by Mia Carson
“Brooding suits you,” Bailey called from the doorway, and Harold greeted her and Christian with a brief smile over his shoulder. “You should do it more often. It’s quite attractive, don’t you think?”
“Not so much,” Christian argued. “You look a right mess there, friend. Troubles with a case?”
“No, that’s not his case trouble face,” Bailey said, tapping her chin as she circled around Harold. “That’s his trouble with a woman face. Who is it, dear, and why did we not hear about her Friday night?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “Because I don’t think you need to know about this one. Not at this particular moment in time.”
Bailey scrutinized him through narrowed eyes. “Uh huh.”
“Look, she’s a client, and I don’t want to say anything else or drag you into this,” he explained. They both knew he was always serious when it came to his casework. He didn’t speak about his clients, period, and only consulted them on cases if the client gave him permission. Bailey’s frown said she didn’t like his excuse but held up her hands in defeat. “Thank you.”
“But we do want details, and soon,” she informed him. “I haven’t seen you this anxious over a woman in months.” Her blond brows lifted to her hairline and her mouth fell open. “No. No, it couldn’t possibly be who I think it is.”
Christian rested his shoulder against the doorway. “Care to share?”
“No,” Harold snapped the same moment Bailey said, “Yes,” bouncing on her heels.
“Bailey, please,” Harold begged. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, I think it is, and I’m warning you right now, you’re in for trouble if you’re working for that horrible woman. Is her hair still pink? And those tattoos. Awful, all of them.” She shuddered as if thinking of seeing Anna again would give her nightmares. “Harold, why not pass her case off to someone else? Save yourself whatever agony this woman will cause you.”
“Who said she will cause me any agony? Or did?” He put on his best charming smile to hide the growing worry in his gut. “Look, her case showed up on my desk and I’m doing my pro bono work. That’s all this is. Nothing will happen. She didn’t fit in our world. She knew it and I knew it, so it ended.”
“She walked out on you,” Christian reminded him gently.
Harold’s jaw clenched and he turned away from them so they wouldn’t see his glare. “I have a meeting with a client soon. Would you two mind waiting until later to lecture me?”
“We’re not lecturing you,” Bailey said soothingly and rested her hand on his arm. Normally, her touch didn’t bother him, but today, her hand burned. He shrugged it off, taking a large step away to put distance between him and Bailey. “Nothing will happen. Right.”
“Please leave, both of you. My client will be here soon.”
“Fine,” Bailey bit off sharply. “Fine, but when this goes south—and it will, mind you—don’t come crying to us. We warned you the first time and I’m warning you now. Anna Crawley is bad news and always will be. She stays on her side of the city and we stay on ours.”
Harold’s head bobbed slowly. “And you wonder why they call our families snobs and rich bastards who don’t give a damn about our city or our state?”
Her mouth fell open on a huff, and she stormed out of his office. Christian smothered a laugh and followed her. Their law offices were in the same building, only one floor down. Harold second-guessed his choice of bringing Anna here, but her chances of bumping into them were slim.
“Anna Crawley, how good to see you again,” Bailey announced loudly.
“Shit,” Harold growled and hung his head, but his feet didn’t move to intervene.
“Bailey, how not so good to see you again,” Anna said. “Do you mind moving? I have an appointment I’d rather not miss.”
“Nice hair. You grew tired of the pink?”
“Pink is for summertime. Violet is for the winter. Certainly a woman of your standing understands the need to change her color schemes? Oh wait, isn’t that outfit from last season? My, I think you need to fly to New York and speak with your stylist,” Anna quipped.
Harold took another step closer but still didn’t go out there to break it up. If they wanted to be rude to each other, that was their prerogative. He wouldn’t make his situation with Anna any more difficult than it already was.
“At least I can afford a trip to New York. Tell me, have you even left the state?”
“Why should I? Everything I need is here,” Anna replied sweetly. Too sweetly.
“Ah, yes, your bar. That disgusting hole in the wall that is all your father left for you. Pity he couldn’t leave you anything worthwhile.”
“I don’t need validation from you. Please move.”
“One more thing—if you think for one second you’ll win him back, think again. He’s off-limits to you after what you did the last time. What woman walks away from this kind of life? From a man like Harold?” Bailey asked harshly.
Harold moved until he stood right by the door so he could hear Anna’s reply.
“You know nothing about what happened between us, so back off, bitch.”
“Maybe you should back off,” Bailey snapped. “You’re not even close to being on the same level with him.”
“And you are? Last I heard, you two were no more than fuck buddies.”
Harold stepped out of his office to see Christian struggling to wiggle his way between the two women. “Anna, that’s enough.” She and Bailey whipped their heads around to stare at him, and he hesitated.
“Bailey, Christian, leave please, like I asked you to,” he continued after a tense moment of silence.
Christian grabbed Bailey and sidled out of the way as Harold reached for Anna’s arm. She yanked it out of his reach and stormed past him into the office. He followed and closed the door quietly behind him.
“Was that necessary?” he asked, watching her warily as she picked up a framed photo of him and his friends on the desk and smirked bitterly at it.
“It figures you would side with her. You always did.” She set the frame down hard on the desk.
“What are you talking about?”
“She started that out there in the hall and you know it, but who do you call out? Me. You call me out because heaven forbid you go against your friends or anyone else from your happy world,” she muttered, using air quotes to add to her mocking. “Some things never change.”
Harold’s face grew hot, and he tugged his tie off, tossing it onto his desk. “Can we please move past this and get to why I called you here?”
“Oh, you didn’t set that up to try and humiliate me again?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you showing me yet again that I don’t belong in this world. Well, congratulations. I got the message loud and clear too many times to count now. All you do is rub it in a little bit harder each time,” she ranted, waving her arms wide. “As if I didn’t have enough of that shit when we were together.”
Harold’s mind raced and he shook his head. “Anna, calm down and explain. Please, you’re losing me here. I never did anything to humiliate you when we were together. You, on the other hand, seemed quite happy to drive me to the brink of insanity with your antics.”
The second the words left his mouth, he wished he could swallow them. Anna’s mouth fell open on a gasp of shock that turned into a growl of annoyance. “You bastard. My antics? You want to talk about someone’s antics, how about yours or your mother’s? I acted like myself and you liked it. You liked everything about me until we were around your family or your goddamn friends!”
“That is a lie,” he argued, but she picked up a decorative pillow from the leather couch and chucked it as his head. He grunted as he caught it and threw it to the floor.
“No, the lie is you standing there thinking your actions aren’t what drove me away in the first place.” She picked up the second pillow, clutching it to her chest. “You are t
he most two-faced man I’ve ever met in my life. And I work in a bar!” She threw the second pillow with a yell, but he dodged it this time.
“I cared for you more than you realize,” he shot back, his chest heaving as he stalked closer, but she moved, putting the couch between them.
“That’s rich. You never showed it, at least not towards the end, and by then it was too late!”
“Too late for what? You walked away from me without a word! You left me!” he reminded her, his rage from that night flooding back into his body. “You were there with me and my family and suddenly, you were gone. There was never an explanation, no reason why!”
She shoved her violet hair from her face and stormed around the couch so she could shove him hard in the chest. “You want to know why I left?”
“Yes!” he yelled. “I want to know why you left what we had behind. Everything about us was good. And you…you gave it all up. You gave me up. Why, Anna?” he asked on a breath as pain joined the anger. “Why?”
Her grey eyes focused on his and he stilled, seeing the exact same pain reflected in those depths. “Because you refused to let me in,” she whispered. “You put up a mask when you’re around those close to you, who expect you to be a certain way, but with me…with me, you were different.” She lifted her hand as if to hold his face and he silently begged for her to, but her hand fell limply to her side. “You were freer around me, happier. But when we weren’t alone, I was nothing more than an embarrassment to you.”
“No,” he growled. “No, that’s not what I thought, or think.”
“Wasn’t it? How many times did you tell me not to come with you to a gathering or a party?” she asked, and he bit the inside of his cheek, thinking back to those days. “I was never going to fit into your world, Harry, and that’s not going to change. I am who I am. The daughter of a biker and his wife. I own a bar. Hell, I have violet hair,” she said, laughing sadly. “You can’t be with me because they would never allow it. I didn’t want to see it then, but I do now.”
“Anna,” he begged as she stepped away from him.
“No, Harry, just…I can’t. I gave you everything I had and you—you couldn’t let that wall down and tell me how you felt. You couldn’t even show me. You hid behind that wall of yours.”
She moved farther away, nearing the door, as his heart pounded in his chest. His mind screamed at him to go to her, to prove her wrong, but another, darker voice told him she was dead right. Those six months he’d spent in a tug of war with himself about who he truly was and who he wanted to be.
He held out his hand for her, not ready to see her walk out on him again, but she reached the door and fumbled for the handle. Tears brimming in her eyes, she mouthed words he didn’t understand and took off out of his office. Harold’s hand dropped, and he stared numbly at the empty doorway. She had left him a second time, but at least now he had answers.
Do you? You have nothing except the knowledge that she left because you were embarrassed of her, he scolded himself. She’s right and you know it. You let them get to you. You always do, and now you lost your second chance with the woman you should be with.
“The hell I did,” he growled and charged out the door after her.
He sprinted down the stairs and out the door into the cold, biting air. He slipped into his car and revved the engine. Several cabs lined the streets, but he couldn’t see if Anna was in one of them as he raced through the city. He parked outside The Crawler a few minutes later and ran inside the doors.
“Anna—where is she?” he asked Missy, out of breath.
“Where’s the fire?” she teased.
“Seriously, where is she?” he repeated, hoping she saw the desperation and apology in his eyes.
Her face softened, and she tossed her bar towel over her shoulder. “She headed upstairs. What are you up to, Harold?”
He didn’t respond except to smile and dashed to the back stairs. He took them two at a time as everything he should have said to her six months ago rushed to get out in one breath, but when he topped the stairs, he slid to a stop.
“Anna?”
She stood at the entrance to her apartment, her body shaking and her keys on the floor at her feet along with her purse. “Bastard,” she hissed, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were wide when he neared her as she stared into her apartment.
“What happened?” he asked and immediately shoved her behind him.
The place was trashed. Her furniture was overturned and smashed along with most of her belongings. They were scattered all over the floor, pictures were torn from the walls, and when he walked further in, the red and black graffiti on the walls made him hold out his arm to stop Anna from coming in any further.
“No, call the cops. You need to report this,” he ordered.
“Harry, what is it? Let me see,” she demanded, but he stopped her, forcibly removing her from the apartment. “What, damn it?”
“Call the cops.”
She shoved him out of the way and ran into her apartment before he could stop her. He pulled out his phone and called for the cops as he heard Anna curse incoherently from inside her apartment. When the operator answered, Harold joined her and glared at the wall covered in spray paint.
“Yes, I need to report a break-in,” he said grimly.
Anna reached out and ran her fingers down the paint as Harold dealt with the operator. When the paint came away wet on her hand, he frowned and reached out to test it, too. He hung up suddenly and put a finger to his lips.
“What?” she whispered. “You think they’re still here?”
He bent down and picked up a broken chair leg to use as a weapon. He wielded it over his shoulder and crept through the apartment towards the hall to the back bedroom. After a few minutes of hearing nothing, he lowered his makeshift weapon until a grunt of annoyance reached his ears. Anna gripped his arm hard enough to bruise it. He motioned for her to stay back, and taking a deep breath, he charged into the room with the chair leg at the ready. A man in a black shirt and baseball cap pulled low over his eyes whirled around, startled.
Harold had a split second to be thankful the man didn’t draw a gun before he drew back his fist and nailed him right in the face. Harold flew backwards from the hit, swinging wildly at the attacker. He landed a solid hit on the man’s shoulder, and he grunted in pain, but another punch sent Harold falling to the floor. Anna yelped, but Harold heard footsteps running out of the apartment. A second later, Anna rushed through the doorway, cursing when she spotted him on the floor.
“Do you believe me now?” she muttered, crouching down beside him. “He busted your cheek pretty good. Must’ve been wearing a ring.” She tugged her sleeve down and pressed it to the wound on his cheek.
Harold relaxed against her, letting her tend to him as he looked around her wrecked bedroom filled with more graffiti. “Yes, I believe you. Who was that?”
“I don’t know,” Anna replied exasperated, “but I bet you he’s the asshole who attacked me at Johnny’s place. The one I was going to tell you about today.”
“Wait, so you do know who it was?”
“No…maybe.” She shook her head, the violet strands falling over his face as softly as he remembered. “We’ll worry about it later.”
Sirens blared outside the building, and Anna called the two officers to the bedroom. Harold let them haul him to his feet and get him to the couch. Anna followed, appearing adrift in a world falling apart around her. And there was Harold, desperately wanting to pick up the pieces and fit her world back together, except with him back in it for good.
Chapter 5
The words covered Anna’s living room and trailed down the hall into her bedroom. The paint was wet and covered her hand from touching it earlier. The cops were still speaking with Harold. The same detective who’d spoken to her about attacking Johnny was there. He took her statement down and patted her comfortingly on the shoulder before he walked away.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Crawl
ey. I think this might have been the best thing to happen to you,” he told her.
“Yeah? I’m not sure I see it that way.”
“You should. Now you have an eye witness to another person possibly being involved with what happened during the assault. We’ll look into both incidents very closely.” He gave her an encouraging smile and walked away, leaving her to stare at the letters on her wall.
Slut. Whore. Bitch. They were only words, but knowing why they were on the wall pissed her off with every second she watched the paint run down. The asshole even covered up pictures of her and her parents, pictures of them at the bar. She moved slowly around the edge of the room, her gaze roaming over the damage.
“Oh no,” she whispered and rushed to grab a chair.
“Anna? What are you doing?” Harold asked, walking up behind her.
“The license plates,” she said as she strained to reach up and take them off the wall. The last set her dad had were downstairs in the bar, but the one in her apartment was from his very first bike, the one he rode when he met her mom. “He got paint all over it.” She scrubbed at it furiously, but the paint only smeared, making it worse. The plates were one of the first gifts she’d received from Winston’s scavenger hunts, and Anna loved them and the memory they held of her parents. Tears burned in her eyes and slipped down her cheeks as Harold grabbed her arms and helped her down from the chair. “It’s ruined…he fucking ruined it.”
“We’ll get it cleaned,” he promised, and his hands stilled hers gently. A soothing wave washed over her, and she let him take the plate from her and set it aside. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“No, no, I’m not all right,” she snapped, and he pulled her into his arms as she cried, unable to stay strong anymore. “I’ve been accused of something I didn’t do and then my place is broken into and vandalized! What did I do to deserve this shit, huh?”
“On the bright side, it gave me a chance to see you again,” he murmured.