'Smack!'
Infuriated, the man swung a slap viciously across Keira Leaf's face.
"Despicable woman, I want to see if you can still be so sharp-tongued when I'm pressing down on you!"
Keira Leaf was suddenly slapped. Staggering, and drunk, she almost fell to the ground. By the time she leaned against the table and pushed herself up, she felt dizzy, and a fiery pain spread across one of her cheeks, both swollen and sore.
Keira Leaf's heart sank. Joshua Sulliven still hadn't arrived, and it seemed her luck was running out today. Damn that man, he's a jinx!
As if he had heard her cursing, a deep voice suddenly sounded, "Oh? Who wants to hold down my woman?"
Suddenly, the explosive music in the pub stopped abruptly. The noisy crowd fell silent for a moment, and the man's words reached everyone's ears clearly, as if all the silence was just to welcome his decree.
A path slowly opened in the crowd, and there stood Joshua Sulliven in a brown velvet sleeping robe.
