Gale, Avery - Jenna's Submission [The ShadowDance Club 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) by Avery Gale

get you upstairs to rest, okay? You are getting too wound up, and I’m worried about your blood pressure. We don’t want anything happening to you or the baby, now do we?” Zach knew that Kat had instantly become boiling mad at his patronizing tone. Damned dominant men are going to be the death of me yet. He’s really going to go there? “Of course I don’t want anything to happen to the baby, and I’m only mad because you are treating me like a fragile piece of glass, and it’s damned annoying, I’ll tell you. Now stop patronizing me and tell me what the fuck this is about.” Boy she was on a full roll now, damn them anyway.
    Alex pushed off the front of his ornately carved mahogany desk and stepped toward her. “Katarina, language. And that is one, love. Now, we will catch you up at dinner. Go upstairs now and get some rest.” At her narrowed eyes, he added, “Don’t defy me on this, Katarina, you won’t like the results, I promise you. Let Zach take you upstairs, and perhaps you can sweet-talk him into one of his foot massages you are so fond of.” He’d leaned forward and was speaking directly to her. He kissed her on the very tip of her nose and then placed his hands on each side of her heart-shaped face and smoothed his thumbs over her soft cheeks. Taking just a second to look at her again, his expression softened, and he brushed a soft blonde curl behind her ear before he ran his hands down her arms and enfolded her small hands in his. He raised them both and kissed the backs of her hands in a sensual caress of his lips, his eyes full of lust and promise, before handing her off to his brother. As Zach led her from the room, Alex had to stifle a chuckle at her mutterings. O h yeah, dinner is going to be a fiery occasion this evening.
    Kat had always “processed out loud” or at least loud enough to get her into trouble on many an occasion. On the way out of the room, she was muttering to herself about blasted men and their overinflated egos and senses of entitlement. Zach looked over his shoulder at his brother, grinning. He knew it was going to take him quite a while to settle her back down, and he fully intended to enjoy every minute of the process.

Chapter 13

    Alex turned to Dylan and asked, “When is the last time you saw her?” He knew his friend had never gotten over losing Melita, even though Dylan had never said exactly what had caused their split, it was obvious it hadn’t been something Dylan had wanted. Alex watched as pain reflected in the sheriff’s eyes, and Alex knew he was working to swallow down the emotion before he answered.
    “The night before I moved back to Climax, we had dinner and were sitting on the terrace talking as we often did. Suddenly she slid divorce papers over to me and told me she just couldn’t give up her career ‘at this point.’ I knew she was working on a case involving a suspected sex trade operator. She’d lost a good friend in college when the woman had answered an ad about living abroad. The ad sounded a lot like what most sex traders set up, you know the script. ‘Live in exciting places for free, all you have to do is perform light household duties or be a nanny, etcetera.’ Her friend was found a few weeks later in an alley behind a brothel in Paris.” Sighing, he added, “She’d been beaten and raped to death. Mia never got over the anguish or her anger at the injustice she’d felt when the crime was basically swept under the rug and overlooked by authorities both here and in France.
    “Christ, Alex, I tried to talk her out of the divorce, I told her to keep working, and when she was ready, I’d always be here waiting for her. She insisted that wasn’t fair to me, that I was too good to be left waiting like that, and she knew I wouldn’t touch another woman unless I was really free to do so. I finally signed the papers, and I was sick about it, but I really didn’t see that I had any choice. She never would look me in the eye and