SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope he sees it that way and isn’t…” I sigh, unable to finish the sentence.

  “He’s going to be good. Hart is a good man. He won’t judge you for what happened,” Sin says determinedly, her voice set.

  The problem is, I do. I judge myself for the way everything happened. I caused a lot of people pain and worry, and, in the end, it didn’t matter because it didn’t change anything. Except for me, maybe. I mean, definitely. It changed me, but the situation was still the same.

  “I hope so. Look, I—I’m really grateful for all your help,” I say, motioning to the kitchen and all the work she’s done alongside me. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “Which still confuses me. You make the best chocolates and desserts, and yet a piece of meat does you in,” she chuckles, her mirth relaxing some of the tension within me.

  “Thank you, Sin,” I say again, giving her another hug and walking her to the door.

  When we get there, she squeezes my hand, gives me another smile, and then steps out, her eyes immediately going to Beau, who’s statue-still outside the door.

  “Sweet Jesus, where do the Harts find all these men? Yo, Beau! What do you do if you need to pee?” I hear as I close the door, feeling a giggle burst forth when I don’t hear a reply from my stalwart statue.

  Good Lord, I needed that laugh, I think, my feet taking me back to the window, where I know I’ll stand and stare out at nothing as I wait for Hart to get home. Another ten minutes, I sigh silently, checking the clock and going still when I hear a key in the door. He’s early. Great! I need him to be early tonight about as much as I need to be having this conversation.

  Turning, I paste on a smile, smooth my sweaty palms down the fabric of my dress, and try to breathe through my nerves as he steps into the apartment. I’ve ditched the Cleo disguise, as my sibs like to call it, and tonight I actually look like myself. Or what I used to look like before—but I won’t think about that, I decide, my chest getting tighter as the seconds tick by.

  New start. Truth. A future. That’s what I’m looking at right now, and while it scares me to death to give myself over to Hart, it also thrills me and makes me feel something that I haven’t let myself feel in a long time. Hope. God, that feels good, I think, my smile getting stronger as I walk over to where he’s taking off his coat.

  “Hey, hot stuff,” I murmur, reaching up to stroke his face and stumbling a little when I meet his eyes and see nothing but anger staring back at me. “What’s wrong? I didn’t even try to go out today. Or give Beau a hard time.”

  I was too busy puking and then cooking.

  Hart shrugs, the move dislodging my hand, and takes a step back from me, confusing me even more. When he gets home—or rather, when he gets to the apartment that Zeus is letting us use—he’s usually all over me from the minute he walks through the door. Most days, we have sex before I’ve even had a chance to say hello, though, honestly speaking, that kind of greeting is a hello in and of itself, and I sort of like it that way.

  His need for me has boosted my confidence and repaired the frayed rags that were once my self-esteem.

  “I guess I should give you a prize, then,” he murmurs silkily, his smile so forced that I blink, thinking that I must be seeing things all wrong.

  He looks angry tonight, but I guess I can’t expect him to be in a good mood all the time. The last few weeks have been stressful for him, and I love him all the more because I know that most of that strain comes from his frustration with the lack of answers he’s been getting. I’ll make it better, I decide. I’ll get all the ugly truth out of the way, and then I’ll make this up to him. Pamper him. Yes. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll take care of him and show him how much he means to me.

  Shaking off the doubts that keep trying to push their way to the surface, I paste on a smile and gesture down to my dress and then over to the kitchen, where the table is set and waiting for us.

  “I, uh, made dinner. And dessert,” I croak, my smile trembling when he glances over at the table with absolutely no sign of being impressed. “I made some cupcakes and those little raspberry chocolates you like so much. Uh…to be romantic, ya know? But I kind of suck at it since I haven’t had all that much practice, so you’re gonna have to give me a break if the lamb isn’t that great.”

  Chatter. I’m chattering like a magpie as I walk into the kitchen and take a seat, my body shaking so hard that I have to grip the table to keep myself on the chair.

  “Cleo—”

  “Okay, so I didn’t fully cook the lamb myself, because Sin got all wild-eyed when I accidentally turned the oven to grill mode, and the top scorched a little. But I made everything else,” I titter, casting a baleful eye over the mushy potatoes au gratin and the peas that are more pureed than cooked.

  “We need to—”

  “I mean, I wanted it to be romantic, but then I realized, maybe it won’t be, and not just because I cook like my mother, but because tonight is going to be kind of heavy…”

  “Cleo—”

  “But I’m hoping for things to work out, ya know, after we’ve talked, and then maybe I could run you a bath, and we could have some champagne in the bathtub. To drink. Not to bathe in. Unless you want to get kinky—”

  “Cleo! Dammit, would you shut up?” Hart roars, his voice echoing off the kitchen walls and shocking me speechless.

  He never yells at me, not even when he’s justifiably angry, so when he does it now, my head shoots up, and I gulp loudly as I meet his eyes and see the hard, almost cruel expression on his face.

  Maybe he already found out, I think, my eyes landing on a folder in his hand that I didn’t notice before. It’s one of those plain office ones. Cream? Beige? And it’s pretty full, I think queasily, spying my name in bold black letters in the top left corner.

  Oh, heck. He must have had me investigated, I think, cringing instinctively. But that’s okay. It’s fine. That’ll make this easier. He already knows about…things, and now all I have to do is explain my side of it, and then—

  “Do you know what this is?” he asks, his voice a soft purr that should be sexy, but that sounds so strange, I swallow and remind myself that this is Hart, not some asshole who doesn’t care about me.

  “I—I’m assuming that you had me investigated,” I whisper, reaching for the glass of wine that Sin poured me an hour ago.

  My hand is shaking, but I’m determined to stay strong as I bring the glass to my lips and take a deep gulp. “But that’s okay. I mean, I would have been angry before, but I’m okay with it now. I mean, I’d have liked to tell you these things myself, but I can still…explain it to you and…and make you understand what happened—”

  “Are we talking about the fact that you were engaged?” he asks, his face hard.

  Shoot. Okay, so he’s a little upset that I didn’t mention that, but he’ll understand once I tell him about my wedding day and everything that happened afterward. I’m not proud of myself, but it’s in the past.

  “I was…going to tell you,” I croak, taking another sip of wine until Hart grabs it away and slams the glass back onto the table.

  “Were you? Or were you just going to keep lying to me and sucker me into falling for you? No?” he asks when I shake my head, my eyes going wide. “No, that’s right. You’re Cleo Sweet, the woman who doesn’t do commitment or love. Right? This is just a casual fling. Just you and this poor idiotic sap having sex and enjoying this little slice of time out of reality,” he hisses, his breath hitting my face when he leans down to glare at me.

  “You’re right. I—I said all those things, and I wanted them to be true, but I don’t think that way anymore,” I breathe, my eyes burning with hurt when he pulls away before I can touch him, his face filled with disgust.

  “You didn’t—”

  “I know! And I’m so sorry, but you have to understand that I was afraid that you’d be angry, and that you’d walk away from me,” I cut in, my voice rising as my emotions
start to bubble up. “I know how you feel about me, Hart, and I feel the same way. It’s just taken me more time to accept it and ignore the fears I had. But that’s okay, and I’m not mad about that file, because now you know it all, and…and I’ll tell you everything because I love you,” I say, the words rushing out and my smile trembling back into place.

  “Love me? You love me?” he scoffs, tossing the file onto the table so hard that it skitters and knocks over the wine glass. “Well, that’s wonderful, Cleo. Bravo. I suppose I should be grateful that you’re deigning to feel something more for me than just lust.”

  “No. I don’t want you to be grateful, Hart. I want…for you to not hate me for…that,” I murmur, waving at the folder, where every dirty secret is written in indelible ink.

  I can’t go back and change anything in that folder, and, to be honest, I don’t want to. I’ve spent six years hiding from life, sabotaging myself so that I wouldn’t have to hope for anything more. I’ve lied to myself, made my family lie to me, and made myself want the very least out of life because I didn’t want to ever go back to that place I was before.

  But I’m not there now. I’m here with Hart, and I’m showing him all of me—and hoping.

  “Hate you? I don’t hate you, Cleo. I pity you,” he says softly, the words slamming into me with a hammering blow that is almost physical enough to steal my breath.

  “No. You don’t—”

  “The woman in that file…this…” he says as he gestures towards me, smirking cruelly when I flinch. “Why do this now?”

  “To show you that I’m…in love with you,” I choke out, the feeling of exposure getting worse when he skims his eyes down my body, with that ugly glint still in his eyes.

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word you say, and honestly, after opening that file, I don’t think that anything you could say matters.”

  “It does! It does matter, Hart. Don’t you understand? I love you. I’ve fallen completely in love with you, and I know that what you saw wasn’t pretty, but I’m not that person anymore,” I tell him frantically.

  “And that’s the problem, babe. You’re someone that I don’t know, someone that I don’t think I want to know. That,” he snarls, flicking at the folder, “doesn’t matter. None of this does.”

  I go still. I don’t really move or breathe too deeply because I’m held immobile by shock, by this bewildered horror that freezes me solid. He can’t be saying what I think he is, I tell myself, an intense pain unfurling deep inside me even as I shake myself and firm up my spine. This is all wrong. Somehow, we’re not understanding each other, but I can fix this. I can make him understand that I’m worth loving back. It hurts like hell that I’ve said the words more than once, and he still hasn’t said it back. I think that I was expecting something different. A little heart-to-heart, some tears, maybe a lecture about being so closed off. Not this, though.

  I…

  “I should have been honest with you about Dennis—I know that. I…when you told me about Alicia, I was just so shocked, Hart. Dumbstruck, really, and it took me a little bit of time to process all of it. I mean, the odds…but then—then I thought it all through, and I know that the best time to have approached this conversation was the night you opened up to me. I have no excuses, honey. I know that. But I haven’t allowed myself to think about any of this in so long,” I explain, silently pleading with him.

  Tears gather in my eyes, burning when they spill free to run down my cheeks. Hart doesn’t say anything in return, but I don’t really expect him to, because I should be the one opening up now, and I know that. It’s just not easy. I mean, the fucking odds of all of this.

  “After the wedding—”

  “I don’t care about what happened after! Don’t you get it? I can’t do this with you. I don’t want to stand here and listen to you explain anything, Cleo. This isn’t about explaining that! It’s about the fact that you lied. You had the chance to come clean, and you didn’t. Why should I trust anything you say to me now? How can I ever trust you, after that?” he asks, shaking his head when I try to speak. “You need to stay here. If you don’t want to, please be smart enough to take Beau with you if you go back to your dad and mom’s.”

  “What?” I ask, rearing back in shock when Hart suddenly sighs, loses the anger that he’s been whipping at me, and turns to walk towards the door. “Where are you going? We’re still talking. I’m trying to tell you—”

  “I don’t want to listen, Cleo. I just…don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

  “But you don’t understand! I didn’t mean to lie. I really didn’t. I just needed to talk to someone about it before I told you,” I yell, a sob wracking me when he closes his eyes and pauses at the door.

  “You should have talked to me.”

  “I couldn’t! You know I couldn’t. You were so angry when you told me about Alicia. I didn’t know how to tell you!”

  “Well, now you don’t have to worry about it,” he says sadly.

  Before opening the door and walking out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cleo

  “Sweetheart,” Mom starts hesitantly, her hand reaching out toward mine.

  Her touch is warm, and though I can feel the heat of her comfort, I can’t really feel it. I’m cold inside, numb, and blessedly closed off to the pain that hit me so hard that I collapsed in Zeus’s apartment and only came to hours later, alone and so heartbroken that it hurt to breathe.

  But the one good thing about having had a breakdown before is that I know what not to do when it feels like I’m going to lose my mind. When I woke up, I knew not to lie there and give in to the need to cry, because I’d been there, and, unlike on the day of my ruined wedding seven years ago, I didn’t allow that misery to pull me under.

  I got up, dusted myself off, and kept it all together. I didn’t break this time, but, God help me, I wanted to. I wanted to just give in to the pain and allow it to suck me so deep that I’d lose myself in it again. That’s what happened before, you know. I was shattered, humiliated, heartbroken, and too young to understand that I was killing myself in the process of it all. Grief is a terrible thing, and something that I don’t think most folks fully understand. My shrink would say that it’s a process of steps, and that you can track it as easily as the weather. For me, though, it wasn’t like that. I was a mess from beginning to end, and so unsavable that I think it shocked us all when I woke up one day and actually got back up.

  I’ve had time to think about that lately, now that I’m doing this whole reality thing fully, and I think that I was able to get back up because, in a way, I did kill the Cleo that I used to be. She was too bright, too peppy, and too easy to get to. So I shut her down and packed her away, and in her place appeared this Cleo. I dress in ugly clothes to ward people off, and, like one of those stinkbug things that gives off a bad smell, I give off a bad look. Stay away. Bad choices reside here.

  I’m not hiding anymore, though, and you know what? That’s a good thing. Yesterday, I went to the salon with Alex and Tee, and I had my eyebrows fixed, as well as getting a trim for my hair and a much-needed wax of all areas. I also let Mom take me on a shopping spree, which she enjoyed immensely, while all I could manage was a horrified whimper when I saw the bill.

  Today, I’m creating something new. Not me, silly. I’ve finally accepted that life is about feeling things, as me, so I’m all Cleo, even if I still need to figure some of her out. No, what I’m doing is creating a line of chocolates because, yeah, I finally made the big decision I needed to and sold out to the big commercial companies. Not that I’m too down about it. I made a good chunk of change in that transaction—enough to give Dad his quarter of a mill back, and enough to finally buy my own place and start my own life.

  You heard it, people. I am officially independent, and right now, that feels so good that it’s unbelievable that I didn’t do it before this. I live in an apartment about three doors down from Rose, my one concession to my parents
regarding their many concerns. I also have my own personal bodyguard, Beau, whom I pay with my own money because Hart can kiss my fucking ass as far as I’m concerned.

  Sooo, back to what I’m doing right now. Creating. After I sold some recipes to that chocolate company, I got to thinking about what I really want to do with my life, and it turns out, I do still want to be Wilhelmina Wonka. Just not to the extent that I have all those Oompa Loompas working for me, because Dad explained very nicely that once I employ them all, I have the responsibility of paying them and keeping things in order and working all the time.

  That’s just not me. So I settled on something much simpler and to my liking: I take commissions from people who call in response to the samples that I let Mom take to her country club. It turns out that rich people are willing to pay through the nose for a one-of-a-kind, limited edition chocolate that no one else will ever have. And it turns out that adding a drop of this and a drop of that to an already tried and tested recipe changes the flavor enough to give those people what they want.

  It’s not cheating if you consider that, aside from the fact that I make decent money, no one even realizes that I’m recycling the recipe and just adding one touch of something extra. Besides, what will they say if they do find out? “You sold someone else my chocolate”? Puh-lease! I have a lawyer, and she’s a pit bull in court.

  “Cleo.”

  “Mom, I told you, I’m good,” I say for the tenth time, ignoring Beau’s huff and look of disagreement.

  Great. I got “professional Beau” when Hart was paying the man, but now that it’s on my dime, I get the opinionated idiot who doesn’t seem to own a filter.

  “She cried in the bathroom for an hour yesterday.”

  “I did not!” I seethe, giving him a furious glare. “I have a sinus infection!”