by Ally Blake
“What the hell?” he murmured, twisting to look at her back, to find by some kind of miraculous design it was bare from a ribbon at her neck to her lower back.
Needing every ounce of social grace he could muster, he let his hand splay over her back as he pulled her gently, fully, against him.
When her deep hazel eyes focussed on him, and she let out a sigh, some final piece shifted into place inside the new landscape of his mind.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Until about five minutes back I realised I wasn’t really ready for it either. Since we’re making up the rules as we go along, let’s decide to get through it together.”
He slid his hand an inch further around her waist, gave her a tug towards the dais. One high heel shot forward, followed by the other, and together they walked up the aisle.
Forgoing tradition, Cormac walked Harper to Lola’s side and stayed there, knowing Gray didn’t need his support today. Gray wouldn’t have cared if a spaceship took every last person there so long as he had his girl.
And in that moment Cormac felt the same.
* * *
Once the ceremony was over the party began.
A big white tent had been filled with long farmhouse tables draped in gauze and covered with every kind of food under the sun. While the band started up under an adjacent marquee.
Harper made to follow the happy couple, until Cormac took her by the elbow and dragged her off the back of the dais.
“What about the photos?”
“No set shots,” Cormac said. “Photographers—plural—are moving through the crowd taking happy snaps all night long.”
He really did know more about the wedding plans than she did.
“So where are we going?”
“Somewhere with less people,” Cormac muttered, smiling at guest after guest who tried to flag him down.
“Can we slow down just a mite?”
He glanced back at her, his eyes hot. Dark. Too dark to read.
“This dress won’t take another big step.”
Cormac’s gaze slid down her body, leaving spot fires in its wake. Then he slowed. “I do like that dress.”
“I like your suit,” she said. Though what she really meant was that she liked the man wearing it.
“Cormac—”
“Photo?”
A man with a big camera suddenly appeared in front of Harper. She squealed, and leapt into Cormac’s arms.
A second later her pulled her closer and said, “No thanks.” He patted his chest. “Already got one.”
“One more can’t hurt,” said the photographer with a smile.
“Not now, mate,” Cormac growled and the man slunk away. Leaving a clear run to a secluded spot beneath an oak tree at the edge of the lawn.
Once there he lined Harper up with the trunk, his hands searing through the slippery fabric of her dress before he stepped away, running his hands down the sides of his suit pants.
While she felt as if her belly was full of butterflies, her head with dust motes, Cormac looked even more discombobulated. She had to smile. “Thank you.”
“Hmm?” he asked, his hand at his mouth, finger tapping manically against his bottom lip.
“For helping me through that. Seeing Lola up there, about to get married, I froze. But watching her grinning at Gray, hearing the vows they made...” Harper let out a great big sigh. “It was like watching the final piece of a puzzle fall into place.”
“I know what you mean,” Cormac said, focussed on her as if he couldn’t bear to look away.
She remembered the revelation she’d had just before falling asleep in the early hours of that same morning. When deciding it was time to figure out what really made her happy.
Cormac’s phone call to Weston had rushed through her like a waterfall of hope. The way he’d walked with her down the aisle, held her to him like something precious, looked at her as if she was the only person in the world, had given her hope wings.
Looking at Cormac looking at her now, she had no need to wonder any more.
Her voice was a little rough as she said, “Why did you pat your jacket when the photographer asked to take our picture?”
He looked at her then, face blank. Not a tell in sight. But she knew him too well. “Come on, Cormac, fess up.”
His mouth curved at one corner, and her heart flipped over on itself. “You really can see right through me, can’t you? I’m going to have to remember that in future.”
In future. Meaning he saw a future between them.
She shook her head, even while every other part of her was saying yes, yes, yes! “Stop trying to distract me.” She reached for his jacket, flapping open the lapel and patting the inner lining. “What are you hiding in here?”
Her fingers slipped into the pocket and came out with—
“Oh.”
For inside Cormac’s jacket was the thin strip of black and white pictures of the two of them together, taken by the photo booth at the bucks’ and hens’ night.
“Where did you get these?”
“I grabbed them the moment they were taken.”
“And you kept them?”
His face softened, his expression indulgent. Of course I kept them, Harper.
“Why have you got them on you today?”
“I’ve had them on me ever since that night.” He lifted his hand, placing it over the now empty pocket. Over his heart.
She looked down at the pictures. In the first image she looked so stressed. While he looked straight out gorgeous, with his knee-melting smile and warm eyes.
In the second she appeared exasperated. While he looked as if he was having too much fun.
In the third... That was right. He had kissed her on the cheek. Her mouth had sprung open, and her eyes were wide with surprise.
In the last picture she had turned to chastise him, only to give him prime opportunity to kiss her. Gently. Sweetly. Lips only just touching. Her eyes had fluttered closed, her whole body was leaning into his and her hand gripped his shirt. And even in the grainy black and white, and all the shades of grey in between, she could see his smile.
She ran a thumb over the image. To think that woman in the picture—the woman giving herself so freely, so completely, so honestly, so vulnerably—was really her.
“About last night,” she said, taking a moment to choose her words carefully. For the consequences were great. “I said some things, a great many things, that weren’t exactly true. Or, maybe to be more precise, do not rightly explain how I feel.”
“About?”
She looked up to find him standing before her—one hand in his trouser pocket, the other resting by his side. So handsome her heart ached.
“About you.”
He breathed in deep, and waited for her to go on.
“I fear I might have made you think that you meant nothing more to me than a couple of kisses.”
“And a roll on the couch, don’t forget,” he said, ambling closer. Sunlight dappling his suit through the leaves above. Playing shadow and light across his face. “I believe those were your exact words.”
“Mmm... So they were.”
“Are you suggesting you may have misrepresented your feelings?”
The man was a master at word play, probably what made him such a great lawyer, but Harper was a go-getter at heart. And if she didn’t get soon she might spontaneously combust.
“Big time,” she said.
His eyes flared with heat. His gaze drifting over her face before settling on her mouth.
“I’ve been fighting it since the moment I saw you sitting on the hood of your ridiculously romantic car. Heck, I’ve been fighting it since you walked the halls of Blue Moon Bay High, a smile on your f
ace, a whistle as you walked, giving yourself to anyone and everyone in your path. I can’t fight it any more. And I won’t. I’m in love with you, Cormac.”
His gaze, which had been roving over her dress as if trying to figure out a way to get through it one stitch at a time, lifted to her eyes.
Then he came to her in three strides, his hand reaching behind her neck as he pulled her to him and kissed her like a man drowning, and she the last drink of water on earth. When she moaned, and pressed herself all up against him, he wrapped an arm around her back and hefted her into his arms.
Aeons later the kisses slowed, softened, until they clung to one another with the barest touch of their lips.
“You love me,” he said, his voice rough.
“Like nothing else. I’ve never felt that way before. But I know it. I know it like I know my own name.”
“I believe you.”
“You do?”
He nodded, his forehead sliding over hers. Then he slowly lifted his face away, his gaze snagging on hers. He slid her hair from her face, then traced the edge of her jaw. All the while looking at her as if he couldn’t believe she was real.
She said, “I don’t expect you to—”
He leaned down and silenced her with one more kiss. The kind that made a girl’s knees forget how to work.
Then, reaching for her, cupping her cheeks, he looked from one eye to the other and said, “Harper, you must know that I’m in love with you too.”
Harper swallowed lest she let out the sob that threatened to undo her completely. Then she threw her arms around his neck and held on tight.
In the distance people chatted, music played, food was devoured, and Lola and Gray’s wedding party went on as if the entire world had not shifted beneath their feet. As if the boy Harper had a crush on all those years ago, the one whose smile had given her respite from the craziness of home, hadn’t just told her he loved her.
As she pressed her face to his shoulder, as he held her tight, she laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow, Cormac. I have a plane to catch and contracts to fulfil.” It all felt so insignificant compared with this, but she’d made promises. She’d never been one to walk away from a commitment and wasn’t about to start now.
“While the Chadwicks are retiring and plan to announce my taking over as CEO of Chadwick Corp.”
Harper leant back the better to see his face. To check if he was as indifferent to the idea as he sounded. “Cormac, that’s amazing!”
“I’m not taking it on.”
“Why on earth not?”
He grinned. Shook his head. “Only you would show your regret at having to leave all this then berate me for feeling the same way.”
“Why?” she asked, slapping him on the chest. “Talk to me.”
“You know why.”
Harper lifted a hand to her chest. “You’re giving it up...for me? No. You will not sacrifice something you’ve worked your whole life for, for me.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not...” She swallowed the words that had been about to leave her mouth. Words she’d spent her entire life telling herself she didn’t believe.
“You are more than enough, Harper. You’re everything. To me. I can see your brain whirling, and I need you to stop. To listen, to believe me when I say that this is what I want. I’m going out on my own. Going to use that mighty education of mine to do good. I can start with pro bono for some of the Chadwick charities. Then reinstate my licence to practise in the UK. Or the United Arab Emirates, perhaps. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Dubai.”
Harper swallowed, the world so bright and shiny and colourful she had to squint. “But you love your job.”
“I love doing good work that satisfies me. The Chadwicks will be fine. I’ll even help them scour the world for someone amazing to fill the position. Or who knows, it might even light a fire under Gray, give him the chance to take on his birth right.”
“Or not,” Harper said.
Cormac grinned, and ran a finger over her forehead, trying to smooth out the frown. “So what do you say?”
“I say... Okay!” she said, her voice light as air.
“Okay?”
“Yes. Okay. To everything. Anything. We’ve been making up the rules as we went along, so why stop now? I want you to come with me. As soon as you can. And I want to come back here, too. As often as possible. To see Lola more. To get to know Dee-Dee and Weston and Gray. For if they love Lola and they love you then they can’t be all bad.”
“Who loves me?” Cormac asked, feigning deafness in his right ear.
“I do.”
“What was that? I missed it.”
“I love you, Cormac Wharton,” she said throwing her arms out and shouting for the whole world to hear. “Cutest boy in school. Hottest man in town. Did I mention how much I like you in that suit?”
He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his eyes following the move, his fingers delving into her hair, cupping the back of her head and staying there. Then his gaze swept back to hers. “I love you too, Harper Addison. You stubborn, fierce, mercurial, gorgeous creature. Did I mention stubborn?”
“Since we met again? Several times.”
Cormac leaned down and kissed her right as she lifted onto her toes and kissed him, the photos that somehow magically tracked the course of their relationship in four frames clutched in her hand.
“Do you think it’s time we headed back?” he asked, lips brushing against hers.
She shook her head, even as she said, “Yes. We’d better.”
He slung an arm about her shoulders and pulled her close and together they made their way back to the wedding party. Slowly.
“So this crush of yours,” he said.
“Mmm?”
“Do you think it might last this time?”
“I think it might.”
“Hmm. That’s what I was afraid of.”
Harper tipped her head to his shoulder. “Any advice on what we can do about it?”
“I have a couple of ideas,” he said, his voice muffled as he kissed the top of her head. “Actually, more than a couple. A veritable cornucopia. As far as I see it, we’ll have to work our way through them until I’ve exhausted you. I mean, your crush.”
Harper couldn’t wait. “Confident, much?”
“Are you suggesting I have no reason to be?”
Harper spun out from under his arm, taking his hand in both of hers as she walked backwards near the edges of the party.
“Please,” she said, pretending to chew gum as she affected her most ‘high school’ voice. “You’re not all that, Cormac Wharton.”
He lifted an eyebrow in patent disagreement.
Fine, she thought. He was all that and more.
How much more she could not wait to find out.
EPILOGUE
CORMAC TURNED OFF the upstairs shower, muscles eased from the hard, hot spray, feeling a little more alive despite the lack of sleep the night before.
He’d have to do something about that. About the fact he couldn’t keep his hands off Harper. He was a fit guy, running now since surf wasn’t as close to home anymore, but even he needed some sleep in order to be a functioning member of society.
At some point he’d do something about it. Not now. Now things were pretty much perfect. Not that he’d say that to his girl. She was so determined to believe perfection was an impossibility. It could be his secret to bear.
He grabbed his toothbrush and brushed, thinking about the text he’d send Harper when she got to the airport.
Though she was heading into the restaurant on the way. Her company’s first ever investment—a small elegant Italian seafood joint down the road from their new Chelsea digs.
She was a
silent partner with an ex-client and his son. Or had they been opponents in a contract dispute just before she’d come home to Blue Moon Bay? He’d never quite been able to get the gist. Apparently they’d sold up a string of restaurants but Harper had convinced them that with her help they could create something wonderful, something new.
Though he wasn’t sure she’d grasped the silent part, as she visited every time she was in back in London, pored over the financials, the contracts with suppliers, making damn sure it remained efficient and in the black.
And the place was doing great. The father and son who ran it seemed really happy, so he let her be.
Especially since she seemed really happy too.
Grinning as he wiped condensation from the mirror, he stopped his hand mid-swipe when he heard Harper’s voice. Raised, in frustration.
Cormac grabbed his towel, wrapped it quickly around his waist and took off out the bathroom door, down the stairs and out the front door.
It was a summer’s day in London, which was nothing like a summer’s day back home, and Cormac’s toes curled at the chill that met his bare feet.
Cormac could hear Harper’s voice, strident and sure, coming from the miniscule front garden but he couldn’t see her at all.
It had only been a matter of time before some neighbour made the mistake of trying to tell her where to park the Sunbeam, or how high to let the roses grow, clueless as to the fact they’d be dealing with the Negotiator.
Thankfully he was known for his charm, and was ready to leap in and clean up the mess.
“Harper?”
After a beat, she said, “Down here.”
He bent over the railing to find her on her hands and knees on the grass, one sexy high heel poking out from behind her skirt-clad backside. Cormac fixed his towel and leant on a newel, prepared to put up with the cold when it came with such a view.
“Come on, sweet puppy,” Harper cajoled. “Give it to me.”
Her Maltese terrier pup, Marnie, stood about a metre away, Harper’s other shoe hanging from her mouth. They’d engaged in a battle of wills ever since Harper had brought her home. But they were besotted with one another at the same time.
