by Ally Blake
She glanced at Cormac right as his mouth twitched. Nothing more than a flicker, really. Yet it did things to his face that no other smile in the history of smiles had the power to do; pulling, like an insistent tug, right behind her belly button.
“Thank you, Sam,” she said, deliberately turning her back on the younger man. “You’re a true gentleman. But if my little sister wants me to stay, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Sam clicked his heels together before heaving her suitcase and accompanying bags to the ground. She feared hauling them up the stairs to the Chadwicks’ front door might do Sam in, so before he could offer she pressed a large tip into his hand and sent him on his way, hoping she’d made the right choice as she watched the car meander slowly up the long gravel drive.
“I think you have a fan there,” said Cormac, his voice having dropped a notch.
Harper tuned to Cormac and held his gaze, despite the butterflies fluttering away inside her belly. “Where is my sister?”
“Catering check. Wedding-dress fitting. Final song choices. None of which could be moved despite how excited she was that you were finally coming home.”
Harper bristled, but managed to hold her tongue.
She was well aware of how many appointments she’d missed. That video-chatting during wedding-dress-hunts wasn’t the same as her being in the room, sipping champagne, while Lola stood in front of a wall of mirrors and twirled. That with their parents long gone from their lives she was all Lola had.
Lola had assured her it was fine. That Gray was such a help. That the Chadwicks were a total dream. That she understood Harper’s calendar was too congested for her to have committed to arriving any earlier.
After all, it was the money Harper made from her meteoric rise in the field of corporate mediation that had allowed Lola to stay on in the wealthy coastal playground of Blue Moon Bay, to finish high school with her friends, to be in a position to meet someone like Grayson Chadwick in the first place.
And yet as Cormac watched her, those deep brown eyes of his unexpectedly direct, the tiny fissure he’d opened in Harper’s defences cracked wider.
If she was to get through the next five minutes, much less the next week, Cormac Wharton needed to know she wasn’t the same bleeding heart she’d been at school.
She could do this. For Harper played chicken for a living. And never flinched.
“You sure know a lot about planning a wedding, Cormac,” she crooned, watching for his reaction.
There! The tic of a muscle in his jaw. Though it was fast swallowed by a deep groove as he offered up a close-mouthed smile. “They don’t call me the best man around here for nothing. And since the maid of honour has been AWOL it’s been my honour to make sure Lola is looked after too.”
Oh, he was good.
But she was better.
She extended a smile of her own and placed a hand on her heart as she said, “Then please accept my thanks for playing cheerleader, leaning post, party planner and girlfriend until I was able to take up the mantle in person.”
Cormac’s mouth kicked into a deeper smile, the kind that came with eye crinkles.
That pesky little flutter flared in her belly. She clutched every muscle she could to suffocate it before it even had a chance to take a breath.
Then something wet and cold snuffled under Harper’s coat and pressed against the back of her knee. With a squeak, she spun on her heel to find Cormac’s beautiful dog standing behind her. Panting softly, tail wagging slowly, it looked at her with liquid brown eyes that reminded her very much of its owner.
She was surprised to find a soft, “Oh,” escape her mouth.
“Harper,” Cormac’s voice rumbled from far too close behind her, “meet Novak. Novak, this is Harper.”
“Novak?”
“After the great and glorious Kim.”
“The actress? From Vertigo?”
A beat, then, “One and the same.”
Spending more of her life in planes and hotels than her high-rise apartment, Harper didn’t see a lot of dogs these days, so wasn’t sure of the protocol. What could she do but wave? “Hello, Novak. Have we been ignoring you?”
Novak’s tail gave a quick wag before she sat on her haunches and—No. Surely not.
“Is she...smiling?” Harper asked. “It looks like she’s smiling. Can dogs even smile?”
She looked over her shoulder to find herself close enough to Cormac to count his lashes. There were millions of the things...long, plentiful as they framed those deep, molten-chocolate eyes.
When she didn’t look away, his eyes shifted slowly between hers, lingering a beat before shifting back. Then he smiled. Turning her thoughts to dandelion fluff.
Then suddenly he was leaning towards her, a waft of sea salt, of summer, tickling her nose. Then he leant down to grab a couple of her bags, hefting the long handles over his shoulders as if they weighed nothing, and the moment passed.
She reminded herself—stridently—that he might look like the boy she’d thought worthy of secret teenaged affections, but those affections had gone up in smoke when she’d discovered he had it in him to stick in the knife. And twist.
Harper grabbed the handles of her last couple of bags and took a discreet step away.
Not discreet enough, apparently, as Cormac’s cheek kicked into a knowing smile before he said, “Could you have brought any more baggage?”
Honey, you have no idea.
“Come on, then,” he said, and with that he crunched over the white gravel and up the huge front steps of the big house.
The impressive Georgian-look manor was the first house built on the bluff over Blue Moon Bay by Weston Chadwick’s father. When the next generation relocated the head office of their world-famous surf brand to the area, making the holiday estate their permanent home, the sleepy town had fast grown into a haven for wealthy families looking for a sea change.
Those who could keep up with the Chadwicks thrived. Those who couldn’t...
“Come!” Cormac called.
Harper’s eyebrows rose sharply, until Cormac’s dog trotted up the stairs and she realised the command had not been for her.
Cormac and dog disappeared inside the double front doors as if they’d done so a thousand times before. Which they likely had.
Rumour had it that Cormac had moved into the Chadwicks’ pool house right after high school. Then he and Grayson had gone on to take law together at Melbourne University before Grayson had taken his place on the board of his family’s behemoth company, while Cormac opened up his own firm, servicing one client: the Chadwick family.
By the look of things, insinuating himself had been a smart move. As Harper made her way up the front steps, she wondered how much of his soul he’d had to give up to do it.
None of which made Harper feel any better about the fact that her little sister was about to marry into that world, that family, for good.
Well, she’d see about that.
Through the impressive two-storey foyer, walls unexpectedly lined with some pretty fabulous modern art, Harper kept eyes front as she followed Cormac up one side of a curling double staircase.
She found him in a large bedroom suite, leaning against a chest of drawers as he played with his dog’s ear.
Her bags had been placed by a padded bench at the end of a plush king-sized bed. Sunshine poured through large windows draped with fine muslin, picking out shabby-chic furnishings and duck-egg-blue trim. A vase of fresh gardenias sent out the most glorious scent.
The room was elegant and cool. It suited her to a T.
Lola, she thought, her chest tightening, knowing Cormac hadn’t been kidding. Her little sister had decorated the room with her in mind.
Harper slowly unwrapped the tie around her waist and hung her coat over the back of a padded chair, leaving her in a neat cream shift
with a kick at the hem and her ubiquitous heels.
Cormac cleared his throat. She looked his way to find him watching her, his deep, rich brown eyes still holding the glint of affection he held for his hound.
“So,” she managed, “am I meant to stay in here until Lola arrives, or have you been given further instruction as to what to do with me?”
Something flickered across his eyes, but was gone before she could take its measure. His hands slid into the front pockets of his jeans, framing all he had going on down there. Not that she looked. Then he pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the door. “You hungry?”
“I’m fine,” Harper lied, for she was starved. Sharing a meal was a tactic she often used mid-negotiation to soften up the combatants. And she would not be softened. Not by him.
“Then I guess we could stand here making awkward conversation till someone gets home.”
Harper glanced deliberately at her watch. It was two in the afternoon. On a Monday. “I vote no.”
“Hmm. Big shock.” He took a step towards the door. “If we’re up to our throats in my famous ham and mustard sandwiches there’ll be no need to make small talk. Let me make you something. Let me feed you.”
She wondered how often that line worked. By the gleam in his eye, probably every time. She actually found herself wavering towards his suggestion when a bang, a crash, a flurry of voices preceded the thunder of feet taking the stairs two at a time.
Then a whirlwind of blonde hair, yoga gear and running shoes rushed through the door and launched itself at her.
Harper’s knees hit the back of her bed as she fell, laughing despite herself.
While Lola hung on tight and cried, “You’re here! You’re really here!”
After a quick mental scan to make sure nothing was broken, Harper hugged Lola back. Hard. Drinking in the feel of her little sister, the hitch of her voice, the scent of her skin.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight when she felt the sting of tears. Not now. Not here. Not with an audience. Their story had always been a personal one. The two of them against the world.
“Of course I’m here,” Harper said through the tight clutch at her throat. “Now get off me before I crumple. Or before you bruise yourself. You are getting married this weekend, you know.”
Lola rolled away, landing on her back. “I’m getting married this weekend.”
Harper hauled herself to sitting, fixed her dress and swiped both hands over her hair. “So the rumour goes.”
A noise, movement, something had her looking back towards the door to find Cormac leaning in the doorway. Watching her.
When their eyes met he smiled. Just the slightest tilt of his mouth, but it filled her with butterflies all the same.
She felt her forehead tighten into a scowl.
For she’d been hanging out for this moment, this reunion with her flesh and blood, her heart and soul, her Lola, for so long.
And he—with his history, his link to the Chadwicks and his knowing eyes—was ruining everything.
“Oh, hi, Cormac!” said Lola as she crawled to sit beside Harper on the bed, before leaning on her like a puppy. “I didn’t see you there.”
He tilted his chin and gave her a wink, his stance easing, his eyes softening, his entire countenance lightening.
“Have you two been getting reacquainted, then? Chatting about the good old days?”
“Not sure we had much in the way of ‘old days’, did we, Harper? You were—what, a year or two below me at school?”
“A year below,” she said, her voice admirably even. Then, with a deliberate blink and a turn of her shoulders, she cut him out of the circle.
She took one of Lola’s hands in hers and pulled it to her heart, then pressed her other hand against her little sister’s face. And she drank her in like a woman starved.
The last time she’d flown Lola to holiday with her in Paris, she’d still had apple cheeks. Now they were gone. New smile lines creased the edges of her mouth. Her hair was longer too, more structured, blonder.
And shadows smudged the skin beneath her bright blue eyes.
Late nights? Not enough water? Or some deeper concern?
When their family had fallen apart all those years ago, Harper had done everything in her power to shield Lola from the worst of it. Taking every hit, fixing every problem, hiding every secret, so that Lola might simply go on, having the blessed life she’d have enjoyed otherwise.
Meaning Lola knew nothing about the part the Chadwicks had played in it all.
Here, now, seeing her sister in the flesh, Harper knew—it was time. It was time for Lola to know the truth.
“How you doing, Lolly?” Harper asked, her voice soft, her expression beseeching. “Truly.”
At which point Lola’s bottom lip began to quake and she burst into tears.
CHAPTER TWO
HARPER PACED UP and down the long wall of the Chadwicks’ library. A clock somewhere struck seven, and her eyes flickered to the open doorway as she waited impatiently for her sister to appear.
It had been hours since Lola had burst into tears.
In the several beats it had taken Harper to come to terms with the fact her sister was sobbing in her arms, Grayson Chadwick had filled the doorway of Harper’s room.
With a grunt he’d lumbered inside, climbed up onto her bed and wrapped them both in a bear hug.
At which point Lola had come up laughing, wiping her tears, looking from fiancé to sister with shining blue eyes, claiming she had no idea why she’d broken down. Likely nervous excitement, over-stimulation, and pure joy that Harper was finally here.
Harper hadn’t pushed it. Not then. Not there. It had been clear Lola had not wanted to appear upset in front of Gray, which rang all kinds of fresh alarm bells.
Lola had pushed away from the bed. “You must be exhausted. If you look in the bedside drawer you’ll find I’ve left you a little relaxer.”
“Wow, you guys are close,” Gray had murmured.
Lola had smacked her fiancé, her hand bouncing off his pec. “Not that kind of relaxer, you degenerate. A yoga nidra. I bookmarked links to some awesome guided meditations in my favourite yoga book so she can centre herself before heading down for dinner. If I know my sister, and I do know my sister, she’ll need it to handle your parents. I’ll come find you in the library,” she’d said, pointing a finger at Harper. “Seven p.m. sharp.”
Then they’d piled out of her room, Cormac the last to go.
“A little prolonged relaxation should never be underestimated,” he’d said with a nod towards her bedside drawer, before he’d caught her gaze, delivered a knockout smile, rapped a knuckled fist against the doorway and was gone.
Harper swallowed. And rolled her shoulders.
The moment she had her little sister alone Harper would get to the bottom of Lola’s tears. Would see how much Lola really knew about her future in-laws. And then she would fix everything.
A scrape of shoe against floor had Harper turning to the library door and once again staring down Cormac Wharton.
He’d changed into a charcoal suit, sharp white shirt open at the neck, no tie. He looked slick and relaxed. Debonair and yet with the unshaved scruff on his jaw a little rough around the edges. Forcing her to admit—if only to herself—that, while the boy had been swoon-worthy, the man was a far more dangerous beast.
She said nothing as she waited for his gaze to finish its travels over her.
She’d chosen a fortifying dress in which to meet the Chadwicks; midnight-blue and dramatically detailed, with a full skirt and fitted bodice, the sharp horizontal neckline and long sleeves leaving neck and shoulders bare.
Cormac’s eyes paused at her ankles, her waist, her décolletage, before they swept swiftly back to hers. Her breath snagged in her throat as their gazes clashed.
�
�Evening, Harper,” he said as he prowled into the room.
She nodded, not yet trusting her voice. And began to pace as well. “No sign of Lola on your way down?”
“I wasn’t upstairs. I only just arrived back.”
She shot him a look. “Quick commute from the pool house?”
“The pool house? I haven’t stayed there in years. How did you even know about the pool house?”
Dammit. Harper feigned interest in the wall of books when her attention was wholly on where he was in the room relative to her. “Lola talks. She keeps me up-to-date with the goings on in Blue Moon Bay.”
“But that was before Lola’s time. You been keeping tabs on me, Harper?”
Double dammit.
“Hardly.”
Cormac stopped prowling to flick a speck of lint off the back of a chair and she came to a halt. When he began pacing once more, so did she. The smile tugging at the corners of his eyes grew into a grin as it became all too obvious they were chasing one another around the couch.
Harper sat on the soft leather lounge and reached down to pick up a book from the coffee table, as if she’d been planning to do so the entire time.
Cormac moved to take the other end of the same chair, lifting an ankle to rest it on a knee, stretching a lazy arm across the back of the seat, his fingers curled mere inches from her bare shoulder. “I wouldn’t have picked you as a fan of bird-watching.”
“Hmm?”
Cormac motioned to the book she was pretending to admire.
She placed it back on the table and gritted her teeth.
“You’re right about Lola,” Cormac said.
Harper couldn’t help herself; she glanced his way, cocking a solitary eyebrow to show her care in anything he had to say was limited.
“She talks,” he said. “She talks a lot about you.”
“And I talk a lot about her.” Or she used to. Harper struggled to remember the last time she’d met someone new, someone she felt comfortable enough to talk about her sister with. “She’s my everything. And has been for a very long time. The fact that we live on opposite sides of the world hasn’t changed that.”
