And if it was, that was fine. I’d be here to hold her up when she was down, no matter what. And so would my entire family.
We were Hardicks, rain or shine. Family was everything... everything.
And soon, we’d add another to the bunch. My big brother was going to be a father.
THE END
If you loved Billionaire Protector you won’t
want to miss the thrilling, flaming HOT bad boys of Savage Souls MC.
Check out Lincoln and Harper’s
epic love story in Riding My Hero - Book 1 of
The Savage Souls Series!
READ RIDING MY HERO HERE
RIDING MY HERO SNEAK PEEK
READY FOR A DIRTY RIDE WITH A MC HOTTIE?
Escaping near-death just to fall for a motorcycle riding bad boy?
Is this really my life?
When I stepped foot back in my hometown
I never imagined that in less than 24 hours I’d be running for my life.
I’ve got a boatload of money headed my way,
and a seriously gigantic target on my back.
Running was all I could think to do.
The only problem is that I just ran right into the arms
of an absolutely soul-shakingly gorgeous man who
is most likely an even bigger nightmare than the one I left behind.
Leader of a motorcycle gang.
One giant brooding a**hole.
And so cocky and infuriating I just want to scream.
Why is it that my problems always seem to go from bad to worse?
I didn’t run this far just to get tangled up in another version of the dangerous world I escaped from.
And I certainly didn’t expect to uncover answers to the question I’ve carried with me for a lifetime.
But in the process of escaping my present,
I may have just stumbled into my future.
There’s no going back now.
Chapter 1
Harper
The sleek black town car picks me up from the Hartford airport and I am relieved that I don’t recognize the driver. Reginald, the chauffeur who’s worked for my family as long as I can remember, is probably the one tasked with driving my stepfather and my grandmother to the funeral. While I wouldn’t mind seeing a familiar, friendly face, at this moment it is a relief to be driven by a stranger. The thought of having to make small talk at a time like this has my stomach doing somersaults. I’m not ready to say it out loud - not ready to speak about the horrible reason that I am back in town. The reality of it is too bleak and sad and confusing for me to even fully comprehend.
This new chauffeur is middle-aged and stocky. His nose looks like it has been broken more than once and didn’t heal properly… more than once. He’s a bit rougher looking than the usual employees and is almost rude as he says a brisk hello and loads my small suitcase into the trunk of the car. Throughout the rest of the drive he is reserved… all business. He blessedly doesn’t ask me any questions as he drives me through the manicured streets of New Canaan, Connecticut toward my childhood home, if home is a word you can use to describe a cavernous and sterile mansion that was built with the objective of radiating power to eliciting envy in others. Warm and welcoming my childhood home is not. In fact, nothing in New Canaan fits that definition. I’m not sure anything in my life will ever feel that way.
As we drive, I kick off my black Christian Dior pumps and lean back in the comfy leather seat, closing my eyes for a momentary respite. I was living and working in Milan when I heard the news from my stepfather. I dropped everything and headed home as soon as I could. My mother bought me a new, high-end wardrobe for the job before I moved and while I am now dressed for it, I’m still not ready to face the crowd of New Canaan elite likely already gathering at the mansion. I can hear Bon Jovi playing quietly on the radio and the driver taps along on the steering wheel. Reginald was a classical music lover or at least pretended to be - everyone who ever worked for my mother and stepfather had to play the part, but this guy, like everything else right now, feels off. Nothing about this scene feels right. Or real.
As we pull up to the first security gate, the driver rolls down his window and gives a quick flick of the wrist to the security guard. Real or not, here we are.
We drive on another quarter mile past the gate and onto the family property. Ahead of us, the wide U-shaped driveway is already full of fancy cars, Bentleys and BMWs, all polished to a shiny gleam. My mother and stepfather didn’t have many close friends, so you would think the turnout would be small. But in New Canaan, money, not friendship, determines the success of your funeral. And my mother had money. Loads of it.
As the driver parks the car in the garage, I smooth the few wrinkles that have formed in my modest, knee-length, black cocktail dress.
My grandmother, a pearl-clutching ice queen, hates nothing more than too-low necklines and too-short hemlines. She will surely approve of this dress. I pull out a small mirror from my purse to look myself over. I’m exhausted after taking the redeye flight from Milan and I didn’t manage to sleep a wink on the plane. I’d felt sick, not grieving exactly, but a mix of dread, fear and regret, ever since my stepfather had called to tell me the news. My mother - a wild, extravagant, outrageous beauty, (and a deeply unhappy and wounded woman) - had died in her sleep three days earlier of a sleeping pill overdose. It appeared up for debate whether the overdose was accidental or if she had chosen to take her own life, though my stepfather strongly hinted at the latter.
I missed the burial by an hour, but I’d gotten the earliest flight I could and my stepfather had refused to wait. He said I would still make it in time for the reception and that he had a very important business meeting this evening that he didn’t want to delay. Though, more likely it was an important mistress he didn’t want to miss sleeping with.
He’d had more side pieces than I could stand to count, so I highly doubt that he is truly mourning the loss of my mother. It was his disdain and coldness – the coldness of his entire family - that had driven my mother to drink, self-medicate, and spend her money on every half-baked depression or detox guru under the sun. She had been desperately searching for some vestige of happiness, and still, she never divorced him. She liked the power his name brought her too much to let it go.
My mother was first a trophy wife and then, later, merely a useful bank account, she had never been worth much more to my stepfather. Not that Belinda Yates, for all her early beauty and wealth, had made it easy for anyone to love her. She didn’t even make it easy for me, her own daughter, to love her.
I walk into the large marble foyer of our house and take in the scene. The place is crawling with people dressed in demure black, mingling and drinking as caterers move about with trays of Hors d'oeuvres and flutes of champagne. Only their jewelry and watches and expensive shoes give away the amount of accumulated wealth in the room. Connecticut’s wealth is demure, not tacky like my beauty queen mother was.