“Stop it!” I snap, snatching the paper from his hand. “You can’t just go through my stuff!”
“I didn’t,” he says. “It was under the sofa when I was tidying up this morning.”
He leans closer to my ear. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop playing with fire?” I don’t move when he grips my knee, but I gasp when his hand slides up my thigh. “You’re going to push me past the point of no return, Harper…”
“Hmmm,” I moan when his thumb brushes against my clit.
“Out of underwear too?” Grabbing his tensed biceps, I close my eyes. “This will end badly for both of us.”
Chris parts my labia, gently dipping his finger inside me. He nibbles on my ear before kissing my neck.
Then a primal groan erupts from deep inside him and he grabs my hips. Picking me up like a bag of sugar, he spins me until I’m facing the window and pushes down on my shoulders.
“Fuck,” he moans, his back pressed to mine, pinning me to the washing machine.
I can feel his hard cock throbbing through his jeans.
“Do what you want,” I tell him.
“I only fuck girls from behind,” he growls.
“Then do it,” I plead, lifting his shirt to give him full access to my body. Chris grips my ass, his ragged breath matching mine. “Please just fuck me.”
“Arrgggghhhh!” he yells, his fist smashing into the wall.
He pulls his shirt back over my ass, and I spin to find him pinching his nose.
“What’s wrong? Is it me?”
He shakes his head. “No. I made a promise.”
“What? To my dad? Screw him! We both want this! We can deal with the fallout later.”
Like he’s fighting with something inside himself, Chris grabs my face but stops with his lips just an inch from mine.
“I made a fucking promise. I’m not a good man, Harper. But I don’t break promises.”
Not blinking, I keep my eyes on his as I pull open the top button of his shirt.
“Stop,” he pleads, but I pull open the second button. “This has to stop now or there’s no going back…”
“Maybe I don’t want to go back,” I mouth up at him.
“Fuck!” he growls.
Chris pushes me back into the washing machine and wraps my legs around his waist. Just as he’s fumbling with his belt, the machine trills and my body vibrates against his.
“Don’t stop!” I plead.
The noise seems to have brought him back from wherever he was going, and he steps away from me. “I… I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”
“Why are you apologizing? Don’t stop! I won’t tell my dad.”
“I made a promise,” he mumbles. “You deserve better than this.”
“But what if I?-“
“No buts,” he states, not looking at me. “This can’t happen again. Itwon’t happen again.”
Before I can speak, Chris marches out of the laundry room.
And then I’m standing here alone.
The front door slams shut and I let out a scream of frustration.
I must be the only girl in the world ever to be cockblocked by a goddamn washing machine.
But my thoughts fall silent when I hear the front door open again…
NINETEEN
Chris
“Why do all the good ones go first?” I whisper down to the grave.
Stooping to tidy up the flowers propped against the headstone, I pull out a handkerchief and clean the grime from the engraved words. Alice Reeves, beloved mother and wife.
Apart from a black Range Rover rolling through the gates, I’m the only person in the cemetery this afternoon. I haven’t visited Alice’s grave in over three years, and I had no intention of coming here today.
But with what happened with Harper this morning, the guilt steered my car here.
“She looks just like you,” I tell the headstone. “A real firecracker, just like her mom.”
A tall, bald guy climbs out of the Range Rover with a bunch of red roses, and I look around the gardens.
How many broken hearts ended up here? How many people died with that big idea still inside them? How many families will never get over their loss?
I glance at the bald guy as he approaches the grave next to me and my mind takes me back twelve years.
Just three weeks before Alice Reeves was killed in a car accident, she asked to meet me in a cafe on the outskirts of town. I had no idea what she wanted to talk about, but when she told me not to tell her husband, I felt so conflicted.
Mark and I were close friends and business partners. There was almost nothing we didn’t share. And if anyone spotted me in that cafe with his wife…it wouldn’t have ended well for either of us.
But there was a quiet desperation in Alice’s voice, so I decided to at least hear her out as I sat with her in that rundown cafe.
“Something wrong?” I asked her, sipping on a hot coffee.
Alice gazed out through the window and sighed. “I’ve forgotten the last time when somethingwasn’t wrong.”
When she turned to me, my memory now blurs her image with her twenty-two-year-old daughter. Harper was only ten when we spoke that day, but now she’s the spitting image of her mother and it makes me so uneasy.
“I need you to promise me something,” Alice said.
I lowered my cup. “Okay. What is it?”
“Harper,” she said. “If anything happens to me and Mark, you have to make sure she’s okay. You have to promise me you’ll keep her safe.”
“Is that it?” I rolled my eyes. “Nothing is going to happen to you and Mark. You’re overthinking things.”
With tears glossing her big blue eyes, Alice reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Promise me, Chris. Youhave to promise me you’ll keep her safe!”
I’d known this woman for years, but I had never seen her so emotional. Every fiber of her being looked terrified, so I squeezed her hand.
“Okay,” I told her.
“Say it,” she insisted. “I need to hear you say it.”
A guy at the next table glanced over at us, so I pulled my hand away. The last thing I needed was rumors.
I looked her square in the eye. “I promise that if anything happens to you and Mark, then I’ll keep Harper safe. You have my word.”
Alice threw a hand to her chest, and I watched a tear slip from her eye as her body relaxed with relief.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I believe you. Maybe I can sleep now.”
I still thought she was overreacting, but three weeks later, she was dead.
Staring down at her headstone as the bald guy next to me places the roses on a woman’s grave, I close my eyes and reaffirm the promise I made twelve years ago. I’m not sure if she can even hear me, but I also apologize for what happened with Harper this morning.
Honor is everything to me, but it’s not like I’ll ever see her again. Alice Reeves was one of the sweetest, kindest people I’ve ever met. If heaven is real, then I’m in no doubt where she is right now.
But I won’t be heading there when I check out.
A dozen men in hell are probably waiting for me right now. Maybe they’ll see me sooner than they think.
“Who sent you?” I ask, opening my eyes.
The bald guy next to me stops praying and turns to me. “Huh?”
“Elsie Tanner.” I nod down to the grave he’s standing over. “She didn’t have any family. I spoke at her funeral. You also have brass knuckles in your left pocket.” He glances down at his tight black jeans. “So, I’ll ask again. Who sent you?”
He waves at the Range Rover fifty yards away, and an even bigger guy climbs out of the back seat.
“You need to come with us, Mr. Collins,” the bald guy says in what sounds like an Eastern European accent. He turns square on as I reach into my pocket. “Don’t do nothing stupid.”
“Who, me?” I smirk and pull out a pack of cigarettes. “You’re not going to deny a guy one last smoke, are you?”
I offer him one, but he doesn’t budge. “Because that’s the plan, right?” I light my cigarette. “Bundle me into the car. Take me off to some shitty warehouse. Make me suffer and then put a bullet right here.”
I tap at my forehead as he puffs out his broad chest. “Yeah. Not my first rodeo, big man. But you have two problems. One, I’m not scared of dying. It would be a relief, to be honest.”
I take a long drag and blow the smoke at him. “But that won’t be happening today. So, problem two is that in less than sixty seconds, you and your goon over there are going to sleep.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.