Being Harrison Bloom’s Girl

Chapter 11

“Hey, Leigh! I’ve got breakfast for you!”

Hana’s suspiciously bright cheeriness rang warning bells for Leigh. She remembered the last time Hana had been that cheerful. It hadn’t ended well.

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean? I’ve got pancakes!”

Leigh shook her head as she shoved her hair off her face and sat up.

“No, don’t do it. It doesn’t work anymore. Just tell me what’s wrong. I know something’s wrong. I know it, Hana, you do this only when things are going to hell.”

Hana’s face fell.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I should make you pancakes more often.”

Leigh smiled, but the nerves were obvious. Leigh felt like she was constantly braced for bad news nowadays.

“I wouldn’t say no to that. Now please, tell me what’s wrong. Have there been more photos? Has Harrison been trying to call you again? Is Emily coming over?”

Hana grinned.

“I’d be making celebration pancakes if Emily were coming over. You have excellent taste in friends, Leigh. Emily, me…”

Leigh smiled, as Hana had intended.

“Now stop deflecting and please tell me what’s wrong.”

Hana’s smile drooped on one side to make a funny frowny smiley face.

“Have you checked the college Facebook group? The gossip one?”

Leigh frowned and shook her head.

“Of course not. Why would I? It isn’t my kind of thing at all. And it’s not your kind of thing, either, so… Oh no. No, please tell me it’s not what I think it is.”

Hana nodded reluctantly.

“If you’re thinking that they’ve gotten wind of your breakup and decided that it makes good copy and lots of clickbait, you’re unfortunately right.”

Strangely, Leigh’s reaction was tinged with relief. She had expected worse, to be honest – she had expected them to have gotten wind of her growing closeness to Roger. They really would’ve dined out on that for weeks.

“I guess I should check it. I should know what people are saying, at least.”

“Remember it’s not people. It’s just those sh*tty di*kheads who run the group and the idiots who live for gossip. It will all blow over soon enough when they find something else.”

Leigh shrugged and grabbed her phone. She found it soon enough.

Leigh Wells is no longer the girlfriend-cum-stepsibling of billionaire playboy Harrison Bloom, according to our sources. The young lady who made waves by declaring that she was in a committed relationship with the man with whom she had grown up, as siblings in every way, is now no longer in a relationship with him. Sources claim that the reason for this tragic breakup is the young lady’s penchant to play the field – a little bird also tells us that she likes playing with fire in the field.

The billionaire and ex-boyfriend and still-stepbrother doesn’t seem to be pining for her. He was recently photographed half-undressed with an ex-flame, the gorgeous Diane Masters who has been in Europe for a while. Is it a coincidence that the Honorable Ms. Masters made her way back across the ocean exactly when they broke up? Or could it be that Miss Leigh Wells, for all her considerable charms, simply couldn’t hold on to the affections of the man she had declared she loved with all of her heart?

Leigh felt the anger, acknowledged it, and let it go.

Well, she tried, but if only it were that easy. She felt it and she acknowledged it. At least that made it two out of three.

“The bleeding…”

Leigh trailed off, unable to find anything bad enough to say.

“I know. But what can we do? The first amendment.”

Leigh added something decidedly crude about idiots who thought this was the best use for the first amendment.

“Give me pancakes,” she demanded, and much to Hana’s bemusement, stabbed at it as if it were one of those who ran the group.

“This is going to make it into the campus paper, too, isn’t it? Of course it is. Everybody will be talking about the scandalous, amoral, pathetic Leigh Wells who not only dates her stepbrother, but loses him to somebody much sexier.”

She rounded out that thought with a string of expletives that would’ve done a sailor proud and made a cowboy jealous.

“Well,” said Hana, amused, “you’re taking this better than I thought. Anger is better than grief.”

Leigh shrugged.

“If I stay angry, there will be no room for grief. It shouldn’t be too hard to stay angry. I am angry. I… Oh, I wish I could blame Harrison for this!”

Hana frowned.

“I don’t think you can.”

“I know I can’t. I… You know, I’m not going to hide inside this time. I’m going to go out there and go to class, and do everything I would normally do. If they thought that they could entertain themselves by shaming me, they will see that I will not be shamed. Who the hell do they think they are?”

Hana let Leigh blow off steam as she packed away the pancakes, and finally took the plate from her hand.

“Well, I suggest a shower – and wash your hair – before you do that.”

Leigh nodded.

“I will. I’ll show them.”

The righteous indignation kept Leigh going for a good long while. She paid attention to her clothes, and even did her makeup when she went to class. She was determinedly cheerful, smiling at even people she honestly couldn’t stand, and attentive in class. It helped that the paper that was graded and given back that day brought with it an A for her.

By evening, she was beginning to flag, but then there was something else to keep her going – her date.

The entire day had cemented her determination to call the evening a date.

“Wow, you look incredible,” said Hana, walking into the dorm. Leigh had just finished getting ready.

Leigh did think that she looked pretty good. The red dress she was wearing had been a little too small for her when she’d bought it, but it looked good on her now. It was long enough to hit her knees, but the slit on the side rode up high on her thigh. She had decided to embrace the waves in her hair and set it to look a little wild and wanton. The crimson lipstick was a blatant invitation.

Defiance was a good look, decided Leigh.

“I should. I’m going on a date,” declared Leigh.