“Don’t do this, Alex,” she said, her voice full of emotion, both anger that he’d have the nerve to act like this and seething jealousy from seeing him with Nadine. Valerie should be used to it. Their back-and-forth thing had been going on for too long.

“Then let’s go and I won’t do this,” Alex said, glaring past her and no doubt right into Ivan’s face.

“You came here with Nadine,” she reminded him pushing his chest.

Alex’s eyes were immediately on hers. “She walked in with me. I didn’t bring her here. She latched onto me the moment she saw me get here.” He lowered his voice, slipping his hand into hers and squeezing. “I was done with the paper early, so I came here to look for you.”

Valerie stared at him. This wasn’t the first time he’d blown her off only to come searching for her when she’d made it clear she wouldn’t be sitting around at home waiting for him. Tonight he said he had a paper to work on, and she respected that. But seeing him arrive tonight with someone else when he’d said he’d be too busy to see her at all tonight had been what she’d always known she’d eventually get—confirmation of his lying, cheating ways. Now he’d explained himself, and, as usual, she was so ready to believe him.

Ivan began again. “You don’t have to go, Val, if you don’t want—”

Valerie spun around immediately, knowing Alex’s fists were too ready to go. “I’m okay, Ivan. I’ll talk to you another time.”

She turned around, squeezing Alex’s hand, and pulled him along with her. Alex’s mouth was immediately at her ear. “You’ll talk to him another time?”

Valerie was about to respond when she spotted Nadine with a few of her equally skanky friends, grinning wickedly their way. If Valerie couldn’t stand her before, she hated her even more now. There’d been rumors of Alex having slept with the whore, and Nadine sure as hell did nothing to negate said rumors. Like tonight, she’d likely approached Alex the moment she’d seen him. The fact that Alex didn’t just tell her to go to hell, allowing her to latch on to him as she had tonight, was infuriating. The question begged to be asked, but Valerie didn’t dare do it. Had he really slept with Nadine? The thought alone made Valerie’s skin crawl.

It wasn’t unheard of for Valerie to have an unladylike reaction in a situation like this. The obnoxious behavior of these girls around Alex right in front of Valerie was infuriating. It didn’t matter that they weren’t an official couple; they’d been seen together enough times. As far as she was concerned, it was disrespectful. Alex sure as hell demanded that respect from other guys around him when it came to Valerie. But Valerie was doing her damnedest to be mature about this. So she didn’t give Nadine the pleasure of even glancing her way as they got closer to the front door of the frat party where Nadine and her friends stood.

“Call me when you’re free later, Alex,” Nadine purred as they walked past her and her friends. “You know I’ll always wait up for you.”

Her stupid friends laughed, sparking something in Valerie’s head. So she reacted the way any normal hot-blooded girl would when a slutty bitch like Nadine was blatantly inviting her man over to her place right in front of her face.

“He won’t be free later, you filthy cunt!”

None of them saw it coming, least of all Nadine, but the resounding slap across Nadine’s shocked face gave Valerie the most satisfying feeling ever. Valerie only wished she could’ve done it again, and she would’ve if Alex hadn’t wrapped his arms around her from behind and lifted her away as she kicked and struggled to come loose.

Romero and a few other “good Samaritan” guys did their best to calm Nadine and her belligerent bunch of ready-to-fight drunken friends.

As good as it felt that her palm still stung from how hard she’d hit the bitch, she was livid now. “Let go of me!” she screamed, feeling on the verge of losing it.

Valerie didn’t even care that she was making a huge scene. There was always at least one of these sorts of scenes at drunken frat parties. So after two years in college and all the damn girls continually throwing themselves at Alex, she’d finally gotten the satisfaction of doing what she’d wanted to do for so long. So what if she’d made a scene.

Fuck Nadine!

Alex hurried past all the gawking and laughing people in the front, refusing to put her down until they reached his truck up the street.

The moment he let her go she pushed him away. “She always waits up for you?” Valerie asked, glaring at him while she desperately tried to calm her breathing. “What?” She pushed his chest again with both hands though he didn’t even budge. “When you’re done with me you go f**k her too? Is that it, Alex?”

“Never,” he said so infuriatingly calmly and convincingly it only made her madder.

“Then why did she say that? Why—”

“Because she’s a bitch,” he said, taking a few steps closer to her and giving Valerie no choice but to take a few steps back because she absolutely refused to let him touch her. “She was trying to push your buttons. Piss you off.” He shrugged. “And it worked.”

“Yeah, well, she got what she deserved.”

Alex moved in even closer until Valerie was backed up against his truck. She lifted her hand against his chest. “Don’t touch me.”

“I won’t. Just calm down,” he said in that tone that drove her crazy. He was way too calm again, almost as if he’d enjoyed seeing her slap Nadine.