Happy Hope (Book Two)

Chapter 22:

Within minutes girls were trying to enter my shop and there were over thirty. I was in complete shock that they had come so fast.

            “Hope come sit down. I’ve called security and they are coming any second now.” I just looked at him with a steely glare. I didn’t know if I wanted to sit next to him but decided to. I kept a good distance between us and folded my arms and legs. “Hope…”

            “Hmm?”

            “Why are you avoiding me?”

            “Maybe I just don’t want answers.”

            “The article,” Louis breathed, “It’s screwed everything up.” I couldn’t look at him. Instead I focused on the wall in front of me.

            “Is it true?” I asked because that question burned in the back of my mind like a wild fire. “The article was right about everything else. Was it true that you were involved in Jake’s accident?”

            “Hope,” Louis said.

            “Just tell me!” I demanded.

            “Yes.”

Without waiting for anything else, I stood up and stalked out of the store room. I paced up and down the book store as tears threatened to flow. The man responsible for taking away my kids dad was now acting as father figure to them and it disgusted me.

            “Hope…wait! Let me explain!” Louis said desperately following me out of the room.

            “No! … I need to think. I need air,” I demanded grabbing my bag and walking to the door. Louis grabbed my arm tightly.

            “You aren’t going anywhere until we fix this!”

            “What’s there to fix? You killed him!”

            “No! It wasn’t like that!”

            “I need to go!” I demanded again trying to unlock the door with shaky hands.

            “Hope, you can’t go! Girls are swarming the street!”

            “I don’t care!”

            “Well I do!”

            “At the moment that doesn’t mean a whole lot to me! I can’t believe you did this! Did you know the whole time? I should’ve listened to Amelia because this hurts a whole lot more than what you did with Eleanor behind my back! I bet you just love lying to me! It’s probably your new hobby!”

Louis crashed his lips on mine trying to fix everything but it didn’t. Instead I pushed him back and screamed “Don’t!”

            “Could you just try to listen?”

            “To what, your excuses?”

He hissed and grabbed my arm, dragging me back to the storeroom as I scoffed curses at him.

            “No! About what actually happened!”

            “Why so I can hear the exact details of how my husband died?” I screamed.

            “Look I was involved with the accident! But as a passenger!” He held his hands up as a sign of surrender.

            “A passenger?”