Payton has been battered and beaten by her mother her whole life. Constantly being told she wasn’t good enough, and that nothing she ever did would ever be good. Her mother left her with scars, both physical and emotional. So when a fire destroys the evil system her mother worked so hard to maintain, and Payton moves to live with her father, who she didn’t even know existed, everything is changed. Especially when she finds out that her father works with the famous boy band, One Direction.
Payton catches the eye of one Mr. Harry Styles, and he slowly begins to figure everything out, without her telling him much aside from the routine answer of, ‘it’s complicated, Harry, just drop it’. Harry is determined to save Payton from herself as she slips into a downward spiral. But, maybe she’s too far gone, and Harry is too blinded by his love for her to see that.
Expert from the novel:
I kept punching and punching over and over, letting out all the day’s frustrations. The heavy black bag rocked from the force of my hits, and the loud music pumping in my ears only served to make me punch harder and faster. I bounced from toe to toe, and sent a swift kick to the side of the bag.
Suddenly, someone’s hand brushed against my face, and flicked out my ear bud. Without giving much thought to what I was doing, I turned and sent a hard punch the persons face, and while their hands were up, I gave an even harder kick to their groin, sending them to the ground. I backed away slowly, and realized that I’d seen him from somewhere.
When he rolled over, clutching his balls, I realized he was one of the guys from the band on Daisy’s wall. He was also one of John’s clients, Harry…something. Shit.
We ran through the crowded, messy, but beloved streets of our city, Manhattan. He gripped my hand and pulled me further as we sprinted by stores, stands, and plenty of people. I tried to turn around to see if the cops had gained on us, but my head whipped back around to see a stroller straight ahead of me. I took a sharp left and barely dodged it. I could tell he needed a break, so we sprinted into an alley.
In the middle of the deserted alleyway, he stopped and tried to quit panting. All of a sudden, I saw a bright blue uniform, two, on either end of the alley. The cops, dang. Each of them had a gun pointed straight at us. They slowly edged towards the two victims in the middle, which just happened to be me and him, but refused to lower their weapons. Harry looked furious.
“Try me,” he teased at the cops.
“THAT’S IT!” bellowed the one to my right. “You’d better try to shield yourself.”
He got ready to pull the trigger. My heart started to race as fast as the bullet would come. I felt Harry’s hand tighten around mine. Just as I heard the gun fire, Harry threw his other arm around me and we crashed to the floor, and I blacked out.