Free Accidental Lovers (The Accidental Series, Book 3) by Tina Martin Page B

now. After a long, eventful weekend, she had nothing left in her to argue with Carter.
    She nervously took steps towards him, her
keys clanking, but the noise was not louder than her heartbeat.
Boom, boom…boom, boom…she heard it getting louder as she got closer
to him. And she was finding it hard to breathe, on the verge of an
anxiety attack because she could see the anger in his eyes.
    Instead of acknowledging him, she stepped
around him, feeling a wave of tension envelop her, like being
smothered by a thick cloud of smoke.
    “You’re going to walk around me like you
don’t see me sitting here?” Carter asked her as he stood.
    Shayla kept on to the door, turning the knob
with her shaky, nervous hand, then after having successfully done
it, she stepped in the foyer.
    So did he, right on her heels.
    “Where have you been?” Carter asked as
calmly as he could, his breathing quickening, heart thudding. “You
haven’t been here all night?”
    Shayla dropped her keys on the desk next to
the mail. “How do you know that?”
    “Because I drive by here every night around
ten, Shayla,” he yelled. “And at ten, you were not here. Eleven,
twelve, one, two, three and who knows what time you left yesterday,
and you weren’t here Friday night either. Now where have you
been?”
    Ignoring his question, Shayla brushed past
him and silently ascended the stairs, heading for the bedroom.
Carter wasn’t supposed to be there and all she wanted to do was
sleep from the long weekend and plane ride. In the bedroom, she
kicked off her shoes, slid the ponytail holder that held her
strands together down the length of her hair and placed it on the
night stand, letting her hair fall freely.
    “You’re just going to ignore me, Shayla?” he
asked, stepping in the bedroom.
    “I’m tired.”
    And then something in him broke, snapped and
he couldn’t take it anymore. This nonsense had been going on for
far too long and he wasn’t going to stand for it any longer. He
walked up to her, got a good grip on her arm and twisted her body
in a way that forced her to look at him. “Where have you been?”
    “Why are you worried about where I’ve been?”
she said, trying to yank away from him.
    “Because whether you like it or not, you’re
still my wife, Shayla. My wife! And I have a right to know
where you’ve been all night and you’re going to tell me.”
    “Let go of me,” she said, trying to wiggle
from his grasp but to no avail. “Let…go…of…me, Carter!” she
hollered, yanking away from him after he loosened the grip on her.
She walked to the dresser, finding a cami and pajamas and when she
pushed the drawer shut and turned around, Carter was standing
behind her, in her immediate, personal space, towering over
her.
    “I’m going to ask you this one…more…time.
Where have you been?”
    “I was in Virginia,” she said, barely
looking at him.
    Carter frowned and turned a shade redder,
his mind completely gone blank in that moment. “You were in
Virginia? With Donovan?” he asked with a hard, direct frown in his
forehead, looking at her like he could strangle her lifeless. If
looks could kill, she’d certainly be dead.
    He swallowed hard and said in an eerie
monotone, “What were you doing with Donovan, Shayla?”
    “Why don’t you call and ask him? He’s your
old college friend, right?”
    Carter had since broke into an angry sweat
and with nostrils flaring, he roared, “Now is not the time to play
games with me, girl.”
    With her back pressed against the dresser
and his body pinning her there, he asked, “What were you doing with
him, Shayla?” It angered him more that she was alluding his
questioning and not looking at him.
    Shayla couldn’t look at him. She’d never
seen him this angry before. The man had turned red before her eyes
and she could see every frown line in his face, every vein in his
neck and had he gained more muscle mass since she last saw him?
When she gripped his biceps in an attempt