She doesn’t come back right away, but I hear the door so I go greet the bastard so he doesn’t meet my woman first. As I get to the entrance, that’s when a woman I don’t recognize enters the workshop, and she’s dressed inappropriately for the weather and the shop.
A grumble comes from me because I have a feeling shit is about to go down. The look in her eyes is full of deceit and calculation. She quickly adjusts it when I say, “Pardon me, ma’am. How can I help you?”
“Excuse me, handsome, but my car broke down just down the road and I need a tow.”
“Why didn’t you call for one?” I question. Something about her feels like a fucking set-up, and a sense of unease washes over me.
She tilts her head and then pulls out her cell before she waves her phone at me. “It’s dead. I guess I’m just having all around bad luck,” she mutters, smiling at me with too many teeth. I nod and then I whistle—two heads lift up from the vehicles they’re working on.
When they step over to us, they wait for my direction. “Hey, Petrol, Tommy. This lady…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“It’s Mackenzie,” she says with a purr, attempting to flirt with me as she refuses to even look at the other two. I do my best to hold back the vomit in my throat. I’d been happy to have lunch with Vivian; now I regretted it as I felt it coming back up.
“No offense, pretty lady, but you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Tommy says with a chuckle behind his gloved hand.
“Why? He’s clearly not married.” She looks right at my hand, smirking with a brow raised.
“Should have tried another name. Where did you get that one from?” Petrol asks.
“Because that’s his mom’s name,” my mother huffs, crossing her arms. Seeing my mother only makes the situation wilder. This woman is playing a stupid game.
A barking laugh comes from behind me, and I already know it’s my father. “Nice try, little girl, but flirting with a man and then using his mother’s name isn’t the best idea, and we know damn well that’s not your name.”
“Hey, Pops,” my brother says, walking into the shop.
“You,” she hisses.
“You know her?” I ask them.
“Yes, she’s from Colorado. She’s the one who lied to Viv about being with you that night. Then, she had to take it back, otherwise she would have seen who ran you over.” I remember hearing something like that from the police when they were questioning me, but since I had no memory, they dropped it. This was the woman at the center of it all. A deep rumble starts to build in my chest as my temper elevates, but I’m interrupted by Trouble.
“Bitch,” Vivian hisses behind my brother, who reaches out and holds her back. The thought of my brother’s hands onmy Vivian sets my teeth on edge. Every single day, I fight this insatiable attraction to Vivian that I can’t describe.
I stare at my brother’s hands, and he visibly recoils, loosening up his grip, but then Vivian practically pounces, forcing my brother to react. My thoughts go haywire when Vivian’s in the vicinity.
“Calm down, Viv. He’s not interested,” he whispers. She’s going to get his ass beat when I get better, and he can almost feel it with the way he cracks his neck.
Damn right, I’m not interested, and I want this woman out of my family shop before I have her thrown out. “Take her back to her broken-down vehicle and see her on her way, please,” I say.
I turn to the woman and say, “And ma’am, stay out of Steeleville. We don’t need your kind here.”
“What does that mean?” she says with a gasp, as if she’s offended, but I don’t give a damn. I’m already annoyed with the situation with Vivian, and now this woman from Vail is here to cause problems.
“No lying whores,” Vivian answers, pushing against my brother’s back, making me so fucking blind with jealous rage. It’s foolish, but I should be the only one to touch her.
“Trouble,” I snarl, getting more and more pissed that she’s in my brother’s arms. I need to get to her, but then she lets me have it.
“Oh, so this is a fucking repeat. She shows up, and suddenly it’s back to the old fucking Simon.” The vitriol coming from Vivian’s beautiful lips takes me by surprise. This woman must be the reason she is mad at me.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, needing to know what happened. There is no damn way I betrayed my woman. No way in hell.
“She’s just jealous of us.” With everyone around, this girl is doubling down on her bullshit after she made up a fake name. The dumb bitch has no idea how close Vivian is from going insane, and how close I am from letting her loose. I won’t hit a woman, but I’m not afraid to send a Steele Rider bride after one.
“She has nothing to be jealous of. I don’t know you.”
“You still don’t remember me or that night. Me leaving your bedroom, the hotel shower.” Guilt floods me as a dream of me pinning Vivian to the hotel room door in a towel surfaces in my mind. Could I have mistaken the dream for a memory? No. I Googled the resort, and that is their room, but I wouldn’t cross the line with Vivian, and I sure as hell wouldn’t touch a stranger.
“So, you do remember her?” Vivian mistakes my guilt and snaps. “I was right the first fucking time.” Right the first time? She shoves my brother away and rushes upstairs to the office, slamming the door behind her.
