He shook his head. "I want to have a nice lunch here, Harper, but that was no coincidence. I'd appreciate it if you didn't treat me like I was an idiot."
I understood how he felt. "I get it. The thing that you don't know is that I really had no clue that you lived there. But Bran did. He owned the home that I just bought. But I had no idea he was the owner. A holding company I didn’t recognize was listed as the owner. You know my brother. Creating an LLC to buy a house and dupe me into buying it because it was next door to you is totally something he’d do."
Noel cocked his head to the side as if he was considering. "Okay."
"I thought he did it because he wanted you to keep an eye on me."
Noel shook his head. “Bran's never said anything to me. So if I'm supposed to watch over you, I don't know it, which is not to say that I don't look out for my neighbors, but —"
"I confronted Bran about it yesterday, and he admitted that he knew the house would be perfect for me and that you were next-door. But he said it wasn’t because he wanted you to guard me. Instead, it had something to do with a business deal."
For a moment, I thought Noel was relaxing but the minute I talked about Bran having an ulterior motive, I could sense the walls rising again.
"A business deal?"
"I know this sounds ridiculous, but you only have to remember the source to know that it’s true. Bran is so deeply in love with his wife that he would do something so crazy as to manipulate me into buying the house next door to you so that we could become friends and therefore you might be open to being a model for his wife's luxury watch and jewelry line.”
Noel stared at me, and I could see he wasn't buying this story. Inwardly I cursed Bran for being such a knucklehead.
"Bran knows that he's a difficult man,” I continued on, knowing this story sounded crazy. “His attempts to reach out to you weren't working. I think he figured that if you and I became friends that you might soften to me and be open to this deal."
Mo squirmed in my arms. I removed the bottle and put it on the table, and then I put him over my shoulder, patting his back for a burp. Noel reached in the diaper bag pulling out a diaper cloth and handing it to me. I put it over my shoulder and replaced Mo, tapping his back.
"You're right. That story is ridiculous. At the same time, it's well-known that you used your wiles to do the type of thing that he wanted you to do. Soften me up?"
Oh hell. I could feel the tenuous progress that we'd made begin to fray.
"I swear to you, Noel, I had no idea about Bran's plan until I confronted him yesterday. I accused him of tricking me into buying the house and hiring you to watch me. I know you've been suspicious about this situation as well, and I'm telling you that he told me he’d done it to get you involved in a business deal, not to babysit me."
He crossed his arms over his chest, and I knew then that while I'd made my apology as planned, there wasn’t going to be a discussion of thisthingbetween us, because there was no longer a thing between us.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Noel
When Harper and Mo and I left the mall, I was relieved that I'd convinced her to go to lunch and talk with me. But that didn't mean I didn't have any reservations about it.
She'd wanted to talk to me about something, but that didn't mean she was going to explain the cameras and bugs on my property. So while I was open and even eager to listen, my common sense told me I needed to keep the barrier between us.
That became increasingly difficult to do when she picked up Mo and fed him. The way she held him and gazed down on him, with such motherly affection, my heart twisted in my chest. This was what Mo was missing; A mother to love him.
But then Harper started telling me that she ended up being my neighbor because of a scheme Bran had cooked up. That part didn't surprise me. I'd known all along that Bran was behind whatever was going on. What I wasn't sure about was Harper’s innocent act. Was she being honest, or was this part of the scam?
While I didn't put it past Bran to cook up a cockamamie scheme like this, I couldn’t figure out why. Could he have really done all this just to ask me to model his wife’s watch collection? Bran could be conniving, but even that sound way out in left field for him. We were in Los Angeles for God's sake. No one would walk two feet without tripping over a male model.
She finished this crazy story, and I waited to hear the part about why there were cameras facing my house or men trying to bug it, but she made no mention of that.
Should I confront her on that?
I felt pretty certain that she’d deny knowing anything about it. After all, she denied knowing about Bran’s scheme.
I suppose she could be telling the truth, but it felt more likely that she was wholly complicit in Bran's plan and this was just a story to put me off the scent. After all, they knew I’d discovered and confiscated the cameras and bugs. What better way to make sure I didn't suspect her than to come to me confessing this crazy story?
That put me back to where he started; what the hell was Bran up to and how much did Harper know and was helping him?
“Wine and beer.” Harper’s friend set our drinks on the table. “Ready to order?”
“I want the salmon salad,” Harper said.