Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,275

have been Ethan’s handwriting.

I had to leave early and didn’t want to wake you. If things were different, I would be waking up with you every morning and never leaving. But things are what they are. Try not to live in your head too much…

-E

Chapter

It had been three weeks since she got back from her vacation and it was as if she’d never left. Sometimes it felt like it had just been a dream, but the way her body ached for days after told her it was all real.

Ethan had been real.

She’d gone to Tahiti to forget her life for a week and he’d made sure that for one night, she’d forgotten her own name. There were a few moments of regret, when she wished she’d gotten his number, and perhaps some lingering betrayal that he hadn’t even said goodbye in person.

But maybe he really had been thinking that it was easier to do it the way he did. And maybe he was right.

Regardless, she was filled with her own concerns about life in the present, life in the real world, where paradise was as far away as the North Pole.

Every single day since she’d been back had been filled with lawyers and press conferences and prepared statements.

Not hers.

Harper wasn’t allowed to speak to the media about her father, but her parents insisted that she be there at their sides during every single interview. To show solidarity. It didn’t matter if Harper thought her father was wrong or right, she had to put on a smile and do nothing. Say nothing.

Today they were on their way to the courthouse. In the town car, her father, Bud Matheson, was going over the cards his publicity manager had given him. Huge crowds were expected to be waiting, mostly to throw insults, Harper was sure.

That’s what happened when you swindled millions of dollars from people. They kind of hated you for it. Truthfully, so did she. They hadn’t needed the money. Her father was a very successful investor with a half billion-dollar portfolio.

They all lived in a beautiful townhouse in Back Bay, had a house on the West Coast, a chalet in Europe and several penthouse apartments around the world. Some people collected cars or antiques, her father collected houses.

So why had he felt the need to create the biggest Ponzi scheme in history to rob people of their money? She had no idea, but the fact that he did, that he didn’t give a shit about her mother or Harper or how this would affect them, made her hate him.

And because of his unparalleled greed, everything was at risk. By the time the courts were done with him, they might have nothing left.

Actually, less than nothing, since her father could potentially owe far more money than any of them would ever be able to earn in ten lifetimes.

The only reason she was even sitting in the car with them, on the way to listen to her father’s lawyers try and argue for a new venue for his hearing, was because of her mother. She might look calm and put together on the outside, but all of this had taken a toll on her.

Harper’s mother’s eyes had lost their sparkle, though she kept her head held high. Harper thought a part of her mother believed her father when he said he wasn’t trying to screw anyone over. That it was just a failed business model.

If she did, it was out of desperation—and Harper wasn’t desperate enough to fall for his empty excuses.

She reached out and took her mother’s hand, gave it a squeeze. Her mother glanced over and smiled in return. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“Everything’s going to be okay. This will all get settled and things will go back to normal,” her mother said.

Her denial was driving Harper crazy. Sometimes she just wanted to grab her mother’s shoulders and shake her and demand that she open her eyes. See that the only thing her father thought he did wrong was to get caught.

And Harper didn’t have the heart to force her mother to see that, not when she was holding on to sanity by such a thin thread as it was.

The car glided to a stop and Harper took a deep breath. The steps to the courthouse were a mob of reporters and people with pickets.

The signs said things like No Mercy for the 1% or Put Him in Prison and Throw Away The Key.

“Remember, don’t say a word.” Her father’s deep