by Ally Blake
“I’m going to tell you what she says about you too,” said Cormac, “because you looked a little delicate when we left you in your room earlier. Like you could do with a boost.”
Harper opened her mouth to tell him where he could put his boost, but Cormac got there first.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked back at her as he said, “I’ve never met anyone as proud of another person as Lola is of you.”
Harper’s mouth slowly closed.
“She talks so highly of your work, your ambition, how much you’ve sacrificed for her, we’d be forgiven for believing the sun shone out of your very eyes.”
Harper shifted on the seat. Blamed the softness of the cushions.
“She loves telling the story of how you didn’t freak out when she ditched her physio degree with a semester to go, even though you’d paid her way through uni. Goes on and on about how amazing you are. How happy she is that you’re her sister.”
He stopped there, as if waiting to see her reaction. As if he knew exactly how much she’d “freaked out” behind closed doors. And she had—calculating the costs, the overtime she’d put in to pay for it all, worrying how Lola might create a future for herself instead.
Only the relief in Lola’s voice, the joy, as she’d spoken about her decision had brought Harper’s outrage level down from eleven to a solid seven, which was pretty much her baseline.
Cormac’s gaze remained direct and unrelenting.
If she’d managed to keep her frustration and disappointment from Lola, then she’d damn well keep it from him. Her smile was worthy of the Mona Lisa as she said, “It’s true. I am amazing.”
A muscle flickered in Cormac’s cheek. “So it would seem.”
“Yet after what happened upstairs earlier, would you say that my little sister is truly happy?”
His eyes narrowed, and slowly, slowly he leant back in the chair. Then he waved a hand in the air and asked, “What is happiness?”
When Harper realised she didn’t have a ready answer, she said, “I imagine it’s different things to different people.”
“Then for me it’s a hot morning, an empty beach and a long wave.”
Harper cocked an eyebrow.
“There’s a chance,” said Cormac, “it could be the exact same ingredients for Lola, but you’d have to ask her yourself.”
And she would. When she could get her sister all to herself for any length of time. Till then...
“Look, I know you’re in deep with the Chadwick family, so I’m talking to the wrong person about this, but right now you’re all I’ve got. I need to know that Lola’s okay. I need to know that she’s making the right decision.”
Cormac breathed out long and slow. She could all but see him picking her words apart and putting them back together in his mind. Then he said, “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?”
Harper opened her mouth to tell Cormac exactly what she would do, when Cormac looked at something over Harper’s shoulder. His face creased into a smile. With teeth. And eye crinkles. And pleasure. Before he pulled himself to standing.
“Well, if it isn’t the folks of the groom!” Cormac said, holding his arms wide.
Every question fled from Harper’s head as she spun so fast her neck cracked, giving her no time at all to pull herself together before Weston and Dee-Dee Chadwick glided into the room, leaving her unprepared for how overwhelming it was to see them again.
They looked much as she remembered them. More grey in the hair, of course. More weather around the eyes. But still dripping money and success and ease. As if they had not a care in the world.
Harper was too busy noting the deep smile creases branching out from the edges of Weston Chadwick’s bright blue eyes as he took Cormac in a long hug, a hug fit for a son, to see Dee-Dee coming for her.
Cool, ring-clad fingers gripped Harper’s upper arms, pulling Harper to Dee-Dee’s cheek. “Darling Harper. We are all so glad that you’re finally here.”
There was that finally word again. Had they made a pact to use it any chance they had?
Dee-Dee turned Harper this way and that. “Aren’t you an absolute treat? Not much of Lola in you, but enough. In the eyes, perhaps. And, no doubt, the heart.”
Floaty, blonde and elegant, Dee-Dee Chadwick had an unexpectedly kind touch. Warm. Enveloping. Motherly. Not that Harper would know. She hadn’t seen her own mother since she was five.
The urge overcame her to twist away. To gain distance. Only her years spent as a star player in the field of corporate manoeuvring had taught Harper the value in smiling politely. While plotting quietly.
“Thank you for putting me up, Mrs Chadwick. Though I’d have been fine staying in a hotel—”
“Nonsense. We are to be family after all. And no calling me Mrs Chadwick. It’s Dee-Dee.”
“Then thank you, Dee-Dee,” Harper managed, right as Lola traipsed through the wide doorway, mouthing Sorry! as she dragged Gray into the room.
Harper shook her head and mouthed It’s okay.
“Weston, darling,” said Dee-Dee. “Stop talking business, this is a family gathering. Come meet Lola’s sister, Harper. Fresh in from her high-powered job in Dubai.”
“High-powered, you say,” said Weston as he ambled to Dee-Dee’s side, placing a hand in the small of his wife’s back as he looked into Harper’s eyes.
Harper’s breath burned in her lungs. Her back teeth ground together. Every inch of her skin felt as if it were crawling in microscopic bugs. For this man had been the cause of so much pain in her family. Did he remember? Did he care?
“She’s a corporate negotiator,” said Lola, sidling up beside them, her hand still locked tight in the crook of Gray’s elbow.
“For?” Weston asked, attention already beginning to slide away.
Harper knew just how to get it back. “The highest bidder.”
Weston blinked and seemed to see her for the first time. “That so?”
Harper wondered if Weston Chadwick recognised her father in her eyes. In her heart.
“And isn’t she luminous?” Dee-Dee gushed. “Look at her skin.”
“A benefit of not living under the Australian sun all your life,” said Weston, his deeply tanned skin creasing as he smiled.
All Harper could think was that the only reason she’d had to leave this place was in order to chase the highest bidders, was so that she’d make enough money to provide Lola with every opportunity the Chadwicks had been able to gift their son. And the only reason that had become her responsibility was because of him. Her sister’s future father-in-law.
“And that dress,” said Dee-Dee, cheerfully. “So striking. Not that Harper wouldn’t look just as beautiful in a hessian sack.” Dee-Dee looked around for agreement just as Cormac moved into her line of sight. “Cormac, wouldn’t Harper look lovely even in a hessian sack?”
Cormac glanced around the group before his gaze landed on Harper. She still couldn’t get used to it; those familiar deep brown eyes looking right at her.
It was a relief when he broke eye contact to do as Dee-Dee requested and determine whether she would look good in a hessian sack. His eyes dancing over her with speed and ease. Nothing at all untoward to an untrained eye.
Only Harper read body language for a living, noting the rise and fall of his chest, the flaring of his nostrils, the way his throat worked.
Cormac liked what he saw.
Seeing that flare of attraction in the eyes of any other man, she’d have been flattered and moved on. In the eyes of Cormac Wharton it was a threat to life as she knew it.
Harper shook her head just a fraction. Please, no. Don’t go there. Don’t answer. Don’t make this week more complicated than it already is.
Cormac smiled, his voice a rough rumble that skittered dow
n Harper’s arms as he said, “I for one would love to see Harper in a hessian sack.”
Gray’s laughter was like a sonic boom. Though he quickly sank into his gargantuan shoulders when his mother slanted him a Look.
“I am truly disappointed in all of you. Harper is going to think we are a bunch of yokels,” said Dee-Dee, pointing a finger at each man in her midst.
“Not at all,” Harper said, hoping they’d all now move on.
She had no problem being centre of attention, but only when she was prepared, armed with not a single question she did not already know the answer to. And Cormac’s “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?” rang in her head like a promise. Or a portent.
Lola cleared her throat. “Sorry to break up the fun, but after all the wedding stuff I did today I’m famished.” She winked at Harper, who could not have loved her sister more.
“Of course,” said Dee-Dee. “Let’s head into dinner.” She took her husband’s arm as he escorted her from the room.
Then Lola put her hand through Gray’s elbow and allowed herself to be swept out the door as well, like something out of a royal procession.
“Miss Addison?”
Harper turned to find Cormac beside her—eyes front, one arm behind his back, the other crooked her way. As if he’d read her mind.
She laughed before she even felt it coming. Then, with a long outrush of breath, she placed her hand in the proffered elbow.
Though she took the first step, leading him out of the room.
But his legs were longer, and he wasn’t wearing heels, meaning soon he was a smidge in front. So she picked up the pace. He lengthened his strides to match. And soon they found themselves all but jogging.
When Harper’s high heel caught on a knot in a rug and she had to grip on to Cormac’s arm to steady herself, Cormac shot her a look.
Giving in?
Never.
Yet they called a silent truce. For now. Walking at a sensible pace.
And in the silence Harper felt the warmth of him beneath her hand, even through the layers of clothing. Felt his leg as it brushed against her skirt. Felt her pulse quicken when he let go a quick hard breath, as if he too was unduly affected by their proximity.
Not that it mattered. All that mattered was Lola. Making sure she was happy. And that she would continue to be so once Harper left. Meaning she had to get to the bottom of Cormac’s cryptic quip while she had the chance.
She licked her lips. Swallowed. And said, “Cormac?”
He glanced down at her, catching her up in his deep, warm brown eyes. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember what she’d been about to say.
When an eyebrow cocked and a smile started tugging at his mouth, she had to say something. She went with, “How far away is the dining room?”
“It’s a big house.” Cormac’s cheek twitched, bringing his dimple out to play. Have mercy.
Whatever he saw in her eyes made him breathe deep. Then his gaze travelled down her cheek, her neck, pausing on her dress. His voice dropped a fraction as he said, “You didn’t actually pack a hessian sack, did you?”
Harper shot him a look that would flay the top layer of skin off a less self-assured man. While Cormac only grinned. A quick flash of teeth that had her heart slamming against her ribs, hard enough to make her wince.
“Good,” he said. “For a second there I thought I’d have to track one down too in an effort at maid-of-honour-best-man solidarity.”
“No need,” she said. “For the sack or the solidarity.”
“Is that so?”
“You stand for Gray. I stand for Lola.”
“There was I, thinking that’s the same thing. Why do I get the feeling you don’t?”
Right. That was what she wanted to talk to him about. “Earlier, before the Chadwicks arrived, when I asked if you thought Lola was happy, that she would be okay, what did you mean when you said you couldn’t make any promises?”
Cormac lifted his spare hand to run it up the back of his neck. A sign of frustration, no doubt. With her. But it wasn’t her job to make his life easier. It was her job to protect her sister.
“You’re not going to cause trouble this week.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m not a troublemaker, Cormac. I’m a fixer.”
Cormac’s gaze was unreadable.
Voices murmured ahead as they neared the dining room; a long table covered in elegant settings of fine china and huge floral centrepieces was visible through a pair of double doors.
“Who else is coming?”
“Just us.”
“All that view is missing is a pair of armoured servants holding swords,” Harper muttered.
“Night off.”
“Ah.”
Harper’s pace slowed, the thought of having to play nice with the Chadwicks turning her legs to jelly. She may even have tightened her grip on Cormac’s arm.
She felt Cormac’s gaze slide to hers before his voice came to her, low and slow. “Harper.”
“Mmm?”
“Dee-Dee was right. Even without the hessian sack, you look immoderately beautiful tonight.”
Harper’s gaze skittered to his. She hadn’t needed to hear it to know Cormac was thinking it, for so far he’d not felt a need to hide behind propriety. Yet hearing those words from that mouth were the worst kind of bittersweet.
She’d have melted if he’d as much as gifted her a smile when she was sixteen. Now a distraction of this kind was the very last thing she needed.
When she said nothing, he went on. “And by immoderately, I mean unfairly. With relish. As if to dazzle. To create shock and awe. Why do I get the feeling this is your version of playing dirty?”
Because you’re too smart for your own good.
Harper thought she might have found an ally, but she’d thought wrong. Cormac Wharton would have to be watched, and handled, very carefully indeed.
She lifted a hand to fuss with the perfectly straight lapel of Cormac’s jacket. “For a small-town boy, you clean up okay yourself.”
After the briefest of beats, Cormac murmured, “Look at that. We can play nice.”
And he leaned in to her, just a fraction. Enough that she was forced to flatten her hand against his chest. Felt the steady thump of a strong heart through her fingers as they stood, toe to toe. Who would flinch first? Not Harper. Never Harper.
“Hurry up, you two!” Lola called from inside the dining room.
Harper pulled her hand away right as Cormac leant back. The game a draw. Though the skin of her palm tingled as if she’d held it too close to an open fire.
Something flashed across Cormac’s face before he hid it behind a smile. Then, sweeping an arm ahead of him, he said, “After you, my lady.”
Harper couldn’t help herself; she curtsied, earning an ear-to-ear grin that had her blinking to clear her eyes, before they joined the others.
CHAPTER THREE
HARPER DID NOT sleep well.
The bed was wonderful, the sheets soft and heavy, the mattress the perfect level of firmness.
And yet her dreams sent her tossing and turning.
Dreams of Lola chained to the floor à la Princess Leia in Jabba’s palace, while the Chadwicks laughed and shovelled mounds of exotic food into their gobs.
Dreams of waking and not knowing which time zone she was in. Or which city. Whose bed.
Dreams of deep, dark eyes, a smile that made her knees turn to water and a mouth carved by the gods.
She’d woken with a start, sheets tangled around her limbs, sweat sheening her skin.
After a quick shower, liberal use of her serious wasabi eye drops and a strong black coffee by way of the Chadwicks’ day chef—yes, day chef—she put on her face, skinny grey jeans, delicate crea
m heels and a frilled white top. With a yawn, she tossed the necessities into her buttery leather tote and made her way downstairs to find Lola bouncing around the foyer a mite before half past eight.
Lola barrelled into Harper’s arms, wrapping her in such a hug she nearly tipped them both over backwards. Harper soon realised how long it had been since she’d experienced prolonged human contact, shaking hands with a room full of suits before dismantling them across a boardroom table notwithstanding.
When Harper peeled herself away the return of lung function brought forth another yawn.
“It’s the sea air,” Lola said with a grin. “It’s therapeutic. Calming enough, even you might relax.”
Harper poked out her tongue. “I grew up here, remember.”
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten you were ever a child.” Lola nudged Harper with a shoulder. “Now, I get you don’t feel the same way about Blue Moon Bay as I do. Fair enough, too. I was too young to remember Mum leaving, or to fully understand the repercussions when Dad made such a hash of things.”
At Lola’s casual mention of the defining moments of Harper’s young life she took the hits. As she always had. Keeping Lola protected from the worst of it. Only now she hoped she hadn’t been too thorough at keeping her in the dark.
Lola went on, oblivious, “Today is my chance to rectify that. To help you see the place through fresh eyes. To undertand how deeply I appreciate everything you’ve done for me in helping me follow my bliss. Why being here, being a part of this community, being a yoga teacher, being Gray’s wife, beats making big bucks working nine-to-five somewhere.”
Lola’s eyes widened as she realised her faux pas. “Not that there’s anything wrong with nine-to-five! It’s just not my thing.”
Harper laughed. She hadn’t worked less than an eighty-hour week in as long as she could remember.
Which was okay, because the career Harper had forged out of necessity was her bliss.
She loved the satisfaction that came with taking what seemed like an untenable situation and finding a way to make all parties happy. Or at the very least come to an agreement. No ambiguity. Complete transparency. A deal signed. She also loved that it paid more than enough for her to give her little sister whatever life she wanted, no matter how different it was from her own.
