Page 57 of Her Filthy Reverse Harem Romance Collection

“Miss, did you hear me? The house special.” The customer’s words are clipped, rugged like he gargled sand on a nightly basis.

A rough hand clamps down on mine. I jump, pulling my gaze off the TV to look at the man. My attention falls to meet a set of eyes so dark they appear black. It could have been a trick of the eye from the dim lighting or smudged windows blocking out the shine of the parking lot lamps, but the newcomer has a look about him that creeps me out. I jerk my hand back and do my best to hide the tremble in my fingers as I scribble the order down, trying my best for normal or what passes for it.

Unlike the normal customer of the everyday Joe at this hour, this one wore all black. But that wasn’t the odd detail. The way he shifted closer in his booth seat is what caught my eye.

Deep breaths. Don’t lose your shit yet. Not everyone is a mobster. Besides, no one knows where you’re at.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Got it. Um…house special...coffee and apple pie. Will that be all?” I keep my head down, eyes glued to my pad. I try not to sound rushed but the crank of his bushy eyebrow screams I need more practice at the whole not giving a shit act I am trying to pull off.

He gives me the once-over, stopping a little too long on my cleavage before giving me a gruff grunt of approval.

Freak.

Rain pelts the windows and I take the small interruption as my cue to step away as I finish scribbling the order and turn toward the back, but I only make it a couple of steps when the words finally break through the fog of too many hours on my feet.

My father is dead.

Out of a million things I should do right now I stand there like a corpse, unmoving, the signals between my brain and legs severed along the way somewhere. I don’t know how long I stand there trying to breathe and not pass out.

“Sweetie, you okay?”

Sally comes out of the back room, wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me in for a tight hug. I block out the laughter from the teens in the back and a pair of newcomers wanting their menus. Someone else can take care of them for a change.

“C’mon, sweetie, talk to me.” Sally shakes my shoulders a little, jarring me back to reality.

“Uh, yeah, I think so. I mean the man might as well be a stranger to me.” But deep inside in a part that I shut off, for the most part, stings with a pang of regret that churns my stomach. “I thought he couldn’t make me cry anymore and here I am about to burst into tears for someone who wanted to sell me.” I recall every last detail Sylan, Drake, and Grey told me.

I lift a shoulder in a defeated shrug. “But I guess that’s not true, huh?” It takes all the effort I have left in me not to break down in the middle of Sally’s diner.

I promised myself no friends after what happened with Nikki, but I guess I suck at that too. Sally is the only one who knows my true identity and who my father is—was. And all the nasty details that led me to her doorstep begging for a job.

She pulls me over to the side and away from prying eyes. “Stop that. You don’t need a man like him in your life. Now take a deep breath and steel those nerves, baby girl.”

“You’re right. I know. Fairy tales are made for books. Got it.” I wipe at the few tears that escape. A kind smile pulls at the lips of the much-older woman, and all the weathered lines she tries to hide behind mounds of makeup crinkle. That small token of kindness helps me fight my way out of the cobwebs of pain.

Her warm gaze holds mine. “A father is a father, Kat. Bastard or not. This news can’t be easy, I know. I’m not trying to be a hard-ass. But I don’t think the man deserves a second thought. But you’re young and a lot more soft-hearted than I am. Tell ya what. Why don’t you go on home and take off tomorrow to regroup, huh? How does that sound? I’ll call in a couple of girls to help out until you can come back.”

Her idea sounds like the million-dollar jackpot, but just like winning the lottery sounds too good, so does Sally’s idea. “I can’t afford the time off, but thank you. After I finish my shifts I’ll have enough time between then and tomorrow’s shifts to pull myself together. You’re right. He doesn’t deserve my grief.” I keep my plans of leaving town to myself. It pains me to lie to someone who has been nothing but nice, but it is what it is. I’ll finish, gather my few precious belongings from my shabby apartment and then hit the bus station. Destination unknown.

I work a small smile on my face for Sally’s benefit to show I believe my own words.

I shove aside the unwanted nostalgia for what could have been in some fairy-tale version of my life and finish out my shifts a full hour after official closing time. Fridays are normally the busiest and tonight didn’t disappoint.

I stumble out of the diner into the cold, drizzling rain and the pitch-black of the wee hour welcomes me as soon as I step out of range from the diner’s lights. If my feet were aching at the beginning of my double shift, that pain doesn’t compare to the swollen throbbing ache I’m feeling now. I am sorely tempted to hail a cab to drive me the ten blocks to my apartment, but I need every cent of the tidy sum I earned tonight for bus fare.

I am so focused on getting to the bus station that I don’t see the black silhouette of a man appear beside me until he’s in my face. A scream sticks in my throat and adrenaline shoots through my veins until my heart is nearly pounding outside of my chest.

“Katriona,” draws a familiar sandpaper, gravelly voice. “it’s been a while, sweetheart.”

Oh fuck. If blood can turn to ice that’s exactly what happens to me.

I squint into the wet darkness and catch a hint of man’s expression which sits between a mix of deadpanned and grim, then again with that puckered, jagged scar running down the side of his face the look might be more of a permanent situation than any kind of emotion.

“Drake?” I ask shakily. But I already know the answer. No other man can pull off scary motherfucker and make me turn from ice-cold to molten hot in the span of a single breath. Well other than his two best friends. I’d recognize that look any day of the week. Know in the depths of my shivering soul the feel of this man’s hands on me as much as his tongue.

“My God, what happened,” I blurt before I think better of it. And then I recall the injury. All the blood.

A strange sort of excitement fills me. One I don’t understand fully.

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