Heartless by Sara Shepard Read Free Book Online

Sometimes Hanna wondered if the only way she’d truly know for sure that her transformation was complete was if Ali gave Hanna her blessing. Of course, now that could never happen.
    “My pleasure,” Mike answered, snapping Hanna out of her reverie. “And be forewarned—I sent some very juicy Twitters to some of the press people who were waiting outside the ER. Just to get them focused on something other than the fire.”
    “Like what?” Hanna asked, instantly on alert. Mike sounded up to something.
    “ Hanna Marin in talks with MTV about reality show, ” Mike recited. “ Multimillion-dollar deal. ”
    “Awesome.” Hanna let out a breath and started waving her hands around to dry her nails.
    “I wrote one about myself, too. Mike Montgomery turns down date with Croatian supermodel. ”
    “You turned down a date?” Hanna giggled flirtatiously. “That doesn’t seem like the Mike Montgomery I know.”
    “Who needs Croatian supermodels when you have Hanna Marin?” Mike said.
    Hanna wriggled with giddy delight. If someone had told her a few weeks ago that she’d be dating Mike Montgomery, she would have swallowed her Crest Whitestrip in surprise-she’d only pursued Mike because her soon-to-be stepsister, Kate, wanted him too. But somehow in the process, she’d actually started to like him. With his ice blue eyes, pink, kissable lips, and raunchy sense of humor, he was becoming more than just Aria Montgomery’s popularity-obsessed younger brother to her.
    She stood up, crossed the room to her closet, and ran her fingers along Ali’s piece of the Time Capsule flag, which she’d taken at the hospital when Aria wasn’t looking. She didn’t feel guilty about it, either—it wasn’t like the flag belonged to Aria. “So I heard that you guys were getting notes from a new A,” Mike said. His voice was suddenly serious.
    “I haven’t gotten any notes from A,” Hanna said truthfully. Since she’d gotten her new iPhone and changed her number, A had left her alone. It was certainly a welcome change from the old A, who had horribly turned out to be Hanna’s former bestie, Mona Vanderwaal—something she tried very hard never to think about. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
    “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Mike assured her. “Kick someone’s ass, whatever.”
    “Aw.” Hanna flushed with pleasure. No other boyfriend had ever offered to defend her honor. She made a kissing sound, promised she and Mike would meet for lattes at Steam, Rosewood’s coffee bar, this afternoon, and hung up.
    Then she padded down to the kitchen for breakfast, pulling a brush through her long auburn hair. The kitchen smelled like mint tea and fresh fruit. Her soon-to-be stepmother, Isabel, and Kate were already at the table, eating bowls of cut-up melon and cottage cheese. Hanna couldn’t think of a more vomit-inspiring food combination.
    When they saw Hanna in the doorway, they both leapt to their feet. “How are you feeling?” they gushed at the same time.
    “Fine,” Hanna answered tightly, scraping the brush against her scalp. Predictably, Isabel began to wince—she was a germaphobe, and had a thing against hair-brushing near food.
    Hanna plopped down in an empty chair and reached for the carafe of coffee. Isabel and Kate sat back down, and there was a long, pregnant pause, like Hanna had interrupted something. They’d probably been gossiping about her. She wouldn’t put it past either of them.
    Hanna’s father had been dating Isabel for years—even Ali had met both Isabel and Kate a few months before she disappeared—but they’d only begun living in Rosewood after Hanna’s mother was transferred to Singapore and Hanna’s father took a job in Philly. It was bad enough that her dad had decided to marry a fake-tan-obsessed ER nurse named Isabel— such a trade down from Hanna’s glamorous, successful mother—but throwing a tall, skinny stepsister Hanna’s exact same age into the mix was