Page 39 of Crave: A Reverse Harem Romance

“You are not going to go to jail, Harlow.” He took his hand in mine, and I was surprised by how protective he felt. “I promise you. Look, you don’t even have to worry. I’ll take the fall with the police, okay? I’ll say I’m the one who hit him.”

“What? But… why would you do that?” I asked.

It was going to look way worse for him to have hit the guy than me. He wasn’t the one who was about to be assaulted. It wouldn’t look like self-defense for him. No doubt the cops were going to be way harder on him than me.

“Because I don’t like seeing you panic like this. Relax, I’ve got this.”

His driver pulled up to the club and parked.

I shook my head wildly. “No, Diesel, you can’t. It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

He smiled at me as he stepped out of the car quickly. “Don’t worry, Harlow. I’ve got this.”

He shut the door behind him, not letting me out right away. No doubt this was to give himself some time to go in and speak to the police before I could. I panicked as soon as he shut it.

It took me a bit to actually wriggle out of my seat. I was in heels, and the dress kept sticking a little bit to the leather. I crawled my way out of the car and opened the door, seeing that Diesel had been rushing and was already inside.

More panic rose up inside me.

No matter how afraid I was about how the police were going to react to my story, I absolutely wouldn’t have allowed Diesel to take the fall. I still didn’t even understand why he wanted to. We had just met, for crying out loud. Why was he willing to do this for me?

I rushed into Crave, trying not to trip over myself. Since I’d been coming to Crave in outfits like this so often lately, I had become a little smoother in high-heeled shoes. But I hadn’t tried running in them yet, and it was a bit of a struggle.

The guy at the door tried to stop me. “Hey, you can’t just walk in there—” he muttered.

“I’m with Diesel,” I responded, surprising myself with how calm and assertive I sounded. This was definitely a new side of me that had come along with being more sexually adventurous lately.

He only nodded in response, allowing me through with no problem.

When I got in, my eyes scanned the club for Diesel. I saw him over to the far right, off in a dimly lit corner, and he was already speaking to two cops.

I rushed over, catching the tail end of his sentence. Diesel looked surprised to see me there so fast.

“Well, after I swung at him and he let the woman loose, he was pretty pissed. I didn’t hit him again, I was only trying to get him off of her, but he swung more and we got into a bigger scuffle.”

“And who was the woman?” one of the cops asked.

“Me,” I spoke up. It was the perfect moment for me to jump into the conversation so that I could keep Diesel from saying what he wanted.

One of the officers looked at me. “And your name?”

“Harlow Grey,” I told him.

“Can you tell me in your own words what happened tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah, of course. I came to Crave tonight with a friend of mine.” I considered whether or not to include the part where I hooked up with Ryker, but it seemed pretty irrelevant, so I just left it out. “I was going to meet her at the dance floor, but this guy came up and grabbed me. He started dragging me out toward the back exit of the club that led to the alleyway and I was kicking and yelling for him to let me go, but he refused. Nobody could hear me over the loud music, but then, right as he had stepped the both of us outside, Diesel here came running and punched him in the face. I was able to get away, so I went back inside but realized that one of my shoes had come off. When I went back out to get it, I saw the two of them were on the ground and the guy who attacked me was punching Diesel ruthlessly. He was about to smash a bottle over his head, so I grabbed this pipe and hit him over the head with it. And he just… fell.”

There. Take that, Diesel. There was nothing he could say now.

Of course, my heart was speeding as I waited for some judgment from the officer. Was I going to get in trouble for this?

Thankfully, no judgment came. “Okay,” he said as he wrote it down.

“I really didn’t want to hurt the guy,” I told him. “I just didn’t want him to hurt Diesel.”

“Don’t worry,” the other cop said. “It seems like self-defense to us. We just needed to get a straight story about what happened.”

I nodded nervously.

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