More Than Anything (Broken Pieces 1)

The door was ajar, and she was about to push it open when she heard her name and paused.

“Man, I can’t believe you fucked Tina Jenson,” the male voice said with an incredulous laugh. She recognized it as Jonah Spade’s voice. She had never liked him; he was a misogynist who treated women like they were disposable. Tina shifted so that she could see into the room and spotted Harris sprawled on his father’s leather sofa, one of the older man’s expensive Cuban cigars clenched between his even white teeth. He was barefoot and wore only his faded jeans, with his pale-blue shirt unbuttoned, leaving his magnificent chest on display. He didn’t say anything in response to Jonah’s comment, merely grunting as he lit the cigar.

“Fuck, I don’t know if it was worth it, dude. No amount of money could entice me to touch that with a ten-foot pole.” This gem came from Schaeffer Higgins, another elite asshole. Tina’s heart dropped as his words sank in, and her trembling hand lifted to her mouth as the implication hit her.

Her eyes scanned the rest of the room. There were three other guys present. None of them the kind of people she would consider nice. In fact, she wasn’t sure why Harris was even with them—they weren’t his usual crowd. There was no sign of Smith or Greyson or any of his regular cohorts.

“How did you manage not to puke after fucking that fat freak, Harris? Was it like sticking your dick into a marshmallow?” Jonah asked.

“Soft and gooey, right?” Schaeffer chuckled.

“Soft,” Harris said, his voice almost absent as he stared at the lit tip of his cigar. The other guys brayed with laughter, and Tina felt the first scalding tears hit her cheeks.

“Here’s your money, bro—you fucking earned it!” One of the guys tossed a note at Harris, and he stared down at it like it was something completely unrecognizable.

“Whaaa . . . ,” he began to say, his voice sounding thick and slurred. God, he was completely wasted. How had she not seen that before? He had seemed so lucid earlier. Could he have gotten this drunk since leaving her asleep in the room? She doubted it.

This explained why he had approached her in the first place. She had been so naive and stupid to believe he could have been stone-cold sober and still want her. She should have known the entire “romantic” encounter had been too good to be true. The only way Harrison Chapman would ever want Tina Jenson was if he were drunk or high out of his mind.

That seemed about right.

Tina felt used and cheap and so, so humiliated. Her heart shattered into a million pieces, and she mourned the loss of the boy she had idolized. A boy she now knew had never really existed.

The guys bantered back and forth a little longer, all expressing varying degrees of disgust that Harris had had sex with her. Harris himself said very little, his focus still on his cigar. Tina tried to tear herself away, but it felt like her feet were made of lead. She could only stand there punishing herself by listening to their vile garbage. When she realized that they were heading toward the door, she finally forced herself into action and fled, hiding in one of the bedrooms while she listened to them laughingly make their way down the stairs. She waited until she was sure they were all gone and then crept out of the room like a thief.

The study door was wide open. As she once again attempted to pass the room, a slight movement in her peripheral vision snagged her notice. She stopped without thinking, her attention shifting fully to the room, and she was horrified to meet Harris’s slightly unfocused gaze. He was still sprawled on the sofa with the cigar caught between his cruelly beautiful lips. Those lips curved upward at the corners when—after a mortifying moment that lacked anything resembling recognition in his gaze—he finally seemed to figure out who he was looking at.

“Heeeeey,” he said around the cigar, drawing out the syllable in a way that only confirmed that he was under the influence of something. She hadn’t tasted or smelled much alcohol when they had kissed and stuff earlier, so that left some kind of narcotic. Harris had been known to take a puff of something recreational now and then but never enough to impair him this much. And as far as Tina knew, he’d stopped indulging after his eighteenth birthday. All things considered, Harris and Greyson were usually pretty good representatives of clean and healthy living.

Harris pushed himself clumsily to his feet and, after a slight stumble, walked toward her without his usual predatory grace, coming to a standstill directly in front of her. He swayed slightly before lifting his hand and cupping her jaw with casual tenderness, not noticing—or, more likely, not caring—when she flinched away from his touch. He dragged his thumb over her lower lip and kept his eyes intently focused on her mouth.