Magnificent Bastard (32 page)
Read Magnificent Bastard Online
Authors: Lili Valente
Harley might actually forgive her—she didn’t tend to get too attached to her lovers, especially the summer boys she used to entertain her between epic trips abroad—but the stranger would hate her. He was in love with her sister. He thought he’d been making love to Harley, not a complete stranger.
As Hannah lay in the dark, in sheets that still smelled of sex and sweat, she was forced to admit that she was a terrible person. She wasn’t the good twin, after all. She was weak and selfish and obviously unfit to become a psychiatrist and counsel troubled kids, not when she was so messed up in the head that she’d slept with her sister’s boyfriend.
The first time, he hadn’t given her time to protest, but she could have stopped things before they came together again, before he held her on his chest and promised she would always be under his protection, or before she whispered “I love you, too” as he eased out onto the tree limb beneath the second story window.
Liar. She was such a miserable liar.
She didn’t know if Harley loved the man, but Hannah barely knew him. It was impossible to love a man you had just met and barely spoken to aside from some scalding hot pillow talk.
She knew that, but as she got up to put the sheets on to wash and start a pot of coffee—sleep was going to be impossible, might as well help the insomnia along—she couldn’t help wishing that she didn’t have to tell her stranger the truth. A selfish, wicked part of her secretly hoped that Harley would never come back to her summer apartment, that she would hop the next flight to Paris and disappear the way she sometimes did, usually right when Hannah needed her the most.
And then Hannah could meet the man again, learn his name, and start figuring out what it would take to make him hers.
In the years to come, she would think of that selfish, wicked wish again and again, wondering if wishes like that had a power others didn’t. Wondering if her greedy longing was the reason her sister had been murdered and Hannah would never see her best friend’s face again.
Even when her Aunt Sybil spirited her away from Harley’s very private, very secret wake, insisting it was past time she learned about the darkness that haunted their family, Hannah couldn’t bring herself to blame fate or her father’s enemies for her sister’s death.
She would never forget that one wonderful, terrible night, or that she had wished that Harley would disappear and that hours later she had.
Forever.
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Acknowledgements
Big thanks to the amazing Lauren Blakely, who saw my post about a magnificent bastard of a rooster and insisted that shit had to be a book title. Thank you for that, for the encouragement, and for the tough love, which is totally the best kind. Thanks to Sylvia Pierce for the blurb help (you genius, you!) and to Michelle St. James, Violet Duke, Sawyer Bennett, Adriana Locke, S.E. Hall, Lacey Black, Carly Phillips, A.L. Jackson, Melody Grace, Monica Murphy, Erin Nicholas, and all the other amazing writer people in my life who supported this book. You bring me joy and keep me sane. Or at least sane-ish.
Thank you to Robin for the edits. I’m going to miss you so hard when you quit to become a substitute teacher. If hoping the kids will be jerks so you’ll come back to me is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Thanks to the kick ass bloggers who help a non-promo-savvy hermit like me get the word out—the lovely people at Give Me Books, Candi at the Dirty Laundry blog, the Literary Gossip and so many more. Bless you all a million times over. And to Janice for the proof magic. Sparkle on, girl, with your sharp eye.
And as always, thank you to my readers. Every email and post on my Facebook page means so much. I can’t express how deeply grateful I am for the chance to entertain you.
More big thanks to my Review Team and to Kara H. for organizational excellence and helping me get the word out. And of course, many thanks to my husband and family who believe in me even when the going gets tough. You people are the best. I’m buying you all the fancy ice cream this summer. All of it!
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About the Author
Lili Valente has slept under the stars in Greece, eaten dinner at midnight with French men who couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths on their food, and walked alone through Munich’s red light district after dark and lived to tell the tale.
These days you can find her writing in a tent beside the sea, drinking coconut water and thinking delightfully dirty thoughts.
Lili loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her via email at
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You can also visit her website: http://www.lilivalente.com/
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