Mr. King [Book 1]

Forty-Three

Harrison King grew up in Manchester, England. He was the only boy of three children – his father, Michael King's successor – the only one to pass the family business on to. Sure his sisters could do it, but his father was a proud man and there wasn't anything more honorable than passing on his legacy to his only son.

Harrison didn't give a shit about the business as a teenager. He had a fuck you attitude and really only cared about screwing women and skirting around on his father's money. It wasn't until he turned twenty-one that he finally accepted his fate, and by the age of twenty-eight he was almost single-handedly in charge of his father's entire empire, especially after his father suffered a heart attack and almost didn't make it.

By then, Harrison was already a master of his own universe and perfectly capable of taking on the position of CEO, making him one of the youngest in his field. He was already labeled one of the youngest billionaires in the world, which really was just words and money. He liked the extravagances, sure. But like most men his age, he was certain he could get by on much less.

When Katherine Mason strolled through his door he was instantly intrigued. She was beautiful and had an air of mystery about her. He wanted to peel back her layers one-by-one to see what was underneath. And he did in many senses.

He found her to be a naïve, intelligent, caring, head-strong, beautiful woman. Everything she did pulled him in. She'd ruin his belongings, and instead of just making him angry, it made him more interested.

The second she stepped foot into his fortress, his apartment in the sky, he knew he wanted to bed her. He knew he would fuck her into oblivion if she let him. He never did something like that before – not with anyone under his direct employment, but for some reason he knew he would have her.

And that first time, on his dining room table, after wrestling with his deviant thoughts for longer than he cared to admit, he took her, he owned her and she purred for him. She was his. And he had to have her over and over. Every time he was with her he lost another little piece of himself to her, to his addiction.

The night he bent her until she broke, the night she exploded on him, he knew his life was spiraling all over again. He knew he was on a dark and narrow path, but he thought she might be the one to bring him back to the light. And maybe she did for a little while.

He snapped the fuck out of his perversion when he realized how upset she was, how tormented she looked. He almost felt the beating of his heart again. And then he woke up in her bed the next morning, her scent, her warmth, her everything right at his fingertips.

And just like that, his heart beat heavily in his chest. So much so that he could feel it in his ears, in his throat, in every appendage. He knew he would be nothing without her. He knew his career, his fortune, his whole life meant nothing if he didn't have her.

He called Ava, his mentor, that morning because he knew he was spiraling and he knew he needed to rein himself in before he took it way, way too far. Ava always knew how to bring him back from the brink.

When Katherine walked in with Ava sitting there on his couch with him a few days later, Harrison saw the jealousy in her eyes. He saw the twisting in her pupils, the set line of her jaw. She thought he was sleeping with the older woman sitting next to him, even though he wasn't, he never did.

But his anxiety over what he was kept him from clearing the air. He just let Katherine believe things that were so far from the truth.

The next morning, Katherine collapsed in his arms and was rushed to the hospital. The doctor told her she suffered a miscarriage. A miscarriage of his baby. It was the only explanation. She wasn't sleeping with anyone else. It was his child. He was the father. And he accused her of getting pregnant on purpose, even though she wasn't that type of girl. He knew that.

She was too pure, too caring, her heart too big. She didn't want anything from him, other than maybe his company, his bed. But he was too hard, too brash, too stubborn to allow her entrance, to let her worm her way into his charcoal heart.

The guilt hit him hard. The guilt of it all. Something so foreign to him. She lost the baby she was carrying only days after he brought her to the brink of torture – torture in her mind anyway. He didn't see anything wrong with the situation, but then again he wasn't the best judge of that sort of thing.

He was like a shark in blood-infested waters when his libido was running the show. He lost control too many times to know he would never be a good judge of what was appropriate. Not only with her, but with countless women before her. He was a lothario in the truest form and he knew it.

What it all boiled down to was that he was the reason for her hospital stay. He was the reason for the blood between her legs, the blood that stained her sheets. He was the reason for the loss of life. And something about that broke him worse than he knew he already was. He was the lowest form of life and he knew she deserved so much better.

When she confronted him in his office, after days of him avoiding her, he knew it was inevitable. He knew she would come air her grievances like she had done with him before. He just didn't expect his icy exterior to hold so well.

His heart beat for her, warm and true, trapped behind his iron-clad rib cage, underneath his stone shoulders. His heart was on fire for her. He was sure to burn like a phoenix for her and rise from the ashes, becoming a new man, a man she could see herself with in the end.

But when he stood firm, his expression stony, his regard for her feelings indifferent, his ego too fragile, too much of a mess to fight against, he knew he really fucked everything up. She threw her resignation in his face like it was the last nail in his coffin, hammering it shut tightly, assuring he would never be free from his cold, unresponsive disposition.

When he saw her in the lobby the day she left, Mr. Bates toting along her belongings, Harrison stayed tight-lipped, the last bit of hope for her to stay, for her to reconcile with him left him without hope of returning. She was gone. She left him. He fucked it up beyond repair and he knew it. She wouldn't be his.

Eight days passed. Eight long, lonely days without Miss Mason's sunny disposition infiltrating the confines of his home. Eight long days where the guilt nearly ate him alive when the silence crept in. He stayed unimaginably busy with work, with his new position of CEO, but it was exhausting. It was exhausting not having her.