“You’ve got to be kidding me. I put my life into this company. I’ve done more for King’s than you ever did, and we both know it.”
Her father narrowed his eyes again. “Sit down, Arianna. There is a second option that you haven’t let me voice. It seems your impetuous nature is just the tip of the iceberg of where they went wrong with you.”
They.
Not him. He hadn’t raised her.
Arianna sat down, her body shaking. She wasn’t sure her legs would be able to carry her at all at this point. This monster in front of her couldn’t be her father.
She’d seen signs of the way he was acting now—his cruelty, his disgust—her whole life, but she hadn’t thought it could get this bad. How on earth had she missed this?
“The second option is sitting right next to you.”
Arianna froze and then slowly turned toward Justin, who had leaned back in his chair, his hands calmly resting on his stomach.
“What?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“I’ll let you keep your position—thereby becoming president and owner—if you marry Justin.”
Arianna blinked, unable to come up with words.
Marry. Justin.
Her father had to be fucking kidding her.
“I’m not marrying Justin.”
“No offense, right?” Justin sneered.
“Fuck you, Justin. All offense intended,” she snarled then turned to her father. “No. I’m not marrying your precious puppet. What do you think you’re doing? This is the twenty-first century. You can’t just marry me off to the highest bidder.”
This couldn’t be legal. Could it?
She’d sue. She’d do something, but she wouldn’t marry that jackass.
Xavier raised a brow. “Can’t I? Marry Justin or lose your precious company. I don’t really care as long as you do as you’re told. It’s about time you act the dutiful daughter and not the ungrateful bitch in front of me.”
Arianna stood up quickly, almost knocking into her chair. Jesus, what the hell was happening? She’d walked into this room thinking she’d finally be free, and now her father wanted to shackle her even tighter.
What was she going to do? She couldn’t let the company fall into their rival’s hands, it wouldn’t be fair. But if it happened, she’d be out of a job. And there was no way in hell that she would marry the prick beside her.
She had a little savings, but she couldn’t afford the type of lawyer she’d need to fight her father.
She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry.
There really was only one option.
“I quit.”
Her father blinked—a sign of emotion he more than likely didn’t even know he was showing—then stood up, his mouth opening to say something probably even more vulgar than usual.
Arianna raised her hand, silencing him with a look. Rage made her limbs want to shake, but she stayed firm. She would not show weakness. Not now. Not ever. Never to this man again. “I’m done. Take your precious Justin and your precious plans and leave me out of it.”
Surprised she’d been able to speak at all, she turned on her heel and walked out of the office. Her father and Justin may have spoken behind her, but she didn’t hear.
She could barely think, let alone do anything else.
With one conversation, she’d lost it all. Her dreams hadn’t come true. There were no such things as happily ever afters.
Fate fucking sucked.
Chapter Two
Harper Rosso cursed and fumbled with the hammer before putting it back in his tool belt so he could answer his phone. He’d thought he’d turned the damn thing on vibrate but had apparently forgotten. The shrill ring had pierced his brain, making his already annoying headache even worse.
Taking a deep breath, he climbed off the ladder, pulled out his phone, and answered, not bothering to look at the display.
He should have taken the time to read the damn screen.
“What?” he barked, tired as hell and ready to get home. The first day of this damn job had taken longer than he’d expected, and he was going to end up behind on his timeline if he didn’t put more work in. When the Montgomerys had hired him for this project—restoring the old Mason Home—he’d done his research and had come up with a decent deadline. That didn’t mean shit when it came to mold, broken moldings, and shitty hardwood flooring. He didn’t have to fix it all today, or even by himself, but he had to at least make a list for all of the others to get started. He was one of the new guys on the Montgomery Inc. team, and if this project went well, the company would hire him on full-time. Everything he had was riding on this. He didn’t want to own his own business, but he wanted to work for those who knew what they were doing.
“Is that how you answer your phone? No wonder you don’t get laid.”
Harper closed his eyes and prayed for patience. Then he remembered he really didn’t give a flying fuck about his brother Justin’s feelings.
“What do you want, Justin? You’ve got two seconds, and then I’m hanging up.”
He could practically see the bastard’s smirk as he spoke. God, he knew it was probably a sin to hate his brother as much as he did, but honestly, the little maggot was lucky Harper hadn’t ended him when they were kids.
Harper inhaled through his nose then exhaled through his mouth, trying to calm himself. Only Justin could send him to violence so quickly.
“You’re such an ungrateful brat,” Justin growled.
“You’re running out of time,” Harper replied.
Justin let out a huff. “Fine, I just wanted to call you so you could congratulate me on my engagement.”
That brought Harper up short. Engagement? Since when was Justin seeing someone? Why Justin thought Harper would care about this development beyond feeling horror for the poor woman was beyond him.
“Good for you. I’m hanging up now.” Any longer, and Harper might have to take his hammer to his temple and end it all for good.
“Don’t you want to know who I’m marrying?”
While normally Harper would have just hung up, there was something in Justin’s tone that forced him to pause. His brother was a little too cocky about something.
And that worried him.
“Fine. Who?”
“Your lovely neighbor, Arianna King.”
Harper blinked, his mind going momentarily blank, his throat dry. “Excuse me?” He couldn’t have heard right. There was no way Ari would fall for Justin. His best friend and neighbor couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with her father’s lackey, his brother, let alone vow to spend the rest of her life with him.
This had to be a joke.
Or maybe a bad dream.
Maybe he’d hit his head with the hammer already, and this was his subconscious playing some weird fucking trick on him.
“You heard me,” Justin crooned. “She finally saw the light of day, and I’ll have her. It seems like you’re too late. Again. Too bad you never had the balls to come out and tell her you’ve been mooning after her for years.”
Harper took a deep breath, ignoring Justin’s taunt. Despite the fact that the brothers rarely talked these days, Justin still knew what buttons to push, how to cut deep.
Arianna was a sure-fire trigger.
“Thanks for the heads up.” He ended the call before Justin could say anything more and put his phone back in his pocket.
Engaged? That couldn’t be true. Ari wouldn’t marry Justin. There was no way. But that kernel of doubt spread through his body, and he rubbed his fist over his chest. Jesus, there had to be something more to it, and Harper had a feeling it had to do with Xavier.
When it came to Ari making choices that not only hurt her but also left Harper out in the cold, her father usually had a hand in things. Xavier was the reason Harper had stayed on the sidelines for all these years while Ari focused on her work. Harper had wanted to support her without getting in the way.
He ran a hand over his head, no
ticing that his black hair was getting too long. Harper looked over the work he’d already completed on the old place and thought of everything else on his list that needed to be taken care of before the Montgomerys showed up to help him. His job was to go in after Storm and Wes Montgomery had made the plans and get the house ready. Usually, that would be Decker’s job, but they had hired Harper to work under Decker in the near future. He might love restoring old places to their former glory, but right then, he couldn’t focus.
No, Ari was the one on his mind, and that annoyed him to no end.
She was just his best friend. The woman he talked to daily and shared almost every part of himself with—just not the part that loved her, he didn’t tell her that.
She wasn’t ready for that, and he hadn’t been ready to change how things were. How she didn’t see it every time he looked at her was beyond him. Even his damn brother had noticed and now took great joy in fucking with Harper because of it.
Now, it looked as if he might have held back for too long.
“Fuck,” he grunted then started putting everything away so he could head out for the day. He wouldn’t be able to focus with Ari and whatever trouble she might be in on his mind. He’d just go to her and find out the truth. Then he’d do what he’d been doing his whole life—fix it.
Harper was a fixer, and despite the fact that Ari hated when he stepped in and tried to take over, he’d been good about letting her make what she thought were her own mistakes and stay with King’s Weddings. But he’d be damned if he stayed behind while she went off and married Justin.
He cursed again and then stomped over to his truck. No, fuck that. She wouldn’t marry Justin. The sense of betrayal washing over him wasn’t because she might be marrying the twat—because that wouldn’t happen. No, the urge to punch something came from the fact that she hadn’t called to let him know something fucked up was happening around her.
Again.
She never called when she needed help because she thought she could handle everything.
The point of being friends was that she shouldn’t have to handle it all.
Harper would just have to remind her of that.
Again.
Then, when he figured out how to help, he’d take a good look at whatever the fuck he was doing with his life because waiting on Ari to be ready for him was damn near killing him.
Sometimes, to find a way to make your life work, you had to take a leap of faith.
That didn’t mean it didn’t scare the hell out of him, though.
By the time he made it to his place and parked in his driveway, he’d just about gotten his emotions under control. Once he talked to Ari, he’d be able to breathe normally again. He got out of his truck and didn’t bother going inside his three-bedroom ranch home. Instead, he crossed the lawn to Ari’s two-bedroom house. Her car was in the driveway, and since he couldn’t feel heat coming from the hood, he knew she’d been there for a little while.
Not good.
She should have called.
But he’d known she wouldn’t.
Without bothering to knock, he unlocked the door using the key she’d given him a couple of years ago and walked inside. Despite the fact that the sun had just set, and darkness crept through the windows, she hadn’t turned on any lights. He closed and locked the door behind him, toed off his shoes so she wouldn’t yell at him for ruining her carpets again, and went in search of her.
If she’d merely had a bad day, Harper would expect to find her up in her tub with her eReader. He drew up short, cursing his dick. Thinking about Ari slick and covered in bubbles wasn’t the right direction for his mind to go. Not now.
But since Ari had probably dealt with Justin that day, Harper had a feeling this might take more than a bubble bath to get over.
He headed to the kitchen, and that’s where he found her.
She sat on the kitchen floor between the two counters, her shoes beside her tossed to the side. Was it wrong that she looked damn sexy with those stocking feet and short skirt even though he knew she probably wanted to scream or cry at the moment?
Her light pink and grey outfit had wrinkles in it—something he never thought he’d see on Ari, and even her sexy blonde hair looked like she’d run her fingers through it over and over.
Oh, sweet Jesus, his Ari looked like hell.
Without a second thought, he took off his jacket and slid down beside her without speaking. She looked up at him with those big green eyes, and he fell for her all over again.
Not that he’d tell her that.
“Hey, you,” she said, her voice a little slurred.
That’s when he noticed the beer bottle in her hands. He raised a brow. “Beer, Ari, really?”
She grinned up at him and leaned into his side. He lifted his arm so she could sink into him. “You know I hate wine. People say it’s fruity or whatever, but all I can taste is chemicals.”
“You just aren’t drinking the right wine.” He ran his hand down her side, and she sighed. The little sound went straight to his cock but he’d long since learned how to control his physical responses around Ari.
At least he tried to.
“Shut up, Harper. You don’t like wine either.” She brought the beer up to her lips, and he patted her thigh.
“True. I’m more of a beer man myself.” With that, he took the beer out of her hands and took a sip.
“Hey, that’s mine.” She slapped his stomach, and he grinned around the bottle. “Why is your stomach so hard? I think I hurt my hand.”
He sucked in a breath and told his dick to calm down. She was drunk, and he wasn’t an idiot.
“What? It looked good,” he teased.
She smiled at him, and for once, it looked like a true one. He relaxed somewhat. If she could still smile at him, then all was not lost.
“Get your own, thief.” Her smile wobbled, and she leaned her head on his chest.
He set down her beer and wrapped both arms around her, pulling her closer. “Tell me what’s wrong, Ari.”
“Don’t you already know? That’s why you’re here, right? I figured Holly or Colleen called you.”
He kissed the crown of her head. “Justin called me to tell me the news, but I wanted to hear it from you.”
She pulled away and narrowed her eyes at him. “What did the bastard say?”
He cupped her face and used the pad of his thumb to brush away her tears. She leaned into his touch, and it took all within him not to pull her closer and never let go.
“Just tell me what happened.”
She pulled away and took her beer back, chugging the rest before letting her shoulders fall. “Well, first I thought I was getting a promotion.”
“I remember, you said your father was retiring.” He ran his fingers over her knee, needing to touch her.
“Well, he is retiring, but he’s taking everything with him when he goes. Apparently, I suck, and I’m not good enough for his company. So either he sells it to our rival, or I marry your brother. Because, you know, it’s the Regency era and all that. So instead of doing either of those things, I quit my job. So now, I’m poor, jobless, soon to be homeless, and hopeless.”
Harper took a deep breath and prayed for patience, rage consuming him. What the fuck were Xavier and Justin thinking? They wanted to control her so they did something like this? “Why don’t I go to Justin’s and beat the shit out of him?”
Ari raised her brow before weaving. He pulled her onto his lap so she wouldn’t fall. Though she felt nice where she was—really nice—she was drunk, and there was no way he’d take advantage.
“Stop trying to fix everything for me, Harper. I’m a big girl.”
Harper pushed her hair from her face and kissed her forehead. “I know you are, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to kick his ass anyway. I’m sure I can find another reason in a jiffy.” He snapped his fingers. “Ha. Already thought of one.”
She snorted then sighed, her breath tingling his neck. �
�This sucks.”
“I know.”
“What am I going to do?” she asked, her voice so small.
God, he’d never heard Ari this fragile, this broken before. He’d rather have her fighting back and telling him where to shove it rather than asking him what to do.
“You’re going to do what you always do when your father acts like an asshole. Pick yourself up and plan weddings. You’re freaking awesome at it, and we both know it. You don’t need King’s Weddings to live your life.”
“But I’m a King. Well, not according to my father, but damn it, I’m a King. I was supposed to take over and do what I was born to do and actually do it my way. Instead, I ran away from it all.”
He pushed her back so he could look into her eyes. “Baby, you’re more than the King name. We both know that. Stop tearing yourself down because your father doesn’t realize how special you are.”
She sighed and ran a hand over his cheek. “You always see something in me that no one else does. Are you sure it’s even there, Harper?”
He fought the urge to turn his face and kiss her palm. “I see you, that’s what matters. Now, I’m going to take you upstairs and tuck you into bed so you can sleep off your drunk. In the morning, you and I can talk about exactly how you’re going to face this head-on. You can do whatever you set your mind to, and you don’t need your stinking father to make that happen. And while we’re at it, you don’t need Justin for anything.”
She snorted and tried to stand. When she wobbled, he got up, taking her with him and hoisting her into his arms. She was so freaking light, even with all those sexy curves. Ari wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed into him again.
“You’re acting like my white knight again, Harper.”
He made his way down the hall to her room, trying not to let the feel of her body against his seep into his bones. “I’m not the white knight, more of the dented armored stable boy.”
“Did stable boys wear armor?” she asked, sleepily.
“Well, they should have with all those swords and lances everywhere.” He tucked her into bed, her clothes still in place. He wasn’t that much of a saint, and even trying to get her comfortable by stripping her down would have been too much for him.
Love, Honor, and Ink: (A Montgomery Ink Novella) Page 2