I shove my MacBook and a stack of papers in my briefcase and join him on the other side of the desk. “We’re about to hit the holidays. When’s the trial?”
“January.”
“And the wedding is in March. Are you sure you don’t need to push the wedding back?”
“Hell no, we aren’t pushing the wedding back. Mia’s trying to shut down the prosecution before this even goes to trial. I hired help and we already planned this once. We’re just duplicating the past plans.”
We head for my door and talk through a few pieces of the contract. We’ve just stepped into the lobby when the door opens and I’m suddenly standing face to face with a familiar brunette who’s the last person I expect to see right now. “What are you doing here, princess?” I ask softly, reminding her of that night we spent together, reminding her that I know who and what she is, then and now.
“Obviously,” she says, “I’m looking for you.” Her eyes meet mine, blue eyes the color of a perfect sky, and I have no idea why I don’t remember this about her. Except I do remember, randomly and too often, just as I’m thinking about all the perfect curves beneath another black dress she’s wearing today. This one is more demure, but it doesn’t matter. I know what’s beneath. I know where my hands and mouth have been and so does she.
As if she’s read my thoughts, she cuts her gaze abruptly and focuses on Grayson. “I’m Harper Evans,” she says, offering him her hand. “I’m the—”
“I know who you are,” Grayson says, shaking her hand, a hand free of a wedding band. “And he told me quite a lot about you,” he adds. “I must say that you’re as beautiful as he claimed.” Grayson does nothing without purpose. He wants her to know I spoke about her to take her off guard, to make her wonder what else I said about her. That’s how he works. He discreetly takes control and in this case, he’s discreetly handed it to me.
“Thank you,” she says, her attention returning to me, the awareness between us downright sizzling, as hot as it had been six years ago. “Can I please speak to you in private?”
Grayson’s hand comes down on my shoulder. “Meet me at our usual spot.”
I give him a small incline of my head and he departs. “Let’s go to my office.”
She swallows, her long, graceful neck bobbing with the action, drawing my gaze, and I wonder why I didn’t kiss her there when I had the chance. I wonder what the hell it is about this woman, out of all of the women out there, that has stayed with me all these years. That’s still with me, right here and now. “This way,” I say, motioning her forward, and at this late hour, there’s no one in our path, my secretary included.
We walk side by side down the hall, and I’m acutely aware of her by my side, memories of pulling her into the cottage and pressing her against the wall in my mind. We reach my office and I open the door, motioning her forward. She glances at me and I sense that she wants to say something, but she seems to change her mind. She moves forward and I know what she’ll see: an executive desk, a window with a view to kill for, and a seating area to the right, which I plan to avoid. I still want her beyond reason and the six years since we last saw each other, and that isn’t to my advantage when she clearly wants something from me.
I press my hands on my desk and I say to her what she once said to me. “You want something from me.”
She steps to the front of my desk and meets my stare. She’s older now, and I see the time both in her blossomed beauty but also in the experience in her eyes, in the jaded history I don’t pretend to know firsthand, but I understand in ways few others could. “I do want something from you,” she says. “And I wish I could reply to that statement in the way you once did to me, without wanting anything but what was in the moment. Obviously, you didn’t. You left.”
“I told you I was leaving.”
“I know.” She doesn’t add to that statement but there’s more there. “I need help.”
Now she has my attention. “What kind of help?”
“I know that you are damn near a billionaire now. Or maybe you are already. I know that you did all this yourself and you have no reason to look beyond here.”
“What kind of help?” I repeat.
“We just had our second recall at Kingston Motors and
this time after two people died in our cars.”
“I read that.”
“Something doesn’t add up,” she says, sounding earnest. “Nothing has changed in our process and on the books and inside our operations, everything looks right, but it’s not.”
They’ve grown too fast, I think, but I don’t voice that opinion. “What does Isaac say?”
“For me to leave it alone. He has it handled, but our stock is down and I’m not you. I don’t have the same head for numbers but I have a decent aptitude. There’s money moving in unpredictable ways. I need your help, Eric. Please. It wasn’t easy to come here. Not after you left, but I’m here.”
After I left.
She keeps saying that like she expected me to stay and while I could find all kinds of pleasure in this woman wishing she’d had more time with me, I’m just too damn jaded myself to see this that simply. She said I wanted something. The reverse could have been true.
“I really need your help,” she repeats.
If this was that cut and dry, she’d have my attention, but it’s not. There’s more to her visit. There’s more to this story. I sense it. I see it in her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?” I narrow my eyes on hers and lean forward, my hands on the desk again, pinning her in a stare. “No,” I amend. “Let me rephrase. What don’t you want me to know?”