“Did you find Harper?” Nova quips and then her eyes widen when she sees Harper holding a sleeping Zeke in her arms.
“Sorry,” Nova mouths quietly.
Liam’s smirking, his arms folded across his chest as he lingers in the doorjamb, clearly amused by all of it.
Great.
Glad I’m fodder for him.
Another spectator in our forced marriage who is going to want details.
Liam doesn’t quite know all the details of what led up to the engagement, just that the marriage ended up being a necessity at my father’s insistence.
That’s all Liam needed to know to understand why I was getting hitched.
His father is also mafia; everyone who lives under our roof is either a child of the mafia or married into the family.
It’s why we’re all living together, and I suspect how we all ended up enrolled at Evergreen on full scholarships. There are no coincidences.
Five
Harper
After twenty-four hours, Zeke’s fever breaks, which is a relief because I can’t send him to daycare if he’s contagious.
I’ve been sleeping in Zeke’s room, on the twin-sized mattress tucked against the wall.
Zeke seems to be thrilled with the company, climbing into bed with me every morning and even in the middle of the night when he wakes up.
Which means less sleep for me.
The kid sleeps sideways, hogging not only all the blankets, but also the entire bed.
Repeatedly, I’ve tucked him back into bed, but he keeps making it a habit to climb into my bed, which worries me because I don’t want it to be a bad habit when he’s a little older.
Luca barely speaks to me, except for the occasional nod or good morning when we see each other off—he heads to practice early with Ashton and Liam, I’m studying before Zeke wakes, and I have to take him to daycare.
I have a full day of classes lined up today—communication, astronomy, and statistics. As an advertising major, they’re all required classes, but the comms class is by far the easiest for me.
I meet up with Kensley for lunch. It’s the first time that we’ve seen each other since I left town.
“I heard you were back,” Kensley says as I carry my lunch tray to the table.
She’s got some bruising around her wrists, and when she notices me staring, she covers the darkened marks with her sleeves.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” My voice drops lower. “Did they hurt you?” I ask.
Nova and Ashton enter the dining hall and head in line to grab pizza. We don’t have much time to talk privately.
Kensley shakes her head. “Not physically. I mean the restraints left some marks, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. We shouldn’t talk about this here.”
“I still have your credit card.” I reach into my backpack and retrieve it, passing it across the table to her. “I’ll pay you back for everything?—”
“I know. Don’t worry about it right now.” Kensley grabs my hand that’s on the table, the one where I’m wearing a wedding band. “You went through with it,” she gasps, the evidence staring back at her.
“Didn’t have much of a choice.” I refrain from mentioning how Luca’s father insisted that I marry Ashton instead of Luca. That part hardly seems important now that I’m married to Luca.
