Chapter Thirty-Eight
Moonlight streamed through the window, sharp and pale in the cloudless spring sky, illuminating Verity where she slept on top of him. She was warm. Something Theo cherished, waking like this, her soft body lying against his, warming him from the outside in. It was bliss.
They had argued, yes, and some things still needed resolving, but one thing she agreed on was not doing anything so reckless again.
At least, not without talking it through first. They were a team now.
They had to be. They would survive this no other way.
Hopefully, she was beginning to understand that.
His fingers curled through her hair, his sleeping angel, when there was a knock at the front door.
“You’re gonna want to get that," Jesse called from the lounge.
Theo wasn’t sure when his brother had come back.
He enjoyed having him around, but it would be nice to have some alone time with Verity once this was over.
They could be together. That thought filled him with both warmth and fear in equal measure.
There were conversations they should already have had: conversations about life and death, about children, and growing old.
Marriage, taking him home to meet her parents, holidays together.
The list was endless, all the things he wouldn’t be able to give her.
All the things she deserved and he couldn’t provide.
She wanted this. He wanted this. They’d cross those bridges when they came to them.
He knew he should be prioritising the plan, not having an existential crisis, when the knock at the door came again. He groaned, rolling out of bed, wondering why his brother couldn’t just answer the door himself.
He pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and, with one last look at the woman asleep in his bed, headed for the front door.
It was a human, he could tell by the steady, middle-aged heartbeat, slightly elevated with nerves or climbing the stairs, or both. Not a threat, or the doorman would have called up. He opened the door.
The man looked to be in his late fifties, grey hair, heavy stubble, a folded newspaper in his hand. He straightened his back when Theo appeared.
“Good evening,” the man said. “May I speak with my daughter, please?”
Theo’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Stared at the man who was waiting for him to go and fetch his daughter, the daughter who was currently naked in his bed.
“Mr Harper,” he managed, unable to remember his first name. “How lovely to meet you. I’m... why don’t you come through?”
He waved a hand towards the lounge, knowing that if he went to collect Verity right now, he would have to walk into his bedroom, and from the angle of the door Mr Harper would see the bed, maybe even a foot sticking out beneath the covers.
“I’m fine here, thank you,” her father said.
“No, please, I insist.” Theo smiled, trying to sound casual, and stepped back to let him in.
After a moment’s hesitation he followed, letting Theo lead him into the lounge where Jesse sprawled on the sofa, texting.
“Get up,” Theo said through gritted teeth and a forced smile.
“Brian!” Jesse said, beaming, sitting up and extending a hand. “So lovely to meet you.”
Of course, Jesse knew his name. Of course, he’d known who was on the other side of that door and sent him to open it, unprepared. Theo was going to kill him.
“Mr Harper, Brian, this is my brother Jesse,” Theo said, watching Jesse shake the man’s hand with entirely too much enthusiasm. “Please, sit down. Can I get you anything?”
Brian Harper stood in the middle of the lounge with his arms folded, giving them a look that could strip paint.
Theo excused himself and slipped back to the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
“Verity,” he hissed. “Verity!”
She rolled over and smiled at him, clearly unaware that her father was on the other side of the wall.
Sweeping her hair over one shoulder, she presented her neck with slow blinks and a seductive smile. “Is that Jesse? I was hoping we might have a little…”
“Your dad’s here.”
The smile fell from her face.
“My dad?” she said.
He nodded.
“My dad is here?”
He nodded again.
“My dad is here,” she repeated, as if testing whether the words made sense.
“He doesn’t look very happy,” Theo offered.
“Does he know?”
Theo shrugged, though it seemed fairly obvious that he knew something, or he wouldn’t be standing in the lounge.
“Oh gods!” Verity rolled out of bed and lunged for a dress.
“Oh gods.” She pulled it on, raked her fingers through her hair, checked her reflection, and clocked the bite mark at her neck.
She tugged her hair over her shoulder to cover it, though at this point it felt somewhat futile.
With a broad, deeply unconvincing smile, she rested her hand on the door handle, took a deep breath, and opened it.
“Dad!”
“Don’t you ‘Dad’ me,” her father said.
“I...”
“You what?” He held up the newspaper, and Verity gasped.
Theo was across the room before he’d decided to move, taking the paper from the man’s hand and staring at the front page. Two photographs: one of him, he didn’t know when it had been taken, but he wasn’t smiling, and one of Verity, probably from before they met. Sweet. Perfect. Human.
He read the headline and his blood went cold.
“Disgraced Lord Mayor takes advantage of young donor in illegal relationship.”
He read on. Whoever had written it knew about the complaints to the Vital Exchange, though only the one Verity had supposedly made about him was mentioned.
Quotes from people who he knew would never have given interviews.
One from Harris, claiming Theo had allowed the city to slide into disrepute for decades.
One from David at the support group, saying Verity had complained about Theo for months and that he was known for improper relations with donors.
The paper was snatched from his hands. He looked up to find Jesse holding it, face holding a blankness that few men saw twice.
“What is this?” Jesse said.
Brian Harper started to speak, but Verity took her father’s hands. “It isn’t true, I swear.” Brian cocked an eyebrow. “Well, the relationship bit might be true, but it isn’t what they’re saying.”
“Verity,” her dad said. “I think you should come home.”
“No. I’m not going home. I’m helping.”
“We told you not to join...” Her father trailed off, looking between them both. Theo realised how little he knew about her family’s feelings on the Exchange, on donation, on any of it. They told her not to?
Verity had been desperate when she applied, she’d told him as much.
No one would give her a chance, until her application crossed Harris’s desk and he’d agreed to it.
He’d set them on this path, and Theo found himself unbearably grateful for that.
A journalist, known for digging where she shouldn’t, handed to a Lord Mayor who wasn’t digging enough.
Maybe Harris thought he was creating a problem.
Maybe he knew it was the only way to save them.
“Dad, I swear I’m okay here,” Verity said. “I’m safe. We’ve got the Ostara festival in a few days, and hopefully once that’s done things will settle.”
“Then why does this article say…”
“Because someone is trying to split us up,” Verity said simply. She looked at Theo, and he found himself speaking before he’d planned to.
“I understand your apprehension, Mr Harper,” he said.
“But I swear I will do right by your daughter. I know this isn’t conventional.
But I love her.” Verity turned to look at him, and the smile she gave him was softer than any he’d seen from her, real, not the fake one she’d offered her father.
“This article isn’t true. I promise you that. ”
Brian Harper shook his head slowly. “I don’t like this,” he said, looking at his daughter. “I don’t like any of this.”
“I know, Dad. I’m sorry. But I want to stay here. Theo and I, we’re good together. Whoever wrote this is trying to split us up and I won’t let them.”
Her father was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked at Theo with an expression that sat somewhere between a scowl and resignation.
“I won’t give you the whole ‘if you hurt my daughter’ speech,” he said. “Because let’s face it, there’s not much I could do about it.” He paused. “But please don’t.”
“By every god there is,” Theo said, “I swear I will take care of her.”
Brian nodded, once, heavily. “Well. Gods help whoever wrote that article. And gods help whoever tries to tell my daughter what to do.”
“It is a losing battle,” Theo agreed, and the man almost smiled.
Verity hugged her father tight. “Tell Mum I’m okay.”
“Your mother’s going to kill me,” he muttered into her hair. He kissed her head and straightened up, giving Theo one last look, not quite warm, not quite cold, before heading for the door.
“We should have a family dinner,” he said, his hand on the door. “Once all this has calmed down.”
For the second time in ten minutes, Theo found himself lost for words. A warm hand slid into his, and he remembered himself enough to nod.
“I’d like that very much,” he said.
Brian looked at their joined hands, sighed, and left.
“What the fuck,” Verity said, the moment the door closed, marching back into the lounge and snatching the paper. “How did they even get these photos? Why would...?”
“To discredit me,” Theo said. “If they spin a narrative that I’m taking advantage of you; if I’m disgraced; if I can’t be trusted, I lose my job.
I won’t be meeting with Petra. I won’t be leaving this apartment.
” Another thought landed, colder still. “If the Roses take this the wrong way… I might have to leave Havenshire.”
“It isn't even a local paper,” Verity said, staring at the front page. “It’s county-wide.”
Theo had already noticed and didn’t want to think about what it would do to his reputation, to Ashhaven, to his city. He said nothing.
Jesse looked up from his phone. “The story’s everywhere,” he said. “A couple of papers have run it as a sweet little love story, two people falling in love across the donor divide. Most of them haven’t. They’re pretty scathing about both of you.”
“Both of us?” Verity asked.
“Stonehaven’s written one about how you can’t be trusted and you manipulate people for personal gain.”
“That’s my old paper,” Verity murmured, leaning over to see. “I suppose they’re holding a grudge.”
“Jesse,” Theo said. “What do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Jesse was silent, an answer in itself. He knew more than he was letting on.
“It’s okay,” Verity said, and Theo looked at her.
“If all of these papers are running contradictory stories, no one will know what to believe.” She held up one of the other articles on Jesse’s phone.
A photo, a surveillance camera still, him helping her out of a car at SubRosa, her smiling up at him.
“This one says we make a cute couple. I’ll take that.
” She set it down and looked at the two of them.
“We’ve got two days until Petra arrives. ”
Theo nodded.
“Well then,” Verity said, with the particular look that meant her brain was already three steps ahead. “This has given me an idea.”
An hour later and everyone had their jobs.
Theo was making phone calls, demanding to know why Talbot happened to be at City Hall when he caught Verity sneaking out.
Considering what she’d just stolen, he was all but certain it was a setup.
Falsified documents planted and retrieved within a matter of minutes.
The only question he needed answering was whether he went on a tip off, or whether he was aware of the role he played.
Theo leaned towards the latter, with the day-commissioner playing a game he didn’t understand.
While Theo made call after call, Jesse was out, finding out what he could about the nose-ringed, man-bunned donor who had planted the documents in Harris’s office. They searched the register for him but came up short, so Jesse went to see what he could find.
And Verity… Well, Verity was in her natural habitat, writing.
She’d been clattering away at his laptop since the plan had been agreed, an array of emotions crossing her face as she typed, as if living the words she wrote.
Every now and then she’d pause, asking questions, wanting her facts to be undeniable.
Theo didn’t want to distract her, but her very presence was stealing his attention. Turning her head, she stared off into the distance searching for words, messy hair framing her face as her eyes roamed the room before landing on him. She rose her eyebrows in question when he didn’t look away.
“You’ve got messages,” he said, waving the phone at her.
“Anything I want to hear?” she asked.
“Only a few have dropped out,” he told her, sitting beside her at the island and checking her list of vendors for the Ostara Festival.
Most people truly didn’t realise what was going on in their city and were excited to continue with preparations.
Theo crossed three names off the list before wrapping his arms around Verity, breathing in her hair.
She rocked side to side, burrowing into him and Theo relished the peace.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Verity said, and Theo stilled. “You know the source? The one that gave Harris the reports?”
Theo hummed in answer.
“I know who it is,” she said. “I think I’m the one the spooked her.”
He stayed still, holding her. That must have been a week ago, and only now she was telling him? She promised no more secrets, but how much had she already hidden from him?
“I only realised it was her after… Harris caught us, we’ve barely had a moment alone since,” she said.
“I…” she paused and Theo moved to lean against the counter looking at her.
He tucked a stray hair behind her ear, hoping that she would continue without him pushing.
“I didn’t want to mention her in front of Jesse. ”
“Ah.” It made sense, Theo knew how people took his brother, he knew what his brother was like. It was no wonder Verity was apprehensive. If he wasn’t Theo’s brother, he wasn’t sure he’d fully trust him either. “I understand,” he said, and Verity visibly relaxed.
“Do you think you could check on her? She knows to lie low but…”
“I’ll have a look into it but I’m not sure what I can do,” he said. The documents had come from Stonehaven, it was far from his jurisdiction, but he’d do what he could.
Verity found the name and phone number as the phone started ringing. Theo glanced down and smiled when he found Elliot calling.
“What is it?” Verity asked.
“Back up,” he told her.