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the description. “Now tell me, why would it bother you if I fucked
Sax now, if it didn’t bother you before?”
    Marey shot her an evil look. She deserved
it. She was so damned confident and sexually wicked now that she should be
burned at the stake.
    “Women like you were stoned a hundred years
ago, Ella,” she reminded her with aloof distain.
    “That was two hundred years ago, dear,”
Ella pointed out, toasting her with her glass. “Aren’t you glad we were born
during a much more sexually aware time?”
    “You do not want me to answer that right
now,” she sighed wearily, staring back at her friend with a mixture of
irritation and fondness.
    “Answer me, Marey,” Ella demanded softly.
“I won’t leave you alone until you do.”
    Marey sighed in resignation. “Hell, I don’t
know. Maybe I’m just as perverted as the rest of you.” Ella shot her a
disapproving look. One Marey ignored, just as she always had.
    What the hell was she supposed to say? That
jealousy just didn’t come into it? She was smarter than that. Friends lasted
forever, men didn’t. Besides, she knew that Ella would have never let Saxon
touch her if she had known Marey was even the least bit interested in him.
Being angry over it now was nothing short of ludicrous.
    “Then what is your problem?” Ella lifted
her glass, sipping at her wine as she watched her with those probing blue eyes
of hers.
    Ella had always seen too much. She had
known when Vince was abusing her, when she had taken enough and was preparing
to leave, when she began to fear for her safety because of his threats. They
had known each other for years, their parents had been best friends, and
despite their age difference, they had always been close. That bond of
friendship had only strengthened as they became adults.
    “Ella, you have to make James talk to him.”
Marey finished off her wine before leaning forward and extending the glass for
Ella to refill. “He’s making me insane. He calls. Checks the house every night.
And this morning, he had the nerve to show up demanding breakfast. He’s trying
to take over.”
    “I see…” Ella nodded somberly. “This would
be a problem.”
    “It’s horrible,” Marey snapped, furious at
the gleam of laughter in Ella’s eyes. “I don’t want him there. James is going
to have to talk to him.”
    “Vince made bail the other day, didn’t he,
Marey?” Ella said then, her voice gentle, but knowing.
    Marey leaned back in her chair, lowering
her head to stare into the pale liquid that filled her glass.
    Yes, Vince had made bail.
    “That has nothing to do with it,” she
whispered. “I’m not a coward, Ella.”
    But she was. She could feel that knowledge
crawling through her mind, mocking her with the sterile, lonely life she led.
    “I never thought you were a coward, honey,”
Ella sighed. “Just frightened. And I never blamed you for that. But you have to
fight back sometime.”
    Marey avoided her gaze, shaking her head as
she swallowed past the lump in her throat.
    “He would go after Sax,” she finally
whispered. “Not me.”
    And she couldn’t bear the thought of that.
    “And Sax is man enough to rip his face
off,” Ella snorted. “Come on, Marey. Vince only whips on people who are smaller
than he is and you know it. Sax would grind that little bastard into dust.”
    “Or Vince would hurt someone else, and
frame him again,” Marey snapped. “Or do something to cause his brakes to fail,
or any number of things that could end up destroying him. Dammit, Ella.” She
stared back at her miserably. “I can’t let that happen. Can’t you see that?”
    “Vince is out on bail. Once he goes to
trial, he’ll go to jail,” Ella pointed out.
    “For how long?” Marey sneered then. “A
year? Two?”
    She sat the glass of wine on the table that
separated their chairs as she rose to her feet. Crossing her arms over her
chest she paced to one of the wide windows on the other side of the room before
turning back