The buzz she’d been dreading came just after three thirty. She didn’t know how she would cope with Harris’s presence in her small flat. This place was her sanctum, and it was about to be forever sullied by his unwelcome but necessary intrusion. She threw back her shoulders and reluctantly depressed the button on the intercom.
“Yes?” Her voice sounded hoarse and nervous.
“It’s me.”
She swallowed, tempted to be contrary and ask for clarification, but she knew that would be unnecessarily petty. His voice was unmistakable. She buzzed him in and then cast a quick glance around the pristine flat that she had unnecessarily been scouring from top to bottom for the last two and a half hours.
She swung open her door and nervously waited in the corridor, watching the stairs—there was no elevator—anxiously. It didn’t occur to her to go down and meet him, and only when he finally reached the third floor where her flat was did it register that he probably needed help carrying everything.
He was overloaded with bags. He had one slung over each shoulder and one clutched in each hand.
“Are those all baby things?” Tina asked, a little shocked. The list she had sent him after consulting Libby hadn’t seemed very long.
“I figured Libby would need some stuff too.”
“You went through her clothing?” She didn’t know why, but the thought was disturbing.
“Of course not. I made Greyson do it.”
He made Greyson do it? As far as Tina could tell, nobody made Greyson Chapman do anything, not even his twin. So the words were a little unexpected, to say the least.
“And he was okay with that?”
“He knows he has fucked up.” Harris shrugged before lifting a hand and gesturing toward her door. “Look, do you mind if I drop these inside? There’s more stuff downstairs.”
Tina longed to ask for specifics about Greyson, but after a moment’s hesitation, she let it go and focused on the rest of his words.
“More?”
“Yeah, the car seat and bassinet and shit.”
“Of course,” she said, opening the door and stepping aside to allow him entry. He paused just on the other side of the threshold and gave the interior of her flat a quick once-over.
“This is nice. Cozy.” By cozy, Tina knew that he meant small. She knew a man like Harris Chapman would never be caught dead in a place like this under normal circumstances. A flat in Bantry Bay was a luxury few could afford to rent, much less own. But to Harris, Tina knew her flat had to seem extremely small and dingy.
“I like it,” she said defensively, and he sent her a wry look before advancing farther into her home to drop the bags on the sofa.
“I do too,” he said, and she hated the mellow warmth the sincerity in his voice sent flowing through her.
“I don’t care,” she said, as much for her sake as his. She couldn’t afford to care what Harris thought about any aspect of her life. Not again.
He slanted her an inscrutable look before heading back to the front door.
“I’ll get the rest of the stuff.”
“Do you need a hand?” she asked reluctantly.
“That would be appreciated.”
She followed him mutely and shut the door quietly behind her, mindful of the fact that it was the middle of the night and her neighbors were asleep. She was sure her midnight cleaning spree had already set a few teeth on edge; she didn’t want to slip even further out of their good graces by making an unnecessary amount of noise in the echoey stairwell.
She had work in the morning but would probably have to call in sick, because between having to pick up Libby and Clara, getting them settled in, and her complete lack of sleep tonight, she didn’t think she’d be able to concentrate on much in the morning.
She was surprised to see the huge 4X4 parked in front of the building. She was so used to seeing Harris in some sleek, racy sports car that it had never occurred to her that he’d show up in something like this. But, of course, it was the practical choice under these circumstances.
“What’s wrong?” Harris asked, seeming to notice her hesitation.
“Uh, nothing. I was just a bit taken aback by the car. It’s silly, but I was expecting the Maserati.”
“I don’t have just one car, you know,” he said in the same way someone else would say, “I don’t have just one pair of socks,” like it was something completely normal to have two or more cars. Tina understood his world: she came from that same world and visited it frequently, but she’d been living outside of it for long enough to find such innate snobbery grating.
Tina had just one car. A perfectly nice Lexus. Like her flat, it hadn’t come cheap, but it didn’t scream extreme wealth either. Tina didn’t deny her background—she wasn’t ashamed of it—but she was grounded enough not to think herself above the rest of the population.