He's a cynic. She's a romantic. One deal, one wedding, and one gigantic secret stand between them.
**
Harper Lane wants to believe in true love. After her parents split, she began photographing evidence of it. Couples holding hands. Valentine's Day...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Lawson stood outside the auto-repair shop.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected Haz's workplace to look like. Grubby, maybe. Oil slicked across the floor, men in dirty dungarees smoking cigars outside. But the shop was full of towering windows and gleaming black cars, and it looked like the sort of place where you'd be offered a glass of champagne upon entry.
Then again, Lawson thought, pushing through the front door, this was a luxury repair shop, so maybe he ought to have set his expectations higher. A man — mustached, wearing a suit, late fifties — looked up from his clipboard as Lawson entered.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
Lawson leaned against the counter. "I'm looking for Haz."
The man gave him a blank look.
"Harry?" Lawson tried. "Harold? He works here."
The man's expression cleared. "Oh, Cupid. Yeah. Go upstairs, first door on your left."
"Cheers," Lawson said.
He took the stairs two at a time, half-expecting to barge into a stranger's office. Haz was the least likely person to have the nickname Cupid. Lucifer, perhaps, Lawson mused; that would have been a closer fit.
Lawson pushed open the door. "Granville? I have your tie. You left it at the—" He stopped dead. "Jesus."
Every surface was covered in cards. The desk, the walls, the floor... Lawson blinked, staring at the little doodles and glittery pens and order forms. It took him a moment to process what he was seeing.
Villager cards.
"There is a thing in polite society," Haz said dryly, "called knocking."
He was hunched over the desk. Haz was dressed in his usual uniform — black jeans and a black hoodie — and oil stained his hands. The pink glittery pen clutched in his fingers looked oddly jarring, like a Valentine's Day card at a funeral.
"Did you make all of these?" Lawson asked.
Haz didn't answer, but the look on his face was enough.
"I don't understand," Lawson said.
Haz set down the pen. "Which part?"
"How? Why?"
"Pretty simple." Haz swiveled his chair around, his legs splayed out in front of him. "I started about three years ago. And I made a fuck ton of money, so I kept going. Now I make even more money." He shrugged. "That's capitalism for you."
"Villager." Realization struck him. "It's an anagram, isn't it? For your surname. Granville. And the oil stains on your hands..." Lawson shook his head. He was such an idiot; they were ink, obviously. "Do you actually work at the garage?"
