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CHAPTER THREE
Harper Kane twisted in her seat. The nine-hour flight to Hawaii from Auckland wasn’t the longest she’d ever done, but tonight she just couldn’t get comfortable. It didn’t help that she’d fallen asleep in the sun that afternoon, so she was a little pink. It was mid-summer in New Zealand and theirs was an unforgiving sun—even with olive skin.
Despite her Hawaiian heritage from her dearly departed father, Harper had only visited the tropical islands twice before. She’d fallen in love with the tropical paradise and had chosen it as the location for her popular fiction series.
Harper had been writing for three years now and readers loved her books. While she wasn’t the next J. K. Rowling—yet—things were looking up. She’d recently left her corporate job to write full-time, which was a wonderful accomplishment.
Unfortunately, the exciting life milestone, marked only three months ago, aligned with another major life change.
Her fiancé, David, who’d never been supportive of her writing, had asked her not to quit. They’d argued about it, despite Harper showing him her consistent and rather healthy income.
At the time, she was exhausted working a full-time job, while writing another twenty hours every week. Harper knew it was the right thing to do for her health, her business, and that the risk was low.
David disagreed.
He just didn’t believe authors could earn a living from writing silly books. He thought she was being irresponsible, and it would impact them buying a house together.
Harper had been torn and put off her decision for a few weeks. It was funny how life nudged you in the right direction anyway. A few days later, her boss told her they weren’t replacing the colleague who had recently resigned, and that her workload would be doubling.
Harper had quit on the spot.
She knew David would be mad, but she was determined to back herself and show him there was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t like she’d run away to join the circus.
Turns out Harper had been right about one thing: David had been furious.
For two weeks, he barely spoke to her. Then one Saturday afternoon she returned from the mall and found David and all his belongings gone. After five years together all he’d left was a note which said: I just can’t trust you anymore. David.
Which was ironic because she found out a few weeks later he’d moved in with Jenny, the single blonde sales rep David worked with. The one who always flirted with him at work functions, and Harper was told she was being dramatic about.
Right.
Harper had been shocked and heartbroken. Then furious. Then sad. And all the other emotions in between. She’d called her mom and best friend Kristen and they’d shown up with tubs of ice cream, pizza, and vodka.
Though she wanted her mom's loving arms around her, Harper had gritted her teeth most of the evening as the woman reiterated that men were not trustworthy.
She had good reason to feel like that, but not all men were bad.
Were they?
Her mother had met and fallen in love with Harper's father in Hawaii, then convinced him to move to New Zealand when they got pregnant with her. They had married quickly. Her father had never settled completely, going back and forth to the islands, sometimes staying for months at a time.
It had been hard for Harper not having her father around and hearing her mother crying to him on the phone. Finally, when she was old enough, she realized there were other women. Worse, when she was thirteen, they discovered he had a whole other family in Hawaii.
It had been devasting.
Now she understood her mother’s anger and pain. Her mom had vowed to never trust another man again, remaining angry and on her own.
Was that the path Harper was on now? She liked to think it was temporary and one day she would move on.
Harper had traveled to Hawaii to see her father and meet her other family. She resented them immediately when she saw their home and how engaged he was in their life. He had never been like that with her and her mom. Three months after her visit, her father had suddenly died of a heart attack.
Harper and her mother traveled back to Hawaii for an awkward as hell funeral, and that was the last she’d seen of her half siblings.
Now, here she was, going back to the tropical island.
After David, or AD, as she liked to refer to it as, Harper had got busy writing and marketing her books. She was determined to make a success of it and prove herself. Suddenly, seven weeks ago, she was approached by a leading network, BookFlix, who wanted to produce her romance series, Island of Tomorrow.
Yes! she’d said after negotiating and working out the final details.
