ChapterFour
1149 Words
Harper’s POV
It was hard to sleep, not with the boxes being moved all around in the room next to mine. I groaned a million times, thrashing all around my bed until I didn’t think I could take it anymore.
Something scratched the ground, and the sound travelled through my walls. Sighing in frustration, I sat up and grabbed my phone from the nightstand.
2:00 am.
Great. I had been lying awake for the last three hours, and I had to be at the office in another three. The company was expecting an investor from Hawaii, and it was Marcus' official naming as CEO.
I couldn’t miss it. Not if I wanted to retain my Executive Assistant position.
The scratching sound wasn’t enough, as another loud banging started up on the wall, right above my ear. I screamed, holding my head in my hand as my heart thudded. The sound quietened.
And then, an unmistakable voice.
“You okay?”
Silence spread through us first, before I whispered. “Christian?”
The last fifteen hours were still a blur in my head, finding out Christian had a twin brother named Damien, who was supposed to be dead, whom I’d never heard about until today.
Another silence lingered before he spoke again. “Go to bed.”
“Don’t you think I would have done that if you weren’t f*****g drilling something into my head?” It made sense now. The moving truck from yesterday, all the boxes. He’d moved in next door.
Just great!
A quiet chuckle.
“What?”
“I never would have imagined my brother going for someone who cursed a lot,” he muttered, the husky undertones settling in the pit of my stomach. I hated it. “But then again, he was never serious with you.”
“Stop talking!”
“Harper…”
“And stop f*****g making that noise. Some of us have a busy day ahead of us, and we are trying to get some rest.”
“Talking about busy days,” he started. I heard him lean against the wall. His voice sounded closer. Deeper. “You work at Knight Industries.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I am not talking about where I work,” I shot back. Why was I still talking to him?
“You are, Harper. And you will.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Calling you what? Your name?”
My lips parted, and pressed shut in another second. It wasn’t my name. It was the way he called it. Like… Definitely not the way Christian did. It was … I couldn’t even describe it.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Do not let Marcus become CEO,” he continued, as if I had said nothing. “Stall for as long as you can.”
“I am not doing anything, Damien.”
“This is important.”
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. All I know is that I just lost my man, and I cannot even cry about it in peace, without you thrumming your annoying nail into my head.”
“You cried for him?”
“Goodnight, Damien.”
I thought he would say something again. In fact, half of me wanted him to. But I only heard a low chuckle before retreating footsteps quietly echoed on the floorboards. I was thinking about those fierce eyes.
It was the last thing I remembered before the darkness enveloped me.
***
The morning sun caressed my features as my eyes fell wide open. For a minute, I just lay there, staring at my ceiling, feeling oddly light. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so well since Christian died.
It felt strange.
But when the shrill of my phone pierced through the silence, I got up and leaned over to grab it. Every part of me paused when my eyes took in the screen, the time staring back at me.
“f**k!” I yelped, jumping out of bed. It was bloody 7:15 am. I was supposed to be at the office fifteen minutes ago.
My sheets fell to the ground as I rushed into the bathroom, but a tidy room was the last thing on my mind. Grabbing my toothbrush, I went through the process like a chore, my feet pacing, and my fingers in my hair, scratching.
The phone rang again from the bedroom.
I ignored it, shrugging out of my old t-shirt and walking under the shower. Turning it on, I allowed the water to run through me as I reached for my sponge mechanically, lathering it up. But in a few seconds, in the most unexpected of fashions, the water trickled to a slow halt.
“No! No! No!” I groaned, hitting the pipes. “Please!”
Nothing changed. Not even a tiny drop.
“Urghhhhh!”
With the water on my skin bouncing off onto the floorboards, I rush back to my room, about to call Cindy, whose house was like a fifteen-minute drive from mine. But that meant spending more time than I already had right now.
A thought dropped into my mind, and I shook my head at once, as if that would dispel it. Still, I found my legs moving, rushing out of my doors with a bathrobe on, turning to the door on my left.
When I knocked, I heard a shuffle inside, and then it quietened. I was about to turn around, deciding this was a bad situation, when the door pushed open.
It was my second time seeing him, yet it felt like the first. I felt the wind knocked out of my chest again, with how identical his appearance was to Christian's.
But there was something else.
Something I didn’t want to linger on. It pooled in the pit of my stomach as I stood there, swallowing, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth.
He angled his head and pushed the door a fraction wider, his arms wrapped around his frame.
“I know this is embarrassing, and I am not even supposed to be here, but can I use your shower?” I asked without looking into his eyes. “Mine stopped running.”
Damien didn’t respond. He had to be doing it intentionally, especially after how I spoke to him. But when I looked up, his eyes weren’t on me. They were staring straight ahead, peering at something.
I turned to look, but his hand darted out suddenly, wrapping around my wrist so tight that I yelped when he pulled me into his apartment with him, closing the door against us.
My lips moved, but the words died in my throat when I heard a voice I knew too well…from the other end of the door.
- Writer
