“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
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 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 it’s my favorite drink, so I’m improvising and turning it into a pity party drink.
Pity works well for me.
I’ll wallow and then get it out of my system and fight 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?
I cross the room and open the door, only to suck in a stunned breath to find Eric standing there, his jacket and tie gone, his brightly colored ink that was once up and down one arm now on both. I stare at that ink, intrigued by the random designs—a timepiece, a skull, numbers—lots of numbers and the heat of his stare has me snapping my gaze back to his face, those blue eyes fixing me in a piercing stare.
I can’t breathe. Why do I react like this to this man? “I thought you were room service.”
Those gorgeous lips of his quirk. “I can be.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
I don’t even have time to process him moving, and he’s right here in front of me, his hands on my waist, sending a rush of heat all over my body as he walks me inside the room. The door slams behind him, and suddenly we’re so very alone. “Why wouldn’t I say things like that, princess? We have unfinished business. I know you feel it, too.”
My hand flattens on his chest and his heart thunders beneath my palms, and that tells a story. He’s not as cold as I’d felt he was when I left his office. He’s just as present as I am in this reunion, just as affected by us being together again, but I don’t fool myself into thinking this means more than it should. I’m certain this need between us comes from another place for him than it does me. From anger and conquest of the enemy he believes me to be and I don’t want this like that. I twist away from him and quickly place the coffee table between me and him.
“How did you find me?” I demand.
“I’m resourceful,” he says, his voice pure silk. “If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t want me, now would you?” He glances at my champagne. “Celebrating?”
“Wallowing in failure,” I say because it’s true and I prefer every truth I can embrace, plus I’m buzzing. “And I can’t seem to drink anything else.”
“I could help you expand your tastes.”