Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
But if he was this pushy and rude with me, how would he be with other people? Did he try and bulldoze them too? Something told me this wasn’t anything new. He was too good at it.
Dominic took another step closer. “Do you know who the fuck you’re talking to?”
I had my head tipped back to keep making eye contact. Anger pulsed deep in my stomach, and my magic flared again in me, reminding me of the part of it that was always there. You don’t need to take this shit, Matti would have told me.
There was nothing I needed to prove. Not to anyone. Especially not to him.
But despite knowing all that, I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t turn off how much I disliked a bully.
And I dropped my voice to say, “The problem here is that you don’t know who you’re talking to, precious.”
Something funny crossed his face as he stared down at me. I’d surprised him. Shocked him, maybe.
“What’s going on?” Henri’s voice cut through the room like a battle-ax.
I almost stepped back, but I refused to risk having Dominic think I was doing it because of him. In front of me, his forehead furrowed. He was still angry, but there was something else there too in his eyes. Something that hadn’t been there before.
“Dom was trying to intimidate Nina,” Pascal’s dad answered from the back of the room.
When had he come back? How long had he been here? I hadn’t noticed or heard him.
“And you’re just standing there?” Henri shot back as he stormed into the room.
“She didn’t need my help,” the dad countered as a familiar body got right in front of me, so close I had to shuffle backward to give him room.
But he wasn’t listening anymore. At least not to Pascal’s dad.
His attention was on Dominic.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Henri demanded, his voice flat and cool, and I leaned over, my cheek going to the side of his arm.
He was standing almost nose to nose with Dominic.
Henri was in his space, all in his face, a few inches taller, his build bulkier, Henri’s expression even fiercer than the one he’d had when he’d dealt with Spencer the day he’d been a jerk.
He was pissed.
I might even use the word infuriated to describe him at that moment.
But as much as I would’ve been willing to pay for a front row seat to Henri going big and bad on someone—because I knew, I knew he had it in him, that quiet intensity wasn’t fooling me—this wasn’t what I wanted. I’d been trying to stand up for myself and all the other small potatoes that this asshole intimidated. Fluff had enough reasons to dislike and argue with this jerk. I didn’t need to add onto it more than I wanted to avoid being a pushover.
More than anything, I didn’t need to be one more person who made Henri’s life harder. I refused to be that kind of friend unless I had to, and in this case? It wasn’t worth it. Dominic wasn’t worth it. Maybe I’d given Dominic something to think about, and maybe I hadn’t, but it didn’t matter anymore. I set my hand on the carved biceps beside my face, and whispered, “I’m okay, Henri. He doesn’t know I’m not the little pig in this story.”
At my words, his head turned. Those clear eyes met mine, and I saw the strain on his face. The anger. It wasn’t just him being mad or annoyed; he was dang near furious.
That couldn’t mean anything good.
I had done this, and I needed to fix it. So I did the first thing I could think of when he leveled me with his attention: I oinked at him. Then I squeezed his arm.
Fluff blinked.
“He hasn’t heard the myth of Big Jaws,” I whispered, still trying to deescalate the situation.
His blink was even slower the second time, and just as I was about to try and come up with another comment to distract him, Henri grumbled in a voice so low I felt it along my spine. “Get the fuck out of here, Dom.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Dominic started to argue before Henri snarled, his head whipping around to face the other man.
The sound made my hands tingle, and not in a bad way. There was something wrong with me. I leaned around Henri’s arm to peer up at him.
“You and I are going to talk about what you have and haven’t done,” Henri murmured in that deadly tone.
“She’s fine,” the asshole replied. “She was talking shit back. She wasn’t scared.”
Henri’s face darkened, and I was pretty sure his pupils went wide like a great white shark. “You’re goddamn right she wasn’t. If she had been, this would’ve gone down a whole lot differently.” He sounded even scarier, all flat and emotionless.