Page 78 of Burn Bright

I feel violently, uncontrollably exposed. After a long minute of just staring at one another, he finally speaks.

“We are crooked things in this world.” His voice is a soft, brutal blow. “Bent, gnarled, twisted things.” It sounds like a line from a poem I don’t know.

Tears well up in my eyes. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means get off your knees.”

“It does not.” I swipe angrily at a traitorous tear.

His jaw twitches. “You might be friends with Ben, but he clearly has feelings for you. And you just tried to blow his brother. I don’t hate him enough to let you. I’ve never hated him.” His words sink heavy weights inside my stomach, drifting down to the pits of my belly. He doesn’t even blink when he adds, “You’re very fucked up.”

Breath catches inside my lungs. Air is thin.

Charlie says, “We’re all fucked up in our own ways. I just can’t tell whether you’ll be the worst thing that ever happened to my brother or the best.”

“I—”

“What the fuck is going on?” Beckett’s smooth voice triggers an alarm in my body, but I am unnaturally frozen when I see him hovering in the doorway. I didn’t even hear him open the freaking door. He’s glancing between me and Charlie with so many corrosive questions in his narrowing eyes.

Both Charlie and I are on our knees, which doesn’t look great.Not that it’s any worse than what I had planned.What I had planned.Oh God. Oh fuck.

I jolt to my feet. My vision blurs with more hot tears. I embarrassed myself for what? Fornothing.It all meant nothing.

This was all for nothing.

I ruined…everything.

I run. Swiping my black messenger bag off the floor, I push past Beckett in the doorway and slip out of his grasp as he tries to catch me. “Harriet,” he calls out, then I hear him ask, “Charlie, what the fuck did you do?”

I’m a mess navigating the pathway of tipsy-turvy books. I trip over a stack, and I pull my messenger bag closer to my body.Righting myself, I stumble toward the front door where Eliot and Tom linger inside.

I reach for my leather jacket—just so I can cover my reddened, tear-streaked face from them—but my fingers only catch the fabric of my crop top. Nooo, fuck. I left my jacket in the parlor. There’s no chance I’m backtracking to retrieve it.

“Are you crying?” Eliot asks with darkening eyes. His head whips toward the pathway I just barreled through. “What happened?” He’s about to rush into the danger that he thinks I met and escaped.

I say nothing. I sprint past Eliot and Tom like my feet have caught fire.

Ben is going to know. Charlie is going to tell him. Bile rises and sears my throat as I push out the front door into the warm, muggy night. Rain drizzles on the stone steps. On the stoop, I do my best to inhale a single breath.

I tried to blow his brother.

I’m very fucked up.

I would have done it had Charlie not dropped to his knees.

I would have done it.

I would have.

My heart beats so forcefully, and it takes me a moment to realize the five men casually standing on the sidewalk are the Cobalt brothers’ bodyguards. They’re all turning toward me like I’m a wet, stray cat that just scampered from the building.

Avoiding eye contact, I jog down the steps, and my boots hit the sidewalk.

“Harriet!” Eliot calls after me.

“I’m fine!” I yell into the night air at him. At security. At anyone who cares so they won’t follow me. They don’t need to chase me down. I’m fine.Fine.

I tried to blow Ben’s older brother—when, really, I think I’m falling for Ben. But I’m fine.