Page 69 of Snow Storm

“Where is this coming from?”

Harley’s gaze darted away. “I talked to my brother today.”

“And he called you this?”

“No,” Harley said with a bitter laugh. “No. He said my ex has been saying stuff about me online, and he told me not to look?—”

“So the first thing you did was investigate,” Claude finished for him. In spite of the shitty circumstances, he was overcome with affection and joy that he knew his lover well enough to predict him.

Harley bowed his head. “I know I should have just blocked the thought and moved on.”

“But you didn’t.”

Harley buried his face in Claude’s chest. “No.”

Tightening his arms around his lover, Claude held him for a good, long while. And when his body had finally relaxed, he stroked a hand up and down his spine. “What did he say?”

Harley scoffed and lifted his head. “He wrote an entire exposé about his relationship with me. And, like, eighty percent of it was bullshit. He also conveniently left off the fact that he was screwing our therapist and is now engaged to him and planning to have our wedding but withhimas the groom.”

Claude jolted. He hadn’t realized Harley’s relationship with Darren had been that serious. He knew he’d been engaged, but the whole wedding was planned? Harley didn’t seem broken over it though. Not like a man who was in love enough to get married should have been.

Was that why Darren was calling him a sociopath?

“May I read it?”

Harley’s shoulders hunched up toward his ears. “What if you think he’s got some good points? If it’s true, I’ll see someone for it. I’d never want to be in a relationship if what he said about me is right. And I’m freaking out because maybe I was blind to my faults for all these years, and?—”

“Mon âme.”

Harley stopped talking and swallowed heavily. “Yeah?”

“Someone who is all of those things—who has those traits, who doesn’t feel emotions or guilt or empathy—they rarely question that about themselves. I’m not an expert. I won’t pretend to be one, and if you want to talk to someone about it, you should. But from what I’ve seen so far, that’s not you. I think your ex saw you were happier without him—that you werelovedwithout him—and he wanted to hurt you.”

Harley closed his eyes and laid his head back down. “That’s what I told myself. But then I got scared.”

“You have every right to feel scared, but I wouldn’t take risks with my heart on someone I thought might not treat it kindly.”

Harley let out a soft hum and turned his face, kissing Claude over the beat of his heart. “I’d like you to read it. But…maybe not ’til later?”

“Whenever you want. Why don’t I take the rest of the day off, and you and I can be together.”

Harley’s head shot up. “But you said you had work. I don’t want to screw anything up for you.”

“Someone pointed to me that I’ve neglected myself a lot over the years and that maybe now that I’ve found someone good and worthy of my time, I should be focusing on that for a little while.”

“And you agree?”

Claude smiled and leaned down to kiss him. “Yes,” he said against Harley’s lips. “I very much agree.”

Harley wanted some space to himself, so he went to the room he was no longer really using, and Claude went to his office. He paced for as long as his legs could stand it, and then he sat in his chair and spun from side to side until he gave in to the pressing need to find out what this monster had said about the man he loved.

And Harley was the man he loved.

It took him all of twenty-eight seconds to find the article. It had been shared by smaller news sources—some as op-ed, some as smear campaigns who tended to latch on to celebrity gossip when the coffers were running low. The article was poorly written—flowery prose in an attempt to make Harley’s ex sound more intelligent and cover up the fact that he was projecting.

Because it was very, very obvious that the man capable of doing all those things to Harley was, in fact, the one who lacked basic empathy and the ability to be kind. Anabelle had hurt him in ways he still didn’t have words for, but she’d hated herself for it more than he ever hated her.

This was a man who was thriving off the spotlight at the expense of a man who didn’t deserve it. And Claude was very much done with this whole mess. He wasn’t a man with a lot of pull or even a lot of money. But he did know someone who might have connections.

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