Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
She shrugs. “No one’s every really admired me, so I don’t know.”
“It’s a fucking shame I’m your first. It feels like the whole world should admire you.”
Harriet gives me a come on glower. Like I’m blowing smoke up her ass.
I smile into a laugh. “You want my eyes? I’d take them out and give them to you. Just so you can see exactly how I see you. You’re driven, compassionate, sharp, beautiful—in so many ways. You’re everything I’d want to be around.”
Her tears well. “That’s not how that organ works, Cobalt boy. So don’t go plucking your eyeballs out for me.”
My smile stretches, and I can’t stop staring at her. Watching her smile reemerge just hushes all the noise in my body. It’s like walking barefoot through dewy grass. Feeling the stickiness of morning air. Smelling the wet earth and budding magnolias. “You’re the one person who…” I trail off, not knowing how to describe this out loud.
“Who what?”
“Who I feel like…I won’t harm.”
She’s a little puzzled, and I can’t blame her. I’m sure it’s fucking ridiculous. But I feel this quiet sense of ease with Harriet. Somewhere in my brain, I’m so certain that I’m a positive force in her life. My presence caused the hammerhead shark to swim away. She wasn’t thrown in the pool at the frat party. She’s no longer upset in the back of her car.
She’s slowly smiling at me, at the way I’m looking at her. She’s something good in my life I don’t want to lose. I’m afraid to lose, but I have to…I shake the stabbing thought away.
Then my phone buzzes in my ass pocket against the seat, disrupting the peaceful silence.
“You getting that?” Harriet asks, about to slide off me, but I hold her still and dig out my phone to check the caller ID.
“It’s Beckett. They all probably want to know if you’re okay.” I motion my head to the window. “They’re parked a few cars over.”
Her brows spring. “They’re here?”
“Yeah.” I try not to laugh at her surprise. “We’re typically a ‘come one, come all’ kind of family.”
Her lips are parted while she’s staring out the window, maybe contemplating if they’re in view.
Tension stiffens her body, and I ask, “You want to rip off the Band-Aid? Confront them now?”
“Now?”
“Right now. I’d just suggest putting on some pants before we go out there.” I slip her a teasing smile. “Breathe, Fisher.”
She inhales through her nose, then says, “Why the hell not, right? Better now than later.” She’s digging around, then unearths black sweatpants. “Let’s see how many of your brothers have jumped on the Anti-Harriet train.”
20
HARRIET FISHER
The Cobalt brothers—they are so fucking intimidating when they’re all together. It took me half a second to psych myself up to air this out myself and decide to “rip off the Band-Aid” as Ben put it. Now that they’ve all piled out of their Range Rover and I’m facing them in this echoey, empty parking deck with Ben thankfully at my side—I feel their confidence stampeding mine like a pride of lions versus a panicky hare.
God, I’m calling myself panicky.
I’m standing completely still. I’m not on the verge of running. My eyeballs feel swollen, and if I never shed a tear again, I think I’d kiss the piss-stained concrete. Which says a lot.
And look, there’s not much to lose. Ben has made it so clear he still wants to be friends, and that matters more than anything that happens next.
So before they can utter a word, I bite out, “I offered Charlie a deal. I’d blow him so he’d back off Ben. He didn’t take it, and the deal is completely off. Rescinded.” I’m pretty sure my entire face is one massive glare.
Tom’s brows have sprung off his forehead.
Eliot is grinning.
Beckett is only looking at Charlie.
And Charlie is leaning against the shut car door, staring directly at me like I’m made of cellophane.
“Let it be known”—Eliot speaks first, which doesn’t seem to surprise any of his brothers—“Charlie cannot be swayed by blow jobs.”
Is Charlie smiling?
“And you.” Eliot points a finger at me, then claps. The applause is overly loud in the parking deck, like twenty hands coming together and not two. “Very inspired ploy to protect our little brother.”
“Therapy can’t come soon enough,” Tom mutters in a breathy whisper, then gives me a lackluster thumbs-up. Which is way better than the middle finger I was expecting.
“You’re okay?” Beckett asks me.
I try not to startle in shock. I nod once, my cheeks roasting at the attention. “Yeah, fine.” A warm, unfamiliar feeling washes over me that I instantly wish would stay. I cross my arms, shifting my weight with uncertainty.
“Ben?” Beckett asks.
“All good,” Ben tells him, then glances down at me with a rising smile.
Tension slowly ekes out of my body as I realize they’re not brandishing pitchforks. It’s the exact opposite. Do they really not see me as an enemy? Or in the very least, too unhinged to be friends with their brother?