Chapter 3

~Harper~

Elias is out cold beside me, one heavy arm thrown across my waist like he’s scared I’ll vanish if he lets go. His breathing is slow and even, face smashed into the pillow, hair a mess. He looks almost human like this. Almost soft. Except he was an almost 40 year old who forced a 19 year old into marriage.

I stare at the ceiling until the sky outside turns from black to gray to pale pink. My wedding ring catches the first bit of sunrise and throws it across the wall like a tiny spotlight. I keep twisting it, testing how real it feels. Too real. Too heavy.

At 6:17 a.m. I can’t take it anymore. I slide out from under his arm as carefully as possible. He makes a low grumpy noise and reaches for me in his sleep. I freeze. He settles again, fingers curling around empty air.

I grab one of his hoodies from the floor (because all my clothes are apparently ash now) and tiptoe out of the room barefoot.

The penthouse is dead quiet. I wander until I find the kitchen. It’s ridiculous: two ovens, an island the size of my old dorm room, fridge bigger than my childhood bedroom. I open it. It’s fully stocked. Someone came in the night and filled it with actual food. There’s even a carton of chocolate milk.

I grab it, hop up on the counter, and drink straight from the carton because I’m a married woman now and I do what I want.

That’s when the tears start.

Not loud ones. Just hot, stupid, silent tears that drip off my chin and land on the floor. I don’t even bother wiping them. I just sit there hugging the chocolate milk like it’s the only normal thing left in my life.

I married a stranger who kills people.  

I’m supposed to have his baby.  

I don’t even know his middle name.

The crying gets uglier. My shoulders shake. I press the cold carton to my face to stop the snot situation.

Footsteps. Bare feet.

I don’t look up. I know it’s him.

He stops in the doorway. I can feel him staring.

“Harper.”

His voice is rough from sleep. Gentle.

I sniff hard. “Go away.”

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He walks over, takes the carton out of my hands, sets it aside. Then he just… stands there between my knees, hands on the counter on either side of my hips, not touching me, just caging me in.

“Look at me.”

I shake my head.

He waits. He’s annoyingly good at waiting.

Finally I drag my eyes up. His hair is sticking up everywhere. He’s only wearing those same gray sweatpants. There’s a red pillow marks on his cheek. He looks about twelve years old and it makes me cry harder.

“Fuck,” he mutters. Then his arms are around me, pulling me into his chest.

I fight for half a second, then give up and sob into his T-shirt like a complete mess. He holds me so tight my ribs creak. One hand cups the back of my head, the other rubs slow circles on my back.

“I know,” he says against my hair. “I know, baby.”

The baby thing breaks me all over again. I cry until my throat hurts and his shirt is soaked and I’m hiccupping like an idiot.

When it finally slows down, he doesn’t let go. He just keeps holding me, rocking us a little, like I’m something precious he’s scared to drop.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

I pull back just enough to glare at him through puffy eyes. “You should be.”

“I am.” He wipes my cheeks with his thumbs. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I rushed you. I’m sorry the first time you wore a wedding dress was because I forced you into it.”

I sniff. “You forgot sorry for kidnapping me and blackmailing me into motherhood.”

“That too.”

I laugh. It comes out wet and broken, but it’s a laugh. He smiles, small and careful, like he’s scared it’ll scare me off.

I rest my forehead against his collarbone because looking at him hurts right now. “I don’t even know you,” I whisper. “You could hate puppies. You could put pineapple on pizza. You could be a flat-earther.”

He huffs a soft laugh. “I like dogs. I think fruit on pizza is a crime. And the earth is very much round.”

“Favorite color?”

“Used to be black. Now it’s whatever color your eyes are when you’re mad at me.”

I groan. “That was cheesy as hell.”

“You cried all over me. I’m allowed one cheesy line.”

I hide my face again. He smells like sleep and like me now, because I’ve rubbed my tears and snot all over him. It’s kind of gross and kind of perfect.

He pulls back, cups my face. “Ask me anything. Anything you want. I’ll answer.”

I bite my lip. “Why do you need an heir so bad? You’re thirty-eight, not ninety.”

His jaw tightens. For a second I think he won’t answer. Then:

“My father’s dying. Cancer. Six months, maybe less. The board is circling like sharks. If I don’t have a blood heir by the time he’s gone, they’ll vote me out and sell the company off piece by piece. Everything I’ve built, gone.” He swallows. “I can’t let that happen.”

I stare at him. “So you went full caveman and decided to steal a wife?”

“Pretty much.” He tries to smile, but it wobbles. “I saw you in that alley and I just… knew. You were it. Mine. I panicked and did the most insane thing possible.”

“That’s not romantic, Elias.”

“I know.”

“It’s actually really fucked up.”

“I know.”

We’re quiet for a minute.

Then I say, voice tiny, “Were you ever going to ask me on a real date?”

He closes his eyes. “If I’d met you at a coffee shop, yeah. I would’ve spilled your drink on purpose just to talk to you. Would’ve asked for your number and texted you memes at 2 a.m. and taken you to shitty diners at sunrise.”

My chest aches. “I wouldnt ’ve said yes though.”

He opens his eyes. They’re glassy.

“I’m sorry I took that from us,” he says.

“Exactly why I did this” he smiles with his eyes.

I nod, because my throat is too tight to speak.

He brushes my hair back. “Can I…can I start over? Right now?”

I blink. “What do you mean?”

He takes a shaky breath, then slowly slides down until he’s on one knee on the kitchen floor, looking up at me like I’m the one with all the power.

My heart stops.

“Harper,” he says, voice cracking, “I know I fucked this up beyond repair. I know I don’t deserve you. But I’m asking…no, I’m begging…give me a chance to earn you. Not because of photos or threats or contracts. Just… let me try to make you fall in love with me. The right way this time.”

I stare at him. My murderer. My husband. On his knee in sweatpants with tear stains on his shirt.

I start crying again, but softer this time.

“You’re an idiot,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“A really, really hot idiot.”

He lets out a wet laugh.

I slide off the counter and into his arms. He catches me, pulls me down so I’m straddling his lap on the cold kitchen floor. I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his shoulder.

“Okay,” I mumble into his skin.

He goes completely still. “Okay what?”

“Okay, start over. But if you ever put a gun to my head again I’ll cut your balls off in your sleep.”

He laughs, shaky and relieved, and hugs me so tight I can’t breathe.

“Deal,” he says into my hair. “No more guns. Just really aggressive courting.”

I pull back, wipe my nose on his sleeve because I’m classy now. “Breakfast first. I want pancakes. And bacon. And you’re cooking.”

He kisses my forehead, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. “Anything you want.”

He stands up with me still wrapped around him like a koala and carries me to the stove. Doesn’t put me down. Just holds me with one arm while he pulls out pans with the other.

I rest my chin on his shoulder and watch him crack eggs one-handed.

“This is still insane,” I tell him.

“I know.”

“You’re still kind of a psychopath.”

“Certified.”

“But you’re my psychopath now, I guess.”

He turns his head, kisses me soft and slow and sweet. No tongue, no possession, just lips saying I’m sorry and please and thank you all at once.

When he pulls back his eyes are red.

“Yours,” he says simply.

We eat pancakes straight from the pan, sitting on the kitchen floor, feeding each other bites and licking syrup off fingers. He tells me his middle name is James. I tell him mine is Rae. He says it’s pretty. I tell him he’s pretty when he cries. He flips me off with a syrupy finger and I laugh so hard I snort.

Later he runs me another bath, the real kind, with candles and music and no audience. He washes my hair, slow, careful, like he’s scared I’ll break. I fall asleep against his chest in the warm water.

When I wake up we’re in bed again, tangled up, afternoon sun pouring through the windows. He’s tracing the band on my finger like he can’t believe it’s there.

“Hey,” I whisper.

“Hey,” he whispers back.

“Tell me something true.”

He thinks for a second.

“I’ve never been in love,” he says quietly. “But I think I’m about to be.”

My heart does this stupid swoopy thing.

“Good,” I say against his mouth. “Because I’m a really sore loser when someone doesn’t fall stupidly in love with me.”

He laughs into the kiss, pulls me closer.

And he’s mine.

And maybe that’s enough to start with. At least I think, but little do I know that what I'm about to find out about him will destroy me.