Part 2His Heartbeat Belongs To My Mother

To be fair, I’d thought Declan was out of his mind since the day we met.

It was a suffocatingly elegant charity gala in the Hills. The room was packed with tailored tuxedos and polite, synchronized smiles.

Declan, sporting bleached-blonde hair that screamed trust-fund rebellion, had just ruthlessly smashed a champagne flute over the host’s head—who happened to be his illegitimate half-brother.

As he walked away from the bleeding man, he passed me. I was frozen by a pillar. Misinterpreting my shock, he paused to offer a twisted kind of comfort.

“Pretty color, right? His head matches his tie now.”

At his words, my eyes welled with tears. I stared intently at his face—a face I had researched endlessly, stared at through a phone screen late into the night—before my gaze slowly, inexorably dropped to his chest.

Without thinking, I whispered, “How is your heart doing?”

Declan blinked, taken aback, and then let out a sharp laugh. “I’ll give you points for originality, sweetheart. Never been hit on quite like that.”

He gave me a lazy, mocking wave. “I’m busy today. But I’ll take you for a drive sometime.”

It was just a careless, throwaway line to him. But from that moment on, I glued myself to his side. I shadowed him, catered to his moods, obsessed over his diet, his sleep, his stress.

Eventually, he cornered me in his penthouse and said, “You’re in love with me, Harper.”

He said it with absolute, unbreakable certainty.

I thought about it for a long moment before answering honestly. “If caring about your body and your heart is a form of love, then yes. I love you.”

Because taking the shape of a “girlfriend” gave me the access I needed to protect him. To monitor him.

So, I was willing to play the part. Naturally, we became a couple.

But Declan was a terrible boyfriend, entirely enabled by my relentless compliance. At first, I tried to gently steer him away from the adrenaline-junkie lifestyle he craved. He’d smirk, promise to be careful, and then go cliff diving in Maui or street racing down the winding Malibu canyons anyway.

Over time, my nagging annoyed him. So, he dumped me.

Just like that, he vanished from my orbit.

I couldn’t accept it. I went to every single one of his wealthy, snide friends, begging for his location until I finally tracked him down to a VIP room at a club.

Knowing I was outside, his friends brought me up just to watch the show.

That was when I heard him say it, cigarette between his lips: “She’s like a stray dog... I bet she’d take a bullet for me.”

I pushed the door open. Ignoring the mocking stares of the room, I walked right up to him. I lowered my voice, stripping away my dignity. “Please don’t push me away. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Declan stared at me for a long, suffocating minute before letting out a dark chuckle. “Alright. As long as you learn how to behave.”

From that night on, in the eyes of his social circle, I ceased to be Harper Hayes. I became a punchline. Declan Cross’s pathetic lapdog.

But I didn’t care. As long as I could stay by his side, as long as Declan kept breathing, that was enough.