Page 39 of Shattered Hearts
Car rides with Finn.
Everything he says and does feels like it’s in reaction tome.Not this situation, nor my sister. Me. The one he never noticed before. I feel like I’m in an alternate dimension these days. I’m not Harper, and I’m not myself. I’m a crazy, distorted, fun house person who agreed to this ridiculous sham and is on the verge of a psychological meltdown as a result.
What I want to know is, what’s going through Finn’s head? Why isn’t he out, like a one-man search and rescue team, trying to find Harper? I mean, I’m not around him all the time. Maybe he’s looking for her whenever he’s not with me, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.
In fact, I don’t get the impression that Harper’s occupying his thoughts much at all.
Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part.
I sneak a glance at the enforcer beside me, who has one arm balanced on the open window and the other extended to the steering wheel. The April breeze ruffles his dark auburn hair and carries his delicious cedar scent to my nose.
Why are you doing this, Finn? What’s in it for you?
How can he possibly benefit from this arrangement we have going?
Obviously, he saves face this way, but I don’t believe for a second Finn cares about saving face. I may have been wrong about him in a million ways, but I’m sure he doesn’t give a damn aboutappearancesof all things…
No. I’m wrong. I must be.
I don’t want a rumor going around that my wife’s easy.
You walked through the house like that?
Now I understand.
For all I know, Finn could have jumped at the chance to marry Harper because she’s the highest quality eye candy there is. She’s a status symbol any enforcer would love to have on his arm. She knows how to carry herself perfectly. Just like our mom, Harper can play her part with beauty and aplomb.
The precise amount she smiles to appear pleasant, lovely, and unattainable without being flirtatious…the kind of spell she casts on men to keep them on a string for months… My sister’s probably got a doctorate on the subject at this point.
Finn must be so deep under Harper’s spell that, for the chance to marry her evensomeday,he’d happily pretend with me until she comes back.
I avert my gaze before he catches me staring. Still uneasy, my heart drums an irregular, unsettling beat. Questions sprout up through the soil of my mind like weeds.
Even if Finn is snared in Harper’s web, that doesn’t explain why he insistson being courteous to me, does it? Waiting for me, opening doors for me. On every day we’ve been scheduled to make an appearance, Finn has dropped me off at work and picked me up. Why he’s so bent on driving me, I have no idea. Neither of us enjoys it. That much is obvious.
Yet, all of my protests have been futile. He flat out refuses to let me transport myself. Despite the fact that I seem to do it so often, Finn isn’t the type of man I want to argue with. But how am I supposed to feel when I arrive at work nowadays?
What if one of my coworkers saw and asked me about him? What do I say?
My brother-in-law dropped me off.
Just thinking those words pulverizes my heart.
My sister’s fiancé picks me up here sometimes.
That’s every bit as bad.
Being in the car with Finn is akin to being underwater. Submerged in taut silence as I hold my breath. Sometimes, we don’t say one word to each other, and still the quiet between us deafens me.
If the radio in this luxury vehicle works, I have no evidence. My fingers itch for that dial, just to end the tension drowning us, but I fold my hands in my lap to keep still.
While Finn drives, I sneak a glance at him. His massive hands are tucked around the steering wheel. There are scars on his right hand from where he cut himself, no doubt from practicing with the butterfly knife he always carries and twirls when lost in thought. When I was younger, I guess I thought he wanted to master knife tricks for fun. Really, he was learning knife craft to make himself more lethal as an enforcer.
The short-sleeved shirt he wears exposes his muscled forearms and some of the tattoos I’ve never gotten to admire from up close before. There are numbers inked on his forearm in slanted letters. Two sets of digits. Dates, I think. A month, a day, and the same year for both.
There’s a scar on his tricep and a small marigold outlined in black nearby. Etched onto one of the petals are the initialsMJBV.
The tattoos on his fingers catch my eye too, especially one on his left ring finger. A thin black line runs the circumference, like a dark, spindly wedding band tattooed on his hand.