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Tear You Apart
Megan Hart
I’m on a train. I don’t know which stop I got on at; I only know the train is going fast and the world outside becomes a blur. I should get off, but I don’t.The universe is playing a cosmic joke on me. Here I had my life – a good life with everything a woman could want – and suddenly, there is something more I didn’t know I could have. A chance for me to be satisfied and content and maybe even on occasion deliriously, amazingly, exuberantly fulfilled.So this is where I am, on a train that’s out of control, and I am not just a passenger. I’m the one shovelling the furnace full of coal to keep it going fast and faster. If I could make myself believe it all happened by chance and I couldn’t help it, that I’ve been swept away, that it’s not my fault, that it’s fate… would that be easier? The truth is, I didn’t know I was looking for this until I found Will, but I must’ve been, all this time.And now it is not random, it is not fate, it is not being swept away.This is my choice.And I don’t know how to stop.Or even if I want to.
Their passion will consume everything—and everyone—in its path….
I’m on a train.
I don’t know which stop I got on at; I only know the train is going fast and the world outside becomes a blur. I should get off, but I don’t. The universe is playing a cosmic joke on me. Here I had my life—a good life with everything a woman could want—and suddenly, there is something more I didn’t know I could have. A chance for me to be satisfied and content and maybe even on occasion deliriously, amazingly, exuberantly fulfilled.
So this is where I am, on a train that’s out of control, and I am not just a passenger. I’m the one shoveling the furnace full of coal to keep it going fast and faster.
If I could make myself believe it all happened by chance and I couldn’t help it, that I’ve been swept away, that it’s not my fault, that it’s fate...would that be easier? The truth is, I didn’t know I was looking for this until I found Will, but I must’ve been, all this time. And now it is not random, it is not fate, it is not being swept away.
This is my choice.
And I don’t know how to stop.
Or even if I want to.
Praise for the novels of
New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart
“Naked is a great story, steeped in emotion. Hart has a wonderful way with her characters.… She conveys their thoughts and actions in a manner that brings them to life. And the erotic scenes provide a sizzling read.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Deeper is absolutely, positively, the best book that I have read in ages! I cannot say enough about this book. The writing is fabulous, the characters’ chemistry is combustible, and the story line brought tears to my eyes more than once…. Beautiful, poignant and bittersweet… Megan Hart never disappoints me, but with Deeper she went above and beyond.”
—Romance Reader at Heart, Top Pick
“Stranger, like Megan Hart’s previous novels, is an action-packed, sexy, emotional romance that tears up the pages with heat while also telling a touching love story…. Stranger has a unique, hot premise that Hart delivers on fully.”
—Bestselling author Rachel Kramer Bussel
“[Broken] is not a traditional romance but the story of a real and complex woman caught in a difficult situation with no easy answers. Well-developed secondary characters and a compelling plot add depth to this absorbing and enticing novel.”
—Library Journal
“An exceptional story and honest characters make Dirty a must-read.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“[Hart] writes erotica for grown-ups. She doesn’t write sex just to titillate and she holds her characters to a higher standard. [The Space Between Us] is a quiet book, but it packed a major punch for me…. She’s a stunning writer, and this is a stunning book.”
—Super Librarian
Tear You Apart
Megan Hart
www.spice-books.co.uk (http://www.spice-books.co.uk)
For all those who have ever lost their will—
good night, and dream in color.
Contents
Chapter One (#uf30228a8-2d95-5211-82af-af7ee45027c8)
Chapter Two (#u028365e6-e33c-5988-898b-abf2f4196b3d)
Chapter Three (#u0caecb06-fc39-5378-99fd-50745eb628e6)
Chapter Four (#ubfb8c9fe-8140-5dd1-b2be-6c9f34161160)
Chapter Five (#ucb7c16a3-b454-5620-90e4-b90f15fff9d6)
Chapter Six (#u9540dd5c-da5e-5551-aa50-d793e8589992)
Chapter Seven (#u516cd22c-59d5-5a48-9f8f-807616434c7f)
Chapter Eight (#u00d267ac-be99-5a86-a6a1-81343e1422ca)
Chapter Nine (#u62be62b4-896d-5983-af2e-eaa468532fc9)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Playlist (#litres_trial_promo)
Rock Opera Playlist (#litres_trial_promo)
Sometimes love does not have the most honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in half. It’s everything in between we live for.
—Ann Patchett, from the essay The Sense of an Ending
This is a love story.
Chapter One
I came in on the train and then took a cab, but that didn’t stop the late March drizzle from destroying everything I’d carefully put together at home earlier this afternoon. My hair hangs sodden against my forehead and cheeks. My clothes cling, damp and heavy and chilled. I stripped off my dark, soaked stockings in the gallery bathroom and wrapped them in paper towels to tuck inside my purse, and my legs feel glaringly pale. Instead of the glass of white wine in my hand, I’m desperate for a cup of coffee, or better yet, a mug of hot chocolate. With whipped cream.
I’m desperate for the taste of something sweet.
There should be desserts here, but all I can find are blocks of cut cheese, sweating on the tray among the slaughtered remains of fancy crackers. The bowl of what looks like honey mustard is probably all right, but the companion bowl of ranch dressing looks like a playground for gastrointestinal distress. Courtesy of the rain, I’m more chilled than the cheese, the dips or the wine.
I haven’t seen Naveen yet. He’s flirting his way through the entire crowd, and I can’t begrudge him that. It’s exciting, this new gallery. New York is different than Philly. He needs to make an impression with this opening. He’ll get to me eventually. He always does.
Now I hold the glass of wine in one hand, the other tucked just below my breasts to prop my elbow as I study the photograph in front of me. The artist has blown it up to massive size. Twenty by forty, I estimate, though I’ve always been shit with measurements. The subject matter is fitting for the weather outside. A wet street, puddles glistening with gasoline rainbows. A child in red rubber boots standing in one, peering down at his reflection—or is it a her? I can’t tell. Longish hair, a shapeless raincoat, bland and gender-neutral features. It could be a boy or girl.
I don’t care.
I don’t care one fucking thing about that portrait, the size of it just big enough to guarantee that somebody will shell out the cool grand listed on the price tag. I shake my head a little, wondering what Naveen had thought, hanging this in the show. Maybe he owed someone a favor...or a blow job. The BJ would’ve been a better investment.
There’s a crinkle, tickle, tease on the back of my neck. The weight of a gaze. I turn around, and someone’s there.
“You’d need a house the size of a castle to hang that piece of shit.”
The voice is soft. Husky. Nearly as gender-neutral as the face of the child in the picture. I pause for just a moment before I look into his eyes, but the second I do, my brain fits him into a neat slot. Male. Man. He’s a man, all right, despite the soft voice.
He’s not looking at me, but at the picture, so I can stare at him for a few seconds longer than what’s socially acceptable. Hair the color of wet sand spikes forward over his forehead and feathers against his cheeks in front of his ears. It’s short and wispy in the back, exposing the nape of his neck. He’s got a scruffy face, not just like a guy who’s forgone shaving for a few days, but one who keeps an uneasy truce with his razor at best. He wears a dark suit, white shirt, narrow dark tie. Retro. Black Converse on his feet.
“And who’d pay a grand for it? C’mon.” His gaze slides toward me just for a second or two. Catching me staring. He gestures at the photo.
“It’s not so bad.” I’m not sure why I’m compelled to say anything nice about the picture. I agree, it’s an overpriced piece of shit. It’s a mockery of good art, actually. I should be angry about this, that I’m wasting my time on it as if the consumption of beauty is something with an allotment. Hell, maybe it is.
Maybe I actually have wasted today’s consumption of beauty on this piece of crap. I study it again. Technically, it’s flawless. The lighting, the focus, the exposure. But it’s not art.
Even so, someone will buy it simply because they will look at it the same way I did. They’ll note the perfectly framed shot, the pseudowhimsical subject matter, the blandly colorful mat inside a sort of interesting frame. They will convince themselves it’s just unique enough to impress their friends, but it won’t force them to actually feel anything except perhaps smugness that they got a bargain.
“It looks like art,” I say. “But it really isn’t. And that’s why someone will pay a thousand bucks for it and hang it in the formal living room they use only at Christmas. Because it looks like art but it really isn’t.”
He strokes his chin. “You think so?”
