Go All In E-Book

Scarlett Finn

• Herausgeber: Moriona Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Recovering from the recent devastation may be impossible…

The crew may never be the same again. With a damaged heart and the doc working overtime, their position in the consortium could be in peril.

Harlow Sweeting won't let them jeopardize what they've already lost so much for. They have to play the game all the way to the end.

But with her family reeling from unexpected confessions, Harlow is fighting a battle on several fronts. Balancing the personal with the professional puts pressure on every bond. Left with no alternative, Harlow goes all in on a gamble that leaves her future at the mercy of an enemy.


Warning: Contains explicit language and imagery. Suitable only for ages 18 and over.

**Book 4 of 5, HEA, no cheating, series complete**

Leseprobe

Copyright © 2019 Scarlett Finn

Published by Moriona Press 2019

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

First published in 2019

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

www.scarlettfinn.com

GO NOVELS

Go With It

Go It Alone

Go All Out

Go All In

Go Full Circle

Read them in order for maximized reading pleasure.

For other titles from Scarlett Finn, please read on after the story.

Click here if you’d like to leave a message for Scarlett.

Enjoy!

CONTENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

1

“Where is she?”

Whoever he was, he was mad. That was the first thought Harlow Sweeting remembered having. Opening her eyes, she was faced with blinding light that made her eyes close again.

Cutting through the white noise impeding her senses, his voice rose once more. “You don’t get the fuck out my way and I’ll—”

“We sedated her,” a calmer male voice said. “She was as manic as you. What the hell were you thinking, staying in there? You could’ve got yourself killed. How would I have explained that to her when she woke up? Do you think she would’ve bought it? After what we did when you got shot?”

No, probably not. Wait… Harlow replayed that thought, then dismissed it as unimportant. “Staying in there…” that felt important.

Her head was groggy; her body ached. She couldn’t focus. The calm guy had said something about sedation. From the way she was feeling, he must have been talking about her.

“I need to see her, Bale.”

“Ryske—”

“She’ll be better if you let me get to her.”

The aggravated guy was trying to sound calm so that the calm one would buy his story. She wasn’t buying it. Ryske was—

Sitting up fast, Harlow gasped in clarity. “Ryske,” she breathed out.

With frantic haste, she threw back the covers that were over her, desperate to get out of the bed that was holding her prisoner.

Yanking at the wires on her chest, she pulled the tube from her nose and ripped off the tape that was on her hand, holding the IV in place. Machine alarms began to go crazy. She didn’t care. All she wanted was freedom.

Opening her mouth in reaction to the sensation of metal sliding beneath her skin, she eased the needle from her arm. Someone took hold of her shoulders and tried to push her down.

“Take your hands off me,” she snarled at the male who was uniformed like some sort of medical professional. Taken aback by her wild words that came out like a threat, he froze. Raising the needle she’d just pulled from her arm, she held it like a dagger. “Touch me again and I’ll jam this in your fucking eye.”

“Trink!”

Whipping around, she saw him fifteen feet from the bed, blocked by Bale who was trying in vain to contain his brother.

“Crash,” she screamed and leaped out of bed, leaving the medical man stuttering in shock.

Dashing toward Ryske, overjoyed that he was there, safe… The world began to spin, bringing her to a sudden halt.

“Shit, she’s going down,” someone said just a fraction of a second before her knees buckled.

But she didn’t go down. Two strong arms came around her, capturing her, saving her from collapse.

Although her vision was unfocused and her body weighed a ton, Harlow knew who held her. “Crash,” she whispered.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he said, sweeping her feet from under her and carrying her back to the bed.

“You tried to leave me,” she mumbled. “You didn’t come out… asshole.”

One of his arms slid out from under her legs. Terrified that he was an illusion and she might lose him again, Harlow grabbed for the arm at the back of her neck before he could pull it free.

“I am an asshole, baby. You’re right.” His mouth touched her forehead. “You’re always right. Dover needed me.”

That made her think of not only Ryske, but the others too. “What happened?”

Ryske eased her back down when she tried to sit up. “Everyone is fine, baby. They’re all back at Bale’s.”

“Where you have to go too,” Bale said. “Ryske, you’ve gotta go. You have to. Her parents are on their way. You’re not supposed to be in here with her.”

“Shit,” Ryske hissed. “Fuck, baby, I don’t want to leave you again. But if I don’t—”

“Proxy,” she breathed out, letting her head fall against his shoulder.

Bone-tired, she couldn’t keep her head up. Harlow didn’t know what had happened. The details were fuzzy. After collapsing on Maze, she had a vague recollection of EMTs and panic, and then… this.

“Goddamnit, you’re right,” Ryske said.

“Right about what?” Bale asked.

Too tired to lift her head and check, Harlow made a guess that the doctor was the one putting the wire back on her chest and the tube in her nose.

Ryske breathed out a laugh. “I’m her medical proxy. I have power of attorney,” he said. “Every decision about her is mine.”

Bale made a sound of disgust. “Wow, Ryske, I never thought I’d see the day that you’d con Harlow.” His volume lowered and his voice got closer. “Why does a perfectly healthy woman sign power of attorney and medical proxy—”

“She did it while she was in jail,” Ryske said. “Yeah, that shut you up… She wanted someone on the outside who could act on her behalf.”

“And she chose a con man who wasn’t even her boyfriend at the time?”

“A man who would walk through hellfire for her, yeah,” Ryske said.

“Still doesn’t change the fact that her family are on the way… Don’t they think you’re engaged to someone else? Wait, don’t they think you’re someone else entirely?”

“I want him here,” she said, touching Ryske’s chest.

The bed was angled up to a seated position. Ryske’s arm was around her shoulder, so he had to be sitting next to her. The awkward twist of his upper body suggested an uncomfortable position, half-on, half-off the bed. With one leg straight to the floor keeping him supported, he couldn’t be relaxed.

But she needed him close, and tried her best to open her eyes wider to see more. Harlow wanted to stay with him for as long as she could.

“She wants me here.”

“Yeah, and if you’re medical proxy, you’re allowed to be here. How are you going to explain that to her family? Why would a man who’s engaged to someone else be sitting by Harlow’s bedside? What story—”

“You think I can’t come up with something?” Ryske snapped. “If Harlow wants me here, I’m staying.”

“Are you injured, Crash?”

Though her head was still spinning and her chest tight, she pushed away and did her best to check him for injuries. He was wearing hospital scrubs, which if she was more awake, she might consider quite hot.

His face was dirty with smeared soot that was thick in his hair too. Everything he’d touched had a mark on it: her hospital gown, the bedsheets… Harlow wasn’t complaining. Getting him into the scrubs was probably as much of a battle as Bale was willing to take on. A shower would’ve kept them apart for longer than Ryske would’ve tolerated.

“I’m not hurt, baby,” Ryske said and tried to guide her back down against him.

She pushed on him and sat straighter, sweeping her hair away from her face. “Where are my clothes?” she asked and coughed.

Bale leaped closer. “Harlow, you’re not going anywhere,” the doctor said, checking the monitors next to her bed.

“How did you know I wanted to—”

“Because I’ve been this crew’s doctor for a long time. I know how stubborn all of you are,” Bale said. “You have to stay here. For, at least, the next forty-eight hours.”

Shaking her head, she started to kick at the bedcovers. Somehow, they’d found their way over her again. “I have plans on Saturday.”

“Plans? Are you nuts?” Bale asked, looking to Ryske for support when she let her legs slip off the edge of the bed. The doctor caught them and tried to put them back onto the mattress.

Impulse made her kick out. “Don’t touch me!”

“Hey,” Ryske said in a tone so smooth that it startled her.

Leaning over, he scooped a hand around the curve of her thigh and slid it up slowly, taking her limbs from Bale and easing them back onto the bed. His hand went higher, gathering her hospital gown from her thigh to let him caress her ass. It was only when he reached the curve of her hip that he allowed his hand to move over the top of the material to continue up to her ribs.

He planted a straight arm on the bed by her ribs, beneath her arm. Harlow found herself under him, her upper body trapped beneath his.

Thinking about why it was necessary for her to get up and move, Harlow opened her mouth to tell him that she wanted to leave. Except she didn’t get a chance to say anything. His mouth closed over hers, stealing her words. Every need she’d ever had in her life became about the twine of his tongue around hers.

He tasted dirty, or maybe it was her. There was a grittiness to their charcoal kiss. Given what they’d been through that night, she couldn’t expect anything else. Skimming her hands up his arms, Harlow lost her fingers in the hair at the back of his head.

“Ryske, you’ve got to be careful, man. She’s on oxygen.”

Easing back, Ryske brushed his nose across hers. “She can have mine.”

Heaviness overtook her. Using all of her energy, Harlow managed to shake her head in a rocking motion on the pillow. “You’re not allowed to leave me again.”

“Never,” Ryske said, trailing his lips across hers.

Turning her nails into his scalp, she wished she could keep him this close forever. “I want to get married,” she whispered.

His surprise made him recoil a couple of inches.

As Ryske’s lips curled to a smile, the doctor mumbled, “I better check her oxygen levels. She must have a low tolerance for sedation.”

“If you want to get married, Trink,” Ryske said, tracing the back of his fingers from her jaw down her neck. “We’ll get married.”

Nodding, she closed her eyes and tucked her head against his shoulder when he scooped an arm around her and twisted to rest at her side.

“I thought you guys weren’t even together,” she heard Bale say.

“Her guard drops when she’s drained,” Ryske said. “She’s always been this way… Easiest time to get in her panties is when she’s tired.”

Slipping a hand under the end of his shirt, she dragged her nails across his tattoo. “Is this the hospital you died in?”

“Yeah, baby,” Ryske said and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry about that.”

“None of the EMTs were the same,” Bale said. “And you’ve been admitted, so you’re upstairs from the ER… The idiot wasn’t in the hospital long enough to make an impression. I kept everyone out of his room.”

“Anyone does recognize me, I’ll tell them I have a twin and get emotional about my loss.”

She smiled and tipped her chin up to look at him. “I was pretty devastated when you died. Less than a year later I’m supposed to be screwing your brother?”

Ryske’s attention rose to narrow on Bale who was somewhere behind her. “She’s talking about me, doc. Don’t get ideas.”

Bale’s quiet laugh helped to relax her. “She was pretty vulnerable… I could’ve slipped in there—”

“You think about slipping anything in anywhere, even after I’m dead, and I’ll leave instructions for you to be gutted.”

Bale’s next laugh was louder. “We’ve already drawn straws on who gets to take over after we’ve wiped you out.”

Sighing, she wouldn’t have expected to feel so content after what had transpired that night. “Sorry, doc,” she murmured, skimming her nails across Ryske’s torso. “If he goes, I go.”

“You… you… what?”

Ryske guided her chin up, looking into her face wearing concern that she couldn’t feel. “You playing?”

“Playing? No,” she said, shaking her head. “If you think tonight scared you, then you have no idea… I wouldn’t live through grieving you again. I wouldn’t…” Her hand went to her wrist. When she didn’t feel what she was expecting, her fingers clamped tight around it. “Ryske…” Panic was an understatement for what began to build. “Ryske!”

“Relax,” Bale said, reaching over her shoulder to show her bracelet dangling between his fingertips. “I took it off in the ER.” Swiping it from him, she looped it onto her wrist. “You’re welcome… You know, you’re getting as bad as him with these mood swings.”

“We’re passionate people,” Ryske said, fingering the bracelet on her wrist.

Harlow touched her neck. “Where’s my—”

Bale’s hand appeared over her shoulder to show the bullet she’d looped around her neck before they ran. “You can’t put this back on. We’ll need another chest film… maybe a few. I’m waiting for your pregnancy test results to come back.”

Groaning, she hooked the leather band over Ryske’s head and settled the bullet against his chest. He’d have to keep it safe until Bale freed her.

“This man is obsessed with my uterus,” she said.

“I prefer the part of you that’s adjacent to it,” Ryske said.

Her eyes rolled. “Yeah, we all know that.”

“You think it’s not my right to protect my niece or nephew from what could be harmful radiation?” Bale asked, pulling over a chair so he could sit down by the bed on the opposite side to Ryske.

Shifting to get a better look at him, she realized for the first time that he was wearing scrubs under his white doctor coat. She’d only ever seen him in the coat for a brief minute when she came to meet him for lunch. This was her first chance to really absorb the sight.

“I’m having a weird, brother doctor fantasy thing right now,” she said, looking back and forth between them. She tugged on the end of Ryske’s scrubs. “Can we take these home?”

“Think I have to unless you want me going home naked,” he said, settling back against her pillows, locking both hands behind his head. “You have a thing for doctors?”

She shrugged. “Who knew?”

“I bring it out in a lot of women,” Bale said, making her laugh.

Waving her fingers back and forth between them, her head twisted left to right. “It’s like you’re switching personalities.” Touching her head, her smile fell. “Maybe I did die.”

“I think if you died, we’d be somewhere nicer than a hospital room,” Ryske said, sliding a hand up her back when she sat straighter. “Like a beach… a nudist beach… a private nudist beach.”

She smiled. “Now who’s having a fantasy?”

“Think I’ll add contraception to your med list,” Bale muttered. “Have you been taking your pills? Faithfully?”

Pulling her legs up, she crossed them beneath the sheet. “What is with you?” she asked, throwing up her hands and letting them flop again. “I’m not pregnant.”

“We made a deal about ten years ago,” Ryske said, stroking her back and straightening his crooked leg, so he was more on the bed.

“What deal?”

“That he’d settle down when he became a father,” Bale said. “Stop with the illegal shit; the shit that could get him killed.”

Both Ryske and Bale had parental issues. Bale’s adoptive parents were dead. Ryske’s father had beat him. Their mother was… less than a stellar role model. Bale probably wanted to know that his niece or nephew would have a stable influence in his or her life.

“Well, I guess we should talk about that,” she said, twisting around to set her focus on Ryske who looked like he could go to sleep himself.

“You think if he goes straight, you’ll lose interest?” Bale asked from behind her.

Ryske didn’t look worried. Why would he? His confidence in his sex appeal was solid and with good reason.

“No,” she said, struggling to maintain her smile. Toying with the tie on Ryske’s pants, she kept her focus away from both of them. “Because I don’t know if I want to have children.”

Ryske didn’t flinch, but Bale seemed upset. “Why not? Why wouldn’t you want to have kids?”

“Don’t stress, doc,” Ryske said, slipping his hand between the tied sides of her gown to drum his fingers on her spine. “We’ll work it out.”

“She just said she wanted to marry you, but now she doesn’t want to have your baby. You’re not offended?”

“No,” Ryske said, shrugging one shoulder. “These things have a way of figuring themselves out. She’s already said she wouldn’t get rid of my kid, so if it happens, we’ll handle it… If it doesn’t… we’ll still be happy. All I need is my Trinket.”

That made her happy, though it pissed the doctor off. Slumping back in his seat, he squeezed the arms.

Harlow lay back down, nestling herself against Ryske. “Finding somewhere to live is going to be the priority,” she said, laying a hand over his heart. “How’s Dover?”

“Going nuts,” Ryske said. “He’s gonna take this hard.”

She thought he was underestimating how all of the crew were going to take it. Floyd’s had been their life since they were kids, and God only knew what was left of it.

“How bad is it? Is he insured?”

“Yeah,” Ryske said. “ ‘Cept if it’s arson, we could have trouble…”

Sitting up again, she searched his face. “You think someone set the fire on purpose?”

“I think that the alleyway staircase was an inferno… I know the hallway was impassable… What kind of a fire would set in a line from the door to the den? All the way along, through the bar, to the stairwell at the opposite side of the building? The front of the building is practically untouched,” Ryske said. “The firefighters are there. They’ll do an investigation, we can’t stop that… But this is going to be Dover’s life for a while.”

“And we won’t be pouring drinks,” she said, forlorn and a little overwhelmed by just how sad the situation was. They’d lost what had become a staple in all of their lives. “Is anything salvageable?”

“We’ll have to figure out if they set the trail through the basement and how sound the foundations are… There will be a structural assessment. Good news is the fire didn’t spread to the second floor. Though, I guess there will be smoke and water damage up there.”

“So I wouldn’t be in such a rush to get out of here if I were you,” Bale said. “Everyone’s squashed in like sardines at my place… Don’t know how long that will work out for.”

“We’re used to existing around each other,” Harlow said, thinking about how it might be an adjustment for the doctor. “You’re the one who’ll be going crazy.”

“You’re not usually in such a small space,” Bale said.

He came to the Floyd’s apartment to hang out; he knew their setup. The apartment was almost the same size as the bar beneath it, so they did have some room to breathe. Privacy was non-existent. The crew shared a bathroom with a door that didn’t close completely. They shared a closet, where all of their things were crammed in. Their beds were in the same room. Even though it was a large one, it still led to an unusual level of forced intimacy, which had quickly become her norm.

“We’ll work it out,” Ryske said, not stressed. “Supporting Dover is a priority. Everything else is details. Everyone we care about is alive. That’s what matters.” Pulling her closer, he pressed a kiss to her hair. “Tell me my girl’s gonna be okay, doc.”

“I fainted,” she said. “You’re making a big deal of nothing. Maze said you were still inside. I was freaking out. I couldn’t breathe… It was stupid, but not a big deal.”

“You’re being treated for smoke inhalation,” Bale said. “They thought about intubating you until you woke up in the back of the ambulance and started smashing the place up.”

“They’re going to bill me for that mess,” Ryske said.

Harlow prodded his ribs. “They’ll have to find us first.”

Ryske laughed, a deep purr of appreciation. The doctor wasn’t so impressed and chose not to address her impertinence.

“They sedated you and brought you here,” Bale said.

“The firefighters forced us out,” Ryske said. “Dover and I were trying to contain it… wasn’t easy.”

“You’re an idiot,” she said. “If you’d left me to protect bricks and mortar, even special bricks and mortar, I’d never have forgiven you.”

He smirked. “Is there ever a scenario where you’d forgive me for dying on you?”

Thinking about it for a second, she came up with nothing. “No… I’ll still be pissed even if you die when you’re ninety.”

“Yeah, I can relate,” Ryske said. “I could tell something was wrong the minute I saw Maze. I asked about you. All he’d say was that Noon had taken Anwen to Bale’s… That’s it. That’s all I could get for a minute and a half… felt like a year. When he said you’d been blue-lighted to hospital… Man, baby, I didn’t know if I wanted to start shooting or throw myself off a bridge.”

“Good thing you came to check on her first,” Bale said. “You know, you guys always talk about being in love, but you’re damn quick to think about pulling the trigger on yourselves.”

Reflecting on how it had felt to lose Ryske, Harlow wondered if she’d ever be able to think back on that memory—knowing that he was alive—without feeling the chasm of emptiness. The licking flames of excruciating torture that had been her life in grief still felt as potent as they had then.

“You’ll never know what it’s like,” she murmured, drifting. “To think you’re living in the world without the other half of your whole… There are no words to describe it.”

Ryske’s arm slid around her to pull her closer. In a moment of respect for what she’d endured, no one said a word.

Their reverie was shattered when the door flew open and her family poured inside. “Oh my God!” Jean Sweeting, her mother, declared. “Harlow, what have you done to yourself?”

What had happened wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t considered what she’d tell her parents about the fire. Regardless of which facts were shared and which were concealed, there was one thing Harlow had no intention of hiding.

Ryske tried to be subtle about sitting up and sliding his arm out from around her.

Harlow grabbed his hand as it was about to leave her shoulder and pulled it back down. “It’s nice to see you too, Mom.”

2

Her mother wasn’t the only new arrival. Harlow’s father, Brysen Sweeting, and her sister, Lena, were present too. All of them looked somewhat disheveled. They’d have been pulled out of their beds at this ungodly hour by whichever orderly had decided it was a good idea to rat on her.

First responders had a habit of recognizing her. Especially since she’d become notorious as the kind social worker turned suspected murderess who’d wheedled her way out of felony charges.

There were probably cops on the fire scene. Given that Harlow had been identified by a cop on the Hagan security tape, and she’d been arrested outside Floyd’s, it wouldn’t have taken someone long to make the connection.

In children and family services, she had worked with cops. Even if someone didn’t know her personally, they’d remember her face from that damned security video. From there, her former employment, or prison records could be accessed at the touch of a button. Her parents would’ve been listed on both as her official next of kin.

A lot had changed since she’d been gainfully employed. Harlow didn’t know if her lawyer, Greta, had lodged the papers stating Ryske was her proxy with the court. Everything had happened quickly after he’d signed them. Even if it was written somewhere official that Ryske was her proxy, no one would have been able to get in touch with him. He didn’t have a phone.

At least he was still officially alive. That was something. Although Harlow had believed Ryske was dead after the shooting, he had never been legally dead. The fact that he was breathing wouldn’t raise any questions for official agencies. Huntley Ryske had no death certificate. The crew had gone that far in faking Anwen’s death, but Ryske’s death had only been meant to fool her. Harlow hadn’t demanded paperwork; none of that had been needed to convince her.

Her parents came deeper into the room, pulling Lena between them. Then came the cherry on her sundae when Rupert walked in too. Bale was getting to his feet, greeting people and shaking hands.

“Are you her doctor?” Brysen asked.

Rupert shook Bale’s hand. “We’ve met. You’re Harlow’s friend.”

“Doctor Bale is her boyfriend,” Lena said, starting with confidence but trailing off as she caught on to what the other perplexed people seemed to have noticed. They all knew the man sitting on the bed with her.

Her mother was the first to make the identification out loud. “Mr. Ryske,” Jean said.

They were used to him being more preened. Tonight, he wasn’t even clean. There was no slick suit, only hospital scrubs. Harlow didn’t blame them for being confused.

“Just Ryske is fine,” Ryske said, turning his face into her hair. “Want me to handle this?”

That was his way of asking if she wanted him to vamp. To conjure up some story that her family would buy as to why he was there and why he had his arm around her.

“No,” Harlow said, patting his thigh. “I’ve got it.”

“What are you going with?”

Sitting up, out of his embrace, Harlow smoothed her bedcovers over her thighs. “The truth,” she said and then smiled. “Ryske and I are together.”

She hadn’t exactly cleared that with him. As of a few hours ago, they hadn’t been together in the strictest interpretation of the word… or maybe any interpretation of it. Yet, there she was announcing her relationship to her folks without getting the okay from her declared other half.

The panic of nearly losing him brought so much into focus. It was enough to make Harlow sideline her grievances. Sure, she wasn’t ready to jump into full bliss. Her comment about marriage had been drug and adrenaline induced, but she was ready to call them an item and build a relationship with him.

“To… together?” Lena asked, glancing at Rupert who was at her side. “What do you mean together?”

“I thought he was engaged to Ophelia Hagan,” Rupert said.

Harlow noted how although they stood next to each other, neither Rupert nor Lena was touching the other. There was a clear foot of awkward space between them. If they’d told her parents about the baby they were expecting together, they hadn’t gone so far as to explain that Harlow knew, or if they had, her parents hadn’t taken the news well.

“No,” Harlow said. “He’s not… and he actually never was.” Ryske’s hand curved around her shoulder in a show of support… That’s how she chose to interpret it anyway. Maybe he was telling her to hold back, maybe not. It didn’t matter; she wanted everything out there. “He’s not a millionaire tycoon either.”

“He’s… he’s not a millionaire?”

Lena’s questions might be sort of dumbfounded and naïve, but at least she was managing to hazard them.

“No.”

“So, what does he do?” Lena asked. “And why did he—”

“We’ll probably leave that up to your imagination,” Harlow said, peeking over her shoulder at Ryske to see he was smiling. After he winked, she carried on. “We’ve been together for quite a while…”

“I’ve been on her since the minute we met,” Ryske said, which was so true and so hilarious that Harlow had to laugh out loud. “What? You said truth. It’s true.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, seeking his hand to interlace their fingers. “Our relationship has been rocky, to say the least. We broke up…” When he came back from the dead. “Ryske came to SweSec, not to trick anyone, but to get close to me… He wanted to get close to me again.”

“That was months ago,” Rupert said. “That was when we…”

The way he trailed off made Lena look over her shoulder. Rupert dropped his gaze away from her.

“It’s a complicated story, but I didn’t lie to you,” Harlow said. “I intended to do what I told you I would.”

Clarity raised Rupert’s chin. A straight, accusatory finger ascended too. “He’s the one.”

“The One?” Harlow asked, pulling Ryske’s hand to her lap. “I don’t know if I believe in all that soulmates stuff. He’s an arrogant prick most of the time, but—”

“No, the one you said you were with in the city. You told me you were with another man.”

Harlow nodded once. “Yes.”

“He’s the one who likes to see you with other men.”

Jean and Lena both squawked.

“Uh, no,” Ryske said. “That’s not what she said. She said it pisses me off and that she likes pissing me off… Both of those are true.” He kissed her shoulder. “This truth stuff is cool.”

“Oh my God, you were listening to us,” Rupert said on a gasp. “You were there in the hallway and after you… Both of you took a long time to come down the stairs.”

“Yeah, she was giving me head.”

Squeezing hard, Harlow dug her nails into the back of his hand. “We don’t need to share every truth, honey.”

If it was just Rupert, or even Rupert and Lena, she wouldn’t mind so much. But it was clear that her parents were in shock. Adding more illicit details wouldn’t help them recover.

“You’re together… You’re with this man,” Jean said. “Were you with him tonight? We… we got word you were in a bar fight, I—”

“Fire, Mom,” Harlow said. “The building we were in was on fire. They brought me here by ambulance, but I’m okay.”

Rupert’s finger was still pointed at Ryske until he swung it around toward Bale. “I don’t understand, who is he?”

“A good friend of both of ours,” Harlow said. “Bale and I were never together. He came to hang out with me after I learned Ryske had been an asshole again. It’s sort of a recurring theme in our relationship.”

“This is… this is shocking,” her father said and clung to the end of her bed. “You were never going to invest with us.”

“I’m invested in your daughter,” Ryske said. “SweSec is safe from me and mine.”

Harlow hadn’t confirmed how Ryske made a living. From her father’s pallor, she assumed he was reaching his own conclusions. Ryske had sold himself well. Brysen had been drawn in, something that he’d claimed wouldn’t happen to him.

“You’re together,” Rupert said.

“Gonna get married,” Ryske said, picking up her hand to kiss the back.

“Well, we’re going to talk about it,” she said, making him mutter something that was probably about her being the one to have brought it up or being fickle.

“This is… I don’t know what to say,” Rupert said.

“You were in a fire?” Lena asked. It was nice that at least one person was paying attention to her predicament. “In a bar… Why were you in a bar in the middle of the night?”

“We live in a bar,” Ryske said.

“Oh my God, you live with him?” Rupert snapped. “You wouldn’t live with me until we were engaged. Despite his claims, I don’t see a ring on your finger.”

Was he offended? In her worrying about her parents’ reaction, it hadn’t occurred to her that Rupert’s would be this strong. Before Harlow had learned about him and Lena, she might have been more sympathetic to indications that her relationship hurt him. But the man had impregnated another woman and was planning to marry her. He couldn’t claim ownership over her anymore.

Her curiosity about Rupert’s reaction was tempered when she realized that Ryske was sitting up straighter. She could feel him begin to tense. Before her love could say anything, or act, Lena spoke up.

“Why do you care who she’s marrying? You’ve been broken up forever… Isn’t that what you told me?”

“I… I wasn’t saying that I cared,” Rupert said, though his reaction had said it for him.

“Doctor,” Jean said to Bale. “You are a doctor, aren’t you?” Bale nodded. “What’s wrong with her? Will she be okay?”

“We think she’ll be fine. We do want to keep an eye on her for a day or two,” Bale said. “The fire was intense and the smoke may have damaged her lungs. We’ll want to take some more pictures of her chest, just to make sure nothing sinister develops.”

“What the hell is sinister?” Ryske asked. “You never told me sinister.”

“I couldn’t tell you anything because you were too busy charging around like a wild animal,” Bale said. “She’s fine and I’m sure she’ll be fine. If she follows her doctor’s orders.”

There was an undercurrent there that reminded her of the stars on her arm. Bale was her doctor, he was the crew doctor, and they were bound to do what he said.

“I have to be out by Saturday,” she said, touching her stars.

“Baby, I’ll take care of that,” Ryske said.

Flipping around, she touched his jaw. “I’m in this. We’re in this…”

“What about Ophelia?” Lena asked, drawing everyone’s focus.

For a second, Harlow was shocked to discover her sister was aware of anything Pothos related. Then she remembered what they’d been talking about before.

“Yes,” Jean said. “She stayed at our house… She said she was engaged to Mr. Ryske.”

“My friendship with Ophelia was genuine,” Harlow said, refraining from adding the word “once” to the end of her sentence. “She and Ryske have been friends for many years.”

“So, she perpetuated the lie?” Rupert said.

He had a real bug up his ass. “Can I have a minute alone with Rupert, please?” Harlow asked, unable to take her attention from her ex.

Her parents wouldn’t think anything of her wanting to talk to a man she’d been close to for years. Especially if they didn’t know about his connection to their youngest daughter. It seemed they were still ignorant. Despite an initial visible urge to object, Lena stayed quiet and let her mother put an arm around her.

“I’ll see what I can do about finding a hotel for tonight,” Brysen said and headed to the door with his wife and daughter in tow.

Bale stood up after they were gone. “I’ll go see if your labs are back.”

He took one step before she spoke. “Bale,” she said, and flicked her eyes to the side toward the man on her bed.

Ryske wasn’t going to want to leave. The only way she’d get him out the room without a fight, and keep him out, was if someone took responsibility for him.

“Right,” Bale said and came around the bed to punch Ryske’s arm. “You need to call and find out how everyone else is doing.”

“Later,” Ryske grumbled.

Harlow pushed his thigh. “I think that’s a great idea. They might need supplies.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“You have to,” Bale said. “There’s a bunch of paperwork you have to sign.”

“Shouldn’t her parents do that?” Rupert asked.

Ryske gritted his teeth. Harlow thought she might have heard him growl.

“Ryske has medical power of attorney… all power really,” she said to Rupert while stroking Ryske’s leg. “He makes my medical decisions. Authorizes whatever I need.”

“Bet you never had that, did you, Marlowe?” Ryske snarled.

His adrenaline from the fire obviously hadn’t waned just yet. Twisting around, she stroked his stubble. “Just give me one minute, baby… please… Crash.”

“Why?” Ryske grumped, his focus zeroed in on Rupert. “I already know he fucked your little sister and knocked her up. There’s nothing he can hide from me.”

Rupert’s shock was palpable. Bale must have felt it too because he grabbed Ryske’s arm and was more forceful about pulling him off the bed. The doctor hadn’t known who the father of Lena’s baby was, more because she hadn’t gotten around to telling him than because it was a secret from him.

Rupert wouldn’t appreciate his secret being broadcast. He couldn’t possibly understand how informing her crew was a formality for her, not a betrayal. Harlow would trust them with her life. Tonight had proven again how far they would go for each other.

“Come on,” Bale said, yanking Ryske along. “We’ll find some people for you to glare at in the waiting room… come on.”

3

Ryske kept his glare on Rupert until the very last second. He wasn’t the only peeved man around either. As soon as Bale pulled Ryske out of the room and the door swung shut, Rupert marched over to drop down on the edge of her bed.

“How could you tell him that?” he hissed. “We haven’t even told your parents yet.”

“Ryske isn’t going to tell anyone,” she said. “I was in shock after I found out. Ryske supported me. He supports me through everything, Rupert. Don’t ever be surprised if he knows everything I know because I wouldn’t hesitate to tell him anything.”

“What about our deal? About your promise to come back to me, does he know about that?”

“Yes.”

Assuming that his question was supposed to deliver some sort of gut punch, Harlow smiled, which made him flinch. “You told him that?”

“I tell Ryske everything… eventually. I trust him. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

“More than you trusted me?”

“Not at the time,” she said. “At the time we were together, I thought you were the most straight up together guy I’d ever met… I’ll tell you, this thing with Lena has opened my eyes… You’re just as screwed up as the rest of us, Rupert. No matter how much you try to hide it.”

It surprised her that he wasn’t offended. “That may be true. I don’t want you to be hurt, and a man like him…”