Biting back his impatience, Luc trailed Tyler, then registered the fact the other man was walking down the hall of a designer-decorated apartment . . . to the bedroom.
At the end of the hall, Luc came to a stomach-lurching stop. There, Alyssa lay sprawled out across the man’s bed, curled up with his pillow, wearing one of his T-shirts that rode up around her waist, a thong, and nothing else. She was out cold.
Was this really what it looked like?
What else could it be, idiot? If she’d simply been scared, why hadn’t she called to tell him where she was and that she was safe? Why did she need to get undressed and into Tyler’s bed?
Betrayal slammed him, so deep he almost couldn’t breathe. The sight of her so relaxed and tangled in another man’s sheets gouged his heart out of his chest. For a fleeting moment, he acknowledged that her infidelity was better than her death. But they’d been married less than two weeks. What the fuck did he do now?
“You look like I took a battering ram to your stomach.”
Luc whipped a glare around to the other man. “Didn’t you? How did this work? She came home to find the house vandalized, and called you to protect her, giving you the perfect opportunity to help her out of her clothes? Or did you hit the house to scare her and hope she’d call you, then let you fuck her again?”
“Man, you just don’t get it.”
What is there to “get” except the fact my wife is fucking another man?
Tyler shook his head. “Take her home; make sure she rests. And get the hell out of my face.”
His words were dismissive, as if . . . well, as if Tyler knew he’d see Alyssa—and have her—again. Whenever he pleased. Luc gritted his teeth. He ought to leave her here with her lover. He’d been stupid enough to fall for her—hard—and now he was going to pay the price. He’d married her because she carried this man’s child. Now he was getting an inside look at what it had taken for these two to conceive. And didn’t it hurt like a bitch?
But if he’d married Alyssa for this baby, then by damned, he was going to take her home for this baby. She might share her body with Tyler, but Luc planned to dig out a place in her heart and make it his, find some way to make her care so that her every betrayal became a rending ache on her conscience.
Gritting his teeth, Luc approached the bed and lifted his sleeping wife into his arms. She barely stirred. “What the hell did you do to her?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. She’s just exhausted.”
Meaning Tyler often fucked her into a near coma? The bastard was trying to piss him off.
Luc jerked Alyssa closer to his chest. And he couldn’t lie—even knowing what she’d done, he was glad that she was safe and whole and close. “Stay the fuck away from my wife.”
“You leave her, then you’re leaving someone else to take care of her. And whatever needs she has.”
Bullshit. Luc had loved her furiously, desperately, the morning he’d left for Los Angeles. Could she really have had needs so overwhelming in three days that she’d turned to another? Or did she have such feelings for Tyler that Luc’s absence made hopping in the other man’s bed both more convenient and a necessity?
He couldn’t stay here and listen to Tyler say another word or he’d turn homicidal. Luc could feel the rage boiling up in his gut, starting to bubble over. As much as Luc hated him, Tyler wasn’t worth prison time.
Then again, if Alyssa was voluntarily fucking her bouncer so soon after their wedding, neither was she.
“Fuck off.”
Jack and Hunter backed down the hall quickly, leaving a path for him; then they exited Tyler’s apartment, emerging into the late-afternoon sun. Luc clutched Alyssa to his chest, purposely avoiding the pitying looks the other men shot him as he climbed into the back of the SUV.
As he settled Alyssa into his lap, he wondered, now that he’d found her, what was he going to do with her?
ALYSSA woke with a headache and a moan. Her limbs seemed to weigh a thousand pounds each. Her mouth felt stuffed with cotton. Putting two thoughts together in her sluggish brain wasn’t happening.
Gingerly, she lifted her lids, stunned to find it nearly dark in the shadowed room. Her room.
Everything inside her snapped to attention. How had she gotten here? And when? God, it had to be . . . what? Five thirty? Almost six? If Tyler had brought her back, he should know that she should have been at Bonheur hours ago. With a gasp, she rolled over to peek at the clock.
Instead, she found Luc sitting on the edge of the bed, stone still and silent. If his sudden appearance here didn’t tell her something was dreadfully wrong, his face said it for him.
“Luc?” She scrambled to sit up . . . and realized she was wearing Tyler’s T-shirt.
In fact, now that she looked around, everything had changed. The last time she’d seen this room, it had been all but destroyed. Now the bed was made with fresh sheets and blankets. It smelled faintly like paint. The mess was gone. “What—what’s going on?”
He looked grim, and she had the distinct impression he was holding in his fury. “I think it’s time I asked you that question. Someone broke in the house, and you didn’t call me. You called nine-one-one and Tyler, then disappeared for nearly twelve hours. You never called to tell me you were alive. You never answered your phone.”
“I was afraid and . . . I must have left my phone in Tyler’s car. I—”
“I assume you’ve been with him all this time.” He fired the question at her, like a well-aimed laser.
Her stomach pitched and rolled when she realized how this must look to Luc.
“Yes. But—”
“In all that time, you never thought to call me to let me know the psycho who’d broken into the house hadn’t abducted you? Oh, that’s right . . .” He snapped, the sarcasm thick and biting. “You were too busy letting Tyler fuck your brains out to tell your husband where the hell you were and that you were alive. I woke Jack up at an ungodly hour, walked away from the taping of my show to hop a plane, and flew across the country. I told the press you were missing. And where do I find you but Tyler’s bed.” He stood, fists and teeth clenched. “Goddamn you!”
Alyssa closed her eyes. Yes, Luc would jump to this conclusion. He must have retrieved her from Tyler’s apartment. From his bed. She winced.
But why couldn’t he get it through his thick head that, despite her “profession,” she’d never step out on him?
“It’s not what you think. Let me explain,” she implored. “I—”