He’s not talking about the belt or the car. He’s talking about me. He’s telling me he doesn’t trust me and yet he’s here.
He settles back in his seat and places the car in drive while I decide that I’m back to generally confused with this man. “Starbucks, right?” he asks.
“How do you know where my meeting is being held?”
“Anything you say in that building is being monitored.”
“By you?”
“As of today, yes, but that place has been wired to the hilt for years from what my people can tell.”
My heart lurches and I rotate to face him. “My office?” I ask urgently. “Are there cameras in my office?”
He pulls us to a halt at the exit to the parking lot and glances over at me. “Yes. Your office.”
I hug myself and face forward. “I change for the gym in there a few times a week. I don’t even want to think about what that means.” He pulls us onto the highway and starts the short, two-block drive to the coffee shop. “I don’t know if the idea of Isaac or your father watching me freaks me out more.”
“I wish I could comfort you, but I’m the bastard child of a father who was having an affair.”
I press my hands to my face and then drop them to my legs, thinking back over the years. “Isaac is the one recording me,” I assert. “Your father doesn’t see those recordings. I’m certain of it. Isaac uses them and me. He’s always a step ahead of me. He knows what I’m going to do before I get to do it. He claims every big moment I attempt. Your father always ends up impressed with him and disappointed in me. He steals my ideas.”
“Once a cheat, always a cheat,” he says, pulling us into Starbucks. “That’s his way. That’s how he beats you.”
He’s right, I think as he parks the F-TYPE. That is Isaac’s way, and yet I’ve foolishly played this game his way all this time. Eric kills the engine and I turn to him. “He didn’t beat you. Everyone knows he didn’t beat you. You came out on top, better off than him. I know that doesn’t come without personal consequence for you, Eric. I know asking you to come here was selfish, but I need you. We need you.”
“Because he didn’t beat me,” he repeats.
“Exactly. He didn’t beat you. He can’t beat you.”
His jaw sets hard. “Right,” he says flatly, that word, his only reply, holding about ten thousand meanings I want to understand. There is so much about this man I want to understand. I wonder if anyone really knows him. I wonder so many things.
“Eric,” I say, a million possible words playing on my tongue when my cellphone starts ringing in my purse. I ignore it and focus on him, taking a chance, and assuming I might read him right. “I hate that you might think me needing your help translates to me using you like they would. I’m not them. I wanted—more.” My cellphone finally stops ringing.
He shifts to face me, the full force of his piercing blue eyes on me now. “More,” he repeats.
“Yes,” I whisper. “More.”
My cellphone starts ringing again.
“Take the call,” he says softly.
“I don’t want to take the call,” I say. “I want you to talk to me.”
He surprises me then and reaches up, his fingers brushing my cheek, a light touch I feel everywhere, and I want everywhere, sending a shiver down my spine. My phone stops ringing and starts all over again. His hand falls away. “Take the call, Harper. It could be your union groper.”
“He is a groper and yes,” I reluctantly agree, “it could be him.” I grab my phone to find my mother calling, no doubt about Eric. “It’s my mother,” I say, sticking my phone back in my purse. “I’ll call her back.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.” My phone starts ringing again. “She goes for three,” I explain. “After that, she leaves a voicemail.”
He studies me a few beats, something dark and unreadable in his stare, but I don’t need to read his expression to read his thoughts. He knows I don’t want him to listen in on this call. “Look,” I say. “She probably found out that you’re here. She’s going to be a freaked-out mess, afraid of you, and pissed at me. I really don’t care if you hear that call, but it’s going to be painful and long.” It rings again. I grab it from my purse and hit decline before sending it to voicemail. “Eric—”
“Don’t let me find out you’re lying to me, Harper.” His voice is low but hard. “That’s a broad statement so let me repeat and expand on it. Don’t let me find out that you lied to me about anything.”
“I’m not,” I say, looking him in the eyes, letting him see the truth. “I swear to you, Eric. I’m not lying to you about anything. There are things I haven’t told you, but not because I don’t want to tell you. I just haven’t had the time or privacy.”
“I seem to remember things differently.”
“You mean the night you told me the only way you’d come back was to finish off the family?” I challenge.
“I didn’t come back to ruin them,” he says, his blue eyes watching me closely as he adds, “I came back for you.”
He’s here for me.
Those were the words I’d wanted to hear from this man, but now that he’s said them, they’re layered with complexity, the meaning holding a world of possibilities, some good and some not good. “That could mean a lot of things,” I say.
He leans in closer, his hand on the back of my seat. “What do you want them to mean?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Harper
He came for me.
I want to know what that means to him.
He wants to know what that means to me.
Eric lets those questions linger in the air between us and he’s so close, so very close to me, his hand on the back of my seat, his face so near my face that I could reach up and trace every handsome line. “I wanted you to come here, and yes, I wanted you to come for me. But I also never wanted you to leave, not from the cottage or the hotel room, but you did. Easily. You walked away without looking back, so it’s hard for me to believe that you came for me without another agenda.”
“I left and you stayed. For six long fucking years, you stayed with them. And Gigi sent you to me. I could easily believe that you have an agenda.”
“I told you my agenda. I need your help. I don’t want to be your enemy, Eric.”
“I’m only your enemy if you make me your enemy.”
“I won’t. I chose a side when I went after you.”
“Gigi’s side?”
“My father’s, and my father would have respected you for all you’ve done on your own. He would have despised Isaac. You’re not him and I’m not her, that person you made me, we’re not the princess and the bastard.”
“I told you,” he says, reaching up, his knuckle brushing my cheek, sending shivers down my spine, “I’ll make you like that name.”
I catch his hand. “And you like being the bastard?”
His gaze lowers to my mouth and lifts. “I am who I am, Harper.”
“Well, I’m not her,” I say. “I’m not on a throne. I’m not above you because I inherited money I don’t even have, or because I’m my father’s daughter, or whatever the case.”
“I’m here. Stop obsessing over a name.”
“How can I not obsess over that name? I was in that hotel room with you when you were calling me that name. I felt the anger in you when you used it.”
“Not at you, Harper.”
“Now who’s lying to who? I was there. Let me repeat myself. I felt your anger. You hated me for being a part of this family.”
“And yet you fucked me?”
“Right. I did.” My throat constricts, hurt and anger colliding, and yet my voice is remarkably calm. “I must have wanted something. I get it. That’s what you think of me.” I turn away from him to face forward.
Eric doesn’t move away. He stays right there, leaning over me, watching me. “Harper,” he says, his voice l
ow, rough. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, my skin tingling with the need for him to touch me. How can I need a man to touch me? How can I need this man, who hates me, to touch me?
“It does matter,” he says. “You matter or I wouldn’t be here.”
I want to believe him. I want to touch him. I want him to touch me. I want him to kiss me and I know he will if I turn to him. I know I’m setting myself up for heartache with this man. I know he could use me, but I’m so damn drawn to him.
“Look at me, Harper,” he orders softly.
“I can’t or I’ll forget you hate me.” It’s at that moment Jim exits Starbucks, his long legs eating up the parking lot in a near run as he charges toward his car. “That tall, dark-haired man is Jim,” I say, glancing at Eric, and reaching for my seatbelt. “He’s the union guy. He’s leaving.” I let my belt fall away. “Why is he leaving?” I open my door and climb outside, the cold contrasting all the heat Eric and I were just generating and I shiver as I call out, “Jim!”
He looks my way and I swear it’s like he’s seen a ghost. He keeps walking toward his car, a Mercedes that says he’s paid well for his negotiation skills he isn’t using right now. I chase after him, certain now that somehow this meeting was Isaac setting me up for a fall. “Jim, wait,” I say catching him at his door. “I thought we were meeting?”
“I have a situation,” he says, scrubbing his jaw. “I can’t meet with you tonight.”
Eric steps to my side. “Hi, Jim,” he greets, and it feels familiar, like they know each other.
“Eric,” he bites out. “I just heard you were back in town.”
“I noticed,” Eric says dryly.
Jim’s lips thin and he looks at me. “I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow.” He opens his door.
“I thought we were talking through the hot points?”
“I told you,” he says, pausing with his hand on his door, “I can’t meet.”
“What about in the morning?” I press, confused by this change of attitude.
“I’ll see you at the meeting,” he replies, cutting his eyes and disappearing inside his car. His engine revs and he’s backing up in sixty seconds flat.
I turn to Eric. “What was that?” I demand.
“The Bennett Corporation operates one of the largest law firms in the world. We’ve had a few thousand dealings with the union.”
I shake my head in instant rejection. “No. No, he was afraid of you. He knew you. He feared you.”
“He fears the beast that is the Bennett name and I’m a large part of Grayson Bennett’s brand.”
“There’s more to what just happened,” I say, a cold gust of wind biting through me, while Eric seems immune to anything real. He doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s colder than I thought. He’s harder. Why didn’t I know this? He’s a self-made billionaire. That doesn’t come cheap. “You said you want more from me,” I say. “You demanded more of me, and yet all you’re giving me is accusations and a blow-off answer to something that directly affects me.” A few people walk out of the coffee shop and I lower my voice. “You want more. Well, I want more, too. I demand more.” I start walking to the car and I even manage to get the door open.
Eric catches my arm and pulls me around to face him, all that hard muscle and warmth touching me everywhere, and Lord help me, that’s where I want him. Everywhere. I want him so badly it hurts, even though I know that he’s going to hurt me. “You want more?” he asks, his voice a low, rough command.
“Yes,” I say without hesitation, some part of me aware that this moment defines us, it defines me in a way I do not yet understand, and yet, my answer is unchanged. “Yes,” I repeat, barely able to breathe with the jagged edge of his emotions suffocating me.
“Say it,” he orders as if he thinks I can’t or won’t. As if he needs to know I know what I’m agreeing to, and I do.
“I want more.”
His eyes glint fire and ice in the same moment, still managing to burn me alive. “You sure about that? You might not like what you find if I give it to you.”
My hand settles on his chest, his heart thundering under my palm. We’re not talking about Kingston. We’re talking about me and him. “I don’t want you to just walk away this time.”
“You should. You don’t know who I am or what I am.”
“And if I want to find out?”
His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue licking into my mouth, a deep, drugging stroke followed by another before he whispers, “Get in the car, Harper.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Harper
Eric releases me and I am instantly cold again where I was warm moments before, and I want to be warm again, the kind of warm that I know from experience only his touch creates in me. I climb into the car, letting the soft leather absorb my body. He shuts me inside and in a few moments, he’s here with me, the implication of what just happened between us, and where it leads, expanding and consuming us and the small space we share. The promise of more is with us, and I don’t even know what that means. I just know I need to know. I need to know now because this man does that to me. He makes me need and want on a level I don’t even understand.
I just do.
He doesn’t immediately turn on the car. He sits here next to me, staring forward and there is this sudden shift in energy in him that I can’t explain. I feel it even before he looks at me, and asks, “Are you hungry?”
Am I hungry? Not, are you lying to me? The question settles easily between us, the tension of moments before uncurling just that easily. This is new territory for us. We have never shared a meal or a real conversation and I am quick to welcome such a thing. “Yes, actually, I am. I had a power bar today. That’s all.”
“I had a bag of peanut M & M’s which I promise you were better than the power bar. Let’s go to Cherry Creek and eat. I know you live there and it’s also where I booked my hotel and not because I’m stalking you. It’s my old stomping grounds and I wanted to revisit some of my favorite spots while I’m here.”
“I didn’t know you lived in Cherry Creek. How long?”
“Four years. I went to undergrad school around there. My favorite Italian restaurant is there, which is on my list of places to hit while I’m here.”
I perk up. “North?”
“North,” he confirms. “You like it?”
“Love it. My favorite, too.”
“Is it?”
“It is.”
We have this moment of connection then, that isn’t really over North or Cherry Creek, but rather us. Just us and that drag between us that refuses to be ignored. “Then North it is,” he says finally, revving the engine and backing us up. “How’d you end up in Cherry Creek?” he asks once he’s driving us through the parking lot.
“I went to a lunch there with my mother when I first moved here and fell in love. It reminds me of home.”
“New York City?” he asks, pulling onto the highway.
“You’ve read up on me,” I say to the reference of my home state.
“I did,” he says, offering no apologies or explanation.
“Is there a file I can get on you?”
He casts me a sideways look. “I’m right here. Just ask me.”
“As if you’re that approachable.”
“I am,” he says, glancing over at me again. “Tonight, I am.”
“Why tonight?”
“It’s time.” He doesn’t give me a chance to ask what that means. “Why does Cherry Creek remind you of New York City?”
“We lived in a tiny pocket of the city there. Everything we wanted was in a small space. Cherry Creek is like that in that everything is right there, within reach, minus the smog, rats, and crush of people. It’s quaint and safe, hidden from the rest of the city in so many ways.”
“It’s the hidden part I liked,” he says. “It’s like a small city boxed off from the
rest of the city.”
“So, after your undergrad, you went off to Harvard?”
“Yes. And then I went off to Harvard before joining the Navy. And yes, that’s a complicated story.” He turns us into the Cherry Creek neighborhood. “And yes, you can ask me about it while we eat.”
“I will,” I say, “and actually, I live two blocks from the restaurant. You can park there if you like. Though, I guess if you’re at the Marriott, North is practically next door.”
“I am at the Marriott, but I’ll park at your place.” He doesn’t ask me where I live. He just cuts right and then left and pulls into the driveway of my gray-finished house, then around to the back. “The address was in your file and I have a photographic memory.”
I look at him. “As in literally?”
“Yes. Literally.” He opens his door. “I’ll come around to get you.” He exits the car and I hear the trunk pop. I open my door and by the time I’ve settled my legs on the ground, he’s in a sleek black leather jacket, and pulling me to my feet and to him.
He shuts the door, and I end up against the car with his hand on the side of my face, this warm, intimate blanket surrounding us, consuming us. There are no lies, no doubts, no divide. There is just this crazy, hot connection we’ve always shared. “I’m going to have to kiss you now, Harper.” His mouth comes down on mine, his tongue pressing past my teeth in a slow, deep stroke that has me gripping his jacket and leaning into him.
He pulls back, his mouth just a breath from mine, lingering there before a band seems to snap between us and we’re kissing again, and this time he doesn’t hold back. He kisses me deeply, completely and when I whimper with just how much I need more, he pulls back. “Let’s go eat, sweetheart. We need to talk and we won’t talk if we walk in your door.”
“Sweetheart? Not princess?”
His hands go to the lapels on my trench coat. “You were right. I use it to divide us. No more princess.”
The Bastard Page 10
