The Arrangement 25 (The Ferro Family)

by H. M. Ward

  “God, I want you.” He buries his face in my breasts and then presses his body against mine.

  “I heard sex can induce labor?” It sounds like a question.

  Sean lifts his head and locks his eyes on mine. “I know. Do you really want to?”

  “Do you really find this,” I gesture to my massive self, “appealing?”

  A deep growl rumbles through his chest in an answer. Then his lips are on me, moving, relearning the shape of my body, and the swell of my belly. I’m lost in his kisses, not worrying for once. This is different. I didn’t know how I’d feel about it and didn’t think we’d have a chance. It’s past the due date.

  Kissing. Touching. And then sharp stabbing pain. I press my hand to my belly, jerk upright, and gasp. Sean backs away, watching me. “Are you all right?”

  I nod slowly as the pain fades. “Yeah. Fake contraction.”

  “How long has that been going on?”

  “A couple of weeks.”

  He leans in cautiously. Kisses my neck once, and asks, “Do you want me to stop?”

  I shake my head. “I miss you, and the contractions are fake—Braxton-Hicks thingies.” Sean grins as if he knows something I do not. Cocking my head to the side, I try to convince him further, “Seriously. They’re so far apart that it doesn’t matter—” my word catches as another sharp pain hits which causes me to catch my breath. I lean forward, hand on belly, and press my eyes shut to endure the stab of pain.

  When I open my eyes, Sean sits up beside me, grinning ear to ear. “I think it’s baby time, Miss Smith.”

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  NEW FREE PROLOGUE

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  ALL THE BROKEN PIECES

  by H.M. Ward

  Turn the page to read a free sample of the new series by New York Times bestselling author H.M. Ward. All The Broken Pieces is a suspenseful, dark, and sexy Ferro tale.

  Free Sample

  All the Broken Pieces: The Ferro Family

  LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

  Hovering over my gradebook, I’m lost in thought and dreading the next part of my day. It’s early afternoon and somehow communicating with parents via social media has become normal—expected. The problem? Facebook is so excited to see me when I login that it blasts me with pictures from my past, photographs of Zach’s beautiful smiling face. Or memories of me and Zara. My arm around my best-friends shoulder.

  A shiver runs over my skin. Pressing my hand to my forearm, I smooth the pebbled skin. Erasing the ghosts. There’s a point where memories become so real, so inexplicably tangible, that it’s as if those days never happened. My life would have been different if Zara and Zach lived. But they didn’t. This is my life now.

  My fingers hover over the keys of the laptop. Facebook is a graveyard where the dead still live. The family didn’t want to delete their pages after their passing, which is understandable. Albeit painful for me. I’d never visit this site again if I had my way. But that’s not the way the world works. So, Facebook pops Zach up in my feed as if nothing happened. As if he’s still alive and breathing next to his twin sister, Zara. The weight in the center of my chest increases tenfold. It’s to the point I should cave-in.

  Maybe if only one of them died, then I could handle things better. But losing both? Within twelve months? It’s too much. My soul tore in half. I walk amongst the living but I’m dead inside. Zara went first. She died about a year before Zach. His twin. I met him because of her. She was my college roommate. He was her devastatingly beautiful brother.

  Now they’re both ashes.

  My throat is dry. I can’t swallow. The students sit on stools at slanted desks with their pencils and drawing pads. They murmur amongst themselves as I stare at the screen, too afraid to press ENTER. No one is watching me. The kids don’t notice, not really. I know I need to do it before the bell rings. Then my peers will be in the halls, and someone always walks in when I’m fracturing. My pointer hovers over the ENTER key. The URL is typed into the bar, cursor blinking. Waiting.

  No matter how many times I experience it and no matter how much I prepare, I can’t stomach it. If anything has a ghost in the program, it’s social media. Zach’s account glitches sometimes and there is movement on his wall. A blue dot showing a new message next to Zach’s face lights up in my inbox. Unread.

  Both were glitches. Cruel, heart-wrenching technological fails. I can’t take much more. I’ve built a steel cage around my heart and let my soul wither and die—but in the split second of hope that fills my body, my grief falls away. Brimming with rekindled love, I click the private message only to realize it is old. The note was written before he died. Something happens after that and it’s not pretty.

  Goddamn school district. I stiffen in my seat as a student nears my desk at the front of the classroom. Large windows frame the young woman. She’s my little prodigy, Aleigha Thamas. Her dark eyes meet mine as rosy lips pull into a shy smile. She’s clutching her drawing pad to her chest. I told the class to draw clouds today. Partly because grades are due, partly because I need their backs turned in case I get emotionally impaled on a Facebook picture when I send their parents invitations to the spring program.

  “Ms. Abby?” In a southern school there would be no issue with the students calling me this. It shows respect, but in the north it’s super weird. I can’t remember when I changed it, when I asked the first student to stop calling me Ms. Sabba and use my first name instead.

  The months have blurred into years, but a bleeding heart doesn’t recognize time. The only way I know it’s passing is when report cards are due or summer is looming, like now. I dread those months of nothing to do, of being assaulted by memories that I can’t control.

  I glance up at the student, glad to look away from the laptop for a moment. I tuck a strand of dark hair behind my ear. It wasn’t out of place. “Yes, what can I help you with?”

  “I was wondering what you thought of this—” Her gaze cuts to the side mid-sentence and I know she’s nervous about whatever she drew.

  I reach out for her notepad and when I look down at the creamy paper, I’m surprised. There’s a page of clouds, but instead of pencil lines and strokes each ball of mist is made of a string of zeros and ones. It looks like computer coding, all strings of numbers that may mean something to techies, but not me. I take a wild guess, “Is this binary?”

  She ducks her head, hiding her face behind a wall of hair. “Not really. Well, maybe a little. I was thinking how cool it would be if the clouds could be drawn as molecules, but I didn’t have my science textbook with me, so I switched to coding. Is it dumb?” Her face scrunches as uncertainty floods her features.

  The one thing the girl lacks is confidence. No one ever told her that she was any good, so she’s the last person to see it when she succeeds.

  “This is amazing.” I grasp her notepad between my hands and stare at it. The composition and flow are amazing. The fact that she did it with numbers and shading is even more entrancing. I tip the sketchpad sideways and tilt my head, admiring her work. “I don’t know that much about coding. Do you?” I glance up at her.

  She shakes her head. “Not really. I saw my brother messing around with something yesterday and I thought it might look cool. Robot clouds.” She offers me an uncertain lopsided grin.

  I hand her back her sketchpad. “You are amazing at conceptual execution. You remained true to the subject matter while infusing it with something different.” Smiling softly, I add, “It feels like geo warning.”

  Her face lights up. “It does?”

  “Yes, is that what you were hoping to achi
eve?” She nods fervently. “Well, go finish it up before the bell rings. You’re onto something.” She represses a grin as she crosses the room to peer out the window once more.

  When she’s settled on her stool once more with her back toward me and eyes fixed on the clouds, I return to gathering my guts to sign into Facebook. It’s now or never. All eyes are on the sky and nowhere near me.

  Slipping my finger across the touch pad on my laptop, I click open a browser and login.

  The mental chanting has started, cycling endlessly:

  Ignore the pictures.

  Don’t look.

  I go straight to the school’s page, click events, and start typing, entering the information for the High School Spring Art Program. After I’ve entered the details and invited the parents, I close the event window.

  My feed is filled with ancient heartaches—Zara’s smiling face looks out at me with her sun-kissed arm draped over my shoulder. The photograph was taken nearly four years ago. She was closer than any friend could be and was a sister in every way, even before Zach and I got married. She should have been at our wedding. She should have been laughing, walking up and down these hallways with me. But it never happened.

  I scroll down. I can’t help it. I’ve been sucked into the black hole. Pictures I’ve seen before fill the frame and I drink them in greedily. The emotion of past moments, the echoes of laughter long silenced, fills my mind.

  My shrink, Dr. Roku would tell me this is unhealthy. That I should stop. No one ever walked forward while constantly looking back. It’s the reason I can’t seem to move on with my life. The reason for the unending nightmares. Maybe so.

  I sigh deeply and rest my finger on the down button, watching the promises of a former lifetime of happiness scroll by in a blur. When I blink, the page refreshes and a new image is at the top. I’m staring at the screen, thinking I’m seeing a picture from a long time ago.

  Zach stands there, beautifully ripped chest with chiseled abs wearing nothing but faded boardshorts. He grins at the camera in the sandy surf in Grand Cayman. A honeymoon picture. Every inch of his shirtless body is sun-kissed. A bronzed god. Dark hair ruffled from the wind as he ties a boat to the dock. Dread fades.

  Curiosity rises in my chest. I don’t recall this shot. Where were we? I must have taken it, but I don’t remember. We were supposed to go out on a boat, but that’s not the vessel. And that’s not that dock we reported to for the dive. The long wooden wharf in this picture is weather worn and old. Splintering in patches and sun-bleached. The place where we were supposed to leave to go diving had silver-colored aluminum planks, almost blinding in the sun.

  I click on the image and make it larger. Zach is bent forward, his face obscured slightly by the tips of his dark hair as he bends over to tie the boat to the dock.

  That’s when I see it.

  The shiny spot on his arm.

  I double click, enlarging the image as big as it can go, thinking it’s sunscreen—assuming I took this picture but can’t remember. As my eyes sweep the light patch of skin, I instinctively know what it’s from, what I’m seeing.

  “No,” the word comes out in a puff of air.

  Hands shaking, I jerk away from the laptop, toppling it to the floor. Eyes wide, my skin flushes as I stagger backwards, reaching for the wall, the counter, anything. Gaping, my mouth opens wide trying to suck in air. I can’t breathe.

  It’s not possible.

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  ALL THE BROKEN PIECES

  A Ferro Rapid Release

  MORE READS BY H.M. WARD

  HOT GUY: A NOVEL

  DAMAGED 3: A DAMAGED WEDDING

  SECRETS & LIES 7 (series finale)

  COMPLETED SERIES BY H.M. WARD

  ROMANCE

  ~SECRETS & LIES~

  ~STRIPPED~

  ~THE PROPOSITION~

  ~DAMAGED~

  ~LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED~

  ~SECRETS~

  ~SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT~

  ~SCANDALOUS~

  TEEN PARANORMAL

  ~DEMON KISSED~

  MORE FERRO FAMILY BOOKS

  Trystan Scott

  ~BROKEN PROMISES~

  Jonathan Ferro

  ~STRIPPED~

  Bryan Ferro

  ~THE PROPOSITION~

  Sean Ferro

  ~THE ARRANGEMENT~

  Peter Ferro

  ~DAMAGED ~

  Nick Ferro

  ~THE WEDDING CONTRACT~

  Please turn the page for a suggested reading order.

  SUGGESTED FERRO READING ORDER

  THE ARRANGEMENT 1

  THE ARRANGEMENT 2

  THE ARRANGEMENT 3

  THE ARRANGEMENT 4

  THE ARRANGEMENT 5

  THE ARRANGEMENT 6

  DAMAGED 1

  DAMAGED 2

  SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT 1

  SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT 2

  SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT 3

  SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT 4

  SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT 5

  THE ARRANGEMENT 7

  THE ARRANGEMENT 8

  THE ARRANGEMENT 9

  THE ARRANGEMENT 10

  THE ARRANGEMENT 11

  SCANDALOUS 1

  SCANDALOUS 2

  STRIPPED 1

  THE PROPOSITION 1

  THE PROPOSITION 2

  THE PROPOSITION 3

  THE PROPOSITION 4

  THE ARRANGEMENT 12

  THE ARRANGEMENT 13

  THE ARRANGEMENT 14

  THE PROPOSITION 5

  THE ARRANGEMENT 15

  THE ARRANGEMENT 16

  THE ARRANGEMENT 17

  THE ARRANGEMENT 18

  THE WEDDING CONTRACT

  SECRETS & LIES 1

  SECRETS & LIES 2

  SECOND CHANCES

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 1

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 2

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 3

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 4

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 5

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 6

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 7

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 8

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 9

  LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED 10

  THE ARRANGEMENT 19

  THE ARRANGEMENT 20

  MANWHORE

  BROKEN PROMISES

  THE ARRANGEMENT 21

  STRIPPED 2

  SECRETS & LIES 3

  SECRETS & LIES 4

  SECRETS & LIES 5

  SECRETS & LIES 6

  THE ARRANGEMENT 22

  SECRETS & LIES 7

  DAMAGED 3: A DAMAGED WEDDING

  THE ARRANGEMENT 23

  EASY 1

  THE ARRANGEMENT 24

  THE ARRANGEMENT 25

  ALL THE BROKEN PIECES 1

  MORE BOOKS BY H.M. WARD

  SCANDALOUS

  SECRETS

  COLLIDE: THE SECRET LIFE OF TRYSTAN SCOTT

  DEMON KISSED

  CHRISTMAS KISSES

  OVER YOU

  HOT GUY

  And more.

  To see a full book list, please visit:

  www.hmward.com/BOOKS

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  EXCITING MOVIE NEWS

  How You Can See Sean Ferro In The Flesh!

  We’ve come a long way, Ferro fans! Movies are made by teams of folks who all work together to create the best film possible. It’s not a one-man show.

  Our next step is to obtain the best production company possible. We need a stellar team to bring the Ferro men to life. This is not an easy task. As you know, and love, the Ferro family has a dark side. You’ve spoken loudly to retain that element. Finding a perfect match is difficult. Especially since Ferro isn’t main-stream romance.

  There is a company that appears to be a proper fit—Netflix. They hav
e several dark programs that resonate at the same frequency as the Ferro family.

  Let Netflix know you want Sean, Peter, and the Ferro clan to come to life.

  DIRECTIONS:

  There are 3 slots on the form. Use all 3 for the Ferro guys. This will give us the best shot at grabbing their attention.

  These are the forerunners for you to suggest. I’m suggesting these titles for a specific reason. They cover all our bases. It’s possible there is a slot for Nick Ferro right now and something will open up for Sean later. We don’t know exactly what they’re looking for at this time.

  The point is to give them the range of the Ferro books.

  GO HERE TO TELL THEM YOU WANT TO SEE THE FERRO MEN: https://help.netflix.com/en/titlerequest

  Enter the titles as shown below (include author name or they could choose another book with the same title):

  Title Suggestion 1: THE ARRANGEMENT by H.M. Ward

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  Title Suggestion 3: THE WEDDING CONTRACT by H.M. Ward

  Then click SUBMIT SUGGESTIONS. It’s a really simple thing you can do that will help the Ferro family come to life.

  This is YOUR series.

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