But I can’t say those things and have him listen.
I need a reason to get him into another room alone and I make a fast decision that now is the time to put it all on the line. Now is the time for me to stop holding back and I act on that decision before I can back out. “Because I need to tell you something. I need to talk to you.”
He studies me for several long beats, his expression unreadable, before he takes my hands and starts walking across the room without speaking a word to any of the men in the room. His strides are long, calculated and rapid enough to have my short legs struggling to keep up. Once we’re on the stairs, he places me in front of him and I hurry forward, hyperaware of this man at my back. Hyperaware of the box I just shoved myself inside, and how easily a box can be cut open and destroyed.
We travel up a winding set of stairs and when we reach the top level it’s a few steps until we enter a pair of open double doors. I have about ten seconds to take in a massive black-framed bed on a pedestal before the doors shut behind me. Another ten seconds before Eric has placed me against the door and steps in front of me, his powerful thighs caging mine, his palms flattening on the door on either side of me. “I’m listening.”
He’s listening.
And now I need to talk.
Now I need to tell him what I brought him up here to tell him.
Officially, my time is up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Harper
I stand there against the wall with Eric’s big body framing mine and those intelligent, blue eyes fixed on my face, waiting for me to tell him what I declared he must know urgently. He’s beautiful. He’s gifted. He’s damaged in ways that I wasn’t equipped to understand six years ago. In ways that I can never fully understand, but I know drive his actions now, with the way this family has targeted us both. Because he’s also a fighter, a warrior, a Navy SEAL who has fought to the death. While I find this part of him brutally sexy, it’s also terrifying right here, right now, with his talk of ending his father.
“Talk to me, Harper,” he urges, his voice low, almost gentle, but tension radiates off of him, almost as if it pings off the walls and slams right back into him.
I press my hand to the solid wall of his chest and his heart thunders under my touch. Because of my touch? Because of what he’s about to do to end his father? “Whatever you were about to tell Walker Security to do down there, please don’t.”
He offers no denial. His hand comes down on mine, his piercing eyes capturing mine. “Why would you protect my father?”
There’s an accusation in that question that pisses me off. “Are you really serious right now? I’m not protecting your father,” I say. “I’m protecting you.”
“Me? How are you protecting me, Harper?”
“There are some things you can’t come back from.”
“What do you think I’m about to do?”
“Tell me. What are you about to do?”
“Whatever it fucking takes to get that man out of our lives once and for all.”
“Kill him?” I challenge. “Would you kill him?”
“Kill or be killed, sweetheart. I’ll do whatever it takes.” He is cold, hard, decisive. He’s made up his mind. He has a plan and it’s a plan I have to change.
“No,” I hiss, bunching his shirt in my free hand. “No, you will not.”
“You don’t want him to die.”
Again with his damn accusations. “I don’t want you to die. Do you really think you could live with killing your father?”
“Live with it? I’d sleep like a baby if that man was gone. What don’t I know again, Harper? What did you bring me up here to confess?”
“Confess?” My anger ignites all over again. “I have nothing to confess. You already know what I have to say. There is no secret. There is no again. I hate that you just said that to me. But I guess there is an again because I wanted you alone so that I could say something to you that I said on the phone. Something I thought you needed to hear again, live and in person.”
His jaw spasms and he looks right, seeming to struggle before he fixes me in a turbulent stare. “You know you teased me with a secret to get me up here.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. Don’t throw out taunts about secrets with me, Harper. Not now. Not after what we went through tonight.”