Our Happily Ever After: BWWM Interracial Romance Black Women White Men (That Forbidden Love Book 3)

by Ellie Etienne

  “He is. And he managed to do some damage. I limited it, but…”

  Harrison nodded.

  “It’s like he was looking around, testing the waters. I…”

  “Did he do any damage?” asked Leigh, cutting in.

  Harrison shook his head.

  “He didn’t get through all the security. It’s fine, we managed to shut him down,” said Darius with such obvious pride that Leigh had to smile.

  “All right, then. We should…”

  Leigh broke off when her phone beeped. She frowned, took it out, and saw that she had a new email from somebody she didn’t know. But she couldn’t open it.

  “That’s strange…”

  She was confused when Harrison grabbed her phone from her hand.

  “Is your laptop connected?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, it’s turned off. What’s wrong?”

  “Call Roger and tell him not to open anything from anybody either. I should’ve thought of this.”

  The penny dropped for Leigh.

  “You think somebody is targeting me.”

  “Not think. I know. This is pretty basic. I can fix this now. I already amped up security on your devices.”

  Leigh didn’t waste time pointing out that that was invasion of privacy. Obviously, it had been a good precaution.

  “Can I have your laptop, Leigh?”

  Leigh felt disoriented as she found her laptop and handed it to Harrison. She watched, quietly, as Harrison and Darius got rid of whatever the hacker had tried to do.

  “This wasn’t serious, just a warning. I think we can conclude that this was just pettiness. We shut him out of where he really wanted to get, so he tried to flex his muscles and go after you.”

  But Leigh had a feeling that she couldn’t shake – that it wasn’t quite as simple as all that. She was connected, somehow. If this had been about hitting Harrison’s business, such an attack would’ve been on Anna, not her.

  This was personal.

  “Harrison…”

  “Leigh, I’m sorry, but we need to get to work. We need to push back now, I think. I can do that with Darius, if you’re okay with it.”

  Darius nodded.

  “I think it’s about time we did that. This fucker thinks he can play with us? It’s about time we changed the rules on him.”

  Leigh nodded and walked back to the timeline she had set up, according to each event that Harrison had figured out, while thinking back. As she looked at it, she noticed something.

  If it was personal, there would be another timeline – a personal one.

  She knew all those dates. She didn’t need to have them written down. Leigh sighed as she realized that it was true.

  The first attack – a small one, that had sabotaged a low-level game release, which Harrison had then considered an annoyance and nothing more – had been the day after their engagement party. Photos had been all over the tabloids and social media.

  That, it seemed, had been the trigger.

  But it wasn’t something to do with her, personally, or the attack on her would’ve been more than perfunctory. Roger would’ve noticed something by now, as well. Their practice had been left alone, too.

  Harrison had always been in the public eye, however. Leigh knew the pressures that came with that. So if their engagement had triggered this…

  “Harrison, did you ever date anybody who could do this?”

  Harrison glanced up, startled.

  “What?”

  “Look at the timeline. The first problem came up right after our engagement announcement and party. There were a couple of attacks after that, too. Look at the dates – this one happened right after we had that wedding cake tasting thing where the press managed to get in. This one was the day they published that ridiculous list of possible wedding dresses I might wear, and you told me that that looked like it was based on my browser history.”

  Harrison nodded, and he looked stunned.

  Moving to her chart, he nodded, catching on very quickly.

  “You’re right, so that should be added here. And the day the venue leaked – that would be when the fitness app developed that bug.”

  Leigh nodded.

  “And look at this – the delay on your big game, that was because of smaller attacks throughout the final buildup to the wedding, when you were distracted. You thought it was because you were distracted, but what if it had been planned for something to happen right at the time of our wedding?”

  Harrison nodded.

  “One of our techs called with an update that day. They did notice something. Jonathan and Lisa took the lead on that, managed to neutralize it. They didn’t have the hacker live then. It was something of a time bomb.”

  “Because he – or she – couldn’t work live during our wedding. It was too much. There’s something there, Harrison – somebody got very upset when we announced our engagement. Upset enough to do something this elaborate. So… Did you ever date anybody who could do this?”

  Harrison shook his head slowly.

  “No, I can’t say that I did. You know that Diane is the only really serious girlfriend I had, that way. Diane is not a hacker. She’s not vindictive, either.”

  Leigh nodded.

  “It might not have been somebody you dated. I’ve heard about fans doing crazy things like this, too. It might be that. Did you ever get any really bad fan mail?”

  Harrison looked bewildered.

  “I’m not a movie star, Leigh!”

  “You might as well be, you’re a billionaire, you’re handsome, and you’re in the tabloids quite a bit. Anna would probably know.”

  Harrison nodded again.

  “She would. I’ve got a small team briefed about this, and the big developments are being done off the network for now.”

  “Do you think this could be somebody who works for you?”

  Harrison shook his head firmly.

  “I told you, we do background checks.”

  “But a personal obsession wouldn’t show up on a background check, would it? That’s different.”

  Harrison had to concede that. Still, it felt like such a long shot.

  “I think I’ll talk to Anna, see if she can come up with something. She’s better with details than you are, Harrison.”

  But there was something else bothering Leigh about that explanation, too. It felt too planned, too elaborate, for it to be a spur-of-the-moment spurned lover, even if the lover part had only been in their fantasies.

  There was something she was missing – something important.

  She had to get out of there and think.

  “I’m going to go outside for a bit, call Anna, see if we can get something from her.”

  Harrison nodded.

  “I’ll see if I can find more that fits into our new timeline. Leigh, please be careful. Actually, no. I’m getting Don to escort you.”

  Leigh opened her mouth to object, and closed it right back again. There were a few battles that were pointless to fight. Harrison would be distracted if he worried about her. He trusted Don.

  In the time she had known him, so did she.

  Give and take, right? Marriage was about compromises. This wasn’t a bad one.

  “All right.”

  It felt good to take a breath. The tension inside had been stifling. Darius and Harrison seemed to thrive on it. Leigh, though, needed some time away from it.

  It was good to see that the sun was setting, the colors bursting across the sky as if a mad artist had been frantic to get his vision down on canvas before it could disappear. People were bustling about. There was a hot dog cart just down the road, though Leigh was pretty sure he didn’t have a permit to be there, so he’d better hurry up with his business.

  She smiled as she saw the two women herding a bunch of kids home. The kids didn’t look like they wanted to be inside, and she couldn’t blame them. It looked like it was going to be a glorious evening, followed by one of those clear night
s that were so rare in the city, when you felt like you could see all those stars, just like you could in the countryside, or up a mountain.

  Leigh craved mountain air, and some time to just be.

  The hot dog sure smelled good, though. Had she missed lunch? Her stomach grumbled. No wonder she had been feeling a little sick. The nerves contributed, of course, but if she didn’t feed herself properly, of course she was going to feel sick.

  Before Anna, she called Roger, and gave him the warnings. Roger was understanding – of course he was. The paralegal-in-training had cheered Roger up well.

  “It’s fine, Leigh. I get it. But I do have a few files for you. I’ll email them to you?”

  Leigh hesitated.

  “Yes, I guess it’s safe now that Harrison has worked his magic. He’s sending somebody to your place to work the magic for you and Mia, as well. How’s Mia?”

  “The miracle of life has given her swollen ankles, and none of her shoes fit, so she’s walking around with cloth bags tied around her feet.”

  Leigh chuckled, but was surprised by the longing she felt. She was officially in her thirties now. Should she be looking up declining fertility and so on?

  Married life, so far, hadn’t been going as she had expected. There were more surprises than not, and most of them had nothing to do with marriage.

  Trying to track down a hacker with a vendetta wasn’t what she had expected to be doing in the first few months of marriage. Getting Harrison out of jail wasn’t in the top ten of expectations, either. Thank heavens for Portia, thought Leigh fervently. She really owed that woman.

  “Ms. Wells, are you ready?”

  She smiled at Don. He reminded her of a German Shepherd. He was big and a little shaggy, but there was undying loyalty to Harrison clear in his eyes. It was obvious that the loyalty extended to her, too, now.

  “Almost. I have to call Anna. Mind if we walk to the park and sit there for a while? I need a break from the frantic energy in there.”

  Don smiled and nodded with a gentleness that reminded her, again, of a German Shepherd interacting with children.

  “Of course, Ms. Wells,” he agreed.

  He seemed to produce a bag of crumbs as if by miracle once they were settled down. There were ducks, of course, and with that instinct that ducks seemed to develop in a city park, they zeroed in on Don.

  Leigh made the call, feeling calmer than she had in a long while.

  But it left her none the wiser. There had been no threats in the last two years, and the only woman who had made a few overtures too passionate to be ignored had been tracked down, and slapped with a restraining order. That had, apparently, been enough to shock her into realizing that Harrison Bloom was out of reach.

  Anna had kept track. The woman was now married and expecting a child. Besides, she had absolutely no coding experience, and her husband was a plumber and a well-respected man in the community.

  So that was scratched out.

  Still, Leigh was sure that there was something she was missing.

  Maybe she wasn’t going back far enough. Maybe it wasn’t just about her and Harrison – maybe it was about her, Harrison, and the company. Maybe it was about everything he had.

  It felt like clutching at straws, but the Bloom family had had a few disagreements with people. Leigh knew that her parents had been close with Harrison’s, of course. But she had no other trail to follow, and she couldn’t set it out of her mind and settle down to work, though she knew she should.

  “Don, I don’t want to impose…”

  “You never do, Ms. Wells.”

  “Would you mind coming with me to my parents’ home? I need to talk to them. I don’t want to bother Harrison.”

  “Of course, Ms. Wells. Not a problem. I’ll have the car pick us up here.”

  Leigh nodded, and waited. She took a few of the crumbs that Don offered and tossed them to ducks, and wondered, for a fleeting moment, what life would be if they were just perfectly normal – no security, no press, no photos. Just a normal life.

  Count your blessings, she reminded herself as Don indicated that the car was there.

  “Leigh, I didn’t expect to see you tonight. Where’s Harrison?”

  “He’s caught up in work. As usual, I suppose. It’s just me tonight. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

  Martha laughed.

  “As if. Come on in, we’re having grilled fish and vegetables.”

  “Of course we are,” she murmured, and wondered what junk food her father had sneaked earlier in the morning.

  “But I need to talk to you guys about something.”

  “Oh. Well, that sounds serious. I’ll get us some tea then. Would you like cookies, Don?”

  “I wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Wells. Your cookies are the best.”

  Martha smiled, delighted, and walked into the kitchen to get it.

  “I’ll wait out here, Ms. Wells. It won’t hurt to do a perimeter check here. Mr. Bloom would expect it.”

  “Oh, all right. Please come in whenever you’re ready. And will you ever call me Leigh?”

  “Probably not, Ms. Wells.”

  Leigh shook her head and followed her mother into the kitchen. They wouldn’t go into the living room. The kitchen was where family conversations usually happened.

  Usually, Harrison was there, too.

  “Mom, I really need to talk to you guys about something.”

  Martha nodded.

  “All right, keep talking. I can listen and make tea.”

  “I need to know about Harrison’s parents. How they died, if they had any enemies – all that.”

  Martha went completely still.

  “What do you mean?”

  But Leigh had noticed, and saw through Martha’s attempted nonchalance.

  “There’s something. Mom, somebody’s after him, after his business. They almost got him arrested. Something very weird is going on. We thought it was just competition until we realized that it all happened exactly when we announced our engagement. That was the trigger. If it were business, that wouldn’t be the trigger.”

  Martha poured tea, deliberately.

  Samuel walked in exactly as she set the third cup out. Her father, thought Leigh affectionately, had an instinct for such things that was unrivalled.

  “Leigh, honey, you’re home. Where’s Harrison?”

  “Sam, somebody’s after Harrison. They got him arrested.”

  Samuel rounded on Leigh, all concern and fury.

  “No, dad, don’t do that. Just don’t. We handled it, and everything is fine. We just need to know what’s going on. We checked on exes, we checked on competition, but nothing has clicked. We need to know if there’s something in Harrison’s past that could cause this, something we don’t know about.”

  Samuel, too, sat down and exchanged a look with Martha.

  “Dad, what’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Martha sighed.

  “We got a few threats.”

  Leigh’s eyes widened. She was braced to spring, to protect.

  “No, not now. Years ago, when we adopted Harrison, after his parents’ accident. You have to understand, Leigh, our focus was on getting him settled, on making sure that his life suffered as little disruption as possible. Then there was you – it was all such a change for you, as well. But you had already accepted him as yours, so we weren’t too worried about that.”

  Leigh nodded.

  “I understand that, mom.”

  “We got a few threatening letters. All posted from different places, no identifying marks about them. We reported it to the police, but they said there was nothing they could do, in all probability. Then they stopped, so we were glad that it was over.”

  “What did the letters say?”

  “Something about the sins of the father being visited upon the son, and so on.”

  “The sins of the father?”

  Martha sighed again.

  “I hoped all of this had been le
ft behind, Sam.”

  Leigh smiled, just a little, when her father covered her mother’s hand with his own and squeezed gently. That was love.

  “Before the accident, the Blooms had gotten a few threatening letters, too. They didn’t pay much attention to them. They were businesspeople, both of them. They said it was no matter.”

  “But,” went on Martha, “I thought that Tess was a bit worried, nonetheless. She didn’t say so in so many words, but I thought there was something to it. But then the accident happened, and all other things seemed so irrelevant. All that mattered was to make sure that Harrison was taken care of. So we focused on that.”

  Leigh’s head was swimming.

  “But there’s been nothing for two decades.”

  Samuel nodded.

  “No, nothing. There were those notes, and that was it. It all stopped mattering because there was so much to take care of. The Blooms’ business had to be sold, and the money from that was put in a fund for Harrison.”

  “That boy, when he was eighteen, we told him he could have it to finance himself. He declared that that money would go to his own children when he had them, and to yours. I guess that turned out a little oddly,” said Martha with a chuckle.

  “But didn’t anybody think that it was just a bit odd that a couple got threatening letters, and right after that, they were in an accident and got killed?”

  Martha pursed her lips as she considered it. No, realized Leigh, she was considering just how much to tell her.

  “Mom, the whole truth. I need the whole truth. It’s not all in the past now. The past is catching up with us here.”

  Leigh wasn’t just saying that. She was suddenly sure that this was the root of it all.

  “There were a few questions about the accident. But it happened so suddenly, and, well, it was ruled an accident. We didn’t push. We didn’t see what good would come out of tying Harrison up in something like that. It would’ve become a shadow over him for the rest of his life. He needed closure, not questions that might never have answers.”

  Leigh nodded.

  “I know. I know what you mean. I know you did the right thing back then. But we need to know more now. I don’t suppose you have anything? Copies of those old letters?”

  Martha glanced at Samuel guiltily.

  “What is it? Mom, there’s something more. I know that look. What is it?”