by Susan Meier
How could someone who’d fought his own condescending father most of his life not respect that?
The baby stirred again. Harper went to the kitchen and got the bottle.
Just as the little girl began to fuss, Harper was back, bottle in hand, lifting Crystal, settling her on her lap and feeding her.
It all seemed to simple, so easy. He’d seen his sister-in-law, Avery, do something similar. But Avery had tons of help. Not just Seth and Jake’s mom, but Avery’s mom, her dad and a nanny. He’d always thought Avery made being a mom look easy, but he’d apparently missed a lot about parenting in his years of avoiding babies.
“So, I’m kinda broke, but not really,” Harper said, feeding the hungry baby. “With the sale of the condo I have a hundred thousand dollars to play with. Either to use for a down payment on a new condo or to live on until I find a job.”
He sat back down, feeling oddly foolish for being so persnickety about kids as he watched Harper’s baby happily suckle her milk. “Honestly, if you weren’t out on the street in six days, I’d say your first order of business should be to get a job.”
“But I am out on the street in six days. In that time, I have to pack and arrange for a mover, as I find somewhere else to live. You wouldn’t happen to have an extra room?”
She’d said it as a joke, but he did have an extra room. She’d even have a private bathroom. There were only two problems with taking her in. First, he really wasn’t comfortable around babies. Very few single men were. But he was super edgy around them. Preoccupied with a million little details for his job, he worried he’d step on Crystal, trip over her, knock her down.
But he knew that was just a cover for the real reason he didn’t want Harper Sloan Hargraves to move in with him.
She was supposed to be his.
He’d adored her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. But he wasn’t the settling-down kind. His parents’ farce of a marriage had ruined him on the fairy tale of happily-ever-after. The emotional abuse he’d suffered from his manipulative dad had made him far too cynical and too careful to want a relationship.
So, he’d let Clark ask her out.
And he’d become a playboy. He’d dated so many women he’d lost count. He traveled, was a regular in Las Vegas and couldn’t remember the last Saturday night he’d spent alone.
“I was kidding about the room, Seth. You can talk again.”
He shook his head. This wasn’t about him. It really wasn’t even about Harper. It was about Clark. He’d been Seth’s best friend in every sense of the word. When he left his family home and his emotionally abusive father, Clark had found him in the library. Alone. Broke. And rich-kid stupid. Seth didn’t even know he couldn’t hide in the library stacks, wait for the lights to go out and spend the night. He didn’t notice things like cameras and security guards.
Clark had asked a few pointed questions, gotten the real scoop and taken him to the run-down apartment he shared with Ziggy, next door to Harper. He’d told him he could stay until he got on his feet, but for three kids going to university, fighting for money for books and tuition, there was no getting on any feet. He’d found a job as a waiter, shared a room with twin beds with Ziggy and paid his part of the rent and food.
All his life, his dad had told him he didn’t understand the real world and tried to teach him by withholding money, embarrassing him, belittling him, and Clark had taught him everything his dad couldn’t in three years of paying for school and supporting himself.
Now here he was with an extra room, about to turn Clark’s widow out on the street because he’d at one time had a crush on her?
That was ridiculous. He was a grown man now. A wealthy man in his own right who’d built exactly the life he wanted. He had his pick of woman and absolutely no desire to settle down.
She was safe...and so was he.
“You can have the room.”
“What?”
He rose from the trellis-print chair. “You can have my spare room. Arrange to have your furniture put into storage. Have Crystal’s crib delivered here.” And just as Clark had said to him twelve years ago, he added, “You can stay as long as you need to.”
CHAPTER TWO
HARPER BLINKED. “WHAT?”
“I’m offering you a place to stay. Clark took me in when I was in trouble. I owe him.”
“Okay. But, Seth, as beautiful as your condo is, it’s small and Crystal can be very noisy.”
He walked toward the kitchen and the coffeemaker. “And I’m not home a lot. I work from nine to six. Most evenings I have dinner meetings or dates. You’re going to find you have the condo to yourself more than you think.”
She didn’t know why that gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.
He made his coffee, then glanced at his watch. “I have just enough time to get ready for work.” He motioned to the door. “You go home, get things settled and come back when you need to. I’ll have keys made for you.”
She slid Crystal into the stroller. “Are you sure?”
He smiled. Harper’s heart thumped. The grown-up version of Clark’s best friend was absolutely gorgeous.
“This is not a big deal.”
Harper totally disagreed. Ten minutes ago, Seth wouldn’t get within six feet of her baby. Now he thought he could live with her? Not to mention the way she kept noticing he was attractive, reacting when he smiled. She was lonely and vulnerable, missing Clark, and Seth wasn’t known for discretion when it came to women.
Moving in together did not seem like a good idea.
Seth headed back down the hall, probably toward his bedroom. “As soon as you’re settled, we’ll go over your résumé, find you a job and start house hunting.”
Because those were things Clark had helped him with.
He hadn’t said it, but she realized this was nothing but payback for Clark’s kindnesses and, honestly, she needed it. If her mother saw her, six days away from being homeless, she’d blame Clark and never forget.
Harper could not let that happen.
She said, “Okay,” but he was already opening the door of his room.
Harper blew her breath out on a long sigh. This was not going to be easy, but it was better than living in the street.
After spending an hour contacting movers, Harper finally found one who had a cancellation in his schedule the following day. She booked the appointment and spent the rest of the afternoon, evening and the next morning packing. Right on time, the movers arrived and picked up her furniture and boxes of household goods, clothes and baby things. They drove first to the storage unit and dropped off everything but Crystal’s crib and baby accessories, which were packed in the back of her SUV with a few suitcases of clothes.
She waved goodbye to the movers and headed for Seth’s condo.
Though it was close to five, Seth had told her he worked until six and she knew he wouldn’t be home. Which meant she could have everything set up in his condo before he returned.
But when she arrived at his building, the doorman wouldn’t let her into Seth’s apartment. Not that she blamed him. She’d thought Seth would have already made arrangements, but apparently he hadn’t.
The doorman punched a few numbers into his phone and within seconds was talking to Seth. Then he handed the phone across the desk.
“He wants to talk to you.”
Oh, boy. He probably wasn’t expecting her until Sunday. Plenty of time for him to get adjusted or change his mind. Instead here she was, a little over twenty-four hours later, her car loaded with baby things.
What did a playboy need with a baby and broke widow?
“Hello. Seth.” Not giving him a chance to back out, she said, “I got lucky and found a mover who’d had a cancellation today. I packed last night and this morning, and now everything I own, except Crystal’s things and a couple suitcases
of clothes, is in a storage unit.”
She hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but oh, Lord, she had. She squeezed her eyes shut, but Seth easily said, “Okay.”
Her heart started beating again.
“I have one more meeting before I can leave, but I’ll call my next-door neighbor, Mrs. Petrillo. She has a key and will let you in. Just go ahead to the condo.”
“Should I knock on her door?”
He laughed. “No. She’s something of a snoop. It’s why I want her to let you in instead of George. She looks out the keyhole every time the elevator arrives on our floor. This way she’ll know I know you’re there.”
Harper laughed. Her first genuine laugh since she’d realized how much trouble she was in. She liked the idea of a nosy neighbor. It felt less like she and Seth were all alone.
Because they weren’t. They had Crystal, the nosy neighbor and probably a hundred other people who lived in the building.
They would not be alone.
“I also have an extra parking space in the basement. I told George to get you a pass.”
“Okay. Thanks.” When she disconnected the call, George handed her the card that would get her entry into the garage. “Is your car on the street?”
“Yes. I was lucky to get a spot right in front of the building.”
“Good. I’ll arrange to have your luggage and baby things brought upstairs. Then I’ll park your car in Mr. McCallan’s second space.”
Balancing Crystal on her hip, she wondered how much Seth had promised this guy to be so accommodating. She handed him her car keys. “Thanks. It’s the blue Explorer SUV.”
He nodded once. “We’ll have your things upstairs in a few minutes.”
She rode the elevator to Seth’s floor and just as Seth had predicted a short gray-haired woman stood by his door, waiting for her.
“Mrs. Petrillo?”
“Yes. And you must be Harper.”
“Yes.” She presented her baby. “This is Crystal.”
The older woman lightly pinched Crystal’s pink cheek. “She is adorable. Aren’t you, sweetie?”
Crystal grinned.
Mrs. Petrillo inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. “Sorry about your husband.”
“Thank you.”
“Death is a terrible thing. I buried three husbands.”
Harper gasped. Knowing the pain of losing Clark and the emptiness that followed, the loneliness that never seemed to go away, she said, “I’m so sorry.”
“It never gets easier.” She turned to Harper with a smile. “My soap is on right now. But I’m next door if you need anything.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
The petite woman waved goodbye and was gone within seconds, but her comment that it would never get easier haunted Harper as a new wave of missing Clark swept through her.
But she barely had time to catch her breath. The doorman arrived with her and Crystal’s suitcases.
He led her to the extra room in Seth’s condo. A queen-size bed and a dresser easily shared the space, leaving more than ample room for Crystal’s crib. An adjoining bathroom with a shower made of black, gray and white glass tiles that matched a backsplash behind the white sink was small but not uncomfortably so.
The doorman left her suitcases on the bed and left. When he returned with the crib and high chair, he had two maintenance men with him. He introduced them, telling her they would set up the crib.
When they were done, Harper put Crystal in her bed to play with her favorite blanket and stuffed bear, and set about to unpack. She hadn’t brought a lot, only enough clothes for her and Crystal for two weeks. Everything fit in the one dresser and the small closet. Another indicator of how much her life had changed since she lost Clark.
Not wanting to dwell on that, she carried Crystal to the living space. A quick glance at the clock told her it was only six. Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten lunch. The mover was on too tight of a schedule.
Just when she would have gone into the tidy kitchen to see if there was something she could make for supper, something nice that could serve as a thank-you-for-keeping-us gesture, the condo door opened.
“Seth?”
The day before, she’d left as he’d walked back to his room to dress for work. She expected to see him in a suit, not a black crew-neck sweater with a white shirt under it and jeans.
Jeans to work? At his family’s prestigious holding company, where he wasn’t just on the board of directors, but was also a vice president?
“I canceled my meeting.” He ambled into the room and tossed his keys and wallet on the counter, along with some envelopes she assumed were his mail. “How’d today go?”
She couldn’t stop staring at him. Clark had gone to work in a suit and tie every day. He didn’t cancel meetings. He never came home early. But Seth was a McCallan. From what she knew of the family, they did whatever they wanted. Especially Seth. Joining the family business obviously hadn’t ended his rebellious streak.
“Busy. Exhausting.”
He picked up the mail. Rifled through it. “Mine, too.”
The conversation ended, and a weird silence stretched between them.
She sucked in a breath for courage. “I was just thinking about looking in your cupboards to see if there was anything to make for dinner.”
He sniffed. “Don’t bother. I’m pretty sure the cupboards are bare. There are takeout menus from a few local places. Order something for both of us. I have a credit card on file at all of them. Just tell them it’s for me.” He turned and headed back down the hall.
She frowned. “I thought you’d said you always have dates or dinner meetings or something?”
He stopped, faced her. “I did. Just like I canceled my last meeting, I canceled my date.”
Harper blinked as he disappeared behind his bedroom door. Canceled his date?
An odd sensation rippled through her. Not happiness. Surely, she couldn’t be happy that he’d canceled a date. She didn’t “like” the guy. He was good-looking—well, gorgeous, really—but he wasn’t Clark, a man she had loved. The feeling oozing through her was more of a recognition of how glad she was that she didn’t have to be alone.
* * *
The door closed behind Seth and he leaned against it, blowing his breath out on a long sigh. When he’d invited Harper to live with him, he hadn’t anticipated how uncomfortable it would be to have her in his house, but he was damn glad he’d canceled his date, so they could talk. About Clark. After a nice dinner, where he’d direct the conversation so she would remind him that she’d loved and married his best friend, he’d get his perspective back.
He took a quick shower. When he left his room and entered the living space, he found Harper at the table surrounded by boxes of Chinese food.
“I like Chinese.”
“Good.”
He walked over to the table, saw she’d found plates and utensils and took a seat.
“Your area of the city has just about every type of restaurant imaginable.”
“It’s part of the appeal.”
He lifted a dish, filled it with General Tso’s chicken, some vegetables and an egg roll.
“Oh, and I paid for it myself. I’m not destitute. And I’m not a charity case. I just need some help transitioning.”
Point number one to be discussed. How she wanted to be treated. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”
“You didn’t. I just wanted to fix some misinterpretations.”
“Okay.”
She turned her attention to dishing out some food for herself. Her short hair gave her an angelic look, enhanced by the curve of her full lips. Her casual, almost grungy clothes took him back to a decade ago, when he was a kid who listened to hip-hop and lived right next door to the girl he thought the most beautiful woman he’d ever m
et.
And that was point number two they had to discuss. Eight years had passed since he’d had a crush on her and she’d started dating Clark. They weren’t those people anymore. He didn’t have a mad crush on her. He’d had a mad crush on the girl she’d used to be. Since then, she’d gotten married, lost a husband, had a baby alone. They weren’t picking up where they’d left off.
He almost rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. He hadn’t even asked how she was.
“So... How are you doing?”
She shook her head. “You mean aside from being almost homeless?”
“Don’t make a joke. Clark was my best friend.” There. He’d said it. Point number three that he needed to get into this conversation. Clark had been his best friend. “You lost him. You were pregnant. You went through that alone. And now you’re facing raising a daughter alone. If we’re going to do this—live together—we’re going to do it right. Not pretend everything is fine. We used to be friends. We could be friends again.”
She set down her chopsticks. “Okay. If you really want to know, I spent most of the year scared to death. It took me a couple of weeks to wrap my head around the fact that he was really gone. But the more I adjusted, the quieter the house got. And the quieter the house got, the more I realized how alone I was.”
“And you couldn’t even talk to your parents?”
“My mom never had anything good to say about Clark, so after a visit or two when I was lonely, I quit going over.”
She stopped talking, but Seth waited, glad he’d decided to go this route. He needed to know what he was dealing with, and if she’d been alone for twelve long months she probably needed someone to talk to.
“I didn’t shut them out completely. My mom came with me to a doctor’s appointment or two and then we’d have lunch. But every time, the conversation would turn into a discussion of what I should do with my life now that Clark was gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. My mother’s a bulldozer. She sees the way a thing should go and she pushes. Whether it’s the right thing or not.”