Sweet Mischief’s Rollercoaster Romance

Chad kept pushing, "So, care to explain why you took that picture last night with my trench coat after your shower, pretending you were snuggled up with me, and then claimed you wanted to sleep with me?" "That was all staged. I just propped up the coat to look like you were there. Only a tiny bit of it was even visible," Molly clarified.

Chad realized there had been a misunderstanding. "Do you really think that explanation would fly back home? If I tell our folks that the hair on the pillow was actually mine; that I carelessly tossed my pajamas aside in the morning; that we shared a bed at noon; and that we just got intimate, who do you think they'd believe?"

Molly felt like kicking herself, realizing she'd played with fire and got burned.

"Say whatever you want, but I'm not marrying you," she declared, turning her head to give Chad a defiant yet beautiful profile, refusing to look at the man looming over her.

Chad was facing his first real obstacle. He gazed down at her, "So, you'd rather have Vivian marry me?"

"You wouldn't dare!" Molly turned back, her eyes flashing a warning.

Chad asked with a smile, "Then who's going to marry me?"

Taking a deep breath, Molly said, "Stay single for all I care."

Only then did she realize she felt as though a mountain was pressing down on her. "Chad, get off me. Don't make me report you for harassment."

"Do you have any proof?" Chad looked down at her, unfazed, a smirk playing on his lips.

Molly opened her mouth to retort, then realized her phone was out of reach and her hands were pinned down.

"Brother!" she shouted in anger, a cry that seemed to echo in Chad's heart.

He looked at Molly, her eyes red with fury, and could no longer hold her gaze.

Soon after, he rolled off her and lay beside her on the bed.

Molly quickly got up, burrowing into the covers.

Now too agitated to speak, she lay there, Chad resting at the foot of the bed. She glanced sideways at him, "What happened to your face?"

"Your dad did a number on me," Chad confessed.

"You had it coming," Molly retorted mercilessly. "If I was there, I'd slap you twice as hard."

Officer Chad fell silent.

at the end of her bed, lifted the blankets in a huff, and stomped off towards the bathroom. Soon, the sound of running water filled the room. Later, she returned and dropped a cool, damp washcloth on Chad's face. "No ice, so this will have to do. Don't want you being the laughingstock at the precinct tomorrow." Chad didn't respond, the coolness from the washcloth

allowed himself a

he'd brought, rummaging

him sharply in the leg, "Chad,

in acknowledgment as her indignant

threw the clothes back

me plenty of grief. Just consider this me asking you to

been a pain these sixteen years," Molly retorted, suddenly feeling a little

seemed she really had been a thorn in his side for as long as

that doesn't mean

waited for a

minutes passed, and

bed, crept to the foot, and gently

a time like this?"

returned to the

bed, hearing the

water stopped, so

one side of Chad's swollen cheek. She sat on the bed, lost in thought, still convinced it was too

her mom when she hesitated, "Yeah, how am I

their parents. Was she trying to manipulate them into intervening in Molly and Chad's relationship? "Even a pig's brain wouldn't come up with such

back to the Byrne

turn to

away in the dead of night, she realized she couldn't get her

"This is so annoying."

in this hotel by her own

a lighter to burn the robe's

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for a lighter."

sash tied around her waist, "I don't have a

the edge of the bed, "Then you