Un-Shattering Lucy (The Lucy & Harris Novella Series) (Volume 4) (9 page)

“Let’s go into the living room,” she murmured, but I didn’t respond. My frustration was turning into hurt and I could barely see through my tears. With her arms still around me, Dallas guided me into the living room and urged me to sit on the couch.

She took the spot right beside me and kept one arm around my shoulders. I sensed Mom and Lana had followed, as well as Aunt Emmie, but no one spoke but Dallas. “Lucy, when everything happened with Jenna and Tessa…” She stopped when I flinched at the mention of both those names.

No one spoke about Jenna around me and I’d been thankful for the lack of insight into what had happened to Jenna after Tessa had screwed us all over. Maybe it made me a bad person, but I couldn’t help blaming her for what had happened. I hadn’t at first, but as time had passed, all my anger at Tessa had transferred over to include Jenna as well.

Dallas went on. “When everything happened I was in Tennessee. Emmie kept everything so hushed up that I had no idea what happened until weeks later.”

“And?” I got out in a croaky voice.

“The doctor didn’t know what had happened, no one told him what happened after Tessa drugged him. So the doctor didn’t think it was important to explain to anyone that with the mixture of drugs in Harris’s system, it was impossible for him to do the things that Tessa made it look like he’d done in those videos.” She was speaking in a gentle tone, but she might as well have screamed it at me. The force of each word was like a bullet that hit me right between the eyes.

All the air was suddenly trapped in my lungs.

“He didn’t…? He couldn’t…?” I couldn’t bring myself to finish either sentence. Couldn’t stand to hear the words out loud, let alone think them. I’d made peace with the fact that Harris had done something I knew he wouldn’t normally have if he hadn’t been under the influence of the mixture of drugs Tessa had put into Harris’s tea the night of my birthday party. I’d moved on and had wanted to put it behind us when I realized it meant having to give him up forever.

I had loved him too much to let that mistake ruin us.

I still loved him.

“No, sweets, he didn’t. The drugs would have made things in that—er, department—useless.” She grimaced and shrugged. “I’m not saying he didn’t kiss Tessa and other things, but there was no sex involved. Tessa was able to make it look like it happened by placing the cameras at certain angles and then manipulating the footage.”

“How do you know?” I demanded, jumping to my feet. “How could you possibly know that it didn’t happen?”

The look on Dallas’s face would have been amusing if I’d been in the mood to laugh. I wasn’t. I wanted to scream and throw things. I wanted to yell at my mom and Lana and anyone else who had known this and hadn’t told me. I wanted to beat the shit out of Harris who hadn’t said one word about any of this when we’d…

Yeah.

“I’m a nurse, Lucy,” Dallas said as if I needed reminding. “After Emmie told me what happened, I went to see Natalie. Harris was still staying at his parents’ house and I told them that there was no way Harris’d had sex with Tessa. He didn’t believe me at first but when I convinced him, things got a little crazy. The boy went off the rails. He started screaming about letting you go when he didn’t need to and ran off. Nat and Dev didn’t hear from him for almost a week. I thought for sure he would go see you, or at the least, call you.”

“Well, he didn’t.” And that made it all that much worse. All the hurt, all the pain, felt like it was pushing down on my chest with ten times the weight of what it had been just minutes before.

“We figured that out when you didn’t say anything,” Mom murmured for the first time. “I wanted to give him time, in case he was just trying to wrap his head around everything. What happened to Harris was a nightmare, Lucy, but I know it hurt you just as bad.”

I couldn’t respond, couldn’t even look at her. At any of them. This entire day felt surreal. I was sure I would wake up any minute with a headache a million times worse than I’d experienced earlier. Everything that had happened from the moment I’d opened my eyes that morning hadn’t really happened. This was just a dream.

A really bad dream.

“I have to go,” I muttered, already turning for the door.

“Where are you going?” Mom called after me. “Lucy?”

I stopped before I could reach the door, but didn’t turn back to face her. “I have to see Harris.” I needed to know why he hadn’t told me, because Mom had been right. He should have been the one to tell me. No one else but him.

“Lucy, give yourself some time to think about this,” Lana suggested

I turned around then. “I’ve done nothing but think about this for five months. Five months of driving myself crazy thinking that my boyfriend slept with someone else. Five months of replaying those damn videos over and over again in my head.” A sob surprised me by bursting free, making it impossible to catch my breath for a moment. “And I didn’t have to because it didn’t really happen.”

“Marcus will take you,” Aunt Emmie said, sounding like her usual calm self. I envied her the ability to stay calm when things went to hell.

“No. I’m tired of taking Marcus with me everywhere. I don’t need him. He’s your security blanket, not mine.” It was a lie, but I was too angry at them all to admit it to myself. “I’m done being treated like I’m still nine years old. You’re all suffocating me.”

Mom was crying just as hard as I was now. “Lucy, please. Baby, just calm down and we will fix this.”

Fix this.

Fix this?

That was what Harris had said that morning. Everyone wanted to fix it. Wanted to fix me.

But I was unfixable.

Chapter 10

Harris

Mondays were normally my day off, with my assistant manager coming in and handling things since it was the least crazy night of the week. This week she was on vacation or I would have followed Lucy home.

She’d been gone by the time I’d gotten out of the shower, just as I figured she would be, but that hadn’t stopped me from hoping. I’d gotten the third degree from Kin, though, which had made me even more late getting to work since I had to stop by my apartment and change first.

I hadn’t been thinking about who could hear us when Lucy and I had made love. I hadn’t been thinking, period. If I had been, my latest fuckup wouldn’t have happened and Lucy would still be a virgin. I spent thirty-five minutes convincing Kin that I wasn’t going to hurt Lucy this time around, that I was going to fight for her and not let her go again.

Now, as I sat behind my desk trying to go over the latest liquor order I needed to make, I couldn’t stop thinking about that morning. Each second from the moment I’d woken up until I came back to reality after the most incredibly mind-blowing release I’d ever experienced in my entire life replayed over and over again. The taste of Lucy’s lips, her skin…her pussy lingered on my tongue. The memory of how her scalding heat had felt around my dick as I’d slipped into her tight little body was driving me crazy and I’d been in a state of full-blown arousal despite the second shower I’d taken when I had gotten home earlier.

I was thankful that my staff was competent enough to handle things without needing my constant supervision because I couldn’t have helped them even if I’d wanted to right then. Not unless I wanted an entire club full of people to know exactly how affected I was.

“Boss, London and Genesis are here.” Tiny’s voice came through loud and clear over the Bluetooth system on my desk.

I bit back a groan, wondering what those two wanted now. Genesis and London were in the new band I’d hired to take over the Thursday night shows when Tainted Knights’ contract expired. The Blonde Bombshells had increased my revenue tenfold in the few months since they had been doing the shows. Of course, seventy-five percent of the attendance was dudes, but as long as they kept bringing in the money I wasn’t going to complain.

Not about their shows at least.

Their constant bickering, which I had to play referee to, was getting old. I felt more like their fucking father than their boss. Especially when it came to Genesis and London. They couldn’t get along at all and that was one of the main reasons Emmie Armstrong was hesitating to offer them a contract when the one with First Bass was up. I couldn’t see the all-chick band lasting past their contract anyway.

“Not in the mood to deal with their shit, Tiny,” I told him, not caring if they heard me or not.

“Sure, boss. I’ll get rid of them…Er. Wait!” My head of security said something vicious under his breath I didn’t catch, but I heard the familiar voices of Genesis and London crying foul. “Heads up, boss. Miss Thornton is headed right for you and she’s not happy.”

My dick twitched at just the mention of Lucy’s name. “I can take care of Lucy. Just get rid of the blondes, man.”

“You got it, boss.”

I stood and crossed to the office door that led out into the lower level of the club. Opening the door, I was just in time to see her marching toward me. Tiny had made the understatement of the year when he’d said she looked unhappy. Her eyes were red and puffy, telling me she’d been crying, but there was no sign of those tears right then. There was venomous anger glaring out of her dark eyes as she came toward me with the force of a tiny freight train.

“What happened?” I demanded, stepping through the door to catch her around the waist.

She struggled against me, her curls flying in all directions and smacking me in the face more than once. “Did you think no one would tell me?” she seethed. “Did it even cross your mind that you should have been the one to tell me?”

Confused, I released her waist to grasp her wrists when her fists started hitting my chest. Fuck, she had a good left on her. The spot just under my collarbone she’d connected with was already smarting. “What the hell are you talking about? Tell you what?”

“About Tessa,” she screamed. “You didn’t tell me about Tessa.”

Fucking hell.

When I didn’t say anything, Lucy tried fighting me harder. “You should have told me,” she yelled, causing the waitresses that were getting the lower level ready to open to stop and stare at us. “Not them, you!”

“Fuck, Lucy.” I lost hold of her right wrist in my surprise and she slugged me in the jaw, causing my teeth to snap together and I bit my tongue. I turned my head, spit out a mouthful of blood and then bent, catching her around the waist once more and tossing her over my shoulder.

“You fucking pig,” she raged, her fists pummeling down on my back in sharp blows. Jesse Thornton had taught his daughter to defend herself well, that was for sure. “I hate you right now, Harris. I hate you.”

“That’s my kidney, Lu.” I groaned when she hit me in the exact spot again.

No one bothered to move as I got Lucy into my office and kicked the door shut behind me. Before the door closed I saw Nate standing up on the VIP floor grinning down at me. I wanted to go punch him in the face. Nate had been just as moody as I was when Lucy left for Georgetown. Our once easy work relationship was gone, replaced by my jealousy over the friendship he and Lucy had once had.

Behind closed doors now, I sat Lucy on the edge of my desk and struggled with her until I got control of her flailing arms. My mouth was full of blood once again and my tongue was starting to swell, made worse when one of her fists connected with my chin. Shit, my little spitfire was beating the fuck out of me.

And it was turning me on in a way that belied my earlier release inside her incredible little body.

“Will you stop?” I growled and shook her as carefully as possible until her head jerked back and she met my gaze. When I saw the pain in her eyes I nearly let her go so she could beat the shit out of me a little more. Instead, I grasped both wrists in one hand and pushed her hair back from her face with the other, cupping her jaw so she couldn’t lower her head and block me out. “Who told you?”

“Dallas,” she snarled. “Not my mom or Lana or even Aunt Emmie. It was Dallas.”

Turning my head, I spit out more blood, giving myself time to think. Why had Dallas told her? She had no reason to tell her or anyone else what she’d made me understand months ago. The relief I’d felt when I’d realized I hadn’t done the things those fucking videos had made it look like I had was short lived when it hit me that I’d let Lucy go without even trying to fight for us. Something that she had begged me to do. Something I hadn’t had the balls to attempt.

Because I’d been too twisted up. Too ashamed of not having control of a situation I wouldn’t have ever been a part of had I not been drugged out of my mind. I’d been weak and I’d hated that weakness.

It shouldn’t have made me push away the only thing that had still been pure and good in my world. I shouldn’t have told her to go. I shouldn’t have made her think that I didn’t need her as much as she needed me.

All those regrets had been eating at me, but until I realized Lucy hadn’t moved on, I hadn’t wanted to ask for another try. She deserved so much more and if she had moved on, I wouldn’t have even approached her again. But she hadn’t and now I wanted a second chance.

“You should have told me.” She was starting to lose steam now, but the glare was just as fierce as it had ever been even as tears filled her eyes. “I had a right to know.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a grimace. “You’re right, Lu. I should’ve told you as soon as I knew it didn’t happen. But I thought you’d moved on. It killed me not to go after you when I knew the truth, but I didn’t want to mess up your life again.”

Two fat tears spilled over her lashes. “If you loved me, you would’ve done it whether I’d moved on or not.”

While her anger was burning out, my own was stroked by those words. My hold on her wrists tightened. I wanted to shake some sense into her. “Do you really think I didn’t love you, Lucy?”

“Right now, knowing what I know, yes.” Two more tears spilled over followed by a dozen more. “Maybe you thought you loved me, but when it really came down to it, that love fell pretty short. Instead of fighting for us, you sent me away. Then when the truth came out, you didn’t even try to set things right. If you loved me even half as much as you said you did I never would have left.”