Read Online Into the Flames (Perilous Connections: Book Two) by Delka Beazer - Free Book Online

restaurant owner to use their phone and disappears.
    I watch her go because the alternative is watching the two women at the table stare at me or each other. Thank God for Aubrey who is digging in to this second helping of bacon oblivious to the storm building around the table.

Chapter Five
     
     
    Daphne
     
     
    “Daphne? Right? Why are you guys travelling with Nate?” Stacy asks from beside me in the bus on the way to our newly rented house .
    My eyes narrow though I try to fix a friendly to my mouth. “Same reason you are. To get away from Emmanuel.”
    Her brows scru nch up. “B ut I don’t understand why Emmanuel would be after you? ” S he looks around at Elaine and Aubrey , “ and your family.”
    I should not have savored the feel o f the answer on my tongue but I did, “because Nate was sleeping over at my house.”
    Her w itchy green eyes look honestly puzzled , instead of the spark of jealousy I had hoped to ignite. I need to cut this conver sation short for both our sakes. I start to do just that when Nate gets up from the front of the bus where he’d been sitting with the driver and makes his way toward u s.
    He’ d been listening. There’ s no doubt about that.
    Her face lights up at his approach. I turn away hurriedly to avoid seei ng a similar response from him. H e takes the only seat which is beside Stacy who is sittin g at the end of the seat. T heir bodies are molded together, his long muscled thigh dusted with short blond hair is smack against her slender , creamy looking one.
    A muscle jerks in my jaw.
    “ Daphne is hedging because I conned her into marrying me.”
    “You what?” Stacy’ s eyes look ready to pop from her head. “B ut how … why?” There is a world of hurt in that little sing-song voice she uses which has already started to get on my nerves .
    He roll s his shoulders in the too tight space, no doubt touching Stacy who I notice despite her shock at finding her lover wed does not have the willpower to move away from the intimate contact. “I needed a wife and … Daphne,” he stops and I feel his eyes burning lasers in the side of my cheek, “just wanted to be rid of me.” He finishes with a satisfied smirk.
    I reward his flippant tone with a sour look. “Thanks for nothing ,” I huff and then give my complete attention to Stacy. “Nate abducted me fro m Su nset-”
    “Sunset Cove?” She supplies with a squeak.
    I blink, and now it ’ s my turn to be taken back. How did she know that ? T hen the answer beco mes all too plain.
    Stacy turns like a condemned martyr to Nate. “You married her after you told me to leave the hotel ?”
    The wicked part of me wants to laugh at the dramatic break in her voice but I can’t . Nate has also made me taste this pain all too recently.
    He is manipulative and d angerous .
    Trapped he can’ t quite hide his irritation , whether at his own callousness or Stacy’s pain I can’t be sure, but I would bet it’s neither.
    He is staring at me again but I refuse to answer his silent challenge to look at him. “I married D aphne because I wanted to stay in t he Caribbean, out of sight from Emmanuel .”
    Stacy’s brows draw together. “You never explained why Pablo- ”
    “Stacy!” the curtness in his voice causes both Stacy and I to jump, he shoots Stacy a quelling look, “like I’d explained that was none of your concern. You should have return ed to Michigan like you said .”
    Stacy sticks out kissable lips. “My vacation wasn’t over yet.”
    He raises a merciless eyebrow, “Yeah. Well it certainly is now.”
    Stacy subsides like a spoiled child.
    After staring at me with an intense look on his face, which I deliberately ignore, I return my eyes to the green hilly scenery flashing by outside the ta xi window . H e sighs, then gives up and r e turns to the front of the bus .
    If only Stacy would follow along. Why hadn’t she chosen a different seat? Preferably one closer to her knight-in- tarnished armor?
    I give