HAN: Her Ruthless Mistake: 50 Loving States, Delaware (Ruthless Triad Book 4)

by Theodora Taylor

  A lull hit after that win and K Diamond went back to the beach. And of course, he didn’t shade my board, just dropped it in the sand face up so that the front would have no protection from the sun whatsoever.

  I paddled in and stuck it nose down and fin up in the sand.

  “We going?” he asked. “It’s hot as balls, and I’m fucking tired after all of that surfing.”

  Did he expect me to care about his comfort after what he did to my father—not to mention how he neglected the board I loaned him? “Nah, I’m going to catch a few more waves.”

  “But the ocean’s flat…” he started to say.

  I didn’t hear the rest because I was already headed back to the water.

  Take that, asshole, I thought as I paddled back out to where I’d taught Han on the bigger waves.

  I’d figured he’d return to the beach too. But no, he paddled over to where I was and mirrored my seated position, straddling his long legs on either side of his board.

  I splayed my pinkie and my thumb while curling down my middle fingers to throw him a shaka greeting…and tried as hard as possible to keep my eyes from wandering down to his torso, but it was kind of hard not to stare.

  Yeah, surfers were known for their hot physiques, and a few of them had tattoos, too. But it had been years since I competed, and none of the tourists I taught were cut up like him, with well-defined abs and lean muscle.

  Brad had been so concerned about losing sponsorship deals, he hadn’t dared to get any ink, even after he turned eighteen. But tattoos covered the entire left side of Han’s body, then they abruptly stopped. As if something in his life happened to put the project on hold forever.

  I guess I wasn’t doing all that good of a job of not staring. He glanced my way without warning, and I was totally busted.

  He smirked, then, even worse, he held my gaze. It was excruciating, but for some reason, I couldn’t look away. His eyes were two pools of almost black onyx, hypnotizing me over the steady lap of the water. My heart started that annoying dance inside my chest and something way low in my belly went tight.

  Was he…? Was he as mesmerized by me as I was by him? Was the Fae King interested in a mere mortal?

  He suddenly yawned in seeming answer to that question. And I didn’t know whether to be relieved that he’d broken the spell or insulted that he didn’t seem nearly as affected by our eye bang as I was.

  “Tired?” I guessed out loud to keep myself from dwelling on it.

  Han nodded and squinted up at the sky. “I’m not used to so much sun where I come from.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “I live on the coast of Rhode Island. But the beach isn’t like this. Even in the summertime.”

  The sun was doing him good, I observed. He’d been pale when we first met, but now his skin was tanned, which went well with those impressive abs.

  And there I went, staring again. Okay, stop ogling the guy, Jazz.

  I averted my gaze and pinned my eyes to the horizon so that I wouldn’t be surprised by any incoming waves.

  But the next question I asked felt way more dangerous than that possibility. “So, is this what you meant by ownership? Whenever you or one of your buddies want a surfing lesson, I come running?”

  “Yes, I expect for you always to answer when I tell you to meet me somewhere or do something,” he replied with a hard look. “But Kuang Jr. is not my buddy. I only let him come because not doing so would have been considered a direct insult to his much more powerful father. But if he asks you for a surfing lesson, tell me, and I’ll deal with him.”

  I shifted my gaze to K Diamond, who was now walking back and forth on what appeared to be a phone call. “So you really don’t like that guy, huh?”

  “We are in business together,” he answered. He, too, watched K Diamond. “It doesn’t matter if I like him or not.”

  I snorted. “I’m jealous. If I could adopt that attitude, I’d probably get and keep way more clients.”

  He turned his eyes back to me to give me a look that somehow managed to be both curious and surly. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven,” I answered. “How old are you?”

  “Why surfing?” he asked, instead of answering my question.

  I almost laughed. It was actually a pretty typical question. I’d gotten it often from tourists and reporters alike. There just weren’t a lot of Black people in the world of professional surfing—at least not on the Hawaii side. But his tone suggested that he was upset with himself for being even mildly curious about me.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t fully remember choosing it, just like I don’t remember a time before I could swim. My dad claims he dropped me in the deep end of the pool, and I just came back up like a dolphin. He also says I grabbed the paddleboard stick from him by the time I turned three, and he says he barely got through teaching me the surfing basics before I snatched the board and jumped onto a wave. It just feels like something I’ve always done. I was a pro, traveling all over the world for a while there, and I even started getting sponsorship deals. But then I decided to come back here.”

  “Why?”

  A simple and fair question, but it scraped over the scar tissue where I’d shelved that particular dream.

  “I found out my dad was sick. A rare form of muscular dystrophy.”

  “Muscular dystrophy,” he repeated, scrunching his brow.

  “It’s hard to explain. Maybe look it up when you’re back on your phone. It’s like your muscles waste away until you can’t use them anymore, can’t even swallow. Then eventually….”

  I couldn’t say what would eventually happen to my father, even after two years of trying to process it.

  But Han must have gotten the gist. He tilted his head. “You came to Aloha Ballers to pay off the debt of someone who will die soon anyway?”

  His words were a stab in an already open wound. “He’s on a new drug that could give him up to five more years.”

  Han didn’t answer, just eyed me with something that looked a lot like scorn.

  “You wouldn’t have done the same thing for family?” I asked.

  Something much colder replaced the scorn in his eyes. It made his face appear hard as stone. “In my experience, blood family isn’t worth such sacrifice. Especially any family member who would put you in the position of having to give your life savings to a criminal.”

  “No, I chose to do that. Because he’s worth it, no matter how long he has to live.”

  I thought about how my father taught me to surf, then took me to his best friend, Bill, to get coached when I told him I wanted to take it seriously. He’d believed in me, even when Mom and Mika thought I was crazy for pursuing pro surfing as a career.

  “He’s a good man,” I insisted to Han.

  “No, he’s not,” Han insisted back. “It was naïve and rash of you to come to Aloha Ballers yourself. If he got into the debt on his own, you should have let him get out of it on his own. It was not your place to do that for him.”

  What’s funny is that Dad had pretty much said the same thing. He’d been livid the following day after Mom left, when I let him know I stopped by Aloha Ballers to pay off his debt just so he wouldn’t continue to worry about it.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Jazzy. You should have let me take care of it. K Diamond and his crew are bad news. Anything could have happened.”

  Yeah, I knew that—now. But it wasn’t like I would’ve sent my dad, who wasn’t able to get too far without a walker these days, into the same situation. A chill went down my back at the thought of what they would have done to him when they found out he couldn’t pay the interest.

  But I put on an easy-breezy tone to tell Dad, “Well, everything went fine. So we don’t have to worry about K Diamond’s thugs coming after you anymore. It’s over.”

  But it wasn’t over. That had been a lie. Here I was in the ocean with a guy who insisted I belonged to him for the next two years.


  That had been the unspoken second part of Bill’s lesson. Sometimes you paddle to jump on the big waves, and they still take you out anyway.

  I turned my face away, bitterly disappointed with Han for reasons I couldn’t quite explain. I didn’t know what I was expecting from him. Some empathy, I guess, not for him to regard me like I was an idiot.

  “The waves aren’t picking up, and it’s been a couple of hours, so that’s probably enough for today,” I muttered. “Plus, I’ve got to take a whizz.”

  I didn’t stick around for his response, just laid myself flat on my board and half-paddled, half-bodysurfed back to shore—I’d lied about the waves. They were starting to pick up again.

  But I really did have to pee, so I snatched up the backpack I left on the beach and headed toward the white stone structure that housed the women’s restrooms. Like most of the public beach facilities in Oahu, this one was pretty gross. So I changed out of my wet clothes as quickly as I could before crouching over the metal toilet—and wondered why I’d never gotten into the habit of peeing in the ocean like a ton of other locals did.

  Upside, concentrating on something else for a while put the conversation with Han in perspective. I wasn’t even sure why I got so angry.

  I guessed he reminded me a little too much of my last in-person conversation with Brad.

  I just don’t see why you’re throwing your career away. Yeah, I get that he’s your dad, but he’s going to die whether you stay here or not.

  Brad, who I’d been dating for two years at that point, hadn’t understood my dedication to my father. So, of course, the sketchy gangster who I’d only met, like, two times officially didn’t understand either.

  Anyway, I was feeling pretty silly as I left the bathroom. Then I got to feel even sillier when I slammed into somebody.

  I looked up to apologize, but the sorry died in my mouth when I saw who I’d bumped into in the open-air vestibule.

  It was K Diamond.

  I took a step back and informed him, “The men’s restroom is on the other side of the building.”

  K Diamond glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, my bad. Must’ve gotten mixed up.”

  But he didn’t move. Just stood there, exuding slimy danger.

  My dad might’ve gotten sick, but I was still the daughter of a literal drill sergeant. I immediately assessed the situation, glancing all around.

  It wasn’t great. There was nothing usable in the bathroom behind me. Everything was secured with drilled nails into the wall. So I had no weapon other than my backpack.

  And K Diamond was standing directly in front of the vestibule’s entrance, blocking my only path of escape.

  Okay, confession time. I barely remembered all those defense lessons my dad made me take before I left out on the road for my pro career. But my whole body tensed, prepared to fight if I had to.

  “You know you’re just another piece of ass to him, right?” K Diamond asked with a sneer. “I heard he goes through women like toilet paper. I give this a few more weeks, a month tops. Then he’ll get sick of you. And when that happens, I want you to come to me.”

  I shook my head at him, wondering out loud, “Why would I do that? Like, ever?”

  K Diamond seemed to be the walking definition of “taking things personally.” But he either didn’t register the revulsion in my voice or didn’t care.

  “I know how to treat my girls. If you were my girl, you wouldn’t be driving around in a shitty junker. If you were my girl, you wouldn’t have to teach tourists how to surf.”

  “I like my shitty Jeep,” I answered between clenched teeth. “And I love my job. I would’ve bought a surf school if not for you scamming my dad out of so much money.”

  Again, K Diamond only heard what he wanted to hear and ignored the rest. “So, you got dreams. I like girls with dreams. Han’s gonna be leaving out pretty soon. If you come to me right now, I’ll make all your dreams come true. If you stay with Han, he’ll ditch your ass as soon as he sees something he likes better. Believe that.”

  I didn’t know why the idea of Han ditching me felt like a slice across the stomach. It wasn’t like he was my boyfriend. Or like we’d done anything intimate beyond that show we put on for this slime bucket.

  But it didn’t matter. This wasn’t about Han. It was about the creepy guy who had me trapped in the bathroom’s vestibule at a time of the day that the beach was nearly empty.

  No, I didn’t have anything but a backpack. But I didn’t let that detail hold back the next words out of my mouth, “I will never come to you. Not for a million surf schools.”

  Okay, that one hit. K Diamond’s entire face contorted with rage. “We’ll see about that.”

  “No, we won’t,” I assured him. “Now, let me pass.”

  Again, K Diamond didn’t move.

  So I shoved him and repeated, “Let me pass.”

  Instead of stepping aside, K Diamond took a step closer. The ocean hadn’t been enough to defeat his cologne. It hung in the air between us, heavy and noxious.

  I took another step back to his step forward—first rule of self-defense. Never let them get too close. I remembered that. But unfortunately, my effort to stay out of arm’s reach put me further away from the vestibule’s opening.

  I didn’t like that. And I really didn’t like the grin on Kuang’s face. Like he finally had me where he wanted me.

  Kuang opened his mouth to say something else I was sure I wouldn’t like either, but another voice interrupted with a sharp string of words in that language I couldn’t understand.

  It was Han…Han standing behind K Diamond and issuing what sounded like some kind of order.

  He spoke so carefully in English, almost as if he was composing the whole sentence before he let it fall out of his mouth. But he spoke fast in whatever language this was, and his voice was deeper. Almost guttural.

  He’d been calm with K Diamond that night at the strip club. But he didn’t look or sound calm now. His dark eyes flashed with the promise of violence.

  For a moment, K Diamond honestly looked scared. But then he glanced toward me and smirked.

  “Okay, okay, backing off,” he said in English, raising his hands in the air. “Wouldn’t want you to straight-up murder me like you did your dad.”

  K Diamond dropped that bomb. Then he stepped aside so that I could finally pass.

  I didn’t hesitate to take the opening. But the bookie’s last words rung in my head as I rushed past him.

  Was it true? Had Han really killed his father? By the time I reached him, I was remembering what he said in the ocean in a whole new light. In my experience, blood family isn’t worth such sacrifice

  And when I saw the look on Han’s face, it made me also want to back away with my hands held up high.

  However, before I could even think to do that, he grabbed me by the arm and pretty much dragged me toward the beach.

  I cut my eyes back to the restroom structure where K Diamond still stood, glaring after us.

  “What about—?” I started to ask.

  “He will find his own return ride to the club,” Han answered.

  Awesome. The last thing I wanted to do was give that creep another ride in my “shitty” car. I’d only asked because I was still in responsible teacher mode—a switch I needed to turn off right about now.

  Han helped me gather all three surfboards from the beach. And by the time we started the walk back to the car, K Diamond had disappeared from sight.

  Cue the relief, but that didn’t make the situation any more comfortable. There was an awkwardness between Han and me now that hadn’t been there when we were sitting on our boards—even during the conversation about my father. And as I stood in the Jeep’s door frame to secure the three surfboards with bungees to the top of my Jeep, I struggled to figure out what to say to the guy who’d saved me from K Diamond twice now in one month.

  A mumbled, “Okay, well…thank you for intervening,” was the best I could come up with when I ho
pped back down to the ground.

  He took a step closer. Unlike K Diamond, his cologne hadn’t stood up to the sea. He smelled like ocean, sunshine, and a whole lot of man.

  “What did he say to you before I arrived?” he demanded, baring his teeth.

  I was so surprised by the question, I answered without any thought of reserve or redaction. “He said that you go through women like toilet paper and that you’d be gone soon. He also said that you’d get sick of me in a few more weeks, a month tops. That you’d ditch me as soon as you saw something you liked better.”

  Han regarded me for several heated beats. The look in his eyes…I didn’t know how to describe it. Was it dangerous? Was it hungry? Or both?

  I never had the chance to decide for sure. His mouth slammed into mine, and the next thing I knew, he was kissing me.

  At least it started out as him kissing me. The press of his lips, the push of his body into mine, the way he ground himself against me as he took full possession of my mouth…that practical switch inside of me—the one that maintained professional distance during classes, read articles on internet marketing, and balanced all my receipts at the end of the month—flipped off without warning.

  And suddenly, I was kissing him back, pressing all the soft and achy parts of my body into the hard parts of his.

  We were in broad daylight, and K Diamond was gone. There was no reason to put on another show. Nonetheless, desire pooled between my legs. Wanting this, wanting—

  He jerked away. And I panted, the tropical breeze biting into my charged skin like an arctic wind.

  “Don’t accept anything from him. No lesson requests, no gifts. Nothing,” he said, his voice coarse and more heavily accented than before. “If he tries to contact you again, let me know. I will make him stay away from you.”

  “I won’t. I will. And thank you,” I answered, still breathless from that kiss.

  I’m tough. So tough. But no one had ever kissed me that way. Hard and rough, like they were fucking my mouth.

  “What K Diamond said…” I cut my eyes away, my heart beating weird and vulnerable. “I know he’s a liar. I don’t believe hi—”