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 have no idea what it is about this moment that gets to me. I see these two together all the damn time and I never think of me with someone else, but right now, I’m thinking about Harper. I’m thinking about me with Harper. “Fuck,” I murmur, pushing out of the booth and grabbing my phone from my pocket.
I step outside, welcoming the cold October night, and I dial Blake Walker of Walker Security, a man who’s not only a world class hacker and ex-ATF agent, he and his team, just helped us through another nightmare. I trust them. “Eric,” he greets. “What’s up?”
“Kingston Motors.”
“I know the connection to you,” he offers without prodding. “I make it a point of knowing the people I’m working with.”
“Good. This will go faster then. Find out what’s dirty there. If you can’t get real answers, hack the financials with enough detail to allow me to dissect it all. Look at the officers, especially my half-brother and father.”
“What else?”
“I’ll email you a list of questions on my mind in a few minutes. I need this to be comprehensive. Take the time you need. What I need now: find out if my grandmother had a heart attack about a year ago. Text me the information.”
“I can tell you that now.” I can hear him banging on his keyboard and I wait, every nerve in my body on edge and I know why. I need one little piece of information proven to be honest, a pebble of truth that might indicate she isn’t lying to me.
“Yes,” Blake finally says. “She did, in fact, have a heart attack, but she’s now recovered.”
“Harper Evans,” I say, relieved with his response but already wanting more. “I need to know everything there is to know about her and tonight.”
“I can get you an overview tonight. The rest will have to be tomorrow.”
“That works.” I hang up and Grayson steps outside with me.
“You need to go deal with this.”
“I need to be here closing this deal,” I argue.
“You are more than capable of doing both. Close it from the road. She got to you, then and now, and this is your blood family.”
“If I go there, I won’t save them. I’ll finish them off.”
“Then maybe you need to go to her tonight and convince her to take the job. Or not. I just know that you don’t have closure. I feel it. I see it. You need it. Go get it, and her, like you get everything else you decide you want.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He walks back inside the bar.
I don’t stand there and think about his words. He knows me and he’s right. I need closure, not with my family, but with Harper. I pull my phone back out and dial Blake. “Give me an hour, man,” he says when he answers. “I’m good, but I still require time.”
“Harper’s in town tonight. I need to know which hotel.”
Chapter eight
Harper
There’s a quote I read once: “I’m just a good girl with bad habits.”
That’s me. I’m that good girl and making a fool of myself with my stepbrother is my bad habit.
After contemplating tucking tail and licking my wounds on an early return flight home, I decide against that cowardly action. I’m going to talk to Eric again tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll wallow in self pity via room service and champagne, when I usually don’t drink. Of course, champagne is the drink of celebration and I’m far from celebrating, but I’m improvising and turning it into a pity party drink.
Pity works well for me.
I’ll wallow, work it out of my system, and wake up fighting again.
And it’s a hell of a pity party, considering I’ve been dumped by the hottest man I’ve ever known not once, but twice. He’s too good at goodbye. I’m too good at wanting him. I have let one night with that man affect me in lingering ways that make no sense.
I sit down on the love seat in the corner of the room and fill my glass, since I ordered a champagne dinner before I decided that was a bad idea, and right after pulling on sweats and a tee; because I’m feeling really, really sexy tonight after Eric barely gave me a blink. Once my bubbly is in my glass and I’m sipping, I think about how Eric affects me. That man makes me feel everything, and I don’t even know what that means. I’m just aware in every physical and emotional way when he’s in the room and no one else has done that to me. I’ve tried to make it happen. I’ve dated. I’ve dated attractive, powerful, sexy men who did absolutely nothing for me. It’s ridiculous. I was with Eric one night and we didn’t even have real sex.
The doorbell rings, and yes, there’s a doorbell because that’s just how they roll around here, I guess. I down my champagne and stand up, the buzz of two glasses hitting me rather suddenly. Clearly, I should have waited for my food before I indulged in the champagne. After all, what have I eaten today? Not much. Some cashews, I think. Does Starbucks count as a meal?