I had no words for the audacity of this vile excuse of a man, and the fact I’d once been close to him, now I’d experienced a real man like Henry, made my skin crawl.
“What do you say?” Rob asked, his smarmy grin obvious even without being able to see him. The imprint of his untameable ego would forever be a scar upon my brain.
Rob thought he had this in the bag.
I just didn’t have the adequate words to tell him what I really, truly thought of him now, and even though I wanted toencourage Rob to take a one-way trip to Hell on my behalf, I couldn’t find my voice.
But then Henry carefully took the phone from me without warning, pressed it to his ear, and in a deep yet calm voice, said, “Rob, I believe?”
Three words spoken in a tone I’d never heard him use told me everything I needed to know about the side of Henry I’d been most curious about. The side of him that liked to fight for fun. The side that volunteered to handle the kind of people the rest of us would do our best to avoid.
“Yeah, and who the fuck is this?” Rob snapped. “Where’s Phoebe gone?”
“Your concern for Phoebe’s whereabouts or who she keeps in her company is no longer any of your business.”
“Says who?”
“Me,” Henry replied as his eyes met mine. “The boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. I liked—no,loved—the sound of that falling from his lips, and I couldn’t stop the smile that erupted from me as I took him in, a little beat up now, but still so goddamn perfect. Almost too perfect.
“Boyfriend?” Rob scoffed. “Is this a joke?”
“I never play around when it comes to my girl, I assure you.”
Rob’s lingering silence spoke volumes, and I imagined his face, no doubt like thunder now. I only wished I could have been there to see it for myself.
“I’m going to take your lack of response as you understanding several things at once here, Rob,” Henry went on. “Which, if you did, congratulations. You’re not as stupid as I imagined you to be. But… just in case your IQ can’t comprehend the meaning of my intervention, let me spell those things out for you. One, Phoebe is no longer your concern in any way, shape, or form. The use of us, we, or anything that intimates you are hers or she is yours ends here. Two, she blocked your numberfor many reasons, the main one being that you’re a snivelling excuse for a man, and the very thought of you repulses her to her core now. Probably because she’s seen how a real man treats his woman. That’s me, by the way. You know. The boyfriend. Three?—”
“Just you hold on a minute?—”
“Three,” Henry repeated firmly, cutting him off. “You ever call my girl ‘baby’ or buy a single fucking tulip in her name again, and I won’t just be the anonymous boyfriend to you. I’ll be a name and face you won’t be able to forget in a hurry.”
His defence of me turned my legs to jelly, and I couldn’t look away as heat grew within me for a whole new reason entirely, washing out the rage to replace it with a love that had me burning for him and only him. Henry had once been a man of very few words, but now? Now, he couldn’t seem to stop making me fall harder and faster for him every time he opened his mouth.
“Four,” Henry said calmly. “And this is the most important one, Rob, so make sure you’re really hearing me this time, okay?” He placed his free hand on my cheek and leaned in closer. “Not only do you need to delete Phoebe’s number from any of the multiple phones you have, but you need to delete all your memories of her, too. She’s mine now, and I don’t share what’s precious to me, especially not with spineless little pricks like you who didn’t know what you had until you threw it away for a cheap thrill.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m the guy in the photograph who’s been bugging you so much all week. The one she loves now.”
I did love him. More than he knew.
Rob scoffed again, but it was all bravado, the quiver to his breath too obvious to miss. “She’s been gone two weeks. You expect me to believe?—"
“That someone better came along and gave her everything you couldn’t? That’s exactly what I expect you to believe. I also expect you to take my warnings extremely seriously. I’m not the kind of guy who likes having to explain things twice.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Yes,” Henry said flatly.
A last ditched burst of audacity left Rob in a half-hearted puff of air. “And if I don’t listen?”
“I’m ready when you are.”
Rob’s silence became deafening again, the only thing either of us could hear being his ragged breathing down the line. A raging bull had nothing on my ex right now, only he didn’t have the muscle or the nerve to back it all up. He’d always been spineless, and nothing would ever change on that front.
“Whatever.” Without another word, Rob ended the call, and Henry’s amusement shone back at me as he lowered the phone down between us.
