Contents
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT
BISHOP’S QUEEN
CRISTIN HARBER
DEDICATION
To Tara Gonzalez, my publicist, who is nothing like the Tara in this book.
Thanks for always being awesome.
PROLOGUE
Fifteen Years Ago
Some nights were worth remembering, and this was one of them. Laughter flowed in the car as Eloise leaned against the backseat window, unable to keep her Captain Morgan-infused lovey-dovey eyes to herself. “Hey, hot stuff.”
Bishop threw her a sexy smile from the front passenger seat. “What’s up, babe?”
“Hey!” Brie giggled from the driver’s seat. “How do you know she was talking to you? I think I’m the better-looking O’Kane.”
“Shut it.” Bishop play-shoved his hand in his sister’s face as she slowed for a stop sign. “You don’t look better to El.”
Eloise laughed as they turned and accelerated onto a two-lane highway. “He’s got you there.”
“She loves me more,” Brie said. “Besties for life.”
“Or does she?” Bishop gave Eloise a look that made her fly, and that had nothing to do with the Captain.
Brie fake-gagged. “Oh, puke.”
“Hey, hey!” Eloise threw her hands in the air, erupting into a fit of laughter. “Don’t make me fight over you two.”
Brie grabbed her phone, and Eloise’s chimed a minute later.
BRIE: I know who your real favorite is. ;)
Bishop grabbed Brie’s cell, read it, and scoffed. “Yeah, me.”
“Bishop! Don’t read Brie’s phone.” Despite the teasing, everyone knew Eloise belonged on his arm. Brie had nearly orchestrated the whole thing.
“Give me that.” Brie fired off another text.
BRIE: Such a JERK. Run for your life.
ELOISE: He’s in rare form tonight!! <3
“I brought this upon myself.” Brie giggled. “You two…”
“Are you two still texting about me?” Bishop eyeballed his sister and made a play for her cell.
“Touch it and die.” Brie swatted his hand then grabbed her phone. Steering with her knee, keeping an eye on both the road and her brother, she sent another message.
BRIE: Ask hm abt ihih
Eloise made a face. “What? That made no sense. It was all jibber-jabberish.”
Brie laughed. “Hang on—”
Tires screeched. Eloise’s arms and legs flew forward, while her torso stayed pinned to the seat. The seat belt ripped into her neck, and she slammed against the window, thrown back and forth as metal and glass crunched. The car rolled, and she slumped over.
Pain radiated as adrenaline surged, and Eloise couldn’t hold her head upright. The heavy weight lulled back and forth. Her ears rang. Blood seeped in her mouth. Painfully, she blinked until she could see straight, but that did nothing to take away the vibration in her temple.
She brought her fingers to her lips, which were wet, then slid them up her cheeks and into her hair. “Bishop.”
God, what had happened? They’d been in an accident. Shit. How bad were they hurt?
“Brie. El.” Bishop’s voice sounded so far away.
“We’re okay?” She swallowed bloody saliva. “What… are we…” Oh, her head hurt. Eloise unbuckled her seat belt, shaking the glass off of her, trying to see in the shadowed dark.
Oh… no. Brie was partly sprawled across the center console, an arm angled awkwardly overhead and another across her hip. Bishop was perched in the front passenger seat, angled over his sister.
“What’s that noise?” Eloise asked.
“That’s her,” he said. “Find your phone. Call 9-1-1.”
All Eloise could do was stare at Brie. Her friend didn’t scream, but how could she not be in pain? Her wheezing clamor gurgled, but she didn’t cough. It sounded as though she was drowning but without water.
“What’s wrong with her?” Eloise couldn’t look away; she had never seen nor heard anything so terrifying. Was this her fault? She had asked Brie to resend the text. Oh, God. No. Did I do this to her?
“Where’s your phone, El? Call 9-1-1!” Bishop sounded frantic.
Eloise reached for the ground, numbly searching for her cell. Everything was strewn. This was bad. “She needs help.”
“No shit, El.”
This was her fault. Bishop knew it too. Eloise still couldn’t find the phone she’d just held in her hand. “I can’t find it—”
“Hey, who’s in there?” someone shouted from outside the shattered windows. “Fuck yeah. Couple people in there, Mary. Call the cops.”
“Bishop.” Eloise grabbed onto Brie’s hand and let the strangers call for help. She didn’t know where her phone was, and she didn’t want to let go of Brie to find it. “What’s happening?”
“Fuck if I know.” He took Brie’s other hand. “Come on, Brie.”
The way she was lying wasn’t right. It looked too awkward. Half of Brie was out of the seat belt, and half of her was still in the driver’s seat.
“Can she breathe?” Eloise asked.
“I don’t know. Don’t think so.” Terror hung on to his every word.
“What should we do? CPR?” She was still breathing. Eloise moved closer to Brie’s side.
“Don’t touch her!”
“I wasn’t going to,” Eloise cried. But Brie was in trouble. They had to do something.
A flash of light scanned through the car. “You kids okay? Shit, don’t move. Dispatch says an ambulance is already on its way.”
Blood covered Brie’s face, and with the light on her, she seemed a thousand times worse.
Loose glass fell off of Bishop as he leaned closer. “Brie.”
Eloise looked to Bishop. There wasn’t a situation he couldn’t fix. But his terrified stare didn’t offer a solution. Sirens howled in the distance. The flashlight bearer opened Eloise’s back door, but she wasn’t going anywhere until help came for Brie.
“Hang on, sis.” Glass shards on Bishop’s face caught the flashlight’s reflection. “Almost here.”
Brie’s face was anguished. Blood seeped out of the corners of her mouth along with her wheezing, gurgling gasps. Her hand didn’t grip.
No, no, no… “Please, Brie.” Tears trickled down Elois
e’s cheeks, but the nonexistent hold of Brie’s hand became frailer. “No. Hang on.”
The flashing lights arrived, and Eloise shifted closer. “They’re here, sweetie, coming to help.” Beads of glass bit into her knees as she bent closer, whispering, “Bishop, Bishop!” Eloise pleaded as if he could do something to help. “Tell her it’ll be okay.”
“Damn it, Brie. Hang on!”
The gasping slowed. Oh, Brie’s tortured face looked pained for a breath.
“Say it nicely,” Eloise cried. “Brie, don’t.”
Don’t stop.
Don’t die.
Don’t leave us.
The wheezing faded. Brie’s lifeless hand hung in Eloise’s.
“No, Brie.” Bishop’s voice broke. “You’ve got it.”
Lights filled the car. First responders opened the door. Bishop yelled that he wanted to stay with his sister. Eloise wouldn’t let go of her best friend. She couldn’t. “Help her!”
A radio crackled as paramedics forced them apart. Bishop went one way, shouting that he needed to stay close to his sister. Eloise was torn another direction.
A medic flashed light into her eyes. They made her lie down then wrapped a neck brace around her. No one would listen. “I need to stay with her. She’s scared.”
Eloise was scared too. She needed Bishop. The ambulance doors slammed, and the radio crackled again.
“Roger that. We’re headed to Meadow Brook,” another voice in the ambulance answered. Then they read Eloise’s stats. “Second victim’s right behind us.”
A garbled response returned.
A third voice broke in and cut off the radio. “That’s a negative on the second female.” From the front seat, someone mumbled, “Damn shame when we have a DOA.”
It hadn’t been for her to hear, but Eloise’s world shattered. Dead on arrival. She had killed her best friend.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
Ella Leighton knew there wasn’t someone following her. Simple paranoia. That was all this urge to turn and look over her shoulder was. But the shadows seemed to wave at her, and Washington, DC’s streets seemed emptier than normal.
“Chill out, Ella,” she whispered to herself. “You’re losing your cool.”
And not for the first time.
Ever since her publicist had clued her in to those creepy messages and fan mail that had gone from oddball to absurd, she’d been feeling as if there were constantly a pair of eyeballs following her—and not in a hired-security kind of way.
Everyone blamed Under the Roof for the onslaught of attention, but blaming a reality TV show was the easy answer. She was now grouped into a weird category of social media personalities and reality celebrities, which was hard for her to compute, seeing as she’d actually made her claim to fame as an environmentalist and blogger. Her website, Eco-Ella, had hit the viral lotto. But the cops didn’t care when she tried to explain that. They knew her from TV, and her job was to “rile people up when she wasn’t calming them down.”
How about that for boiling down her career into a one-sentence snapshot?
The late-night light shed little help as Ella jaywalked across the street. No one was out on this lonely night, and she shivered.
Another quick glance over her shoulder confirmed she was still alone. “Hello?”
No response.
Paranoia. Again. Her stomach twisted, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood like suspicious defenders, trying to awaken her enough to run. She picked up her pace, though it felt as though she was wading through wet sand.
Having actually faced off with desperate excuses for humans—the type who would leave her dead in their search to make a dollar—she would rather deal with threats she could see, not the unknown that made her feel as if she were losing her mind.
“Pull it together,” Ella mumbled as she slowed to cross another street. “Nothing scares you.”
A yowling cry pricked at her ears. But this wasn’t a soft sound. The loud mewling was enough to break through her worried preoccupation. Her eyes dropped to the empty street, and triangulating the distress, Ella carefully followed the curb a few short feet.
Meow. She dropped to inspect. Trapped in the plastic rings from a six-pack and caught on the spike of a metal grate was a tired, malnourished, terrified kitten. “Oh, dang.”
It was nothing but a scrap of fur and ribs, though it housed powerful lungs and fierce claws that came out as she tried to set it free.
“I’ve got you. Hang on.” Ouch. “One more second.”
Once untied, the kitten gave up the fight and let Ella pet its head. Together they sat, the two of them finding solace in each other. Still, unease sat at the back of her mind. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
The kitten meowed. What was she going to do? Leave it on the side of the road? Of course not. “We should get going.”
Giving in to her suspicions again, she tucked the kitten into her elbow and hurried down the center of the street, taking no chances if there was actually somebody following her.
“There’s my car. We’re fine,” she promised the kitten.
A few rushed strides later, Ella opened her car door and slipped them both inside, petting the shaking kitten as she settled the little thing into the passenger seat.
“You felt it too, little kitty. But we’re okay now. Just stay put.” Once she was sure that her purse would keep the kitten somewhat in place, Ella grabbed her seat belt and sank into the seat, finally taking a safe breath. Hands on the steering wheel, she looked up to see a note on the windshield, pinned underneath the windshield wiper.
The writing was in block letters:
Meow! Eco-Ella saves the day! I’m always watching.
CHAPTER TWO
Jay Graff licked his lips as he leaned against the oak tree. There Ella was, inside an all-natural grocery store, oblivious and irritating. He could sense her distress through the storefront window as he sipped his coffee. She would benefit from a back rub, something she was missing out on since breaking up with him.
Her loss—shit. Jay ducked out of view. Ella didn’t take nearly as long as he’d expected. She grabbed whatever she’d purchased and spun toward the door.
Now, his morning fun would really start. Ella would be a few yards behind him as he started his leisurely stroll. Toying with her made his blood race faster than the double shot he nursed.
It had been thirty-seven days since she claimed they were just friends. Ella had lied her ass off and said they didn’t have a spark, that she didn’t want to be his girlfriend, that they should only work together—didn’t he feel that way too?
Screw her.
He swallowed his frustration. Ella was a game, like chess, and involved strategy. One move meant a great deal. Every action had a consequence, and he needed patience.
Jay sipped out of the mug he’d purchased when they left Congo. Side by side in Virunga Forest, he and Ella had fought against gorilla poachers. They’d had a spark then, and they still had it now. He would force her to remember that, so help him…
“Hey, Jay,” Ella called from behind him.
He smirked. Baited, Ella couldn’t stay away. This game was intense, exhilarating. Each time she crawled back to him, she fed his Ella-addiction.
Ironic how Ella, who railed against poachers and triumphed for the environment, would one day amount to nothing but a trophy on his wall. It served her right.
“Jay.” Ella touched his bicep as she pulled alongside him. “Hey.”
He paused, readying for the close-up inspection he’d spent hours imagining—bloodshot red eyes and dark circles.
She looked fine! Anger slammed into his heart. She showed no signs of being scared—no worry or sleepless nights.
What the hell? His fingers tightened on his coffee mug, and he consciously decided not to crush the plastic.
He bristled. “Good morning.”
“Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” She laughed light as air
.
“Not a chance,” Jay snapped. “You’re doing well?”
“I can’t complain.”
“Really?” She couldn’t complain about the note on her car when she shouldn’t have been walking around DC alone at night?
Everything about her radiated with sunshine and positivity. He couldn’t stand it, and his mind was swinging. He missed her; he hated her. He wanted her back; he wished she would go away.
DC commuters in business suits brushed by as they rounded the corner to Ella’s publicist’s office, pausing at the crosswalk. Her airy skirt and tight tank stood out like a beacon of hope in the humdrum of traffic and pollution. The traffic light flashed, and Jay put his hand at the small of her back at they stepped into the crosswalk.
Ella shifted out of his touch. “Have you talked to Tara this morning?”
“No.” He ignored the urge to throw her into oncoming traffic. That flowy skirt would flare if he pushed her hard enough.
Once they were safe on the sidewalk, she pivoted. “Jay…”
Damn her and that voice, that sweet you’re my friend, but don’t touch my back voice.
“Old habits, Ella.” Which would be new habits again when she got over herself and fell back into their old routine.
How long would it take Ella to come back to her senses? Ella was his job, his obsession. She used to be his woman, and so much like a possession, it was simple.
She was his.
CHAPTER THREE
As days went, this Monday had been a long one. After walking into Tara’s office that morning, Ella and Jay hadn’t left until they broke for dinner. At least now with a belly full of roasted veggie vegan naan, Ella felt reinvigorated, which was good because Jay was hell-bent on mapping out the rest of her blog’s calendar tonight if it killed them. All he’d wanted to talk about during dinner was logistics.
“If you don’t need me…” Tara knew she wasn’t needed for the nitty-gritty. The promo had long since been hashed out. “You two have fun and lock up again when you leave.”
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