BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) by Kristina Weaver Page A

ago, I woke to see his face beside mine on the pillow, his arm slung over me, his hand cradling my ass, and I thought I had finally found something worth needing.
                  “What do you want already? Can’t you take a hint? I. Do. Not. Want. You. You’re a sleazy liar and I don’t have to have you in my life if I don’t want you.”
    My words are like acid, and I see him flinch before he steels his spine and stalks forward, his jaw ticking with emotion as he comes over me, hemming me in with hands planted on the sofa back.
    “I have made a dire error, one I will rectify immediately, Irina, but never, ever look at me and tell such lies. I have warned you of lying to me, wife. I do not like it. Now let us be clear on one thing. You are coming home today. Mama is beside herself with worry and Papa is talking about disowning me for losing you so quickly.”
    Like I give a shit. One of Mama’s rambling phone calls revealed that Mr. Asshat is in the dog box and banned from family dinners on Sunday. I like that. I like knowing that I am not the only one suffering for his actions.
    “No, I am going home, to my apartment, and calling my lawyer in the morning to start filing those divorce papers.”
    “You think I will allow this, my angel?”
    I shove him away and surge to my feet, rounding on him with every scrap of anger that’s been building inside me since I found out that my knight is nothing more than a beat-up dragon intent on burning me.
    “And you think I’d just meekly let everything go, just forget what you did because you will it so? Get a clue, Misha. I walked in on you kissing another woman, who incidentally is tattooed all over your back with two dates beneath it that led me to believe she was dead. Imagine my surprise when I not only realized she’s alive, but that she’s been invited to lick your tonsils clean. Oh and forgive me for taking exception to that little episode, seeing as I just so happen to be married to you,” I hiss, getting as far away from him and that damn seductive scent of his as possible.
    Misha’s face goes hard and I watch him slide a hand through his already messy hair in frustration at the distance I’m putting between us.
    “Angel, you do not understand.”
    “You’re right, I don’t. I don’t understand why you pursued me so determinedly in the first place when you had no intentions of being my husband, and I certainly don’t understand how you can be upset with me when you did this! I gave you a chance to explain, I went so far as to give you time to tell me why and how you ended up shoving your tongue in her throat, and all I got was silence. A silence I am smart enough to have assumed was due to your lack of reasoning. You have no excuse for it, and while a part of me keeps saying, ‘Oh, it was just one tiny kiss,’ I keep thinking of what you would have done if it had been me sucking some other man’s lips off his face.”
    That hits him where it counts and I feel satisfaction when he tenses and goes pale.
    “No other will ever touch you, Irina,” he says through gritted teeth, those eyes intense at just the thought of another man taking what he considers his.
    I’m being spiteful when I move closer—so close that I feel his heat seep into my skin.
    “That’s where you’re wrong, Novac. I’ll do whatever the hell I want, whenever I want to. You’re no longer anything to me. Not husband, not lover, not friend.”
                  “You think it will be so easy to walk away from me, from what we have?”
    “And what’s that? I married a man I don’t know, a man who would rather fuck me blind in the hopes of shutting me up than share himself with me.”
    “Your language, Irina!”
    “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” I yell, sneering unattractively. “I wanted to be your friend because I knew we had no hope of anything more than friendly banter and a surface relationship. That’s who you are, Misha. You don’t share