“Oh, I’d say about a thousand, but we both know I’m not gonna do that.”
“Yeah, doesn’t keep me from hoping, though.” He wrapped his arms around me and I knew that with all the tight hugs I’d been getting tonight, I’d probably be sore in the morning. Not that I cared. I loved all of it. “I wanted to tell you happy birthday again before we head out.”
“Thanks, Mr. Cutter. And thanks for coming tonight.”
Aquamarine eyes turned darker blue as he stepped back, his eyes skimming over my face. In that moment I saw the father in him, and not the still-sexy rocker. “I always hoped that you and Harris would get together one day. I’m really happy that you decided to give him a chance, Lucy.”
Blushing, I lowered my eyes, not sure what to say to that.
Devlin Cutter chuckled. “Happy birthday, Lucy.” He kissed my cheek and stepped back. “It was good to see you again, sweetheart.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “You, too.”
Slowly, everyone started heading home. Aunt Emmie, Nik, and Mia gave me a huge group hug and followed Shane and Harper out. Soon it was just my parents, brothers, Kin and Jace, and Harris. We all dropped down onto a group of couches and I leaned against Harris, closing my eyes. All the excitement of the day had wiped me out. Sleep was trying to pull me down and I fought against it, wanting a little more time with my boyfriend.
Around me I could make out some of their conversation, mostly Kin and Jace bickering while my parents tried to convince the twins that they needed to take showers when we got home. None of that concerned me, though. All I wanted to do was listen to the steady beating heart of the guy who owned my heart.
“Time to go home, sweetness,” I heard Harris murmur close to my ear.
“Don’t wanna go,” I mumbled, half asleep already.
“Sorry, baby.” My mom’s voice tried to penetrate my sleep-fogged mind. “The boys need to be in bed and you look like you could use one, too.”
I tightened my hold on Harris’s waist. “No. I’m comfortable here.” Maybe they would let me stay if I held on tight enough. Maybe they would let Harris take me home with him…
I nearly smiled at that thought before it even fully developed in my head. Yeah, right. No way was Jesse Thornton going to let that happen.
Harris chuckled quietly and I felt his lips in my hair before a pair of the strongest arms in the universe lifted me. I cracked an eye open to glare at my dad for a second. “But I wanna stay,” I whined.
Dad tucked me closer and the warmth from his body mixed with the peace and safety I always felt when he held me like that were the perfect combination and I gave up the battle to stay awake.
Chapter 11
Harris
The party had been over for more than an hour. Jace and Kin had stuck around, keeping me company while my staff straightened up the mess that had been left over. When Kin started yawning, however, Jace talked her into letting him give her a ride home.
For about a minute, I worried about Jace and whether or not Kin would actually commit murder. She hadn’t been happy in the least when she’d walked out the back door with my friend. Shaking my head, I decided Jace was a big boy and could handle himself with the gorgeous redhead.
After making sure the club was clean, I locked up and headed home. I wasn’t exhausted, nowhere close to it, and I doubted I’d get much sleep that night. Not when my body was still on high alert. I’d been counting down the days until Lucy was legal and now that she was, my body was ready to take that next step.
I’d been thankful for her parents taking her home earlier. If I’d been the one to drive her home, it would have been to my house and not hers. Jesse Thornton might be okay with me dating his only daughter¸ but I doubted he would accept that I took her back to my place and devoured her within hours of her becoming eighteen.
Unlocking the door to the apartment I shared with Jenna, I was surprised to hear the TV on in the living room. Jenna had texted me when she got home to let me know she was going to bed. Tensing, I realized that it was Tessa sitting on the couch watching some kind of late-night trashy movie.
Fucking hell.
The apartment was huge, but seriously, it wasn’t big enough to put enough distance between me and Tessa. The length of the country wasn’t enough distance. I hated that bitch and was beyond glad that Jenna was calling it quits with her the next day. Maybe with her gone I would decide to stay instead of moving out at the end of the month.
I ignored her as I went into the kitchen and pulled out the container of sweet tea that Jenna had made that morning. No one made sweet tea like Jenna. There was barely a glass left and I swallowed half of it in one gulp. Huh, it tasted bitter. Shrugging, because I figured Jenna had just gotten distracted and let the tea sit too long in the maker, I gulped down the rest and bypassed the living room as I went to bed.
I needed a shower, but wanted to text Lucy first.
Hope you always remember this birthday, sweetness. I love you. Always.
She didn’t respond, but I knew she wouldn’t. She’d been out cold when I’d walked the Thorntons to their car earlier. She hadn’t even moved when I’d brushed a kiss over her closed eyes. Blowing out a frustrated breath, because all I wanted right then was for Lucy to be in my bed waiting for me, I stood.
Looked like I was going to have to take care of the pain in my body myself.
I’d barely taken a step toward my bathroom when a wave of dizziness hit me. It was strong enough to make me stumble and I stopped, blinking as the world around me dimmed and grew blurry. Fuck, what the hell was wrong with me? Reaching for the post at the end of my bed, I grasped it and eased myself down onto the end of my mattress.
This feeling was familiar, but at the same time completely foreign. It reminded me of the days when all I lived for was getting high. It had been a phase in my life that hadn’t lasted long, but it was something I was never likely to forget.
But this? It was like being high magnified by a hundred.
Moaning, because the room was staring to spin, I fell back onto the mattress. This was wrong. Something was wrong. I knew it, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not when every time I lifted my head I felt like I was going to fall off the face of the Earth and float into space. It was a scary feeling. Terrifying.
Thinking I needed to call my parents, I thought I heard my bedroom door open. For a moment I even thought there was someone in my room. “Jenna?” I heard my voice, but it sounded like it was coming from a deep well.
My last thought before I lost all cognitive reasoning was that I was in serious trouble.
Chapter 12
Lucy
My phone was buzzing. Every few seconds I’d hear it go off and knew, even as I fought against the pull of sleep, that I was getting text messages. I didn’t want to wake up from the dream I’d been having. It was too good to want to leave it behind.
My phone and whoever was blowing it up didn’t seem to care, though.
Moaning, I reached out blindly for the annoying thing and slowly lifted one eye as I found it. Bringing it close, I saw on my locked screen that it was Harris, but there were no messages, just what looked like videos. Smiling, I unlocked the phone and pulled up the first video.
Five seconds later the smile was gone and I was fighting back the urge to vomit.
No, my heart screamed, denying what my brain was seeing. No, he wouldn’t do something like that. Not to me.
The first video lasted barely thirty seconds. I knew what was going on in it, could see my boyfriend with his hands all over the chick I recognized as Tessa. It was just hard to comprehend. What the hell was going on? I couldn’t—wouldn’t—accept this as the truth.
Maybe she was using some kind of video-editing software and that wasn’t really Harris. Please, let that be it.
There were ten videos, each anywhere from thirty to sixty seconds long, and taking up exactly where the previous one left off. Like the masochist that I was, I watched each and every one
. The moans, the sighs, the sexual whimpers, and whispered words that I couldn’t make out as I watched him touching her was making me physically ill even as my brain tried to work out some kind of reason for all of this to just be a bad dream. Tears burned my eyes and blinded me, but I scrubbed at them angrily as I continued to watch, desperately looking for some clue that would exonerate Harris.
When the last one was over and Harris was lying on his back with his arm thrown over his face, his chest heaving from exertion, I sent a reply back with shaking fingers.
What the hell is this shit?
My stomach fell through the floor when I read the answering message less than ten seconds later.
This is payback. Jenna’s breaking up with me today. It’s because of you and Harris that she doesn’t love me anymore. Hope you enjoyed the show, little girl. It’s going to be up on all the revenge sex porn sites within the hour. Sweet dreams little Lucy.
Oh shit.
This was bad. So fucking bad. If Tessa put that video up on all those sites, which I was sure there were hundreds of, Harris’s life would be over. Not only would the bad press of a sex video hurt business at First Bass, but more than that, if my dad saw it then he was going to be dead.
Ugly dead.
Pushing the pain in my heart down, I jumped out of bed, stepped into a pair of ballet slippers, and threw on my robe before rushing out the door. There was no use in being quiet. After years of having to sleep on a tour bus, it took drastic measures to get my dad out of bed unless he was ready.
My heart was pounding as I left the house, my phone already to my ear as I waited for someone to pick up on the other end.
“Yeah?” came the sleep-roughened voice of my aunt.
“Aunt Emmie!” I cried as I began running down the street to her house. “I need your help. Please. It’s important.”
“Lucy?” She sounded more awake now. “Honey, what’s wrong? Jesse?” The fear in her voice told me that she thought something was seriously wrong with my dad.
“No, Aunt Emmie. Daddy’s fine. Please. I know it’s late but this can’t wait.”
“I’ll meet you at the front door, honey.” I heard her moving around, heard her whispering something to Nik and then nothing as the phone went dead.
I was already climbing the steps of her front porch. Not wanting to wake the kids or their nanny, I didn’t ring the doorbell. Less than a minute later, Emmie opened the door dressed in her nightgown and a robe that was wide open, her face a mask of concern.
As soon as she saw me she pulled me into her arms. “Gods, Lucy. What’s going on?”
“Harris is in trouble,” I got out through the lump in my throat. “You have to help him. Please, Aunt Emmie.”
Stepping back, the small redhead raked big green eyes over me for a long moment before pulling me into the house. She didn’t speak again until we were in her office at the back of the house. Pushing me down into one of the two chairs facing her desk, she moved to the little fridge behind her desk and pulled out a bottle of water. Uncapping it, she forced me to take a few swallows before leaning back against her desk.
“Okay, lets start at the beginning. What’s happened that Harris needs my help? That boy is pretty self-sufficient if you ask me. Everything he’s done with First Bass has been all on him. Neither I nor Natalie have helped him get to where he is, regarding that.”
My hand was shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone as I offered it to her. “Jenna’s girlfriend…” I paused and sucked in a deep breath. I knew that if Emmie was going to help me then I needed to be one hundred percent honest with her. I’d have to start at the very beginning because I knew she would find out on her own and then be pissed when Jenna’s drug addiction hit the fan. Pissed enough that she wouldn’t help Harris after that.
“Jenna’s girlfriend, Tessa?” Emmie nodded. “She got Jenna addicted to coke.” Emmie’s eyes widened but she didn’t so much as move and I went on. “Harris got her into a rehab in Arizona and that’s where she’s been the last few months. He convinced her that Tessa was bad for her and Jenna finally decided to break up with her. Harris told me earlier tonight that she’s supposed to do it tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Emmie crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re going to have a long talk about Jenna and her rehab later, but for now tell me what Jenna breaking up with this girl has to do with Harris.”
I pushed my hair out of my face and wiped at a few stray tears. “Look at the messages,” I whispered.
She stood there watching me for a long moment before she finally looked down at the phone I’d given her. She played the first one for less than ten seconds before backing out and scrolling through the rest of the messages. Her face was set in stone when she finally set the phone on her desk.
“You watched those? All of them?” I nodded, unable to look her in the eye. “You’re a lot stronger than I’ve ever given you credit for, then, Lu. I would have been ready to tear that bitch’s head off and shove it down Harris’s throat.”
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the images that would forever haunt me. My heart was shattered, my chest feeling like if I took too deep a breath that the rest of me might crack, too. It was starting to set in that it really was Harris in those videos and the shaking in my hands was getting worse.
“M-maybe there’s a good reason for Harris to have done this. M-may…be—”
“Yeah, Lucy. Maybe.” She clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “So what do you want me to do, honey? How can I help you? Because it will be you I’m helping, not Harris.”
“Stop her. No matter what is really going on here, that is obviously Harris in those videos. If she puts them on all those revenge sex porn sites, all his dreams for First Bass will be over. He will lose the club, and if Daddy ever finds out, his life.” I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth, sucking so hard that I knew it was going to bruise if I didn’t stop.
“Do you know how hard it is to get something on the Internet pulled?” she demanded. “Honey, once it’s out there, it’s out there for life. I can’t make any promises that this won’t blow up and go viral. Harris is a big deal. With the success of his club and being the son of Devlin Cutter, if the press gets hold of this, it’s over.”
Fresh fear and tears burned through me and I lowered my head, unable to keep from sobbing. “P-please, Aunt Emmie. Please try.”
“Ah, honey.” She crouched down in front of me and took my hands in hers. “I’ll do my best, Lucy. I promise, I’ll do all I can. But I’m going to have to make some calls because I can’t do this on my own.”
Unable to speak through the knot of emotions in my throat, all I could do was nod. Emmie held my hand for a moment longer before giving it a gentle squeeze and standing. She moved around her desk and sat in her chair before picking up the phone on her desk.
Even before she started dialing, I knew who she was calling. Moment’s later Emmie spoke into the receiver. “Natalie? Your stepson needs you…”
While Emmie talked, filling in her second-in-command on everything I’d told her, I tried to tune it out. Tried to push it all away and hide from the pain that was making my entire body ache with it. I couldn’t think when my emotions got this tangled up, couldn’t breathe.
Not looking at my aunt, I excused myself and rushed down the hall to the bathroom. When I was inside with the door locked, I put my hands on the sides of the sink and lowered my head so that I didn’t have to look at myself in the mirror.
It hadn’t been this bad in a long time. I’d been dealing with it, coping. Harris had made it better. Made me better. Now, with my heart so shattered and my brain a mess of confused emotions, I had to do something or I wasn’t going to walk out of this bathroom with myself completely intact.
I pushed away from the sink and opened up the cupboard that had fresh towels, extra toilet paper, and other things a guest might need. Including a pack of disposable razors. They were open so I grabbed one and took off the protective guard. Sitting
on the edge of the tub, I lifted my left foot, took off my shoe, and looked at my toes.
There were little scars under each toe, all of them self-inflicted. No one knew what I did and I’d always made sure it stayed that way. I’d started cutting when I was twelve. It had started by complete accident. I’d cut the bottom of my foot on something sharp out on the beach one day, and the pain…
The pain had taken my mind off the things that had been churning through my head back then. I’d still been unable to deal with what had happened when I was nine, when my biological father had taken me. I’d felt like there was no one I could talk to, no one who would understand. But the pain that had come from that cut had been almost releasing. I’d been able to focus on it for a little while and, oddly enough, it had helped me breathe. Sleeping at night had come easier and until that cut had healed I’d felt almost like my old self—the me I’d been before that terrible night.
Afterward, when the cut had healed, I’d been okay for a little while. But things had started to build up again and one night I’d realized that maybe I could make myself okay again. If I hurt physically, then the emotional pain was bearable. I could handle it. But it had to be somewhere that no one would see, somewhere that no one would think to look or be concerned about if I cut too deep. It couldn’t be my arms or my legs. We lived in Malibu where you were expected to wear shorts seventy-five percent of the time. The bottom of my feet was the only place I’d been able to think of, so I’d used my razor and sliced little nicks just under my toes.
The pain had been instant and so had the relief. With each little drop of blood that had dripped into the tub, I’d been able to breathe easier.
Over the years I’d realized that what I was doing was bad, that I was hurting myself. Normal people just didn’t do that to themselves. So I’d tried to find other ways to cope—breathing exercises, workouts, doing an extra session with my therapist—and slowly I’d gotten a handle on my need to cut.
Right now wasn’t one of those times when deep breathing exercises were going to help, however. I needed to get as far away from the pain churning inside of me as possible.
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