Moments later, the girl from the bathroom opened the door in a towel. I glared at her over Shane’s shoulder as he walked into the apartment. “Dammit, Nat!” he exclaimed. “No wonder she’s so mad! You can’t go around like that.”

“I was in the shower!” Nat defended. “She just walked in and then ran off before I could even say a word. This isn’t my fault!”

“Put me down!” I beat my fists against Shane’s back hard enough that I felt him grunt in discomfort. “Put me down now!”

He ignored me as he continued through the apartment and into his bedroom. The door slammed behind us, and he paused only long enough to lock the door before dropping me on the bed. I bounced twice before I landed on my back, my hair in my face.

I pushed my hair out of my face to find Shane glaring down at me like I was the one in the wrong. “You have absolutely no trust in me do you?” he demanded.

“After the last few days, the answer would be a definite no.” I had trusted him wholeheartedly until he had given me a reason not to.

“Natalie isn’t who you think she is.” He started pacing, shooting me dirty looks each time he passed me. “If you had given me two minutes to explain things to you instead of tearing into me like a wild cat, I would have told you that Natalie is my sister.”

I almost snorted in disbelief until I remembered him telling once that he had a half-sister and her name was Natalie. “You said you didn’t have anything to do with your sister.”

Shane continued to pace. “I never have before. Her mother refused to let Nat or my dad have anything to do with Drake and me when she married him. She hated the thought of Dad having had another family before her. It wasn’t until after my mother died that Dad put his foot down and tried to reconnect with us. But by then Drake and I didn’t want to play happy family with a guy that hadn’t tried to be there for us when we had needed him the most.”

I straightened up on the bed, moving so my feet were hanging off the side. Just because the girl I thought had replaced me turned out to be his sister did not mean that I was less angry. “And you couldn’t take five minutes to answer the phone and tell me that your sister was staying with you? Or even text me with that news?”

“I’ve been searching the city for my sister, Harper. I’ve had to deal with cops and a stepmother that claimed I kidnapped her. If Natalie hadn’t shown up to warn me, then it’s hard to tell where I would be right now!”

“You had to look for Natalie?”

“No, I had to look for Jenna.” He raked his hands through his hair, going back to pacing after only a small pause.

“Who’s Jenna?”

“She’s my twelve year old sister.” Shane grimaced. “I didn’t even know she existed. But she knew about me and Drake. She’s been watching Drake on America’s Rocker, and when her mother pissed her off she ran off to find us. So Stella called the New York cops and they turned up on my door step twenty minutes after Natalie did.”

It was a lot to take in, but slowly it all registered. Shane had almost been arrested. If Natalie hadn’t been there to explain that he hadn’t taken Jenna—that she was still missing—then the cops probably would have taken him in. He had spent that night and all of yesterday looking for Jenna around New York with the cops and Natalie.

Jenna had been found on the subway late the night before. The girl was now on her way back home, but Natalie hadn’t wanted to go. She was going to stay in New York with her brother for a while. Since she was eighteen she could do whatever she pleased, even if her mother had thrown a fit about her oldest daughter’s decision.

My chest stopped hurting, but my gut twisted when I realized how big of a mistake I had made. I had accused Shane of something horrible, had hit him, and then to top it off…I had told him I hated him!


Shane

I would admit that not calling Harper had been a mistake. Finding Natalie in my apartment the way she had probably was the nail in the coffin. But I had thought that Harper trusted me more than that. I’d been so caught up in everything else going on with us that I only assumed that she had complete faith in my feelings for her.

I had never been more wrong in my life.

She hadn’t trusted me at all. Harper didn’t have a shred of faith in me. That knowledge hurt worse than anything ever had before.

After telling her about how crazy the last few days had been for me, she just sat there with her head bowed, and I continued to pace. I wanted to go running, needed the burn of a long hard run to clear my head and ease some of the pain that clenched my heart. Instead, I just watched the woman that owned me, body and soul, tear me apart with her continued silence.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” she whispered so softly that I nearly missed it.

I stopped mid-step and turned to face her fully. “Why couldn’t you have given me two minutes, Harper?”

A shaky sigh escaped her, and she scrubbed a hand over her still damp face. “Because I was sure that you had tossed me aside. That you didn’t want me anymore. One look at Natalie getting in the shower, and I knew that you finally opened your eyes and saw the truth.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not beautiful enough to be with you.”

Her words were like a stab to the heart, and I fell to my knees in front of her. This time the pain was more intense, more breath-stealing. Because I realized that Harper probably did have some faith in me, but she had absolutely none in herself. I had thought I had set her fears to rest and was sure that I had given her back her self-worth that her mother and stepsister had stolen from her.

And maybe I had for the most part. But there was still a little piece that would always question her hold over me. “What can I do to make you see what I see, Harper? How can I prove to you that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen?”

She bit her trembling lip, and I was gutted as a few tears fell down her pale cheeks. “When I’m with you I feel like the most beautiful thing in the world. When you hold me I feel sexy and loved… And I really did trust you, Shane. I do trust you. But… I don’t… I’m scared that you’ll open your eyes one day and wonder why you are with me. I’m terrified that someone with real beauty will catch your eye and…”

My hand covering her mouth stopped the words that were like poison arrows to my heart. “That’s never going to happen. There isn’t any way that anyone, beautiful or not, will ever be able to catch my eye. Simply because I can’t look at another woman. All I see is you, Harper. All I want and will ever want is you. And I will never—never, do you hear me?—wonder why I’m with you because I already know the answer.”

I pulled her down onto the carpeted floor in front of me. “I’m with you because there is no one in the world like you. No other girl could ever hold my attention the way you do. You are so smart and so fun to be with. You are quiet and feisty all at the same time, which is completely adorable and incredibly hot. And your beauty, Harper, it goes soul deep.”

I cupped her face, wiping away falling tears as they landed on her cheeks with my thumbs. “Maybe one day you will see all of those things. But until you do, I’ll just have to remind you every day. I will have to make sure that you are always in my arms so you never doubt again for even a minute that you are sexy and loved, and completely—irrevocably—mine.”

A sob escaped her and she threw her arms around my neck. Her lips tasted of her tears as she sought my mouth in a kiss that was healing for both of us. “Don’t cry, beautiful. It kills me to hear those little sobs,” I whispered when I pulled back a little.

“I’m sorry!” She buried her tear soaked face in my shirt. “So, so sorry. I love you. I love you, Shane.”

I let out a long, relieved sigh. “When you said you hated me…” I broke off, my throat choking with tears. Those three words were still echoing through my head, making my gut twist in pain.

“I didn’t mean it. I was just so upset.” Tear dampened lips kissed over my face. “I could never hate you, even if I really wanted to. Why do you think it hurt so much for me to come home to this? It was ripping me apart, and I attacked before you could defend yourself.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. It still hurt though, baby. Thinking that I was about to lose you, that ripped me apart.”

Tears poured from her eyes faster. “Can you forgive me?”

“I already have.”


Harper

I woke with a headache, but Shane’s comforting arms were wrapped around me from behind. We had spent the entire night just lying in his bed, holding onto each other and talking. We had fallen asleep in each other’s arms in the early hours of the morning, and I had rested peacefully for the first time in days.

Shane groaned in his sleep and then blinked his eyes open when he felt me moving. His eyes were bloodshot, his face still a little pale, and I felt guilt eat at me once more for putting him through the disaster of yesterday. With a sad smile, I brushed a tender kiss over his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too, beautiful.”

“Listen… I have to talk to you about something.” It was something that should have been discussed the night before, while we were still pouring our very heart and soul out, but I hadn’t wanted to argue again.

His eyes narrowed. “What now?”

“I know that you got me the job with Rock America. I know that you had Emmie take a look at my portfolio and ask to send work my way.” At the time my boss had let those little facts slip out, I’d still been upset because Shane hadn’t called me back while I was in Miami. I was livid and it had been one of the reasons I called Emmie.