Careful, Lo. My inner voice urges caution. He can’t know that you know who he is.
Mom’s face pales at the mention of my self-defense classes. She knows why I was there, and the guilt continues to eat at her. I hate how she believes it’s still her fault. But I can’t tell her the truth, because that would hurt her more.
“Are you going to explain who he is, or do I have to figure this out myself?” I ask as the douche straightens up.
Mom helps the monster to his feet, and they sit down on the couch. She pats the empty space beside her. “Come sit beside me.”
I remain standing. Eyeing the asshole with thinly concealed hatred that is all genuine. But I can get away with it, because this is a natural reaction for any daughter finding her recently widowed Mom in such a situation with a strange man.
Begrudgingly, I’ve got to admit he’s hot. Even if his dirty-blond hair is unkempt, hanging in loose waves around his face, and his blond goatee could use a trim. He’s covered in ink, and he’s got muscles stacked upon muscles. His dark jeans hug broad thighs, and his open plaid shirt is stretched across wide biceps. He reeks of cigarette smoke and arrogance, and I cannot believe he succeeded in capturing Mom’s attention.
It’s as if she deliberately chose someone the complete opposite of my father.
Dad had slicked-back dark hair and zero ink, and while he worked out and kept his body in good condition, he was no muscle-bound freak. At ten years older than Mom, and a certified career obsessive, he was rarely out of custom-made suits. He sure as shit wouldn’t have worn threadbare jeans, a creased white T-shirt under a blue-and-black-plaid shirt, and scuffed biker boots.
“Harlow.” She sighs, pleading with her eyes, but I’m not conceding.
“I’m fine standing.” I glare at him as he circles his arm around her back. “Take your hands off my mother.”
An amused grin tips up the corners of his mouth, and the expression is familiar. He removes his arms, holding up his hands, flashing me a row of straight white teeth as he smiles. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. It’s not what you’re thinking.”
It’s exactly what I’m thinking, and it’s clear the stakes have just been raised.
My mind churns as I try to figure it all out.
An icy-cold shiver creeps up my spine and I narrow my eyes at him. “So, you’re not a gold-digging motherfucker preying on a vulnerable widow so soon after she lost the love of her life?” My tone easily conveys my disbelief, and I deserve a pat on the back for my stellar acting skills.
A muscle clenches in his jaw, and he loses some of his fake warmth.
“Harlow.” Mom gasps. “I know you’re shocked but that’s no excuse for losing your manners.”
I snort. “Get real, Mom. The asshole just told me he’s my new daddy, and you expect me to mind my manners around him?!”
She cuts him a glare. “Neo shouldn’t have opened with that.”
I bark out a laugh. “Neo? Are you fucking kidding me? Does he have a swastika tattooed somewhere on his body?”
“No! Of course not. That’s the name he was born with.” Mom rubs at her temples. “Please just sit down and let me explain.”
“I’m not talking with him here.” I drill a venomous look at the blond douche.
He stands. “I’ll go. I’ve shit to handle anyway.” He pins me with a devious look before he pulls Mom up into his arms and slams his lips down on hers. His arms sweep around her back as he dips her down low, devouring her mouth in a deliberate show of control.
I want to rip his mouth and his hands from her body before decapitating him. I dig my nails into my thighs, visualizing torturing the douche in my head to avoid killing him for real. Doubt Mom would appreciate that even if I’d be doing her a favor. And there’s no way I’d risk jail time for the jerk.
This guy is bad news, trouble with a capital T, and somehow, I’ve got to find a way to make her see that.
“If you’re finished assaulting my mom with your disgusting tongue, I’d like to speak with her,” I snap, as my emotions get the better of me. I’m sure he did that purely to rile me up, and I’m so disappointed in Mom because she’s swooning in his arms like she’s never been kissed before.
He breaks the kiss-slash-assault, reeling Mom into his chest, clasping her close so he can eyeball me over her head. “I love your mom, kid. Always have. Always will. I get this is a shock, but it’s happening, so you’d better deal with it.” His eyes narrow to slits as he sends me a silent warning.
Gone is the pretend warmth.
His mask is down, and the danger is fully evident.
Does he know I know? Or is this usually the way he reacts to daughters of the women he’s fucking?
All the tiny hairs lift on the back of my neck, and I swallow a lump of fear as slow realization dawns.
He smirks, pinning me with an arrogant look that says if I get in his way he’ll destroy me.
I bury my fear, shove all emotion aside, and confidently lift my shoulders, staring coolly at him with a look that confirms it’s “game on.” A brief look of admiration flits over his blue eyes before they darken in warning.
“Go.” Mom extracts herself from his embrace as the two of us remain locked in our face-off. “Let me talk to my daughter. All will be okay.” She pecks his lips, and I puke a little in my mouth.
“Later, beautiful.” He kisses the top of her head while maintaining eye contact with me, and another blast of ice-cold fear slaps me in the face at the calculating quality to his gaze.
I underestimated this man.
He’s not just a monster.
He is something else.
Something I’m much more afraid of.
He’s the devil incarnate, and he’s determined to make my life a living hell.
Bile churns in my gut as my mind whirls at the potential implications.
I watch her watching him leave the room with my heart deflating. She has feelings for him. My life is about to become ten million times harder.
The door slams after him, snapping me into focus. I shove my emotions deep inside and concentrate on learning as much as I can.
“I’m so sorry, Harlow.” She cautiously walks toward me.
“How could you, Mom?” I shake my head, unable to hide my disgust. “Dad’s only gone four months, and you’re already fucking someone else?”
She flinches at my words and my tone, but I won’t apologize for speaking my mind.
“I’ve known Neo since I was eleven years old,” she explains. “He was my childhood sweetheart and the man I was engaged to when I met your father.”
My stomach drops to my toes as I realize this is even worse than I feared. “What? Why have I never heard of him before?”
My mind is whirling ninety miles an hour as I struggle to process this latest puzzle piece.
Dad told me he’d had to win my mother’s heart, but he never told me she was engaged to another guy, and Mom has never spoken of any other man but my father. I knew she was only twenty when they met, after Dad moved back here to take up a position with a leading law firm, and that he was thirty and steadily progressing his legal career.
Mom’s from Prestwick, and they didn’t have much money growing up. At the time my parents met, she was attending business classes at the local community college and she had plans to set up her own business. My dad swept her off her feet, and they were married within the year, and I arrived the following year. Dad helped make Mom’s dreams come true, and I have never ever doubted what they shared was the real deal.
Until now.
Because now, I’m wondering if Dad was only a meal ticket for Mom.
If that dangerous asshole that just left this house is really the love of her life.
If this is all part of his game plan.
Or it’s possible my mind is warped from my fucked-up life experiences and I’m fitting the wrong pieces in the wrong holes.
“Were you fucking him when Dad was alive?” I bluntly ask, while I watch her strugg
le to form an answer to my previous question.
“What!” Her eyes pan wide. “Of course not! I have always remained faithful to your father.” Tears prick her eyes. “I loved him so much.” Her voice cracks, but I’m immune to it.
For the first time in my life, I don’t trust my mother, and I doubt I ever will again.
“Sure, you did. That’s why he’s barely cold in the grave and you’re hooking up with your old childhood sweetheart behind my back. How long has it been going on, Mom? Did you warm his bed before my father was even put in the ground? Did you forget Trey Westbrook the instant his heart stopped beating? Was Neo”—I spit out his name, lacing it with hatred—“always your end game, huh?”
She lifts her hand to slap me, stopping herself at the last second. “I know you’re hurt, but you don’t get to speak to me like that. I am still your mother, and you are still living under my roof. You will sit the fuck down, and let me explain.”
I shake with rage, and my natural instinct is to storm out of the room, pack a bag, and get the hell out of here. But what if my initial instinct is wrong? What if Mom’s in danger? If she’s being manipulated, then I can’t leave. I need to start gathering more intel, so I need to know everything she knows about Neo.
I draw deep breaths as I drop onto the couch, urging my body to calm down and my mind to get with the program.
Mom’s shoulders visibly relax as she sits beside me. “I never told you about Neo because it would’ve been disrespectful to your father to talk about the man who owned my heart before him.”
She looks at me, but I stare straight ahead with my hands clasped in my lap. I need to hear this, but I don’t need to make it easy on her.
“When I was growing up, I always imagined Neo would be my husband. We loved one another, and I never thought anything could come between us—until I met your father. I tried to resist Trey at first, but I couldn’t because we formed an instant connection, and it was so intense it almost blinded me.”
Knots twist in my gut as the picture of the boy’s face briefly flashes in my mind’s eye.
She settles back in the couch as she reminisces. “I was so confused,” she whispers. “I loved Neo, but I fell so hard for your father, and it wasn’t long before I knew I loved him too. Nothing had happened between us,” she says, quick to reassure me. “But we had been spending time together as friends, and I already felt like I’d betrayed Neo.” She looks up at the ceiling, and I don’t need to see the tears to know they are there.
“Your father was offering me everything I had ever wanted, but I turned him down. My loyalty to Neo was too strong to walk away. Trey made it clear he loved me and wanted to marry me, but he respected my decision, and he left me alone.”
The couch shifts, and she moves closer, tilting my face to hers. “I was utterly miserable. I missed him so much, and nothing with Neo felt right anymore. He felt the difference in me too. A distance that hadn’t been there before. I eventually confessed. Told him I was in love with another man. He was devastated, and he told me to leave. I spent the next few months on my own, trying to work out what to do. I had moved to Lowell, needing to put some physical distance between me and Neo, not realizing your father was renting there too. We bumped into one another in a coffee shop one morning, and we were never apart from that moment on.”
She holds my face in her hands. “I never want you to doubt the love I had for your father. The love we shared was very real, and I will miss him every single day for the rest of my life.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “His death destroyed me, Harlow. You are the only thing that kept me alive in those early days when I wanted to follow him to the grave. But I could never do that to you. He lives on in you.” She clasps my face more tightly. “I see him every time I look at you, and it comforts me. Which is why I hate that I’ve hurt you now when that’s the last thing I wanted.”
She lets my face go, and I let loose a breath I’d been holding.
“It’s too soon, Mom. You’re still grieving, and he’s taken advantage of that.”
“I know it might seem like that, honey, but Neo is bringing me back to life, and he can protect us and take care of us.”
Please tell me my mother is not that fucking naïve!?
“I can protect us!” I protest. “We don’t need a man to take care of us. This isn’t the eighteenth fucking century, Mom!” Panic bubbles up my throat, as I grapple with my emotions.
She tucks her hair behind her ears. “I’m not built to live alone,” she admits, and I shake my head in disbelief.
I’m so disappointed in her. Where the hell has my mother disappeared to? “Do you even hear yourself?”
“You’re leaving for college next year. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and I don’t want to hold you back. I know how much you worry about me. I know you protect and shelter me.” She pins me with shrewd eyes, and maybe she knows more than she’s letting on. “And I’ve got my own life to lead now. I’ve always loved Neo. Even when your father was my everything. Trey knew. I was always honest with him. If your father were alive, Neo would remain my past. But he’s not. Trey’s gone. And Neo is here. Still loving me. Asking for another chance.”
What perfect timing.
“It’s been over twenty years, Mom. How do you know he’s the same man you knew?”
“I know his heart, honey. And while this might seem fast to you, it feels like it’s been a long time coming for me.”
“What exactly are you saying, Mom? What is happening here?”
She gulps, and her tongue darts out, wetting her lips. “Neo has asked me to marry him, and I’ve said yes.”
CHAPTER 6
“FUCK MY LIFE,” I mumble the following evening as I trail Sean and Sariah to the bleachers for the epic beatdown of the century. I’ve spent the day ignoring the envious looks and hostile glares from girls jealous I’ve been claimed as Sainthood property and hiding from said assholes, because in the mood I’m in, I can’t guarantee I won’t knife one of them to death.
I barely slept a wink last night. Troubled after my talk with Mom, I spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to figure out how to get rid of Neo and then feeling guilty because I know this is partly my fault.
I doubt I’d ever be comfortable with Mom remarrying. No guy will ever replace my dad. Period. But, one way or another, I’ll be leaving within the year, and Mom’s still young. I can’t dictate how she spends the rest of her life.
If it was genuine, and it was anyone other than Neo, I know I’d eventually come to terms with it.
But I will never be okay with this.
Especially when she’s moving that asshole into our house this week.
I keep waiting for her to admit the rest, but she hasn’t, and that doesn’t give me a warm and cozy feeling. If I felt she was telling me the full truth, and that I could trust her one hundred percent, I might fess up.
But the awful truth is, I don’t trust her not to run to him and tell him everything, and he can’t know I know. Because then everything I’ve worked toward, everything I’m planning, will all be for nothing.
I’m in this alone.
Like I’ve always been.
Dad helped me a lot, but our motivations were different. We were both keeping secrets from one another, and I know he wouldn’t want this for me, because it’s risky and dangerous, but I have no choice. I won’t run and hide for the rest of my life because that’s not living.
I force my troubled thoughts from my mind as I settle on a bench between Sean, Sariah, and Emmett to watch the takedown on the field after classes have ended on Tuesday. Practically the whole school has turned out for this, and the stadium is almost full.
I’ve only just plonked my butt on the seat when a tall guy with a dull black hoodie pulled up over his head approaches. “Saint has a seat for you at the front,” he says without extending a greeting.
I shove my middle finger up. “You can tell him that’s my response.”
He folds
his arms, looking bored. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
My lips kick up as I stand. “What does the hard way look like?”
He moves to scoop me up, and I punch him in the face. Blood spurts from his nose as he winces. He glares at me, not so passive now. “I’m not opposed to hitting girls,” he threatens, reaching for me again. “Don’t tempt me.”
I kick him swiftly in his left shin, and his leg buckles. He drops to his knees on the concrete step, cussing as he grabs the edge of the bench to steady himself.
I jerk my head up at the sound of running footsteps. “Always so ladylike, princess,” Caz Evans says, smirking. He extends a hand to the guy on the floor, yanking him to his feet. “Incapacitated by a female.” Disgust washes over his handsome face as he shakes his head. “The shame.” He shoves at him. “Get the fuck back down there, and try to at least pretend you’ve got a pair of balls between your legs.”
I sit back down, feigning ardent interest in the two groups lining up across from one another on the field down below.
Caz sits on the end of the bench, half on top of me, forcing me to shunt over until my thigh is pressed right up against Sariah’s. “I don’t fold so easily,” Caz says, cracking his knuckles as he shoots me a devilish grin. “And I thought you were smarter than this.” He levels me with an all-seeing look.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“I’d rather fuck you.” His tongue darts out, playing with his lip ring in a way that’s hugely distracting. His eyes are like furnaces as they skim me from head to toe, and I work hard not to squirm as my core throbs with need.
What is it with these guys? One heated look and they render me senseless. It’s official—I’ve turned into one of those idiot girls in romance books who falls apart when faced with a hot guy.
It’s embarrassing, and I’m glad no one has a hotline to my inner thoughts.
I press my mouth to his ear. “The only way your dick will ever enter my body again is if I’m laid out stone cold and bloodless on a morgue table.”
“I’ve never given necrophilia much thought,” he admits, running a hand through his jet-black hair, “but I’m game for trying anything once.” He grins, his chocolate-colored eyes alight with mischief, and it pisses me off.
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