Closing my eyes doesn’t help, though. Even squeezing them shut doesn’t delete the memory of the scene in the hallway. It’s on a fixed loop in my head and I can’t stop it.
I struggle to get comfy. The bed feels too big and the other side is too cold for me stretch out into. I toss and turn until pure exhaustion finally wins out and the world around me fades.
Until my phone rings out on max volume and I’m scrambling for it from under my pillow. Hope bubbles inside me that I’ll see Harper’s name on my screen. He’s changed his mind and he needs me?—
I couldn’t be more wrong.
My whole body is frozen. Elise never gets the time change wrong, so if she’s calling me in the middle of the night then?—
‘Elise?’ My voice is ragged. I already know what she’s going to say. Fear paralyses me, dread dripping down my spine.
‘I’m so sorry, Ki,’ she chokes out, and I feel my whole body curl inwards, my free hand fisting the twisted-up bedsheet.
She doesn’t need to say any more.
Mum’s gone.
It’s there in the way my sister sobs down the phone and I’m consumed by loss and a need to be with her.
The emptiness in my heart grows more than I thought it possibly could after tonight.
Yet I don’t cry. The beginnings of grief numbs my every emotion until I can’t feel a thing.
‘I’m coming home, Elise. I’ll be on the next plane out of here.’ It’s not very often that I flaunt my wealth or leverage my power within Hendersohm, but I’ll do anything to board a private jet on a runway right now if it will get me home faster to my sister.
‘But this weekend!’ She tries to protest.
‘I don’t care about this weekend.’ I’m shocked by how much I actually mean it. I’ve never missed a race in my life. I missed the births of both Cassie and Jesse, my sister’s engagement party, and Jesse’s christening, but nothing will keep me from this. ‘I’m coming home. As quickly as possible. I’ll figure it out. I’m on my way, Elise, I promise.’
She sobs quietly into the phone and I can’t breathe. ‘I love you, Ki. I’ll see you soon?’ she croaks out in between sobs.
‘Soon. Love you.’
The line drops and I feel like I might be sick.
I get out of bed and start throwing things in a bag. I call Kelsey, the team organiser, while I’m doing it and when I tell her what’s happened she works some magic and gets me a plane that can take me to a private runway in Norfolk. She’s arranged a car to meet me, too, and I’m halfway to the airport before I can stop and think.
This is when I contemplate letting Harper know. Whatever’s happening, or not happening, between us, he deserves to hear from me that I won’t be racing this weekend.
I go to text him when a notification about him posting to his Insta story hits my phone. It’s a shaky video taken from Harper’s outstretched arm. Neon lights flash rapidly around him and it lights up the way he and another man are grinding to the beat of the music.
It hollows me out completely.
If my heart and soul hadn’t already been ripped out and torn to shreds, this would do it. It’s the final nail in the coffin of the saga of me and Harper James.
He was never going to be emotionally ready for a relationship. I should have known that from our first proper conversation in Austria. Hell, I should have known that the second he arrived and caused nothing but chaos for me and for Hendersohm.
I should have walked away completely after the first kiss. I should have locked the memory of it away in the far corner of my mind and left it there. I should have employed even a modicum of my famed self-discipline and maintained a polite and professional distance between us. I should have let him twist himself into self-destructive knots and awaited Elijah’s return. Moved on as teammates and teammates only.
Except I couldn’t help myself. Harper’s an enigma I could not resist and now I’ve been burnt by him.
Well, he can go fuck himself.
I press the two buttons on the side of my phone, screenshotting the image, and then send it to Harper. I wait to see that it’s been delivered and then I block the shit out of him – in my contacts, in WhatsApp, and on every bit of social media I’ve stupidly followed him on.
And just like that he’s gone. I only wish I could start feeling better about it right away, but there’s no chance of that with everything else that’s going on.
The fucking asshole.
