“You got it. We’re actually passing your door now.” I disconnect and slide my phone into my pocket.
“What’s the plan here?” he asks.
There’s a knock on the door and Grayson opens it. “Now?”
“Now,” I say, and he backs up, allowing Harper to enter.
She appears, looking stunning with her long dark hair draping her shoulders. Every damn time she enters a room, I feel a punch in my chest, a surge of adrenaline. “What’s happening?” she asks and Blake steps around to allow her to join us by my desk.
“Your mother is threatening to call the police and the press and tell them that I knew my father denied my mother medical care, therefore I tried to kill him.”
“You didn’t even know when your father fell ill,” she argues. “I didn’t tell you until afterward, when she called and confessed knowing about it to me.”
“I went to the facility in Germany. I was trying to find peace in her suicide. I did ask why she was denied, but they gave me the standard—not enough spots—reply.”
She studies me for several beats. “You didn’t know when I told you. I’d bet my life on that.” She reaches into the small purse hanging at her hip and pulls out her phone. I don’t ask what she’s doing. I know.
She punches in a number and a minute later I hear her say, “Mom, don’t talk. Listen. If you come at Eric, you’re coming at me. I’m moving in with him. We’re together. And we both know he didn’t attack his father. You know why he was attacked.”
She listens a minute and then says, “The smartest thing you can do is to tell me everything, but since you won’t, let me make this crystal clear. Those men are men Eric hired to protect you because there’s an assassin on the move. Gigi fled the country, we assume to save herself. I’m going to have Eric pull all of those men. You’re on your own. I hope you don’t die but if you do, I love you.” She hangs up and slides her phone back into her purse. “The men you were wa
iting on arrived. It’s time for you to become an NFL team owner.”
I stare at her, this beautiful, strong woman, and I feel things that I can’t even name. She stood by me. There was no hesitation and I can’t say that it was a conscious test, but if it were, she’d pass with flying colors. I look at Blake. “Pull your men from direct contact, but keep them close. I’ll call you for an update when I get out of the meeting.” I eye Harper. “On our way to the airport to go to Denver.”
“Understood,” Blake says, walking toward the door, and the minute he exits and shuts us inside, Harper and I collide. Our bodies meld. My hands tangling in her hair, her hands sliding all over my body. My mouth slanting over her mouth, hungry and hot, neither of us daring to breathe. Neither of us thinking about what happens next, and yet, the very fact that there is so much yet to happen is what drives what comes next.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Harper
Eric turns me and presses me against the desk, his hand cupping my backside. “I can’t believe I just did that,” I pant out. “But it was a good plan, right?”
“It was perfect, baby. Perfect.” His mouth comes down on mine, another long lick of his tongue and I’ve forgotten what is perfect besides his hands, his mouth, his kisses. “I really need to be inside you right now,” he murmurs, unsnapping my pants.
I catch his hand. “No. No, you have an NFL team to buy. This comes later.”
“Now and later.” He leans in to kiss me, but my cellphone rings.
He freezes a breath from touching me. “That will be your mother.”
“Yes, because we can’t get away from any of this. It won’t end.” I press against his chest and search his handsome face. “I did the right thing, right? I didn’t push her in the wrong direction? At the time, I just felt—”
“Like you needed to take control?” he supplies. “Because we do and that’s what you did. Yes, you did the right thing. We are no one’s captives.”
My cellphone stops ringing. “I hate that she threatened you like that.” My hands flatten under his jacket, on the hard wall of his chest. The thin jacket with smooth leather that I know he’s still wearing because of the gun he’s placed at his back. That’s where we are right now. In a place where guns are necessary and it has to end.
His hands settle on my shoulders, while my phone starts ringing again. “She was at a meeting with the mob boss. She attended with my father.”
At this point, nothing I hear about my mother surprises me. I decline her call, one point puzzling me. “Your father met with the mob? Not Isaac?”
“It was recent,” he says. “And I don’t think my father is stupid enough to get into this mess. I suspect he was trying to get out of it.”
“And my mother was with him. She knows what all of this is about. Going to Denver is a good thing. I can make her talk. I will. I’ll end this.”
“I’m not as convinced as you are that she knows the whole story.”
“She knows more than we do, and she’s of the same mindset as Isaac. She didn’t want you in Denver. They must have feared you’d take over while they were weak. Gigi must have seen the writing on the wall, though. She must really see you as the answer. She saw you as the way to save the family.”