Page 64 of Cruel Lies

"He couldn’t get off that couch fast enough." I quirked a brow, and one corner of my mouth lifted in a sly smirk. "You could have gotten some good sleep in my bed, you know."

"Fuck off, Rowan," she groused, moving to pop some bread in the toaster. "It’s not the day to fuck with me. I’m not in the mood for anything today."

My shoulders lifted in a cocky shrug as I turned back to the food. "I was just pointing out the offer is open. You can take it whenever you feel like it."

"Well, I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture last night." Her eyes cut to Angel’s door, then Nash’s, her whole demeanor shifting from disgust to sadness. "I had enough to deal with as it was."

Great. She did something with Nash, too. Clearly, that didn’t work out as she’d hoped.

At least one of my brothers hadn’t lucked out last night. Whatever she’d been into with him, it appeared to have had a bad ending. If she and my eldest brother hadn’t fallen out, she wouldn’t have been on the damn couch with Angel.

Nash wouldn’t have let her sleep til dawn if he’d gotten his hands on her. And then I’d be in here alone still, or maybe with Angel acting normal, eating breakfast and drinking a cup of coffee and starting my day like normal.

I wouldn’t be aggressively scraping half-burnt eggs out of a pan in the hopes I hadn’t fucked them up so bad it gave Harper one more reason to hate me today.

"How do you know I was planning to lecture you?" She set two plates on the counter, and I took the nearest one, feeding her before myself. "Maybe I?—"

"Maybe nothing, Rowan Blackwood. You had that look in your eyes, the one that screams‘you’re in trouble,’and I was not about to deal with it." She slapped a few pieces of toast on the empty plate and quirked an eyebrow at me knowingly. "Youknow damn well you were gearing up for a‘what the hell were you thinking’rant."

I couldn’t argue that. After watching her nearly take herself and my brothers out with a single stupid move, all I wanted to do was grab her and shake her. I had to physically restrain myself by removing myself from the room so I didn’t throttle her for scaring me like she had.

My whole life flashed before my eyes in a heartbeat, every dream for our future dying as I breathed. Her rash actions had almost taken everything I cared about in this world away in a matter of seconds, and I was beyond angry in the moment. Rage had nothing on the pure terror and heartbreak I went through when I thought they wouldn’t stop. There was nothing I could do to prevent it, to stop it. All I could do was watch on helplessly as she careened toward the same place we’d shoved her off the bridge seven years ago.

Everything came back to that one moment seven years ago.

Why?

It was like watching a movie play over and over on repeat, unable to stop it or rewind it or change it. Like fucking Groundhog Day, I was doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over for the rest of my life.

"You uh, you gonna gimme some eggs here, scout?"

Harper shoved the half-empty plate under my nose, and I smiled, dumping my eggs on it and swapping her servings. "This one’s yours. Enjoy."

She eyed her yellow eggs and then ogled my brownish ones. It was painfully obvious I’d made every effort to give her the not-burnt pieces I could find in the pan.

"Thanks," she muttered, crunching on a slice of toast as she meandered back to the couch and flopped down with a sigh that felt like it carried the weight of the world. "I didn’t feel like cooking this morning. Hell, I didn’t plan on being awake this morning, either, but since I am . . ."

"I didn’t mean to wake you two," I began, but she downed a bite of the scalding eggs and held her hand up.

"Don’t even try that shit. I know when you’re throwing one of those wordless tantrums, Ro. I know you better than you think."

She wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know when it happened, but somewhere over the years, she’d learned everything she could about each one of us. Hell, she knew us better than we knew ourselves. And that in itself was scary as fuck.

"Okay, fair enough."

She shoveled another forkful of eggs into her mouth, mumbling around them. "Why, though?"

"I don’t wanna talk about it," I muttered back, turning my back on her insistent stare. "Eat your breakfast and shut your mouth. I have to get back to work."

I moved to take my breakfast into the office, and like a persistent dog, she followed behind me, her plate in hand, an intense stare boring a hole into my back.

She settled on the futon as I sorted through the file I’d started on my father. But like always, in typical Harper Daniels fashion, her curiosity got the better of her and she wandered over, peering over my shoulder at the work I’d done.

"A file on your dad."

It wasn’t a question.

"You said he was the best candidate. He does stand to benefit from your death, if done correctly. But something‘s not right about the way he’s going about this. I haven’t heard from him, either, so there’s likely a game in play I’m not aware of." I shrugged as she stared at me over the lip of her coffee mug, brow quirked. "Least I can do is pay him a visit and see if I can get a feel for him."

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