Looking to her left, she saw none other than … “Royce.” Her ex. She silently swore. It was just her luck that he’d be there. She thought about walking right out, but he’d see that as her fleeing from him. She wouldn’t give the cheating bastard the satisfaction.
He cleared his throat. “Um, how are you?”
“Fine.”
He gave her a quick head-to-toe scan and said, “You look well. Marriage to a billionaire suits you.”
At those words, the woman in front of her turned and gave Harper a cursory look, as if to check she wasn’t a celebrity or something. Harper and Knox had been featured in magazines, but it seemed that this woman hadn’t read any of them because she turned right back around.
Ignoring the bitter edge to Royce voice’s, Harper smiled. “It does suit me pretty well, doesn’t it?”
“I bumped into one of your work colleagues the other day,” he said. “They took great delight in telling me that you’re happily married. With a kid. A boy, right?”
“Right,” she said, tapping her nails on her thigh.
“Is he with you?” Royce glanced at the Audi, which was parked among a row of other cars.
Harper narrowed her eyes. “How did you know the Audi was mine?”
His eyes shot back to her and widened slightly for a brief moment. “Okay, I’ll admit, I saw you hop out of it a few minutes ago. I was debating whether to come talk to you. I almost didn’t.”
“I see.”
“What’s your little boy’s name?” asked Royce.
“You really want to talk about my son?”
Royce shrugged, nonchalant. “I’m just interested in what’s happened in your life since we parted.”
“As you know, I got married and had a kid. Why don’t you tell me what’s been happening in
your life?”
“Nothing interesting. My life’s been pretty dull since you left it.” He swallowed. “Do you have time to talk?”
“No.” And, really, what was there to say anyway?
“Come on, Harper. It would be good to catch up.”
She frowned, finding it odd that he would even want to speak with her, considering she made a habit of giving him shit. “No, it really wouldn’t.”
His face hardened. “You know, they’re right in what they say. Money changes people.”
“No, but it does change how the people around you treat you. Take you, for example. I haven’t been civil with you since the moment you cheated on me. Instead of shouldering that blame, you’re blaming it on the fatness of my purse. Mature, Royce. Real mature.”
He sighed. “I just want to talk. Please.”
Quite frankly shocked that he would ever plead with her for anything, she felt her frown deepen. As she looked at him again, seeing the out-of-character kicked-puppy look on his face, her pulse quickened. And then it hit her. He’d said, “your work colleagues”. But Royce believed they’d closed the studio down, not relocated it. As such, he would have said her “old” work colleagues … if it were Royce.
Motherfucker, she was talking with the bastard incorporeal. Her realization must have shown on her face, because his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He clasped her hand and, Jesus, it was like someone poured ice-cold water into her veins. It went rushing up her arm, into her shoulder, spreading and spreading through her body. The shock of it took her breath away. Still, she instinctively slapped his chest, sending soul-deep agony out of her prickling fingertips and blazing through him. She was fast.
But she hadn’t been fast enough.
The incorporeal burst out of his body just as Royce sagged to the floor. The whirling vapor plunged right into a little girl of about eight or nine, and the impact almost knocked the kid off her feet.
Harper stumbled toward her, shaking from the cold that had invaded her body and seemed to weigh her down like lead. But, in control of the child, the incorporeal righted itself, shot a creepy smile at Harper, and thrust out its palm. A bitterly cold wind soared out of its hand, slammed into Harper, and tossed her aside.