Chapter 22: Judgement

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CHAPTER 22

I wake up the next morning with a massive hangover, which is unsurprising but still hurts like hell. I throw off my covers and stumble into the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water and a couple aspirin. After taking the pills I search the apartment for Rose, and smile a little to myself when I discover she's no where to be found. She must have stayed the night at Edward's.

My grandmother really did end up getting more action than me last night.

I scowl and plop back onto the couch, crossing my legs over each other. Though my memory of last night is slightly blurred, I remember me and Harry's conversation in the limo before he dropped me off, even though what happened before that is questionable. The only thing from last night that's perfectly clear in my mind is that Harry is scared.

Harry is scared to kiss me again, not only because I'm his assistant, but because Harry is scared of relationships. Harry is scared is having something beyond a hook-up.

Harry is scared of falling in love.

I pull up my laptop and pull up Google, my cursor blinking impatiently in the search bar. It's ridiculous, what I'm about to type in, but I do it anyways. My fingers click against the keys until my question appears on the screen.

How do you make a man fall in love with you?

I hesitate but finally press the search button. I chew nervously on my bottom lip until the results pop up. Most of them are blogs, written by forty year old women with a little too much self confidence. I frown at most of their suggestions, which include seduction and other things like that. But I don't want to seduce Harry. All he needs is a little persuasion.

Persuasion...

It's like a light bulb goes off over my head. At the very moment the word persuasion pops into my head, I see an ad for custom subliminal message CDs. At first I'm confused at what exactly a custom subliminal message CD is, but when I click on the link I'm greeted with a description.

All I have to do is give the company a list of messages I want to encode inside the background of the CD, and the company would send me a recording of relaxing ocean sounds that masked my hidden message. It's only $29.99 plus shipping and handling.

It's wrong, it's so wrong for me to be doing this. But I find myself clicking the next button anyways, the cursor waiting for me to start entering my messages. I take in a breath and begin typing.

If I'm in a relationship I'll be happier.

Leah is the best girl in the world, and she makes me feel great.

I pause my typing. What the hell. If I'm going to do this, I might as well go all out.

I'll be really happy if I'm with Leah.

I want to make love to Leah and spend every day and night with her.

I want to marry Leah Evans.

I hesitate for a full minute as I stare at the sentences I just typed, considering the ethics of brainwashing Harry into getting over his fear of being in a relationship with me. My better instincts are screaming at me to cancel my order and shut down my laptop, but I sit and study the screen instead.

I know a lot about hypnosis. My minor in college was psychology, after all. No amount of hypnosis can make someone do something that is morally repulsive to them. So it wouldn't be that terrible to use subconscious messages to push Harry to realize that there's no harm in us being together. And if he doesn't feel the same way, then the CD will have no effect on him. It won't hurt to try, right?

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