Page 81 of Stroke of Shadows

Detective Shawl stood, her expression hardening even further. “You understand that you’re part of the case, right? If you don’t cooperate, you don’t get your deal. You’ll be charged alongside them.”

“And this conversation’s over.” Anger replaced her despair, a surge that helped remind her who she was. What she’d been through. “You have no idea what I’ve had to do to survive. The risks I’ve taken simply talking to you, never mind everything I’ve already done.”

She should never have called her.

She should never have fought back against Cruz. She’d been put in similar situations before by Wyatt, ones where she’d been forced. After a while, your mind numbed, which was what she should have done. Because now she was likely going to be punished worse.

Frustrated with herself, Harper gripped her bag and stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get home. My uncle will be worried.”

“Miss Beau—”

Harper gave the detective her back. “If I find anything else, I know how to contact you.”

Harper held herself strong as she made her way outside, the air cold, the wind rough as it slashed through the silk of her dress as if it didn’t even exist. It froze her skin, her body no longer shaking as she reached for her phone. Ready to call Charles. Ready to accept her fate.

“Miss Beauchamp, I’m here to give you a ride home.”

Harper jumped, having not heard Sythe step up behind her. His eyes were guarded when they met hers, and panic speared through her lungs. “Mr Black,” she said, glancing over his shoulder towards the bar. “You startled me.”Luckily, the detective was still inside.

His posture was stiff. Rigid. “We need to get you back home.”

Harper nodded, the movement jerky. “Right. Of course.”

Sythe was uncharacteristically silent on their walk back to the car.

“How did you find me?” she asked, needing his playfulness and personality. Needing his natural warmth when she felt nothing but the cold.

“You’re not that hard to find, Miss Beauchamp.”

Miss Beauchamp.

Harper picked at her dress, the silk clinging to her uncomfortably tight. Fabric was wrapped around her shoulders, and Harper clung to Sythe’s jacket like a lifeline.It was warm, and when Harper pressed her nose to the lapel; it smelled just like him.

He looked at her straight, his face still stern, but there was a softness to his eyes that there wasn’t before.Harper fought back her tears, knowing she shouldn’t break down until she was alone. She couldn’t show weakness, not the rich girl who, on the outside, had been given anything she’d ever wanted. She purposely portrayed herself as someone with a purpose. Someone who had her life together, when in reality she was drowning.

“Starlight,” Sythe whispered against the wind, his thumb brushing along her cheekbone to catch a single tear that had escaped.

Harper closed her eyes and pressed into his touch. Just for a second. Just enough to feel not so alone. She was nothing but a pretty bird trapped in a gilded cage. A cage she had no hope of escaping.

Sythe’s fingers moved to her jaw, tilting her head up closer to his. “It’s okay not to be okay.”

Harper smiled, the expression empty. She blinked up at him, his caramel eyes no longer guarded, but so expressive her heart fluttered. This was the man she’d met at the club, one who didn’t hide his emotions behind a mask. This was the man who in any other lifetime she’d have fallen for.

“Not for me, it isn’t.”

Chapter 28

Harper

Charles’s grip on her upper arm was going to leave a bruise, but she didn’t complain as she was marched across the marble floors towards the study. He’d stood silent as he waited on the steps of the house, barely acknowledging Sythe before he hauled her inside like a disobedient child.

“What the fuck happened?” Angel snapped as soon as she stepped into the room, Charles almost throwing her forward before closing the heavy door behind her. “Do you know what you’ve done? What you’ve fucked up?”

“He tried to touch me,” she said, her voice clear and calm despite the storm steadily growing inside her chest. “I only defended myself.”

“Of course he wanted to fucking touch you!” Angel closed the distance, each slap of his shoes sending a shiver down her spine. “You were going to be his wife. If he wanted to fuck you right then and there, it’s his right as your fiancé.”

“But the Gods ask me to be—” Harper let out a screech as Angel wrapped his hand in her hair, pulling her up until she was on tiptoes.

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