I laugh. “Yes. It’s still me.”
“I was—I think I was—”
“Dreaming?”
“Yes. I was really asleep and I think and you were—It was just a dream.”
Dreaming of me. Fuck. She’s undoing me here. I should have come back for her. I never should have left her.
“Oh God,” she says, grabbing my arm. “What time is it? I have that union meeting.”
“It’s only six-thirty.” I offer her the coffee. “You have time.”
“You really made me coffee?”
“I really made you coffee,” I confirm as she accepts the cup and sips.
“And you made it how I like it. Was there some statistical reason you chose my perfect mixture?”
“I guessed based on how you stock your supplies.”
“You did good,” she approves, “and how very un-bastard-like of you.” She eyes my suit. “You look really, really good in a suit. Actually, you look really, really good in a T-shirt. And apparently, I have no filter with you.”
“No filter equals honesty. Keep it coming. And for the record, you look damn good in my shirt. You’d look better in my bed. I may have to go back to New York for a meeting on this NFL deal. Come with me.”
She sets the coffee down. “I can’t leave in the middle of this, but you, you need to leave before you get set-up in some way. I fell asleep thinking about that. You need to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you. Come into my world, into my life, and be a part of it.”
“Would that include you telling me what all your tattoos mean?”
“Yes, Harper. I’ll tell you what my tattoos mean.”
“That’s tempting, really tempting and I wish I could, Eric, but I can’t leave. You know I can’t leave.”
“You can,” I say, and when she opens her mouth to object, I hold up a finger. “Hear me out, sweetheart.”
She hesitates but nods before I continue, “We’ll convince them that I gave you a reason to leave and backed you the hell out of this mess. In theory, they then let down their guards while the Walker team is hacking and watching.”
“You really think that will work?”
“I know this family far better than I wish I did, Isaac especially. He is never smart about how he covers his tracks.”
“He covered them well enough to keep us from uncovering them now.”
“You’ve been in his face, you’ve been pushing him. Come to New York with me.” My hand comes down on her leg. “Sleep in my bed with me. Live in my world with me. See what life outside the Kingston world is like. They’ve consumed you. And if you see it, if you love it, you’ll sell it to your mom.”
Her eyes soften. “I want to. God, I really want to.”
“Then do it. Remove yourself from the target zone, too.”
Worry pinches her brow. “Does that put my mother there instead?”
“We’ll watch for trouble, but I don’t see her as a target.”
“How would that look? What would we do to set this up?”
“I’ll go at them hard for a few days and you stay your course. Don’t change how you’ve been acting at all. Don’t say a word to Gigi about backing down. Then I’ll pull back and tell my father that I’ll bow out in exchange for your protection. I’ve walked away before. He’ll believe me.”