Witching Tree (Alice Gray Book 1)

9

Stephen.

My ex.

The man who I'd loved for four years before he left without an explanation.

I fought the urge to smooth down my clothes. Instead I straightened up, took a couple of steps into the room, and met his eyes dead on. Stephen stared back, anger twisting his face. Emily was with him, she looked bored.

Did they know each other?

The silence grew. I'd be damned if I was going to speak. This was my apartment, and I did not have to explain my own presence in it.

I waited.

Stephen finally tore his angry gaze away from me and looked at Emily.

"Well, you've been doing your job well," he said, an unpleasant edge of sarcasm in his voice. He gestured rudely to my dishevelled appearance.

"Not as well as you did yours, granted. I told you about the break-in, and I also filled you in on what was happening between them," Emily calmly replied, gesturing to Evan, who had just appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.

Evan lent casually against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, completely unperturbed by the angry man staring daggers at him.

"I told you they would not be able to leave her be!" Stephen seethed.

"Look, there was only so much I could do under the circumstances. I didn't have as extensive a remit as you had, remember," Emily replied sharply.

"Stephen, I don't know what the hell is going on here," I said, looking between him and Emily. "But, I've got enough to deal with, without you being here as well. Just tell me what you want and leave."

Stephen turned to me. "Yes, I can see you've had your hands full."

He looked Evan over with open disdain. Evan took a step forward, responding to the insult.

"You heard the lady," Evan said, his voice low and quiet. A shiver ran down my spine at the danger in his tone.

"Lady?" Stephen scoffed, his face twisted into an ugly sneer.

His insult barely registered. Something was happening in me, some reaction to the anger that charged the air around us. There was only one direction that this confrontation was going, and the heady pressure of the coming chaos thrilled through me, leaving energy in its wake.

A vague spark of clarity pinged through the haze, telling me how wrong all this was. I shook out my shoulders and arms to dispel the craving for violence building in me. What the hell was wrong with me? I'm a freaking pacifist.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Emily, stamped her foot in a surprisingly childish gesture. "You two, just get out."

Turning to me, she said sharply, "you and I need to have a chat."

Stephen started to protest, but Emily gave him a dark look. He turned and sped out, taking with him all that delicious testosterone fuelled tension.

My eyes followed him as my body adjusted to the loss of the energy that had been lighting me up from the inside. When a door slammed somewhere below, I sagged against the dismantled armchair in the middle of the room, empty and cold when I should have been glad that the fight had been averted.

"Are you ok? I can stay with you if you'd like?" Evan took my hands, a look of concern spread over his face as he misinterpreted my reaction as grief over Stephen's insults.

Shame filled the hole inside me. I really didn't want Evan to think I was the type of girl that got off on having men fight over me. I really didn't want to be that girl.

"No, I can handle it," I said, even though I had no idea what 'it' was.

"Ok, you know where I am if you need me," Evan reached for my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

A buzz of warmth reminded me of where we'd been before getting interrupted. My eyes flicked to his, to find the heat of the memory reflected back at me.

A loud and intentionally indiscreet cough erupted from the direction that Emily waited, killing the moment before it could build into anything more than a dull ache of longing that had yet to be sated.

As Evan walked to the door, my eyes lingered on the strong muscles moving under the thin fabric of his worn out old t-shirt. A wistful sigh followed his progress.

"Maybe we can continue this later," he said from the door, with a wink and a grin.

Blushing, I glanced over to Emily to catch her rolling her eyes.

Emily's bored grimace was like a bucket of cold water. The shimmer of disgust in her eyes told me that I might have gotten away with it with Evan, but somebody knew my secret.

Emily had seen it all. She knew that I'd enjoyed the display between the men a little too much, and she wasn't impressed.

Her judgement snapped me right back to the present. There were things going on here that I needed to understand, and Evan was a distraction that I didn't need right now.

I'd almost forgotten to question why the hell Stephen was back in my life. And what his connection was to Emily.

What right did she have to judge me?

"Ready?" I snapped, not willing to spend another minute under her scrutiny without the answers that I was owed.

Thanks for staying with me so far! Hope you're enjoying Alice's story. Don't forget to vote if you like it, and if you don't, comment and tell me why (be kind though, let's keep this a happy place).