The Bastard

by Lisa Renee Jones

  He tears his mouth from mine, his lips a warm breath from another kiss that I hunger for in ways I didn’t know any man could make me hunger. “I’m here now,” he declares. “Just like you wanted.”

  His touch, his taste, his very existence in this room is burning me alive, but so is the hate between him and this family, his family. “This isn’t how I wanted you.”

  One of his hands slides up between my shoulder blades, molding me close. The other caresses up my waist, cupping my breast, sending a wave of sensations through my body. “How did you want me, Harper?”

  My lashes lower and I pant out a breath. How did I want him? Too many ways. So many ways. “Impossible ways,” I say, trying to tear away from his grip, but he pulls me back to him, that damn earthy scent of him driving me insane, consuming me the way he’s threatening to consume me. The way he already has in some ways for six long years.

  “Let go,” I growl. “Let go now.”

  “What impossible ways?”

  “Without the hate. You can’t be here and not hate.”

  “Is that what you think? That I hate you?”

  “The bastard and the princess. You said it. I felt it in that hotel room. You wanted to punish me.”

  “I wanted a lot of things in that hotel room. I still do.”

  “You don’t even deny it.”

  “Did I want to spank you? Yes. Did I want to fuck you hard and fast and do it all over again? Yes. Did I want to fuck you out of my system once and for fucking all? Yes, I did. But I failed. I failed and now I’m here.” He maneuvers me to the desk and presses me against it, his big body caging mine.

  “Stop. You hate me. I’m not fucking a man who hates me again, but apparently, I am going to get fucked by him in all kinds of ways. I should’ve never asked you for help. And yes, you’re a bastard, and not by name. I told you. You claim that with actions.”

  “What haven’t you told me, Harper?” he demands, wanting information with me as a side order.

  “We’re not finished, you said?” I challenge, hating that I melt for him when he has an agenda, hating even more that I opened the door to that agenda. “You mean you’re not done using me?”

  “Who’s using who, princess? You came to me.”

  “I didn’t use you. I’m not using you, unless a request for honest help is now considered using.”

  “No?”

  “No. And you just kissed me to get information.”

  “I kissed you because I couldn’t fucking help myself, and for the record, I don’t like what I can’t control.”

  “You hate me. Stop kissing me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Harper. I hate secrets and lies. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Like Gigi didn’t tell you? I know she told you.” I shove at his chest, a sudden need to have the clear head his body touching my body won’t give me.

  His hands shackle my hips, the touch scorching, possessive. Controlling. “Tell me yourself.”

  “I was supposed to offer you money. I didn’t. I refused.”

  His eyes narrow, lips thin. “And why exactly didn’t you offer me money?”

  “You don’t need it.”

  “Is that right?” he asks, sounding amused.

  “Yes, it is. You don’t need it, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that the man who came here for money, came here for financial gain, not to help his family.”

  “These people are not my family. You are not my family.”

  I recoil as if slapped. “I know how you feel about me. I get it. I just told you that. That princess thing is all about reminding me that we’re divided.”

  “We’re only divided if you’re with them.”

  “I’m trying to make my way, just like you did, Eric, but my mom is here and she’s made foolish decisions. That doesn’t make me love her less, though. If it were your mother—”

  “I’d have gotten her out.”

  “You think I haven’t tried? She’s a fool for your father and for the record, I fucked you. I kissed you. That doesn’t mean I can’t think beyond an orgasm. I won’t be a fool for you like she was for your father.” I shove on his chest. “Get off of me. Get back.”

  “Is that what you really want? For me to back away? For me to get back on a plane and go away?”

  “Like you’d do that now? You bought stock. You decided to take over.”

  “You don’t take on a Kingston without leverage. I made sure I had leverage. To help you. You asked for help. I’m here. So, let me repeat this,” His hands settle on my face, his voice softening, “I came for you.”

  Heat sears the air between us, a hot flash of desire fueled by how good we are naked together, by how much we really aren’t done with each other. “I’m afraid to trust you.”

  “Good,” he says, pulling back to look at me, wicked heat in his eyes. “I haven’t earned that trust.”

  “I haven’t earned yours either,” I say, and it’s not a question. “And I never will.”

  “If I wasn’t willing to see beyond this family, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re here to ruin them, and me with them.”

  “From what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen far more than Isaac thinks I’ve seen, you didn’t need me for that. I could have sat back with a bag of popcorn and watched the fun.”

  Realization hits me. “You came because you knew you could take over. It wasn’t about saving us. It’s about getting what you always wanted.”

  “Princess, I haven’t wanted or needed this place in a long time. I got out and got right like you should have.”

  “I couldn’t. I told you that. I told you why. I would have left the legacy behind, if not for my mom. Seriously, what if it was your mother? Would you just leave? I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “Because you want me to be human enough to care.”

  “Are you?”

  He cups my face. “Enough to bow to a princess, it seems.” His voice is low and raspy as he leans in and brushes his lips over mine and then suddenly he’s kissing me, drugging me with his tongue, before he says, “Decide what you’re going to do with that power, Harper. Then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with mine.” He strokes his thumb over my cheek. “I’ll see you soon.” He releases me and in a few, graceful strides, he’s out of the office, and I’m alone. Only, I’m not sure I am alone anymore.

  I’m with him, I’m with Eric, but I’m not sure if he’s my friend or my enemy. I just know that if that man touches me, I’ll melt, and I won’t care if that means pain or pleasure.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Eric

  Harper’s like the apple in the Garden of Eden, tempting me in ways that I simply can’t resist. I know she could be poisonous. I know she could be playing with my head, but I still want her and in a wicked, fierce way. I want her so fucking badly that I’m here at Kingston Motors in a building I swore I’d never step foot in. The taste of her. The feel of her against me. The sweet floral scent of hers that clings to me as I exit her office, a distinctively her scent that’s a giveaway to how that conversation behind closed doors went just now: up close and personal, the only way I want things with Harper.

  I won’t hide that fact from her or anyone. That’s not my style. I want. I need. I take and I never shy away from announcing that intent, nor would that benefit Harper, considering her present position. With the way my appearance went down, she’s officially placed herself inside a war zone. More so, she’s declared herself standing on my side of the battlefield, and for that, she’ll pay without my protection. Isaac will come at her with that desperate viciousness I know all too well, just as he knows where that leaves him with me. He needs to know what that means with Harper.

  In fact, there’s no reason to play this on the lowdown with Isaac. I’m halfway to the lobby when I turn around and walk my ass back to Isaac’s office. His door is shut but I don’t care. I open it and step inside. He’s sta
nding at his window, his phone in his hand, with his back to me. He whirls around and his expression reddens the way it had every time our law profession pitted us against each other in mock trials.

  “I need to call you back,” he says to whoever he’s talking to before he disconnects the line. “Knock, you little bastard,” he snaps. “You might be performing an audit, but I run this place.”

  “Last I heard, your father still ran this place. Good to know who’s responsible for its current state of destruction. I won’t keep you. I have data to dissect. I just want to be clear. Harper’s a pawn Gigi used to get to me. If you use her or lash out at her, you’ll suffer, and as in the past, when I make a promise I keep it.”

  “No matter what you have to do to make me pay, right?” he challenges. “I thought Grayson Bennett and his ever talked about moral compass would have changed that in you.”

  “I operate based on who I’m dealing with and we both know you don’t even understand the words moral compass. Leave Harper out of this.”

  “Harper put herself in this. She wants the company.” He leans on the desk. “Smarten up, brother. She’s brought us together for a reason. We just don’t know what it is yet, but I promise you, at its root, it’s about power. It’s about how damn much she thinks her father contributed to this company.”

  “Last I heard, she’s the one who contributed and with no stock to show for it. You have her trust fund.”

  He gives an amused snort. “I didn’t know you were so fucking naive,” he says. “She has no trust fund. Her father left it fluid and under her mother’s control. She wants you to take me down so she can take over. She wants what’s mine and assumes as the bastard, it will never be yours. Believe me, man, she’ll fuck you up and down and sideways to get what she wants.”

  He hits a nerve I didn’t realize still existed about this company, this life, and even the woman I came here to help, but I beat it down. “What you fail to understand, dear half-brother, is that I don’t want or need this place. If she takes it from you, I’ll be amused. This isn’t my life.”

  “Then why come here at all?”

  “We’re family,” I say dryly. “Harper said so.”

  “That’s why you wear the jaguar, a competing emblem, inked on your arm? Because we’re family?”

  “That’s exactly why. It’s all about family to me.”

  “If that’s family to you, you’re ten more shades of fucked up than I even realized.”

  “I have a feeling we’ll be reinventing how we define family and fucked up many times over before I leave.” My lips quirk. “Harper works for me. Remember that. You need her, you come through me.” I turn and exit the office, cutting left and down the hallway. I’ve just cut right when I end up toe to toe with Harper, who all but runs into me.

  I catch her shoulders, and holy fuck, touching this woman sets me on fire, muddying the water in ways that I allowed to pull me into this hell. “Hi,” she says softly.

  I narrow my eyes on her, thinking about her six years with this family, thinking about what it takes to live like one of them that long. “You wanted me here. You got me. You work for me now. You report to me now. Put together any data you think I need to see and don’t make any move related to that data, and I mean any move, without talking to me first.” I release her. “I’ll be in the conference room.” I turn away and head for the front office, but I don’t make it far.

  “Eric,” she calls out, and my name on this woman’s lips easily halts my steps, but I don’t immediately face her. For a moment I’m back in that hotel room with her naked, in my arms, me buried inside her when she used my name and told me that she saw me, not the bastard. I wonder who she sees now. I wonder who she really saw then. My jaw clenches with that thought and I turn around to find her stepping in front of me, the small space of the narrow walkway shrinking and wrapping us in intimacy.

  “I don’t know what I sense in you right now,” she says. “But remember this: Isaac has trashed you every day of your life you’ve been connected to this family. You think we’re different, but he sees me just like he sees you, and he is not kind to me. I deal with it. I handle it, but to you, we’re different. To him we’re alike.”

  “And to you?”

  “In some ways we are. We both got forced into this family and we both wanted it to be a real family. I, however, wasn’t smart enough to get out of here like you did when I could have, but I was smart enough to ask for your help. Because the way I see it, doing nothing wasn’t an option. If you take everything, then at least I’m finally free.” She turns and walks away and I watch her disappear into her office, the damn floral scent of her every-fucking-where, the way I want her naked in every fucking thought. Which would be fine if that nerve Isaac hit wasn’t jumping again.

  I came here for her.

  He knows it.

  She knows it, too.

  That’s only a problem if there’s something going on here, and my gut says that it’s designed to fuck me over. I don’t know why I’m a target, but I am, and if Harper knows the truth, she’s going to tell me, even if I have to strip her naked and cuff her to my bed to get it out of her.

  But I’m still not sure she does. I’m not sure that she’s not being used or even targeted herself.

  A thought that I can’t quite materialize claws at my mind, the way so many do until I realize them, until I turn them into numbers that no one but me can understand. I need to be alone and think. I also need Harper naked and cuffed to the bed, but that comes later. Not much later. Tonight. It happens tonight when I decide if I trust her or I just want to fuck her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Eric

  With a vow to have Harper naked and in my bed tonight, I turn on my heel and walk into the lobby where I stop in front of the receptionist, a pretty blonde I’d guess to be in her twenties—and knowing Isaac, his fuck buddy. That’s what he does. He surrounds himself with pretty women who place him on a throne and kneel in front of him. A thought that has me remembering Isaac’s comment inferring Harper would fuck me to get what she wants, though her fucking me for any reason suits me just fine. Now, if she fucked him, that would be another story, and a really fucking bad one I’d have a hard time believing.

  The receptionist eyes the back office where I just exited and then me again, obviously trying to figure out how I got back there without her knowing. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Eric Mitchell, the other brother.”

  Her eyes go wide and then as often is the case, they rake over my tats, and then sharply lift. “You’re—as in—”

  “The bastard?” I ask, but I don’t have to wait for her reply. I get right to the confirmation. “Yes. I’m him and I’m a stockholder called in on behalf of Gigi to audit the operation. I’ll be working in the conference room, if I have calls or deliveries or if anyone simply wants to share operational concerns.”

  The phone rings and she looks awkward, like she’s not sure if she should do her job and answer the phone. “Answer it,” I order. “I’ll wait.”

  She swallows hard and picks up the phone. “Kingston Motors, can I help you?” Her eyes go wide. “Mr. Kingston. Yes.” She looks at me. “He’s standing right here. Yes. Of course.” She punches the hold button. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Conference room,” I say, heading to the left of the desk toward a set of stairs that will lead to a lower level opposite Gigi’s private domain. Gigi, who might have convinced Harper that she’s a new woman, but I know better. She has an agenda, something she’s after, something I can give her, and she’s smart enough to know I’ll find out what that is and she’s willing to take that risk.

  I take my time going down the stairs, aware that my father could have called my cellphone. He called the office phone to record my reply, or allow Isaac to listen in, or both. Once I’m at the double glass doors of the lower level, I open them to enter the massive conference room, where I head to the end of the mahog
any table and grab the phone, punching the line. “Father,” I say, though that word is acid on my tongue.

  “I understand you’re now a stockholder.” His tone is dry, unaffected, but then he enjoys games, and while I don’t, we’re smack in the middle of one.

  “I never pass on a steal of a deal. I got it cheap. Those recalls haven’t been kind to your stock or apparently your cash flow.”

  “Our cash flow is just fine.”

  “Considering you had to sweep Harper’s trust fund out from underneath her,” I say, “I imagine it is.”

  “Sweep her trust fund?” He laughs. “That’s a joke. You don’t know half the story, boy, but you will. I’m on a private jet about to head home. We’ll talk and I promise you that even that genius brain of yours will feel enlightened.” He disconnects and I lean back in my seat. I don’t know half the story. He’s right for once where I’m concerned. I don’t know half the story, but I’ll know it all soon.

  My cellphone rings and I snake it out of my pocket to find Blake’s number on the caller ID. “Talk to me,” I say, answering the line.

  “There are cameras and recording devices in the room you’re in, which from what I can tell has been the case for years.”

  “Of course,” I say dryly, finding the idea of my brother recording people and using those recordings against them—me included if I give him the chance, which I won’t—highly probable. “What else?”

  “About fifteen minutes after you left your brother’s office, the tech team for Kingston Motors suddenly began deleting chunks of data; which even dumb shits like me that don’t have your genius IQ can assume is to hide damning information before you gain access.”