Page 67 of Love Me

I nod my head, keeping my first thought to myself to hold on to.But, what if you are the one?

“Why are you so glowy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s warm in here.”

“Oh my fucking god. No you didn’t. You fucked him, didn’t you?”

I whip my head in the direction of my sister. She has the nose of a freaking bloodhound. She can sniff out bullshit quicker than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s honestly annoying. Goddamn Scorpios.

“Piss off, Hailey. I’ve got work to do.”

“Hannah, I thought this whole thing was bogus because Mom is a controlling dink hole?”

Needing to talk to someone—who wasn’t Liam—about everything, I confided in my little sister, knowing she wouldn’t hurt me by telling anyone else. Harlow is the one we have to worry about. She’d do anything to be in our mom’s good graces. Including burying me alive or pushing me in front of an oncoming bullet train.

“It is bogus but we kinda did a thing yesterday . . .”

“He boned you. It’s written all over your face.”

“We got married.”

“Well, holy shit, Hannah Jade. I didn’t think you had it in you. I should have known better. Fake marriage, this is about to get interesting!”

“What do you mean fake marriage?” My hand jerks the buttermilk that I’m currently pouring into the mixer, splashing the rim and spilling everywhere. Setting it on the counter with shaky hands, I turn and face Harlow, standing at the entrance to the kitchen with her arms crossed. Fuck my life. “I fuckingknew it, you filthy liar. All that shit about it being twenty years in the making, huh? Making me feel like shit for calling out your bullshit?”

“Lo, listen, you don’t know what you’re saying, and you don’t know what conversation you just walked in on,” Hailey says, trying to defuse the rapidly intensifying situation. I glance at my industrial-size mixer, and wonder if I chopped her up in small enough pieces, if I could mix her into batter and bake her into muffins to dispose of the evidence. Seems like my only option because her blabbing this information sure as fuck isn’t.

“You gonna talk, Hannah? Or stand there mute?”

“Mother above, give me strength,” I mutter under my breath. “Mom gave me an ultimatum that I need to settle down, preferably with Levi, and if I don’t, she’d sell Bean Haven out from under me as soon as Grandma passes away.”

Harlow just looks at me stunned for a minute before she starts laughing. I look at Hailey who winces, and my heart sinks.

“This is amazing. Levi didn’t want you, so you managed to convince your best friend to marry you? How fucking pathetic and washed up do you have to be?”

“The fuck did you just say to her, Lo?” Liam’s voice echoes through the kitchen as he rounds the corner from the front of the café. Harlow whips her head in his direction, not even flinching, the little wench. “I asked you a question.”

“You really married her to deceive my parents?”

“They were trying to force her into a marriage she would have been miserable in or move her and Charlie to California with them. Do you not realize what your sister has been through the last few years? And you’re gonna judge her?”

“This is a family issue, Liam, so why don’t you leave and let me talk with my sister who has clearly lost her mind.”

“I am her goddamn family, Lo. Or did you not hear the partwhere she’s my wife?” Harlow’s eyes squint into slits at him. “Yeah, you heard me correctly. I don’t care if you’re her sister or not, don’t disrespect my wife again. Now, are we going to have a problem with you running your mouth?”

“Our parents have a right to know.”

“And it literally doesn’t affect you, Harlow. Mind your own damn business. You couldn’t give one single shit about what happens to Bean Haven, and it sounds like you just don’t want your sister to be happy. So if you plan on being in our life, in your niece’s life, you’ll keep your mouth shut about this.”

“Are you threatening me, Liam?”

“I wouldn’t threaten you. I’m promising you. You fuck with Hannah, you’re fucking with me, and I’m not going allow people in our lives who want to see us crash and burn.”

Harlow storms out of the kitchen while I stand there frozen to the spot, staring at Liam like he’s grown horns. Hailey winks at me and pats Liam on the shoulder like he did a job well done before following Harlow out the back.

Liam walks across the kitchen to get to me, his hands grabbing my face between his big palms and angling my head back to look up at him. His facial features are more relaxed than they were a moment ago, that part of him that he keeps locked up having receded.

“Are you okay?”

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