BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (75 page)

Chapter 5

              Morgan took a deep breath, still unsure of what she was doing. The only thing she knew was that she needed to see him, she needed to see if what she was feeling was real. It had taken her way longer than it should have to get ready. She had changed her clothes at least a dozen times before deciding on the tight black dress she wore under her leather jacket. She was suddenly warm, partly from the balmy night, but mostly she knew because of the horde of nervous butterflies storming around inside her. She wiped the dampness off her palms before she tugged on the wrist length leather riding gloves and threw her leg over the seat of her motorcycle.

              She had left Adrien’s jeep at his apartment that first night back and ran all the way home, and now here she was, riding right back towards him. She shook her head at her own thoughts. She needed to know the answers to the million questions plaguing her, and more than that, she just needed to see him. She missed him more than she cared to admit but she couldn’t ignore the empty feeling that had disappeared when he had been in her life, even before they had gone to the cabin.

              With a breath of exhaled tension, she revved the motor, feeling the bike rumble to life beneath her as she turned the engine over. She sat there for a moment, her hands grasping the handlebars and praying that she was dong the right thing. Before Morgan could let herself think twice she kicked up the stand and was pulling out onto the main strip of road that would lead her toward the bar, and toward Adrien.

              She pulled into the parking lot, surprised to see it so busy on a Monday night. Although she supposed she shouldn’t have been, Morgan had heard the rumors all over town that the bar was back open and better than ever. Even she had to admit that she missed it. She had never formally quit, but she hadn’t even once considered going back to work there until she knew what she was going to do with this new found knowledge. How could she just go back to her normal life knowing what she did now? That there was a whole, other, hidden world out there?

              With a sigh at the same questions she had been arguing over with herself for the past two weeks, she parked the bike and slid off, taking her helmet off as she did. She combed through her hair with her fingers. Even she could admit that she still wanted to look good. For herself, a tiny voice tried to say, but she ignored it. It was a lie.

              Morgan took a deep breath, fortifying herself with every ounce of strength she had and walked up to the front double doors, pushing it open. She took one step in and froze. Her gaze narrowed on Adrien, and the girl that was plastered against him. She gasped as a wave of pain sliced through her at the sight and had just enough time to see Adrien glance up at her in wide eyed shock before she turned right back around, letting the door slam shut behind her.

              She hadn’t even given herself time to see who the other woman had been, but she didn’t care. She swiped angrily at the tears that clouded her vision. How stupid she had been, to believe that he could have really changed. That he could have really cared about her like he’d said. That he loved her.

              Morgan had her helmet in hand and one leg thrown over the motorcycle when she heard Adrien’s voice calling after her in the night but she didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. She didn’t want to hear anything he had to say.

              “Morgan, wait! You don’t understand. Morgan!” His voice cut her deep and she didn’t even turn around to look at him as she tore off into the night.               She wiped at another stream of tears, clearing her vision so she could see the road ahead of her but all she could see was Adrien with some other woman pressed intimately against him. He had been wrong. She understood perfectly. He really was just a big fat lying bear.

              Morgan barely even paused to let herself think as she rode back down the empty, lonely road, her heart breaking all over again as she drove away from Adrien once again.

              Harris              slurped down the rest of his meal, wiping off the grease that dripped down his face with the back of one hand when the heavy door was pushed open with a loud bang. Theo, his ever present watch dog leaned forward on the balls of his feet, a gleeful malice filling his red rimmed eyes at the thought of setting straight whoever had dared barge in on his solitude.

              He waved him down with a nonchalant gesture of his grease slicked hand when he saw his daughter. She advanced on him, her face red and the skin mottled with anger as she slammed her hands down on the table in front of him.

              “You have to do something, daddy!” She shrieked the words at him and he just barely resisted the urge to scream back.

              “I am in the middle of my dinner, daughter,” Harris said the words low and soft in a way that had her shrinking back from him. That was more like it.

“I…I’m sorry, it’s just, that
girl
!” The way she said the word left no doubt in his mind who she was talking about.

              “That little tramp is back?” He growled the words, hoping that he had gotten her out of the picture for good.

              “She was at the bar tonight daddy. She was coming to see him. And he said he would never mate with another for the rest of
her
life.” It was subtly put and he couldn’t help but grin at his daughter.

              “Did he say that now?” He didn’t expect an answer and she didn’t give one, just stood there with one brow arched. “Well, I guess that only leaves us with one option,” Harris’ grin widened and Sera took another step back but he was so lost in his own thoughts and plans that he didn’t notice. “I suppose we’ll just have to get rid of her. For good, this time.”

Chapter 6

              Morgan paced back and forth from the small window overlooking the street outside her apartment to the wall of the kitchen and then back. It was all of ten paces and as far as she could go in the small space but she felt full of restless energy. She needed to move. It helped her think, and she had a hell of a lot to think about. Especially after that fiasco three nights ago when she had gone to the bar to confront Adrien, and instead had found him all over some other woman. That wasn’t her.

              She shook her head, tsking at herself in frustration. What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t even know what to think about Adrien and their relationship, all she knew was that she had been filled with blinding jealousy when she had walked in that night, and a pain so intense it felt like her heart had been physically ripped out of her chest and stomped on. By a stupid, lying, cheating, no good bartender, who also happened to be half bear.

              “What the hell am I doing?” Morgan asked the question out loud to the painting she had inadvertently stopped in front of.  It was a scene that was emblazoned into her memory. It was a night sky, so dark it looked like velvet with swirls of deep, ultramarine blue and smoky gray. There was a sense of warmth emanating from the edges of the canvas that the viewer would never know was caused by the flickering bonfire Adrien had surprised her with that first night at the cabin.

              Every star had been lovingly painted, each shining with own individual light that seemed to dance across the painting. It all seemed so alive. Crackling with heat and intensity, and underneath it all a contentment that she had never felt in her entire life before those few, short weeks she had spent with Adrien. He had shown her just how good it could be, and she hated him for that.

             
You’re lying,
a small, soft voice whispered through her mind. She turned away, but another painting caught her eye. One that had been hidden in the corner behind a pile of unused canvases that needed to be prepped. Slowly, she walked over to where the canvas was, and even more slowly drew it out from its hiding place.

              Morgan sucked in a breath as she took in the severity of the damage to the piece. It had happened that night after she had gone to the bar. After she had raced home on her bike, which she was still surprised she had survived at all considering she had been blinded by tears the entire drive, Morgan had slammed inside her home. She had been beyond distraught, convinced that Adrien cared about her and she owed it to him to find out the truth straight from his mouth, rather than the hearsay of that mean spirited old man. Every time she thought of that man, Harris he’d said his name was, she had to suppress a shiver of unease.

              But that hadn’t stopped his terrible words from hitting their mark, and he had aimed straight for her heart when he’d told her the truth about Adrien. His version of the truth anyways.

              Morgan had come home that night, upset beyond words and had walked in to see this painting. A work she had just finished of her and Adrien, fishing beside the gurgling stream. It had been sun filled, and full of peace and just looking at her reminded her of the intense feeling of love she had felt in that moment. And she had lost it. Completely and utterly snapped as she’d looked at the painful reminder at one of the happiest moments of her life. Morgan had rushed forward, not even giving herself a second to think, running on pure turbulent emotion as she had grabbed the canvas straight off the easel and threw it hard into the corner of her living room table. She could still remember the awful sound of the linen ripping as a whole was torn through the center of the painting.

              She had instantly regretted it as soon as it had happened. She had tried desperately to piece the edges back together, not realizing for several long minutes later that she had started sobbing. Large, salty tears had begun to collect, dropping with a wet splat against the ruined painting. There, in that moment, it had seemed like such a perfect symbol for just how wrong everything had gone. It was too late to fix, irreparable, and worst of all, her fault.

             
I tried to make things right
, she tried to convince herself as she stared down at the destroyed canvas,
I went to the bar that night to make things right.
  Morgan gently put the canvas back, pushing it behind the others until she couldn’t see the damage anymore and turned around, away from it. With a deep breath she grabbed her keys and the shoulder bag still sitting by the door and headed through the front door. She needed to get out of the cramped apartment. She needed to go out for a walk and clear her head from the thoughts that had been plaguing her nonstop since that terrible night.

              Morgan strode down the stairs, not even seeing her neighbor as Mrs. Parkinson waved to her on her way out. Her gaze was focused deeply inward, so deep that all she could focus on was the pain that still festered inside her, raw and open to the world. She felt exposed, like everyone she passed could see the gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be.

              She shook her head at the clichéd thought, but that didn’t mean it was true. And it was exactly how she felt. Morgan had only made it to the end of the block, and hadn’t even started making any headway untangling the mess of her emotions when her cell phone began to ring from the depths of her purse. It took her a brief moment to dig the device out and answered it with a short greeting.

              “Hello?”

              “Hi, uh, Morgan?” A familiar voice reached her from the other end of the call. It was her friend, Eliza Jenkins, who she had known since she was a child. They had basically grown up next door to each other and in a town as small as Kingstown everyone knew every one else. Eliza had been one of those people who had always been there for her, no matter what she was going through, and she had gone through a lot as a child.

              “Hey, Eliza, I’m sorry I can’t really talk right now, I…”

              “No, wait, just let me explain. You know I don’t ask for favors, like, ever, but I have this guy who wants to meet and I don’t want to meet him alone. You know, one of those online dating things. Anyways, we were going to meet in a public place, so I was thinking that new bar that just opened up. Its just in case, well, just in case he’s a total creep.” Her friend had barely paused to take a breath, not even allowing Morgan a moment to break through her monologue.

              “Wait a minute, Eliza, this is a really, really bad time. I just went through a bad break up, well, sort of break up anyways. We weren’t technically dating I don’t think although we were officially fake engaged and…” Morgan paused, realizing she was rambling and not even making that much sense anymore.

              “See? That’s perfect! I need a friend to come with me, and you need a night on the town to forget about Mr. ex fake fiancé.”

              “No, Eliza. I’m trying to tell you I don’t want to go.” Morgan tried to moderate her tone, but her friend just kept talking as if she hadn’t even said anything.

              “This will be perfect, Morgan. I’m telling you. Listen, I’ll pick you up at six thirty tonight, okay? Wear something sexy, I heard there are a ton of hot, very eligible guys to forget your troubles with. See you tonight, love. Bye!”

              “No, wait, Eliza!” It was no use though, her friend had already hung up, not giving her a chance to tell Eliza not to even bother. There was no way she would be up to going out for drinks with her friend, let alone picking up some random man. Morgan slowly put the phone away, and was surprised to find that her feet had turned her around, heading her back in the direction of her apartment.

              She shook her head, firming her resolve. When Eliza showed up at her place later, she would just tell her no. As if Eliza would listen. Morgan thought for a moment, trying to think past the pain and heartbreak. All of a sudden, get mind numbingly drunk sounded a whole hell of a lot better. Anything to forget Adrien for a moment.

              “Hey Grant, it’s Eliza.” The sultry female voice purred over the phone and Grant immediately perked up, stopping what he was doing.

              “Eliza! I didn’t expect you to get back to me so soon.” He said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice, but seriously, he had reached out to his old high school girlfriend as a long shot. He hated seeing his best friend so out of sorts. He snorted silently to himself. That was the understatement of the century. Adrien had called him in middle of the night ranting about Harris and Sera ruining his life, and then finally the whole truth had come out about Morgan rudely finding out the truth about him. Grant could see it from a mile away. Adrien was head over heels in love with her, and his heart had shattered the night she had walked away, and then Sera had gone and made everything ten times more confusing by being her normal, interfering self.

              “Hey, anything for a friend, right?” She didn’t even give him time to answer before she continued, “I talked to Morgan. She was hard to convince, but I finally did it. I finally talked her into checking out that new bar a few towns over. We are going to be there at seven. Give me an hour or so to get a few drinks in her and soften her up before you guys show up, okay?”

              “That’s perfect, Eliza. I’ll make sure he’s there at eight o’clock sharp.” He scribbled the time and place down on a nearby scrap piece of paper before focusing again on what she was saying.

              “He must really love her.”

              “What was that?” Grant asked, having only heard that last word of her statement.

              “I said, he must really love her. Your friend, I mean.” Her voice softened a bit as she repeated the words and He felt a pang of regret. He knew she was thinking of their own failed relationship. But it had failed for a reason, and it was a good one. Grant just couldn’t get past the girl that had gotten away, the girl that had broken his heart.

              “He does. More than anything,” Grant said, just as softly, “They belong together.”

              “Yeah, well, they won’t even know what hit them.” She replied, and he could almost see the devilish grin over the phone line.

              “No. No, they sure as hell won’t.”