Page 44 of After Hours
The only time Zachary saw her pause was when she opened up the door and took what sounded like a steadying sort of breath before she stepped over the threshold. He settled his hand at the nape of her neck and that seemed to help. She smiled up at him. Then she led the way inside.
Romily walked through the house, looking around as she went. Her frown grew more and more pronounced as she led him up the narrow stairs to the second floor and then into the bedroom. Once there, she turned in a circle. She was shaking her head as she walked to the closet—and actually slammed it shut again when she opened it.
“This is so creepy,” she managed to say, looking… not panicked, exactly. Just a little freaked. “I left over a year ago. And he hasn’t changed a thing.Not one thing,Zachary.”
So the dude was a psycho as well as a creep and a coward, who liked to beat up women. Noted.
“We can psychoanalyze him later,” Zachary told her gruffly. “Let’s get what you need to get out of here.”
The next hour, that was what they did. They loaded everything up, everything and anything that she thought was worth keeping, and they packed it away in his car.
And Zachary was kind of enjoying the idea of the loser coming back home from his day or performatively blocking traffic in spandex and discovering that Romily had come and gone. Seemed kind of fitting.
But they weren’t that lucky.
They had just locked up the house and returned the key to its place when Romily stiffened, then nodded over her shoulder.
Zachary turned, immediately on high alert. He watched the guy who came cycling in hot, and then threw himself off his obviously fancy bike. He let the bike itself fall into the grass, which, given the small sound that Romily made, was unusual.
But Zachary was assessing the other man, looking for hidden weapons—because otherwise, the dude was stringy and laughable. Zachary could break him in half without even exerting himself.
The conversation would change if Joseph was carrying, but as far as Zachary could tell—and this particular skill was one he took seriously and was good at because he had to be—he wasn’t. There was too much spandex.
Zachary doubted very much that the man had lifted anything heavier than his ego in his life.
“I knew you’d come crawling back,” Joseph said, his gaze fixed on Romily like Zachary wasn’t even there.
That was fine with Zachary. He had time to notice the important things. Like the fact that Joseph was not only scrawny, but short. Or short compared to him, anyway.
And even more important, Romily did not cower. She looked confused for a moment, and then she stared at Joseph as if she barely recognized him.
Zachary figured it was probably the opposite. He could see the way that Joseph was noting the differences in Romily. All that smooth, lean muscle she’d built, for one thing. Her shoulders weren’t stooped and hunched anymore. She wasn’t skinny and frail.
Not one part of her looked haunted.
“I see all your running and hiding hasn’t agreed with you much,” Joseph continued in that same too-intimate, half-sneering way that made Zachary want to beat the man with his own bike. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you work on getting that weight back down. A trim body is important, Romily. How many times have I told you that?”
“I’ve moved all my things out,” Romily told him in an admirably neutral tone. “And I’m filing for divorce.”
“You and I both know that’s never going to happen,” Joseph said, shaking his head like he pitied Romily . “I won’t allow it.”
“Hey. Buddy.” Zachary shook his head, standing there on the step below Romily and still taller than her. “The days of anyone giving a shit what you allow or don’t allow are long over.”
But the guy didn’t move his gaze from Romily. It was like he didn’t hear Zachary. Like he didn’t see the massive stranger standing at his front door, clearly capable of ripping him to pieces. It was almost impressive.
“What are you thinking, Romily?” Joseph asked softly. “Showing up at our house with this person?”
“The thing is, you’re so much scarier in retrospect.” Romily stared right back at Joseph, holding his gaze in a way that Zachary could tell the other man didn’t like. “Because standing here right now, looking at you again, I don’t have the slightest idea why I ever found you anything but sad.”
Joseph didn’t like that. He took a quick step or two in their direction, but Zachary moved even more fully in front of Romily.Then he folded his arms, and watched as Mr. White Bread got a good look at all his tattoos and all the muscles they adorned.
“This isn’t going to go the way you think it is,” Zachary told him, matter-of-factly. “I get that you’re the kind of douchebag who gets off on beating up a woman whose smaller and weaker than you. Two things about that. One, Romily is neither small nor weak. She could kick your ass right now if she felt like it, and honestly? I’d cheer her on. But two, and more imminently threatening to you, is me.”
“You’re threatening me?” Joseph looked at Zachary then, as if he’d won something. “Fascinating. You look like a criminal. I don’t think anyone in this neighborhood wants criminals wandering around. All I have to do is make one call you’ll be hauled away.” He looked back at Romily. “And then we can see how tough you are, my darling wife.”
“Yeah,” Romily said with a laugh as Zachary gathered himself, prepared to handle this. “None of that is going to happen.”
And then, to Zachary’s astonishment, as Joseph took another step closer to them Romily went and placed her body in between the two men.
