Rebel (Renegades #2)(58)
Author: Skye Jordan

Wes shot a stunned look at Rubi, and her stomach fell the rest of the way to her feet. Her phone call to Dolph about the rig had never entered her mind. Shit. She would have liked to have told Wes about that first. But…too late now.

“Wait.” She held up her hands, palms out. “You remember that, but you don’t remember my six offers on your house?”

“I gave the message to one of my junior partners.” Dolph spoke directly to Wes. Rubi had been completely dismissed. “She did some research into this rehabilitation unit and thinks it’s viable. She tells me you’re a very talented engineer. Graduated at the top of your class from Missouri S&T, right?”

“I graduated top of my class from USC and Birmingham,” Rubi said, “but you’ve never even mentioned it. Didn’t show for graduation. Didn’t even pick up the f**king phone.”

“Excuse me.” He spared her a disapproving, don’t-interrupt parental glance. “I’m talking.” Then refocused on Wes. “Tell me about this device you’ve created.”

The look on Wes’s face was a cross between disgust and fury. “I’m here because Rubi is interested in buying the house she’s living in. Not to talk about the rig.”

“Have you hit up other developers?” Dolph asked with a fresh glint in his eyes as if he smelled money. “Have you had any offers on the device yet?”

“Several.” Rubi stepped up beside Wes. This was over. She was swamped in a flood of pain and anger that stretched deep below the surface, and she had to get out of here. Hopefully save Wes in the process. “Multimillion-dollar offers from major corporations.”

Wes gripped her forearm. “I think we’re done here.”

“If you’re interested,” Rubi laid out her last card on Wes’s behalf, “you’d better come up with a better deal than he’s already got.”

Wes pulled her around toward the door. She didn’t resist or argue.

“Wes.” Dolph called at his back, approaching with a business card in his hand. “Call my chief of development. She’s young and sharp. And very excited about your invention.”

“Rubi’s also young and sharp and very interested in your house.” Wes took the card and met Dolph’s gaze purposefully. “It seems like a good time for consideration all around.”

Seventeen

Wes jammed the elevator’s down button with a knuckle. It took everything he had not to walk back into that room and slam his fist into Dolph’s face. He was so damned average—average height, average build, average appearance. All the looks in the family had to have come from Rubi’s mother. How a man so average could spew such hurtful words, Wes couldn’t quite get his mind around.

“Wes…” Rubi twisted her arm in his grip. When he looked down, her brow was pulled in a grimace.

He eased the pressure on her hand as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Teeth clenching, he stepped in and didn’t release Rubi until the doors had closed. He didn’t expect her to go back into her father’s office; he just…needed to have a hold of her, as if that would somehow protect her.

But even after the doors closed, he couldn’t let go.

“Please, Wes.”

He forced his hand open, then crossed his arms and pressed his back to one wall.

“Let me explain,” she said, her face a mix of misery and fear. “You have every right to be pissed. I overstepped. I shouldn’t have talked to my father about the rig. And I didn’t, really… I mean I—”

“What the f**k are you talking about?” He hadn’t been this mad since…oh, yeah, a few nights ago, when some stranger had plowed his fist into his eye because of that f**ker Bolton. “I don’t give a shit about the rig. How could you let him talk to you like that?”

She stared, that confused vertical crease between her eyes, lips parted. Christ, she was so beautiful. Inside and out. And so much he hadn’t understood about her made sense now. After being raised by a pig like that, it was no wonder she wasn’t interested in a relationship. Not a f**king surprise she didn’t believe love could last. If Wes had been taught that love was bad, ugly, painful, he wouldn’t have believed it either.

“I…I don’t…let him talk to me like that, he just…does. Which is why I don’t see him. Why I hate him. Why…I’m never going to speak to him again after tonight.”

Wes’s skin was on fire. His brain a twist of fury. He wiped a palm across his forehead. Before he knew it, the rage overtook him, and he slammed his hand into the mirrored wall with a feral growl. The reflective surface splintered, and pain shot through his hand. A strangled scream curdled in Rubi’s throat. In the cracked reflection, she jumped and tented her hands over her mouth.

“Stop.” She sucked an audible breath. “Don’t.”

Goddammit. He instantly regretted the show of insane frustration.

She pushed her hands through her hair, her gaze on the floor. “I knew I should have come alone.”

Wes dropped his arm and shook out his hand. His fingers were dripping blood on the tan patterned carpet. “Because you don’t need anyone, right?”

His voice came out bitter. He was so angry—at Dolph for being such a bastard, at himself for letting Rubi convince him to stay out of it, at Rubi for… God he didn’t even know. Maybe for hanging on to this f**ker as long as she had.

The thought made him lunge for her. He gripped her arms and gave her a little shake. “Are you living off his money? Is that why he’s still in your life? Because I have money. I have a million of racing money sitting around collecting interest. You can have it if you just get the f**k away from—”

“No.” She lifted her hands and pressed them to his chest, her voice sure and steady, as if compensating for his imbalance. “No, Wes. My money is my own, and I have plenty. I told you the truth earlier.”

“Then…why? Why have any contact with him when he treats you like that?”

The elevator doors opened, and Rubi’s expression closed up. “We’ll talk about this outside.”

She turned away, stepping out of the elevator.

Wes looked down at his hand. Blood everywhere. “Fucking fantastic.”

He fisted the mess behind his back and exited the elevator. Rubi was already in quiet conversation with Frank. He nodded, drew her into a hug, and saluted Wes over Rubi’s shoulder. She took Wes’s arm, leading him toward the main doors and down the front walkway toward the car. “Give me the keys.”