"Greer," he whispered. "Listen to me, please. You had to see for yourself. See the kind of man he was. He didn't love you. Not like me. I would never hurt you like that. Never," he swore, moving forward. But she slammed up a hand, and he stopped, pain thinning his lips, stealing the color from his face.
"You lied to me by omission, Noah. Every day you remained quiet was another day you chose to lie. And protect me?" She emitted a brittle crack of laughter. "You left me open to be hurt. What about diseases? Since Aubrey's pregnant, he may not have been being careful. Protecting me would have been forewarning and arming me with the truth. Not sending me over there that night to be humiliated."
He closed the distance separating them, grasped her arms below the elbows. She recoiled, but his grip tightened.
"Greer, please wait-"
"What the fuck is going on?"
Chapter Twenty-Two
Raphael and anger weren't strangers.
Sometimes he believed he'd been born angry. Hell, with a raging alcoholic and criminal for a father, a friend who'd been victimized by a pedophile, and relationship issues that belonged on an episode of Maury Povich? Yeah, he and fury? First-name basis.
Yet the rage that consumed him when he entered his den to catch Noah with his hands on Greer, her beautiful features twisted in pain, eclipsed those other instances. This fury burned so hot, it encased him in ice. An ominous, deadly ice.
"Raphael." Her relief reached out to him like clutching fingers, grasping on to him in a desperate hold. His fury ratcheted up another notch. That she was terrified or hurting in his house-his house, where she should feel safe and secure.
He moved more fully into the room, his narrowed glare focused on Noah, whose hands still encircled her arms.
"I think she wants you to let her go, Noah," he growled, stopping beside Greer. He insinuated himself between the two, forcing the other man to free her.
"I'm sorry." Noah scrubbed a hand over his nape, his mouth. He blinked, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Greer, I'm sorry."
Rafe didn't risk shooting a glance over his shoulder or ask what the hell he was apologizing for. He balanced on a sharp-ass edge, and Noah Granger windmilled one breath away from having Rafe's fingers around his neck.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Rafe snapped. "I don't remember inviting you."
Noah's mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. "Greer is my friend," he fired back. "Long before she became your baby's mama, " he mocked, "she was mine. I have a right to see her."
The derisive "baby's mama" or the proprietary "she was mine"-it was a toss-up which set Rafe off. He ate up the space between them in one long stride. His chest bumped the other man's. Hard.
"Raphael."
But Greer's soft whisper didn't prevent him from lowering his face into Noah's. Didn't keep him from baring his teeth in a feral grin. Didn't smother the burning need to pound the arrogant, needy son of a bitch into the ground.
"Get. The. Fuck. Out." His smiled broadened. "Now please, make me a very happy man and don't listen."
"Rafe." The low rumble didn't belong to Greer. Neither did the hand clamping down on his shoulder. "Ease up, man," Gabe warned softly. "Take care of Greer, and I'll show him out."
"Greer," Noah whispered again, craning his neck to peer around Rafe. "Please don't do this."
"Five seconds, Gabe." Fury vibrated in him, and his vision went crimson. His fists tightened, ached with the longing to put a hurting on the man.
"Let's go." Gabe grabbed Noah's upper arm and led him from the room. Rafe didn't move-couldn't-until they were gone. Only then did he drop his head and breathe past the red-tipped claws gradually releasing their grip on his mind and heart. Ten. Twenty. Forty. Only when he reached sixty did he lift his chin and no longer view the world through freakin' thermal heat patterns.
Son of a bitch. If he hadn't been shot at … if he hadn't been dragged to the police station to give a statement … if he hadn't stopped by the office to comb glass out of his hair and shower, he would've been here. And no way in hell would Noah have made his way into the house. He wouldn't have had the chance to hurt her, put his hands on her.
"What the hell, Greer?" he bit out, whirling around. The anger he'd just fought so hard to snuff out rekindled at the sight of her. Arms wrapped around herself. Stooped shoulders. Blank eyes and unsmiling, soft mouth. What the fuck had he walked in on? And what had that douche Noah said to her-pleaded for forgiveness for?
He provided protection to companies and people for a living. Whether technological or physical, he dedicated his life to security, to ensuring that others felt safe, that their businesses or homes were their refuges. He'd lived most of his childhood without that haven. No one should have to suffer such insecurity or fear.
And when Greer came to him, he'd offered her the same sanctuary. Promised her she would be safe here. Nothing would hurt her here. And he'd failed. In his own home.
It ate at him-her vulnerability in a place she should've been protected ate at him like the most vicious acid. "Damn it, Greer, I told you not to let anyone in the house except Gabe. What part of ‘except Gabe' didn't you get?" She didn't respond. Not that he gave her a chance. "Hell, I'm trying to keep potential suspects away, and you usher them in right through the front door. And what the hell was Gabe thinking? Just so you know, that ‘baby's mama' crack almost had Noah's ass through the window. I swear to Christ if he hurt you-"
The air whooshed out of his lungs as her weight hit him full on in the chest.
"What the-?"
Her arms wrapped around his back, squeezed away the little breath he had left. She trembled against him as her quiet sobs bathed his neck, and she whispered his name.
"Well. Fuck."
He hugged her close.
…
"Why, if you're comforting me, are we watching Die Hard: With a Vengeance?"
Rafe grabbed a fistful of popcorn with no salt and light butter-the sacrifices he made for the pregnant woman-before passing the large bowl to Greer. He chuckled, tearing his gaze away from the television as Bruce Willis was dropped off in Harlem wearing a billboard with a racial slur guaranteed to get him jacked.
"What are you talking about?" he asked as she burrowed into the giant pillows against his headboard. He tried to ignore the rightness of her in his bed, the sense that she belonged there with him, not down the hall alone in a guest room. Especially after she'd cried in his arms. Goddamn. She'd stunned and scared the bejesus out of him.
When he'd met Greer in the dive bar, she'd recently walked in on her fiancé in the act of cheating. She might've been knocking back drinks, but she'd never cried. Months later she'd come looking for Rafe because some asshole had left her with a busted-up car and a FUBAR'ed doll after weeks of harassing letters. She'd faced him across his desk without shedding a tear. Since then an assembled bomb had arrived, and she'd almost been kidnapped at gunpoint. No weeping in sight. Most women would've been inconsolable after one of those events, much less all of them. But not Greer. Shaken but not broken. Hurt but not defeated.
Until today.
Until she discovered the person she trusted above all others had deceived her. Betrayed her.
He got it-he did. Though his father had abandoned them long before his mother finally kicked him out of the house, and the woman he'd believed himself in love with had lied and devastated him, Rafe always had Gabe, Mal, and Chay. Even in his darkest, loneliest, angriest moments, he'd never been truly alone. Greer's parents had abandoned her, and while her brother had supported her, he'd had his own life, his own partner. The one person who'd truly been hers and down for her no matter what had been Noah. She'd lost more than a friend this afternoon, she'd lost the assurance that not everyone lied or looked out for themselves in this life. She'd lost the "good."
God, did he want to tell her how dead wrong she was. Gabe had spent one afternoon with her and had already fallen half in friend-love. Chay's protective streak rivaled Rafe's. All of them would go to the wall for her just because she was … her. Why she didn't know that-couldn't see it-dumbfounded him.
He placed the blame on her parents, the messed-up, self-absorbed "friends" she surrounded herself with, including that damn Gavin-fuck that "not supposed to speak ill of the dead" shit. If you were an asshole in life, you were an asshole. Death didn't magically clean the slate. He even blamed Ethan and Noah. They'd dropped the ball when it came to forcing her to recognize her talent, her beauty, her brilliance, her kind and loving heart. Because she'd needed it most.