by Ally Blake
Not that she was watching him. Or constantly reliving that kiss. Or wondering if he was too.
Harper turned in her seat as a woman plonked herself into the chair beside her. Adele, Harper thought, quickly glancing across the table at Lola. Was this the sign she’d been looking for that things weren’t as they appeared?
For Adele had been Queen Bee of Blue Moon Bay High. And Gray’s high-school girlfriend. Now she was leaning over the table to touch hands with Gray’s mother, blowing air kisses to Gray’s father.
“Harper,” said Lola. “You remember Adele.”
Adele stopped shuffling in the seat and gave Harper a quick once-over.
Adele held out a hand, which Harper shook. “The pleasure is all mine.”
“Adele’s family owns this joint,” Lola said. “When she offered it up for the day we couldn’t have been happier. Right, honey?”
Gray looked up at Lola’s voice and smiled.
“Wedding gift sorted,” said Adele with a wave of her hand. Then she turned on her chair, her knee bumping Harper’s. “Harper Addison. What’s your story? Where did you disappear to after the hell that was high school?”
Harper looked at Adele again, to find no irony on her face. Just open interest.
“I’m a freelance corporate negotiator,” she said, “based out of Dubai.”
Adele nodded. “Dubai, I know. The rest went right over my head.”
“She flies all over the world,” said Lola, her voice carrying so that others listened in, pride tinging every word, “to sort out corporate squabbles, messy mergers and contract negotiations. Think Fortune 500 companies, even governments. They bring in my big sister when things go really sour. She’s the last word.”
“So, you’re a total badass. In heels.”
For all that Harper tried to dislike Adele, she failed. “Damn straight. Though most of the time it’s less Wild West and more like being a stern kindergarten teacher, only the students are stubborn fifty-year-old millionaires.”
“Huh,” Adele said. “And did you look like this in high school?”
“Same bones. Less gloss.”
“I hear that. Were you one of Gray’s swooning acolytes, by any chance?”
Harper looked to Lola and said, “No. Never.”
Lola shrugged. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were. He was hot stuff in high school. So many of my friends had crushes on Gray.”
“And yet I was not one of them,” Harper insisted, realising how much of the table was now looking their way.
Even Gray, who gave her a wink. A wave of his hand. All good.
While Adele was not to be deterred. “If not Gray, who was your high-school crush?”
Harper should have seen it coming. But after the hot days and long, restless nights she was off her game. She didn’t even feel herself turn towards Cormac until it was too late.
Her eyes brushed over him for a heartbeat. Maybe less. But it was enough, and in case anyone at the table missed it Adele lifted a hand and pointed a finger Cormac’s way.
Harper’s gaze flicked back to Lola in time to see her eyes widen. As if all her Christmases had come at once.
Then Harper caught Adele’s eye and shook her head. Just once.
A flicker of understanding warmed Adele’s eyes, before she clapped her hands and shouted, “Okay, kids, enough of the polite wine. Shots all round!”
A bevy of nattily dressed waiters brought trays covered in an array of fierce-looking shots and conversation once more filled the room with its warm buzz as Harper’s moment in the spotlight was fast forgotten.
Lola grabbed a shot, downed it fast, then stood and said, “Wee time,” to no one in particular.
Harper was on her feet in an instant, the loud scrape of her chair sending curious gazes her way. She offered a tight smile to the table at large, her own gaze snagging on Cormac, who now watched her in that warm, intense way of his.
Had he seen? Had he heard?
She shook her head, shook him off and followed her sister to the bathroom.
“Lolly?”
“Harps!” Lola said on a sigh. “Isn’t this the best day ever? I’m so happy you’re here. So happy everyone is here.”
“Everyone?”
The toilet flushed and Lola stumbled out. “Of course!”
When Lola waved her hands under the tap and nothing happened, Harper turned it on for her. And asked, “Even Adele?”
“Especially Adele. She’s the best. She knows everybody. She put me on to the cake lady. Told me the name of this amazing guy who custom-makes wedding rings. She even manages the band who are playing at the reception. Such a cool chick, don’t you think?”
“That she is.” How to put this? “It doesn’t bother you that she and Gray used to...”
Lola blinked. Then burst out laughing. “That was ages ago. Besides, Adele is gay! Or bi, I guess, if you take the Gray anomaly into account.”
“Right.” She had wondered, what with Adele looking at her as if she was lunch.
“Adele got Gray through Chemistry and he got her through teenagerhood with uptight, unforgiving parents. From the look of things, she’s quite taken with you. If you’re keen.” Lola waggled her eyebrows.
Harper levelled her with a look.
“Well, how am I supposed to know? I haven’t seen you in years. And you never talk about the men in your life. You could be gay, or married with seven kids, for all I know.”
Harper didn’t realise she was holding her breath until her throat felt uncomfortably tight.
She moved to take Lola by both hands. “I’m not gay, honey. Or married with seven kids. Or seeing anyone right now. But when I do see people they are men. And if you have any other questions about me, about my life, ask away.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Lola’s mouth. “Did you seriously have a crush on Cormac in high school?”
Harper’s instinct was to deny, deny, deny. But this was Lola. She’d made the decision to be honest with her little sister about their past, meaning she had nowhere to hide.
Quickly checking to make sure the other stalls were empty, Harper said, “Yes.”
“That’s awesome! Did you write his name all over your school books?”
Harper’s eyes closed in mortification. “Yes. I imagined what our kids would look like. The whole gamut.”
Lola shot her a sly look. “So what about now? Crush still alive and kicking?”
Harper shook her head, no. For what she felt for Cormac was nothing so plain and simple as a crush. It was far more complicated in the way adult things tended to be.
“But he’s so hot,” Lola encouraged.
“Lola, come on.”
“Watching him surf is one of life’s great pleasures, don’t you agree? And he’s funny too. Dry. And seriously smart. Loyal. Sweet as pie. According to the Chadwicks, he’s a lifesaver. I’ve heard them say more than once that they owe their current success to him and only him.”
Harper channelled Teflon, allowing Lola’s words to roll off her back.
“If you need for me to put in a good word, let Cormac know you’re available, I will.”
“Please don’t.”
“Are you sure? Because I really wish I could see you as happy as I am.”
Lola’s words, and the truth of them in her eyes, hit Harper like a harpoon, right through the belly.
Was Lola happy? How could she really know for sure? Her world was so limited. Harper should have encouraged her to travel more, before she met Gray. She should have taken Lola with her...
This time Lola took Harper by the hands. “Are you happy, Harps?”
“If you’re happy, then I’m happy,” said Harper, using the same mantra she’d used on Lola for the past decade. “It’s that simple.”
And it had been that simple.
It really had. It had kept Harper going when it had all seemed too hard. When she’d doubted. When she’d failed.
Only now she was here, back in this place, seeing Lola not as the needy teenager, but as a woman who had moved on, made decisions, made friends, made plans, put down roots, fallen in love—she should have felt triumphant.
And yet Harper felt...lost.
For what had Harper done in the same time?
Worked. Worked. And worked some more.
She had money, she had respect, she had a closet full of fabulous clothes.
But she had no people in her life. No roots. She had no plans bar the next couple of contracts. She’d spent more time in the past two years to London and back than she did in her own apartment which was really nothing more than a place to keep her dry cleaning.
“Okay, then,” Lola said as she fixed her ponytail in the mirror. “Ready?”
For what? Harper nearly asked. Going back out there with those girls who’d never looked twice at her in high school? With the man who’d ruined her father’s life? With the boy who’d twisted her heart in his fist, who had become the man who was fast making inroads in that same direction yet again?
Not even close.
But Harper was good at putting on a brave face. Always had been. Always would be. “Let’s do this!” she said.
Then Lola took her by the hand and led her back out into the big, bad world.
* * *
The hens’ night and bucks’ party turned out to be a joint affair.
With the older generation saying their goodbyes around five, the lights in the See Sure faded, a disco ball dropped from the ceiling, the wait staff cleared away the tables and a dance floor and DJ appeared as if from nowhere.
Trays of jelly shots did the rounds. Someone handed out wigs, novelty headbands. A face-paint artist painted tattoos onto arms, butterflies onto faces, even six-packs onto less-than-toned bellies.
Harper danced just enough to keep Lola off her case, but drank nothing but water. She made sure to eat whenever a tray of nibbles came around. And she kept herself alert. Frosty. All the better to avoid any more accidental revelations of any kind.
And somehow, she managed to avoid Cormac all night long.
Until Lola bundled her up to an old-fashioned photo booth, right as Gray made his way out.
“Your turn!” Lola said, forcing Harper inside.
Harper flapped the dusty red curtains away from her face as she stumbled inside. Only to find Cormac already there, making to stand. When he looked up and spotted her, he stopped; knees bent, hands glued to his thighs, too tall to fit in the booth upright.
“Hi,” he said.
Panicked, she tried to back out, but someone’s hands—Lola’s, no doubt—grabbed her backside and gave her a shove.
Meaning it was either stumble onto the small bench seat beside Cormac or end up splayed against him like a starfish. She chose the seat.
After a mortifyingly long wait, Cormac did the same.
She shuffled over. Made room.
Not enough though. With nowhere to put his long legs, he settled his thigh against hers, sending little shock waves up and down her side.
“So now what?” she muttered.
“It takes a few minutes to warm up. A red light comes on. And then we smile. Easy.”
Harper looked around the room, feigning interest in the dark glass behind which the camera no doubt resided. In the seventies wood panelling on the walls. In the strips of photos, showcasing all the different kinds of faces one might care to pull.
“Having a good time?” Cormac asked.
“Hmm?” said Harper, turning to Cormac as if she only just remembered he was there.
His eyes smiled a half-second before his lips did the same. “Are you having a good time?”
“Sure. You?”
His pause was telling. As was the deep breath in, and heavy breath out. When, rather than answer, his gaze travelled away from her eyes, tracing her face, he might as well have said out loud that none of it mattered to him. Until now.
You do something to me, Harper.
Everything had shifted off its axis when he’d said those words to her the night before. Sitting there next to him in the quiet of the booth, the sounds of the party roaring like a storm outside, there was no denying he’d done something to her too.
Not only on that fateful day in high school, when his words had forged the backbone that had put her in good stead through her twenties. But this week. He was doing something to her right now, just by sitting there.
When her eyes meandered back to his it was to find him watching her, smiling as if he’d been watching her watch him for some time.
She swallowed. “How many minutes does it take to warm up?”
“Some,” he said, his throaty voice filling the booth.
Harper wriggled on the seat, though it only served to rub her up against him all the more.
“Am I the only one who feels like I’m back in high school? Forced into a closet for a game of five minutes in heaven?”
He said nothing to that, merely stared at her as shadows of smoke swirled into his eyes. “I never played. Did you?”
“Once. Tenth grade. Samuel Clifford’s party.”
“Who did you end up in the closet with?”
“Samuel. Everyone ended up in the closet with Samuel.”
Cormac threw back his head and laughed, the deep sound reverberating in the small space before bouncing about behind her ribs.
“And this feels like that?”
“It feels like something,” she murmured. She leant forward, squinted at the tiny array of instructions. “Nothing will happen unless we press that button.”
“You don’t say.”
“Hang on, you knew that because you’ve done this already.”
“While you’ve been flitting around like a hummingbird all night, doing everything in your power to avoid me.” Frown lines creasing above his nose, he turned his big body towards her, his leg brushing slowly against hers. “If you don’t want to be here, Harper, all you have to do is open up the curtain and go.”
She looked towards the curtain—red velvet, pocked with moth bites—heard the murmur of voices, music, laughter outside.
For all her bravado, and talk of preferring big cities with plenty on offer, she was an introvert at heart. Far happier to sit up in bed on a Saturday night with a juicy corporate report than partake in the nightlife of whichever city she was in. No chance of making friends that way. No chance of losing them either.
Then there was the fact that Cormac was beside her. All warm, and big, and combative.
Her toes curled in her shoes. And she stayed.
“Mmm...” Cormac rumbled. “That’s what I thought.”
She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “I’m just taking a moment. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Of course. I’d never have dared suggest you prefer my company above all others’. Consider me put in my place.”
Harper opened her mouth to soften her statement, before figuring she’d only dig herself a bigger hole.
After a couple of long, interminable beats of silence, Cormac said, “Nothing wrong with taking a moment.”
“I know.”
“Nothing wrong with showing concern for your sister.”
She shot him a look, saw it filled with understanding and insight into how things had unfolded between them the night before.
“Nothing wrong with feeling vulnerable either. Or tired. Or fed up. Or nervous. Or out of place. Or scared.”
“I know that too,” she lied. How could she convince others she was bulletproof if she couldn’t convince herself?
“Then, why pretend?”
“Pretend what exactly?”
“To have
it all so under control.”
“Who says I don’t?”
He shot her a look. As if he knew her. Understood her. As if he cared.
“I’m talking about the heels, the hair, the matching bling.” He reached up as if about to run a curl through his fingers before letting his hand drop. “Being so together at work is one thing. It no doubt requires for you to appear in command. But nobody can be expected to be this perfect all the time.”
Harper blinked. Her gaze catching on his as he finished a slow, meandering mapping of her face. How did he do that? Was she really that transparent? Or only to him? And had Cormac Wharton just called her perfect?
She knew better than anyone she wasn’t that. Though for her entire childhood she’d tried to be the “perfect” daughter. Her grades had been impeccable, the house always pristine. She’d won awards for math, debating, her charity fundraising. Even her lemon yoghurt cake at the town fair. Because she’d known, deep in her heart, that her father was hanging on by his fingernails too.
Clearly it hadn’t been enough.
She glanced down at her hand to find she’d been picking at the edge of a fingernail, chipping the glossy black polish away, something she hadn’t done since she was a kid. And said, “I’m far from perfect, Cormac.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Wow. You didn’t even have to think about it.”
His grin was fast, a flash of humour and heat. And in the small, enclosed space Harper felt as if her heart had grown a size too large.
“Nobody is,” Cormac said. “We are all slovenly, frustrated, confused animals, trying to be civilised. And that’s okay. It’s the fact that we try to be better, that we learn from our mistakes, that moves us up the evolutionary scale. We are a lot—the people in this place. So if you’re tired, if you’ve had enough of us, tell us so. Or go grab a patch of quiet. The Chadwick grounds are vast. Plenty of places to get lost.”
Harper’s instinct was to sit tall, to deny that she had a clue as to what he was talking about. But in the protection of their little booth she let out a large, exhausted sigh. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”
His next smile was smaller, less flash, and yet it hit deeper. Warming her from the inside out.