He's a cynic. She's a romantic. One deal, one wedding, and one gigantic secret stand between them.
**
Harper Lane wants to believe in true love. After her parents split, she began photographing evidence of it. Couples holding hands. Valentine's Day...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Lawson woke to screaming.
This was, Lawson reflected, not the most pleasant way to begin one's day. It wasn't that screaming was necessarily a bad thing; Lawson could imagine several scenarios in which Harper screaming would be very pleasant. But all those scenarios required Lawson to be awake before the screaming began.
And none of them involved Alisdair Dalton.
His friend stood at the foot of the bed, wearing a hideous gilded jumper and a look that Lawson privately called the Disappointed Look. He'd seen it dozens of times over the years. When Lawson forgot to hand in his maths homework. When Haz stole a sign from a local construction site and mounted it in his dorm room.
And, apparently, now.
"Morning, Dalton," Lawson said, rubbing at his eyes. "Is that a new jumper? I love the pattern. Very Baroque."
Alisdair crossed his arms. "Explain."
"Well, Dalton, the Baroque period was an art movement that began in—"
"You promised," Alisdair cut in, still looking very pissed off. "You gave me your word, that day in the tailor's. You said you wouldn't go near Harper. Remember that?"
"You did?" Harper asked.
She was looking up at him with unmistakable hurt. Lawson ran through several creative curse words in his head, all of which involved Alisdair's name.
"Harper," Lawson began, "I can explain—"
There was a knock on the door.
"Harper?" a masculine voice called. "Are you in there?"
Lawson froze. He could see Harper's horror reflected back in his own eyes. Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Alisdair swore fluently in Latin, saying something that Lawson was pretty sure translated to sewer bottom. "That's Griffin. Get under the bed."
Lawson blinked. "What?"
"Under. The. Bed."
"You're joking," Lawson said.
"Do I look like I'm having a laugh?" Alisdair's voice was flat. "Now, Hale."
Lawson got under the bed.
The door flew open just as Lawson was shimmying under the bedframe, trying not to feel like a criminal in a bad heist film. Large feet appeared in his vision. Large feet, Lawson noted grimly, wearing white trainers covered in mud and soot: Griffin.
"Found her!" Alisdair's voice was cheerful. "Told you she'd be having a lie-in."
"Harper, I'm so sorry." Griffin sounded frantic. "The storm— I had no idea—" More footsteps. "We came as soon as we could."
