Total pages in book: 211
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
I down the contents and pull a contract from my briefcase to get to work. “Where were we?”
“Where were we? Talking about Harper.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You damn near turned down this job to go back there again and we both know it was over her.”
“That was when I thought she was too green to protect herself.” I refill my glass. “She’s been with them for six years. She doesn’t need her hand held.”
“She knows the company’s in trouble,” he assumes, downing his own drink.
“She knows.”
“And?” he prods when I offer nothing more.
“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“No,” he says. “Because friends don’t let friends deal with shit alone, as you’ve proven over and over both professionally and personally. Talk to me.”
“We have a contract to deal with.”
“That we’ll handle.”
I inhale and let out a breath. “She wants me to go to Denver. She wants me to save them.”
“Them or her?”
“Both. My grandmother sent her.”
“Gigi?” he asks, incredulously. “Why would she think that you would ever help Gigi?”
“Obviously, that’s why Gigi sent Harper. Or the whole clan of them sent her.”
“You think they know you two hooked up?” he asks.
“When I look into her eyes, no, I don’t believe she’d tell them or use me. When I’m with that woman, I’m one hundred percent into her. She seems honest, sweet, smart, too smart to be with those assholes. When I step back like now, I see six years of her with them. Something doesn’t add up.”
“You almost went back to them just to be a part of a family unit,” he reminds me. “Maybe she needs that unit.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“But she does, correct? She’s not one of them.”
His question comes from understanding. He’s the only person I talk to, the only person in this world I really trust, outside of a few of my SEAL buddies, and we never speak. We’d die for each other, and be there for each other with one phone call, but they don’t know me beyond blood and sacrifice. Grayson does. He knows about the moment I saw her on that stage. He knows how it affected me. He knows how I reasoned that away, as some Bastard/Princess head game I’d put on myself. “Six years, Grayson,” I repeat. “That’s loyalty, not obligation.”
“But she doesn’t feel like one of them,” he presses. “You keep saying that for a reason, and you have the best instincts I’ve ever seen.”
“I have a head for numbers. I have a head for statistics. That’s not this. I can’t trust my instincts when it comes to a woman I want to fuck. Maybe I just want what I didn’t have or can’t have.”
He studies me for several long moments, not entertaining my musings. He gets right to the point. “You don’t want to turn your back on her. What are you going to do?”
“I told her to get out of there and I offered her a job.”
“Which you knew she’d decline,” he comments, lifting his glass in my direction. “Where does that leave you and her?”
“I made sure she knows the door is open. She can leave.”
“You mean she can come to you.” He leans forward. “Do you really think she knows she can come to you?”
“I repeated the offer more than once.”
“In a short meeting after a six-year wait for a reunion. How do you know anything about her and her motives at this point?” He taps the table. “Let’s be honest. Let’s get to the meat of this. We both know the state of that company for reasons you probably don’t want to share with Harper. We both know there are things going on that spell trouble.”
“Get to the meat, Grayson.”
“How much trouble is that for her? Is she in danger? Maybe she can’t get out without your help. Maybe she was afraid to tell you that, for reasons we can both surmise. You could turn on her.”
“Fuck. Stop already.”
“Do you care what happens to her?”
“I barely know her.”
“And yet you never forgot her. That’s how this works. It’s how it worked for me with Mia. I met her and it was her. It was never going to be anyone else.”
It’s not her, I think. It won’t ever be her. He just doesn’t get the dynamic between me and this woman. He can’t. He’s never been the bastard. He’s a better version of Isaac, the heir, and Grayson is the king now that his father is gone. I tap the contract. “Work. Money. Your money. Now.”
His lips quirk. “I hit about ten nerves, I see.”
“Clause eight,” I say, and once I start talking, I distract him with business, even if my mind is constantly going to Harper. Is she in danger? I need help. She said that several times.
I’m still thinking about those words when Mia appears by the table, looking gorgeous in a pink dress, her long dark hair loose around her shoulders. “Hello, you two handsome men.” She slides into the booth and kisses Grayson, her hand settling on his jaw. “I missed you.”