Honey Read Free Page B

pillows on the loveseat and bed plumped and prettily arranged—and the single malt sitting out on the bar amidst freshly washed Lalique cut-crystal glasses.
    â€œDon’t darling me, you fucking cunt,” he spat, closing in on her, the liquor on his breath combining with fear to flip her stomach. “I know when I’m being bullshitted. It’s my business to know.”
    She shook her head, vehement in her denial, frightened and yet furious at the unfairness of it all, that she was once again being falsely accused and punished for something she’d never come close to doing. Times like this carried her back to Omaha, to her stepfather, Sam, with his beer breath and blow-dealing backhand. No matter how closely she watched, searching for warning signs, that flying fist had always managed to appear as if out of nowhere. If she lived to be one hundred, she’d never understand how such a big, sloppy man had managed to move so swiftly.
    Drew wasn’t big or sloppy. Even wasted, he had a fencer’s light-footed grace. Despite his regular drinking and more than occasional cocaine use, he somehow managed to stay in shape, sweating out his hangovers in workouts with his personal trainer.
    She let out a manufactured laugh, mostly to hide how frightened she was. “Drew, darling, please, you’re being perfectly silly. In six years I haven’t so much as looked at another man.”
    Honey paused, momentarily pulled back to the present. Had she really said that just last night? The testimony, true at the time, was true no more. With his tall, broad-shouldered body, closely cropped dark hair, mocha-colored complexion, and thickly lashed hazel eyes that seemed to see straight through her, the ER doctor who’d patched her up was nothing if not easy on the eyes, even if, in her case, she’d only had the one able to open. Firm yet softly spoken, caring yet exuding an aura of command, he struck her as the polar opposite of Drew. The contrast carried her back to the previous night’s argument-cum-fight.
    Drew answered her heartfelt declaration with a disbelieving snort. “It’s not the looking I’m worried about.”
    â€œThen what are you worried about?” she asked, gingerly taking a step toward him, for a split second thinking that, this once, she might smooth things over before everything fell to pieces. “I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me, and I never will.”
    The lips she once hadn’t been able to get enough of kissing curled into a sneer. “You’re forgetting how we met,” he said, flinging her away from him.
    Before last night, his booze-fueled fury hadn’t taken them beyond bruising, the marks sufficiently noticeable to call for wearing elbow-high evening gloves and long sleeves no matter the season or time of day. But until now, he’d never hurt her so badly that she couldn’t camouflage the aftermath with clothing and makeup, so badly that she needed to go to the hospital. Until now he’d never actually broken—fractured—anything, at least not beyond her heart, which felt as if it must be sutured and scarred, callused and numbed, only not quite numb enough.
    Blaring from the house buzzer bumped her out of her morbid musings. Her heart rate ratcheted. Drew, back so soon! But no, he would never buzz into their—his—apartment, not even if he’d forgotten his key. A spare was kept at all times by the doorman. If Drew wanted in, he only needed to walk up to the lobby desk and have Freddie, Carlos, or Joey turn it over. Even if the neighbors had called the building superintendent to complain of the noise from their arguing—again—the hefty holiday tips Drew doled out to the building staff assured blind eyes and deaf ears year-round.
    She reached out and pressed the intercom button, her hand, like the rest of her, shaking. “Y-yes?”
    Joey’s Queens-accented voice cut