Chapter 12

The smart thing to do was talk to her. Clear the air. Clear what air exactly?

God, what the fuck was I supposed to say to her? I pushed a hand through my hair, shoving dark strands out of my eyes. I sagged against the hallway wall and shut them. Using deep breaths, I tried to calm my racing heart.

Fuck, that look on her face…it haunted me. It was watching her world crumble in a crowd full of people the moment she’d seen me. No one had told her either. I’d thought at least one of us had known, but it seemed as if my brothers decided to keep both of us in the dark.

I hit the back of my head against the wall with tiny thumps. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This wasn’t at all how I pictured the Fall Games going. This was supposed to be a fun and easy transition—spend time with my brothers, spend time with pack leaders, and get reacquainted with it all. And then—only then—would I show up on my wife’s doorstep, talk to her, and ask for a divorce.

But now I needed to talk to her before all of this shit got out of hand.

Sighing, I stood and shoved my hands in my pockets—yeah, I was wearing fucking jeans this time to keep my goddamn dick in check. The woman still had me in a total vice grip, but she didn’t need to know that. I could do this.

I kept the thought on repeat as I navigated through the winding hallways. When I turned down the last hall, I found Nolan sitting on the floor with his bags in front of him. Fuck, she must’ve kicked him out. His glasses were on the floor, and his head was in his hands.

“Hey.” I crouched and tapped him on the head until he looked up. Jesus fucking Christ, the kid looked miserable. The absolute distress in his eyes fucking filled me.

“She hates me,” Nolan whispered.

“She doesn’t fucking hate you, kid,” I told him. Swiping up his glasses, I used the bottom of my shirt to clean them off before plopping them on his face. “She’s mad. Genevieve’s never been good at being blindsided. There’s an order to everything, you know? Her order was disrupted, Nol.”

“Yeah,” he replied and looked away. I felt bad for the kid. Genevieve was Nolan’s only real friend. Sure, the kid knew everyone but very few knew him. He kept himself locked away behind so many doors that most people gave up long before they ever got to know him.

“Here,” I said as I took out my room key and gave it to him. “You get the top bunk. My room is one of the few with a desk, so you can write too. And it’s on the bottom floor with a garden door. Good for a quick getaway.”

Nolan wasn’t like the rest of us. His social meter was short as hell. Even though he showed up to the Fall Games and participated where he could, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the kid was fucking unhappy. He did it for his pack, which made him a goddamn rockstar in my opinion. I didn’t have that level of tolerance.

“How long will she be mad at me?” he asked.

“It depends on how fast she gets mad at me,” I replied in earnest. I had a feeling her anger toward anyone else would be long forgotten once I started talking. Standing, I offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. “Go get some rest, Nolan, okay?”

“Yeah.” Nolan sighed. I helped him gather his bags and watched him disappear down the hall. Poor fucking kid.

When I was alone, I stared at her closed door. I had a million and one reasons to walk away. This shit… I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Not really. I just wanted to enjoy the games and deal with this later.

Still, I made myself knock once. It wasn’t going away—not until I faced it.

“I don’t want to talk, Nolan,” Genevieve shouted through the door. I knocked again. I heard her grumble, “Damn it.”

The door flew open, and she looked ready to fight. Fuck, the wild and angry look on her face was hot. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. I took the momentary silence to let my gaze trail down her gorgeous fucking body. That puffy sweatshirt did nothing to hide her luscious curves, and those goddamn leggings showed off shapely legs that taunted me. Shit, how many nights had I fantasized about those legs wrapped around me as she came all over my cock.

Focus.Had to focus.

“Hello, Genevieve,” I said.

“Killian,” she whispered. I still loved the sound of my name on those sexy lips. I was fucked. I had to hold my resolve. “What are you… what do you want?”

“I think you and I need to talk,” I told her. Divorce. We had to survive this shit long enough for me to ask for a divorce and get lawyers involved—make the lawyer do the talking. That was the best course of action.

Those golden hazel eyes flashed with three years of anger. I felt the way her wolf bristled in response. She stepped fast into the hall, and I retreated out of surprise. Damn woman. The way she slammed the door was bound to draw unwanted attention.

“Now we need to talk?” Genevieve demanded, her voice laced with hatred. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

“Genevieve.” I used her name as a warning. There was no fucking way I would start a scene in the hallway. I glanced at the number of rooms around us. Shit, we were surrounded. Maybe I should’ve waited until we were truly alone to start this with her.

“We’re in a house full of wolves,” she snapped. “If they want to hear us, nothing we do is going to stop that. So, tell me. What does the great Killian Byrne want to talk about?”

That fucking attitude. Shit. I watched her pulse race against the column of her neck as her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. The woman was a ticking bomb. If I wasn’t careful, we’d end up in a fucking brawl. I’d never hit my wife, but she was a goddamn spitfire when she got started, which always ended messily.

“God, you can’t even figure out what to say, can you?” Genevieve taunted and rolled those pretty eyes of hers. “Did you forget I know you? I know when you’re trying to figure out the right thing to say and how to say it, so let me help you out. There’s nothing you can say that’s the right thing in this situation.”

Goddamn pain in the ass woman was determined to push all my fucking buttons. I hadn’t forgotten the look on her face when I fucked her, but shit, I’d forgotten how vicious she could be when I fucked up.

“I forgot how high and mighty you can fucking be,” I muttered under my breath. “I didn’t come here to fight. I said talk, princess—”

“Don’t you dare call me that,” she interrupted hotly. Her temper, her sass, her unfiltered attitude. All of it got under my skin. This conversation wasn’t supposed to go this way. “You lost every right to—”

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I want, Genevieve,” I cut her off, my temper meeting hers. I stepped closer to her, invading her space. That little way she retreated excited me—enticed the part of me that enjoyed the fight with her. “I came here to talk, to clear the fucking air between us. You came out of that room like a fucking bull in a goddamn china shop. You came out here looking to fight, not me.”

“How dare—”

“I wasn’t finished talking, princess.” I was testing her limits—pushing her boundaries—by calling her that name. It meant too much to use it so casually. Closing the distance between us, I forced her back against the door and caged her in. Those pretty eyes widened. “Now, I said we’re going to talk, which means we’re going to talk. You and me, we have a lot of shit we need to figure out. Put the fucking teeth away, Genevieve. I know you’re all bark and no bite.”

I was fucking tempting her.

I was seeing just how far I could push her.

Should I have reeled it in? Probably, but she was under my skin, and I was pissed off. I wanted nothing more than to fight with her. A fight made it easy to stay angry and not deal with the rest of the unresolved emotions between us.

“Oh? Am I?” Genevieve exclaimed with disbelief. There she was. My feisty wife.“Did you forget our entire childhood too while you were off doing whatever the heck you were doing these last three years? Were they a good three years, Killian? Did you have fun? Fighting? Tattoos? Throw a few whores in there too? Was it easy to forget about the wife you left in the hospital? Was it easy to forget about—”

I punched the door. Hard. Pain blossomed in my knuckles as the wood fractured. My anger surged as she squealed with surprise.

“Don’t you fucking go there,” I snarled. What the fuck did she think she was going on about? Did she really think I’d been off fucking around and enjoying my life? The fucking audacity “You have no fucking clue what the hell the last three years were like for me.”

“How could I? You left me in the hospital! You called your baby brother to come get me! I never would’ve done that to you.” She blinked rapidly, tears gathering on her bottom lashes. Fuck. I didn’t want her to cry. She couldn’t cry. I couldn’t be blamed for what I did if she started crying. “You didn’t call, you didn’t text, you couldn’t even email for Christ’s sake! You walked out on me, remember? You left me when I needed you the most, so you don’t get to tell me that I don’t know what the last three years have been like! They’ve been hell, Killian! That’s what they were. And you walked away like the coward you are.”

Her hand flew up to slap me, but I was faster. I caught her wrist, latching on tight—tighter than needed. I yanked her tiny little body away from the door and dragged her until we were damn near nose-to-nose. That was the wrong move. A wave of cinnamon sugar and spice wafted over me, clouding my judgment. The thrumming of her pulse against her delicate neck taunted me. Oh, how I wanted to fucking sink my teeth into her. My dick raged against the zipper of my jeans. Fuck, how I wanted her.

“Don’t you dare hit me,” I growled.

“Or what?” Genevieve challenged. A deep growl reverberated through her slim frame—a sound that did nothing to quell just how fucking hard I was for this woman. “What’re you going to do, Killian? Hurt me? I think you’ve already done all the damage you can do.”

Tearing her arm free, she planted her hands on my chest and shoved. I didn’t move. I wasn’t going anywhere.

“You can rot in hell for all I care,” she snapped when I opened my mouth to say something. I stared at her, stunned. Fuck, that was worse than a slap to the face. I knew what those words meant coming from her. The God-fearing, church-going woman in front of me would never say something like that unless she truly meant it.

Taking the opening, Genevieve stormed away, and I let her because I didn’t have a damn thing else to say.