had to do was search for her name on Google and she’d get the same results that the alert had shown Iona.
Iona grabbed Roux by the shoulders and crammed a hat on her head. “This hat is perfect for you.” She forced Roux in front of the mirror and took her purse—the phone still inside—and handed it to Azura, who grabbed the nearest evening gown and made a beeline for the dressing room. Sage dashed after Azura while Iona, Raven, and Lily made a human wall around Roux to keep her in front of the mirror. The silly red hat with the feather shaped like a question mark was tugged from her head and replaced with a wide-brimmed black-checkered fedora. Roux knew her sisters well enough to know they were hiding something from her.
“I’m going to find out sooner or later,” she said, removing the hat and passing it Iona. “What did it say?”
“It’s not important,” Iona said, but she drew Roux into a tight hug and squeezed her as if one of her favorite shelter dogs had been adopted by a dog-fighting ring.
“Was it about me and Steve? We were expecting our relationship to go public.”
Iona crammed another hat on Roux’s head. Was she fighting tears?
“How bad can it be?” Roux said.
“That motherfucker!” Azura bellowed from inside the dressing room. “I’m going to rip his entrails out through his ball sac and strangle him with them.”
Roux’s stomach dropped. “That bad, huh?” She pushed Lily aside and marched toward the dressing room, not slowed at all by Raven, who had her arms around Roux’s waist and was trying to dig her feet into the carpet.
“The pictures are probably old,” Iona said, chasing after her. “From before he met you.”
Roux was trying not to jump to conclusions, but it sounded like what had her sisters so upset on her behalf was more about Steve than her. Roux checked under dressing room doors until she found the pairs of feet that belonged to Azura and Sage. She tried the knob, but the door was locked.
“Open this door and give me my damn phone!” Roux demanded, pounding on the door with her palm.
“That gown looks lovely on you,” Sage said to Azura, as if Azura’s outburst had never happened and Roux wasn’t now trying to rip the door off its hinges.
“Roux,” Iona said in her most calming alpha-bitch voice. “Let’s go back to the hotel and we’ll discuss this in private.”
“Are you worried that I’ll make a scene?” Roux spat, dropping to the floor and lying flat on her belly, squirming under the dressing room door. She got stuck when her butt—always too round, in her opinion—caught on the bottom of the door. “Oh, I’m about to make a fucking scene. Give me my damn phone!” She reached out and caught Azura around the ankle, trying to pull her down to her level. Her shoulder protested at the angle of her arm, but Roux refused to let a little pain stop her from getting her phone and finding out what had everyone so freaked out.
“Sage,” Lily said calmly. “Unlock the door before she hurts herself.”
The door latch clicked, and the bottom of the door scraped across Roux’s back, forcing her to lie flat until she’d been freed. Lily helped her stand, and even though Roux didn’t know exactly what all the drama was about, she could feel tears building inside her. Instead of directing her out of the store, Lily eased her into the dressing room. Raven and Iona squeezed in behind them and shuffled close so they could shut the door. Six grown women in a dressing room stall didn’t offer much breathing room.
“Iona,” Lily said, “tell her what to expect before we show her.”
“I . . .” Iona sucked in a breath. “I don’t want to.”
“Steve,” Azura blurted. “He’s with some other chick. They’re both naked and . . . and doing stuff.”
Oh, was that all? Did they think she’d freak out over pictures of Steve’s past lovers?
“I know he’s been with other women,” Roux said, taking deep breaths to calm her frayed nerves. “He is Steve Aimes, notorious womanizer.”
“You’re okay with him screwing around on you?” Azura blurted.
“Not cool, Roux,” Iona said. “You deserve better.”
“He wouldn’t screw around on me. I mean I know that before we . . . got together . . . that he used to be with other women. A lot of other women, but now?”
“This was two days ago, dummy,” Azura said. “Are you still okay with it?”
Roux’s knees buckled, but Raven caught her to keep her from sinking to the floor.
“Not possible,” she said. “I was with him almost all day. He couldn’t have . . .” But how long would it take for Steve to find a woman willing to fuck him? Ten minutes? Ten seconds? “Let me see.”
“Maybe now isn’t the best time,” Lily said, massaging Roux’s shoulders in what she probably thought was a soothing manner, but which scraped Roux’s already raw nerves until she wanted to climb out of her own skin.
“Let me see!” Roux demanded.
Once she saw, she wished she hadn’t.
The room in the background was very familiar. She’d slept in it the night before, after all. The man sprawled naked across the bed was also very familiar. She happened to know his body as well as her own. The woman with his cock down her throat wasn’t Roux, however. Roux couldn’t see dick-sucking bitch’s face clearly, because the majority of her image had been cropped out of the picture and the camera angle was terrible. The next picture—yes, there was more than one—showed the woman rubbing Steve’s cock against her gaping pussy.
“Oh my God,” Raven gasped.
The next showed the woman with her tit in Steve’s mouth.
“He is going to pay,” Azura growled. “No one treats one of my sisters like this. I hope he fucking enjoyed that repulsive dick of his while it was still attached to his body.”
Azura squirmed her way through their tight huddle and forced the door open. Iona caught her before she could escape.
“Roux decides how we proceed,” Iona said. “Not you.”
Roux decides . . .
The next picture showed the woman straddling Steve’s hips—their bodies undoubtedly joined. She was holding her breasts as she fucked him. The tattoo on the woman’s forearm caught Roux’s attention. She didn’t have to see her face to know who it was.
“It’s . . . it’s T-T-Tamara,” she said, her tight throat strangling her.
“What?” Iona spat.
“The journalist?” Raven asked, her voice squeaking. “Steve’s sister-in-law? The woman he supposedly hates? That Tamara?”
Roux nodded and handed the phone to the nearest hand, unable to force herself to look at another image. “I recognize her tattoo.”
“Maybe she photoshopped herself on him,” Sage said quietly.
Roux tried to cling to that possibility, but how would Tamara have pictures of him naked in that particular room in order to doctor dirty pictures in the first place?
“I need to talk to him,” Roux said, shoving everyone out of her way and stumbling out of the hot and stuffy dressing room. She rushed forward, running toward the exit. They hadn’t made it too far from the bar where she’d left him behind. There was no sense in her wondering what had happened when she could ask the son of a bitch herself. Her sisters caught up with her quickly, some trying to stop her, others offering support. She was so blinded by fury and hurt that she wasn’t even sure what was being said to her, who was holding her hand, who squeezed her shoulder, patted her back. Roux burst through the front door of the bar and several patrons glanced up from their drinks in surprise. A quick look around told her that Steve was no longer there.
“Can I help you?” the bartender asked.
“There were four men in here earlier,” she said. “Long-haired. Tattooed. Did you see where they went?”
“Sorry, luv. I just started my shift.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far,” Lily said. “I’ll call Jack and ask where they are now.”
“No,” Roux said. “I don’t want Steve forewarned.” She figured he’d be more likely to tell her the truth if he didn’t have time to fabricate lies.
“Maybe we should spread out a little,” Azura said. “The first one to find him gets to kick him in the nuts.”
Iona crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw set in a harsh line. “I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”
“He’ll still be able to talk,” Azura said. “He’ll just be doing it as a soprano.”
Sage and Azura headed across the street to check the pubs there. Iona and Lily went back the way they came, and Roux headed farther up the street with Raven trying to keep up.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Raven said. “Why would he do that with her? He hates her.”
Supposedly. It sure didn’t look like he hated Tamara when they were alone together. Roux squeezed her eyes shut, trying to erase the vile images from her mind, but it was no use. If anything, the pictures of him with that odious bitch became even more vivid when Roux’s eyes were closed.
Roux entered the next bar. The guys weren’t there, but the bartender remembered them. They were headed in the right direction. Unless they’d chosen a chaotic path. Maybe she should have allowed Lily to contact Jack. This hunt could be a huge waste of time. The next bar was also Steve-free, but he’d been in that one too.
“They must be chugging their drinks,” Raven said, scurrying behind Roux as she marched toward the next bar.
Roux’s anger wasn’t cooling. The longer she looked for him, the more enraged she became.
They must be getting close; there was a hell of a loud party going on in a bar up the street.
“What am I going to say to him?” Roux asked Raven, struck suddenly with overwhelming emotion. She couldn’t allow herself cry in front of him. Cheating assholes weren’t worth a single tear.
“I wouldn’t say anything,” Raven said. “Let him talk himself into the deep hole he belongs in. He knows what he did. He just didn’t think you’d find out.”
Roux stopped walking a couple of doors down from the pub and squeezed her bullet in her hand. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and another to steel them.
“Why would she post those pictures online?” Roux said, her anger cooling long enough to allow her more logical side a moment to ponder.
“Bragging rights,” Raven said.
Roux’s eyes narrowed. “That does sound like her.”
“And she probably wants you guys to break up.”
“I hate to give her what she wants,” Roux said, her heart twisting. She loved Steve; that hadn’t changed. But could she forgive him for this? If it had been any other woman in the world, maybe. But Tamara? Argh! How could he?
Raven squeezed her hand. “Are you ready? I’ve got your back. But if you want to call our sisters and wait for them, we can hang here on the sidewalk until they get here.”
Extra backup would be nice, but Roux was already losing her nerve. She’d never been able to hold on to rage for long.
“Show me the pictures again,” she said, waving a hand toward Raven’s purse. She wasn’t sure where hers had gone. Hopefully one of her sisters had it.
Raven took a step back. “What?”
“Show me!”
“I don’t think—”
“I’m not all that pissed off anymore, and if I go in there now—”
“You’re going to cave the second he melts you with those eyes of his. Okay, I get it.”
Raven unlocked her phone’s screen and after locating the pictures, made gagging noises and handed the phone to Roux. Roux tried looking at the images objectively. Now that the shock had worn off a bit, maybe she’d see something in the pictures that she could use against him. Honestly, she was looking for something to excuse him, but it was all there clear as day. He had fucked Tamara, and later that very same night, he’d fucked Roux. There weren’t enough condoms in the world to block that cross contamination.
Roux growled, her anger fully restored, and rushed into the open door of the bar. She scanned the room for Steve, and though she saw dozens of familiar faces, she couldn’t locate the one she was looking for.
“Hey!” Logan shouted. “Glad you joined us.” He shoved a glass of amber liquid into her hand. “You look like you could use a drink.”
Agreeing for the first time in her life, she chugged the liquor, the alcohol burning down her throat like fire.
“Where’s Steve?” Raven asked, yelling over the noise. She took the empty glass from Roux’s trembling fingers and set it on a nearby table.
“He was here a few minutes ago.” Logan glanced around. “Maybe he’s in the bathroom.”
Raven stood on tiptoe and searched the pub. “I’ll go check.” She rushed off in the direction of the clearly marked restroom.
“You want another drink?” Logan asked.
Not understanding what had gotten into her, Roux nodded. She’d liked the taste of that last drink, and she really liked the dizziness that had rushed to her head, and even enjoyed the heat that flushed her skin. She was on her third whiskey when Raven returned.
“He’s not in the bathroom,” Raven said. She stared pointedly at the nearly empty glass in Roux’s hand. “Are you drinking?”
“So?”
“I thought . . .” Raven tried to take the drink out of her hand, but Roux swallowed it down to protect it from thievery. “Roux, you don’t drink.”
“I can drink if I want to drink!” She shoved Raven out of her way and headed for the bar. What she needed was more drinks, not fewer.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t drink,” Raven said when she caught up to Roux. “I said you don’t drink.”
“Yeah, well, people change.” Roux’s face was numb, and her tongue felt strangely thick, but it didn’t get in the way of her swallowing another whiskey. Why had she sworn off alcohol? This stuff was great. She ordered another.
“Take it easy,” Raven said, trying to take the glass from Roux’s hand. “How many have you had?”
“Not enough.”
“You’re not used to drinking.”
“So?”
“So you don’t know your limit.”
“Don’t . . .” What was the word she was looking for? “Don’t . . . tell . . .”
“Don’t tell you what to do? Is that what you’re too drunk to say?”
Roux nodded, the sudden motion making her head swim. She pressed her hand to her face and tried to wipe the numbness away, but she couldn’t feel anything—inside or out—and that was a blessing.
Someone entered the pub, and she perked up, hoping it was Steve—she so wanted to see him even if she couldn’t remember why—but it was just Lily and right behind her, Iona. A flash of burgundy in the corner near the door drew Roux’s attention. Her breath caught. Tamara was here. Tamara was smirking at her. Tamara had touched him. Had fucked him.
An uncontrollable rage filled Roux’s entire body. She rose to her feet, both fists raised, and shouldered her way through the crowd. She was going to fucking kill that whore.