“Hey, baby…”
I couldn’t stop myself. Didn’t even have the sense of mind to even try to withstand the urge as I lifted my hand and smacked him across his handsome face.
“Bastard!” I screamed at him. “You didn’t have the guts to tell me you replaced me. Couldn’t have taken two minutes out of your busy life to let me know that you’ve moved some slut into your apartment. I should have known better…”
Strong arms wrapped around me, trapping my arms against my sides. Shane’s face was a mask of rage as he glared down at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he exploded.
“You wouldn’t even answer the phone while I was gone. I should have known something was up then.”
“I didn’t answer the phone because I was busy!” he yelled in my face, his eyes wild as they searched mine. “I had family problems to deal with, dammit.”
“I spoke to Emmie yesterday, Shane. There hasn’t been anything wrong with anyone in your family.” I tried to pull free from him, determined to leave and never look back. I had been such an idiot to think that things could work with this man.
“Fuck this!” He pushed me back into the elevator and punched the button for his floor. “I can’t talk to you in the lobby with you screaming at me, Harper.”
I struggled to get free. There was no way I wanted to go back into his apartment and face his new fuck buddy. I fought against his hold, my hair smacking him across the face repeatedly as the elevator rose. “Harper, stop it. You’re going to hurt yourself, baby.”
“Let go of me!” I cried, tears of frustration and humiliation now pouring down my face. “I hate you!”
Even through my struggle, I felt him tense at my words. As soon as the elevator opened on his floor, he tossed me over his shoulder and lifted my overnight bag. He stomped down the corridor and pounded on the door to his apartment when he couldn’t pull his key from his jeans pocket without dropping me.
Moments later, the girl from the bathroom opened the door in a towel. I glared at her over Shane’s shoulder as he walked into the apartment. “Dammit, Nat!” he exclaimed. “No wonder she’s so mad! You can’t go around like that.”
“I was in the shower!” Nat defended. “She just walked in and then ran off before I could even say a word. This isn’t my fault!”
“Put me down!” I beat my fists against Shane’s back hard enough that I felt him grunt in discomfort. “Put me down now!”
He ignored me as he continued through the apartment and into his bedroom. The door slammed behind us, and he paused only long enough to lock the door before dropping me on the bed. I bounced twice before I landed on my back, my hair in my face.
I pushed my hair out of my face to find Shane glaring down at me like I was the one in the wrong. “You have absolutely no trust in me do you?” he demanded.
“After the last few days, the answer would be a definite no.” I had trusted him wholeheartedly until he had given me a reason not to.
“Natalie isn’t who you think she is.” He started pacing, shooting me dirty looks each time he passed me. “If you had given me two minutes to explain things to you instead of tearing into me like a wild cat, I would have told you that Natalie is my sister.”
I almost snorted in disbelief until I remembered him telling once that he had a half-sister and her name was Natalie. “You said you didn’t have anything to do with your sister.”
Shane continued to pace. “I never have before. Her mother refused to let Nat or my dad have anything to do with Drake and me when she married him. She hated the thought of Dad having had another family before her. It wasn’t until after my mother died that Dad put his foot down and tried to reconnect with us. But by then Drake and I didn’t want to play happy family with a guy that hadn’t tried to be there for us when we had needed him the most.”
I straightened up on the bed, moving so my feet were hanging off the side. Just because the girl I thought had replaced me turned out to be his sister did not mean that I was less angry. “And you couldn’t take five minutes to answer the phone and tell me that your sister was staying with you? Or even text me with that news?”
“I’ve been searching the city for my sister, Harper. I’ve had to deal with cops and a stepmother that claimed I kidnapped her. If Natalie hadn’t shown up to warn me, then it’s hard to tell where I would be right now!”
“You had to look for Natalie?”
“No, I had to look for Jenna.” He raked his hands through his hair, going back to pacing after only a small pause.
“Who’s Jenna?”
“She’s my twelve year old sister.” Shane grimaced. “I didn’t even know she existed. But she knew about me and Drake. She’s been watching Drake on America’s Rocker, and when her mother pissed her off she ran off to find us. So Stella called the New York cops and they turned up on my door step twenty minutes after Natalie did.”
It was a lot to take in, but slowly it all registered. Shane had almost been arrested. If Natalie hadn’t been there to explain that he hadn’t taken Jenna—that she was still missing—then the cops probably would have taken him in. He had spent that night and all of yesterday looking for Jenna around New York with the cops and Natalie.
Jenna had been found on the subway late the night before. The girl was now on her way back home, but Natalie hadn’t wanted to go. She was going to stay in New York with her brother for a while. Since she was eighteen she could do whatever she pleased, even if her mother had thrown a fit about her oldest daughter’s decision.
My chest stopped hurting, but my gut twisted when I realized how big of a mistake I had made. I had accused Shane of something horrible, had hit him, and then to top it off…I had told him I hated him!
I would admit that not calling Harper had been a mistake. Finding Natalie in my apartment the way she had probably was the nail in the coffin. But I had thought that Harper trusted me more than that. I’d been so caught up in everything else going on with us that I only assumed that she had complete faith in my feelings for her.
I had never been more wrong in my life.
She hadn’t trusted me at all. Harper didn’t have a shred of faith in me. That knowledge hurt worse than anything ever had before.
After telling her about how crazy the last few days had been for me, she just sat there with her head bowed, and I continued to pace. I wanted to go running, needed the burn of a long hard run to clear my head and ease some of the pain that clenched my heart. Instead, I just watched the woman that owned me, body and soul, tear me apart with her continued silence.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” she whispered so softly that I nearly missed it.
I stopped mid-step and turned to face her fully. “Why couldn’t you have given me two minutes, Harper?”
A shaky sigh escaped her, and she scrubbed a hand over her still damp face. “Because I was sure that you had tossed me aside. That you didn’t want me anymore. One look at Natalie getting in the shower, and I knew that you finally opened your eyes and saw the truth.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not beautiful enough to be with you.”
Her words were like a stab to the heart, and I fell to my knees in front of her. This time the pain was more intense, more breath-stealing. Because I realized that Harper probably did have some faith in me, but she had absolutely none in herself. I had thought I had set her fears to rest and was sure that I had given her back her self-worth that her mother and stepsister had stolen from her.
And maybe I had for the most part. But there was still a little piece that would always question her hold over me. “What can I do to make you see what I see, Harper? How can I prove to you that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen?”
She bit her trembling lip, and I was gutted as a few tears fell down her pale cheeks. “When I’m with you I feel like the most beautiful thing in the world. When you hold me I feel sexy and loved… And I really did trust you, Shane. I
