Read Online RECKLESS - Part 1 by Alice Ward - Free Book Online

Andy.”
    I don’t remember ever being afraid of Sean, ever thinking he might hurt me. But in that moment, I wasn’t so certain. I began backing away, the fear creeping in, blanketing me, swallowing me whole.
    “Hey, man,” Jace stepped up behind Sean and grabbed his arm. “I think you’re scaring her. Maybe you need to take a breather. Calm down a bit?”
    “Fuck off and mind your own business,” Sean yelled, turning to shove Jace away.
    I’d been too close. Sean’s elbow caught me in the chest and knocked me onto the ground. Both men were by my side, picking me up, before I even fully realized what had happened.
    “Dude, back the fuck off,” Sean bellowed, one arm shoving Jace away, the other roughly yanking me up from the ground by my elbow.
    Jace took a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets, his jaw working away angrily. “Take it for what it’s worth, man. But you might want to keep that temper of yours under control.”
    With that, he took a step backwards and then turned to leave, but not before giving me a sympathetic look. “Bye, Andrea,” he said, sounding almost sad.
    Was it wrong that a strange ache ripped through me as I watched him go?
    My fiancé, who was sorting out my things that had scattered on the ground, would probably think so.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Becca and I sat at the coffee shop, sipping our lattes. We were both exhausted.
    “I still can’t believe he just showed up, acting like that,” she muttered for probably the twentieth time that morning.
    My response was also the same as every other time she’d said it. “I know.”
    After the altercation out in front of the coffee shop, Sean had gone to the dorms with me. We argued about the concert, about Jace, about me returning home, about me leaving in the first place… right up until Becca came home a little after two o’clock in the morning.
    That’s when things got really heated.
    Sean had all but come out and blamed Becca for everything that had happened that night. Becca, being the awesome chick she was, told him to fuck right off and get out of our dorm or she’d call the police. He’d said a few more choice words, but left anyway.
    I hadn’t heard from him since.
    “You going to call him?” Becca asked as I picked at my pastry.
    I sighed a little and studied my plate for a second. “I don’t think so,” I finally answered. “Not yet anyway. I didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Jace.”
    Becca patted my hand and gave me a tight smile. “Good for you. You have to stand your ground in arguments like this.”
    “I just wish I could understand what the hell’s gotten into him,” I said, my brow pinching tightly. “He’s never been this… irrational.”
    “You were in danger, he wasn’t there to protect you, and it would appear to him another man is moving in on his territory,” she said, plainly, as if she were explaining the most rudimentary facts of life to a child.
    I raised my eyebrows, deadpanning her.
    “What?” she asked, mid-chew.
    “Moving in on his territory?”
    “Oh, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes as she paused to swallow. “Men are like dogs. Territorial. They walk around, leaving their scent, and if some other dog tries to swoop in, they attack.”
    “Sean’s never been possessive like that, though.”
    “But he also hasn’t had a reason to feel threatened before now.”
    Becca posed a good point, one that had me wondering… did Sean have a reason to feel threatened?
    Sure, Jace was attractive, and he had that voice, and his panty-dropping stage presence. But I wasn’t the kind of girl who would give up everything for a quick roll back-stage. And I certainly wouldn’t give up what Sean and I had built over the last five years just to become another notch on Jace’s bedpost.
    Besides all that, Jace infuriated me. He was the very definition of everything I hated—sexist, misogynistic, conceited…
    “Sean doesn’t have a reason to feel threatened,” I finally