by Kate Meader
He’d hoped being discovered by her sisters might open her mind up to the possibilities. This woman was the whole package, and but for the fact she was his boss, he’d be making a play for taking this to the next level. If he could get her used to the idea of them as a couple, maybe they could ease into something solid when he moved on in a month.
They stopped at one of the stalls that sold soaps. Remy suspected his nieces would adore them because they were shaped like little gingerbread houses.
“Cute gifts for my girls, maybe?”
Harper chuckled, leaning into his side. “I bet you spoil them rotten.”
“Course I do. Little girls should be spoiled.” He nuzzled against her neck. “Big girls, too.”
“I’m capable of spoiling myself.”
He cupped her chin and tilted it up. “It’s okay to let someone take care of you, Harper. And I don’t just mean between the sheets, because that’s a given. You’ll always get that from me. But I think you need to be fed and fussed over just as much as you need to be fucked. And you need to be spoiled every now and then to remind you that you deserve the best.”
Her big, expressive eyes blinked up at him, those pools he sank deeper into with each new viewing.
“You’re the one to spoil me?”
“I’m the man for the job.”
Every job, he wanted to say. He’d feed her mind, her body, and show her the meaning of worship.
“You can start by keeping me warm.”
He took her hand and interlocked his fingers with hers before popping their joined hands into his jacket pocket. “I’m thinking that the best way to do that would be to check into a hotel.”
She nodded her acceptance of that plan, no hesitation. Thank God, because he was fully prepared to throw her over his shoulder and drag her to his lair.
“Harper! Harper!” He turned to find two bright-faced, dark-haired girls in the eight-to-ten-year-old range standing before them.
“Girls!” Harper exclaimed. “It’s been so long. Look how big you’ve grown.” She snatched her hand from Remy’s pocket and let herself be tackle-hugged by the kids.
The shorter one had her right arm in a cast, and she pointed at her glasses. “I’m a total nerd now, Harper.”
“Uh, a totally cute nerd, Franky. Don’t forget what I told you: nerds will inherit the earth. How’s the arm, kiddo?”
“Itchy. But I was able to get Erik Jorgenson to sign my cast.” She pointed at an illegible red scrawl. “It says ‘Franky rocks’ in Swedish!”
“Awesome! So, where’s your dad?”
On cue, Bren St. James appeared like a looming beast out of a Scottish mist, putting his phone into his pocket. A few seconds of silence followed while he read the situation. Remy felt his blood draining to his toes. Something slipping away.
“Franky, Caitriona, this is Remy.” Bren put a hand on each of the girls’ shoulders. “He’s on the team.”
Yeah, Cap, thanks for the reminder.
“You’re the league leader for power-play goals,” the taller girl—Caitriona—announced with authority. Sliding a guilty glance at her father, she added, “But my dad has a better plus-minus than you.”
Okay, then. We’ve got ourselves a future Harper Chase here.
A nervous Harper babbled to the girls, something about the lights and did they like the market and wasn’t the Christmas tree festive, while their father’s stone-eyed gaze found Remy, not revealing one iota of how this would play out. Thing is, Remy could handle whatever would come. He’d be proud to go public with Harper. For everyone to know he was her man.
Throughout this strange little scene, Remy was struck by something else: Harper was amazing with Bren’s girls. No phony adult-to-child condescension, just Harper displaying a genuine interest in their lives. And the girls clearly adored her.
Finally, Harper straightened and backed up so that the three adults now stood like it was some Mexican standoff. Silence ruled for a few seconds.
Harper caved first. “Bren—”
“I need to get these sprites home. We’ve got a tree to decorate, don’t we, girls?”
The girls nodded, oblivious to the tensions in the group. They left, and Remy watched them slip into the crowd that apparently would never be anonymous enough for Harper.
“Shit, shit, shit.” The hand formerly warming his now rubbed her forehead anxiously. “There’s no way he didn’t see that, is there?”
“Harper, it’s okay. He won’t say anything, and even if he did . . .”
“Even if he did, what, Remy? Even if he did, it’d be okay? Is that what you’re going to say?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m going to say.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” she hissed. “Are you seriously saying that there is an upside to this?”
“I’m saying,” he said slowly as he steered her out of the path of foot traffic to a more private location beside one of the booths, “that if it were to get out, the world would not stop spinnin’ on its axis. No one would die. There’d be a few headlines for a while and then it’d pass.”
Incredulity morphed to anger. “Oh, it’ll pass for you, but for me? Not so much. No one will forget how the team’s owner couldn’t keep her legs closed around her players. No one will remember who I even opened them for, Remy.”
They would if they were still together. They would if they took this next level up. They would if they knew that he’d fallen ass-over-elbow for this woman. No one would forget his name then.
Mon dieu, he was in love with Harper Chase.
This sentiment was clearly not returned. The look she was giving him now was the opposite of “in love.” It was fear and fury and downright loathing.
“Minou—”
“Don’t call me that! Jesus, that’s what got me into trouble. I’m so starved for affection I let you in. I let you call me sweet little nicknames and tell me how much you wanted me despite how against the rules it was. But let’s face it, you’ve never had as much to lose, Remy. You’ve never had anything to lose, because I’m just another notch on your stick. A few jokes in the locker room and it’s back to business for you.”
Whether it was the implication that this was just business as usual for him, or the accusation that he had somehow pushed her into sleeping with him, Remy couldn’t exactly pinpoint which was worse. Aw, hell, both options pissed him off.
“You think you’re just some notch on my stick? What the hell does that even mean?”
She shook her head, as if she had no decent explanation, which he supposed was good. She was merely spouting off in her panic, and he would let her do that because she was afraid. He would let her do it because he was in love with her and that was part and parcel of the territory. You accepted your woman’s BS.
“I have to go,” she muttered. “I can’t do this . . . I have to go.”
And then she did.
TWENTY-FOUR
“The sugar content needs something a little drier, don’t you think?”
Harper and Isobel stared at Violet because she had just suggested the ideal wine pairing for . . . a Samoa. The Girl Scout cookie.
Perched on stools around the island in the kitchen—in what was increasingly becoming their kitchen—the Chase sisters were performing another bonding experiment. Tonight was Violet’s turn to choose, and she’d opted for a wine tasting. Not wholly expected, given her inclinations alcohol-wise so far had been mostly of the Pabst Blue Ribbon variety. Then she produced the cookies.
Apparently she had brought a suitcase’s worth from Reno and had been biding her time, i.e., scarfing them down solo, the greedy wench, until she deemed her sisters cookie-worthy.
Harper eyed the array of baked treats. “If sugar content is the deciding factor, then wouldn’t every cookie need something on the dry side?”
Violet shook he
r head. “There’s also the body.”
“Of the wine?”
“Of the cookie.” She held up one of Harper’s favorites. “Take your Thin Mint, for example.”
Isobel plucked it out of her hand and had it in her mouth before anyone could protest. Around her chewing she said, “You did say to take it.”
Violet rolled her eyes and raised another, careful to keep it and the entire box out of Isobel’s reach radius. “The Thin Mint, despite its contrary name, is one of the more robust cookies in the GSCU.”
“GSCU?”
“Girl Scout Cookie Universe,” Violet explained. “The chocolate and mint combo could never be compared to the delicacy of a Savannah Smile or even a Lemonade. So it needs something with more oomph.”
“Like a Pinot Noir?” Harper ventured, really because there was a bottle of Pinot on the counter.
“Exactly!” Violet seemed pleased with Harper’s stunning insight. She poured a measly splash of red—evidently taking the “tasting” aspect of this far too seriously—and nudged the glasses over with one Thin Mint apiece.
They sipped. They nibbled. They sipped again.
“You might be on to something here,” Harper said while Isobel chowed down after the initial nibble without any thought to tasting finesse.
“What?” she said when she caught the others staring at her. “Oh, right, the wine.” She downed it in one gulp.
“Heathen,” Harper and Violet said in unison, then giggled stupidly.
“So where’s everyone headed for the holiday?” Harper asked, sipping her wine to cover her unreasonable hope. After her blow-up with Remy at the Christkindlmarket two days ago, she was feeling a touch raw. Not that she expected the girls to change their plans for her—and she would never dream of asking them—but if they were feeling so inclined . . .
“Mom’s expecting me,” Isobel said. Isobel’s mom, Gerry, had moved to Scottsdale after her divorce from Clifford several years ago.
“Same here,” Violet replied. “Well, not Isobel’s mom, but my aunt and . . .” She paused before declaring emphatically, “My aunt.” She turned to Harper. “What are your plans? Kenny-boy expecting you?”
Not likely. She’d made a conscious effort to keep him at arm’s length while she was sleeping with Remy. Now that she and DuPre were kaput, using Kenneth as backup to stave off her loneliness wasn’t terribly classy.
“Nothing’s set in stone yet, but I expect that’s what I’ll do.” She kept her voice as light as air.
Violet studied her. “I bet Christmas in New Orleans is lovely.”
“That’s over.”
Both women stared at her.
“It is!”
Isobel twitched her nose. “I thought you were going to let it die a natural death with his trade out.”
“It just seemed like a good time to finish it. That way I don’t have to get him a gift for Christmas. Much less messy.” She popped a Samoa into her mouth to keep from elaborating.
“You mean less messy than when Stroger left?”
Harper stiffened at Isobel’s mention of his name. “It was awkward but . . .” She took a sip of her wine, then a gulp. Then she drained the entire glass.
“But . . .” Violet prompted.
“But nothing.” These girls’ nights in and out were supposed to be about getting to know each other, just enough to smooth over the cracks and make the next six months bearable. They weren’t supposed to be taking a crowbar to the fissures and prying the wounds apart.
“How about I start?” Violet said.
Isobel narrowed her eyes. “Start what?”
“The truth-telling. We all say something we’ve never told anyone before.”
Harper rolled her eyes. Violet threw a Thin Mint at her, and Isobel scooped it up like she was the family Labrador hunting down scraps.
Their youngest sister took a deep breath. “Okay.” She cupped her breasts, covered in a Bitch Please T-shirt, and displayed them. “These beauties before you? All fake.”
Harper and Isobel stared at Violet’s breasts. Nicely shaped, perky as shit, breasts any gal would be proud of.
Isobel slid a glance at Harper. “They’re lovely, but not all that . . . big?”
Valid point. Harper hadn’t given much—or any—thought to Violet’s rack before, but wasn’t it the rule that if you were going to go fake, you went bigger? Vi’s breasts were nice and all, but not anything worth paying for.
“I wanted them to be the same as . . . before.”
A slow flush creeped over Harper’s skin as realization dawned. “You had reconstructive breast surgery.”
“Yep. The big C.”
Isobel slapped a hand over her mouth in shock. “Oh, my God. When?”
“Eighteen months ago. When we met”—she raised her eyes to Harper—“when you came to see me in Reno, I’d just been diagnosed. I wasn’t ready to deal with you and that and everything to do with Cliff.”
The words struggled to be free of Harper’s throat. “But we could have helped. We could have been there for you.”
“I had friends. I had my mom and aunts. I didn’t need a couple of chicks I’d never met, whose only connection to me was a patch of DNA.”
Harper understood. If she’d been going through that, she would have clawed at anyone trying to get near her. Unhealthy, perhaps, but it was the Chase family way. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be there for Violet now.
“Are you okay? Is there anything we can do?”
Violet’s expression relaxed. “I’m okay, Harper. Since my diagnosis, I’ve tried to view my life as a second chance. Trying new things”—she smiled, that blinding grin so like their father’s—“new people, new adventures. Like Walter White in Breaking Bad, but with less meth dealing. The year of the V, chicas.”
So that was why she’d agreed so readily to the will’s stipulations. She was opening herself up to new possibilities. Harper hoped she’d look at life as a rosy opportunity if she came so close to buying the farm.
“What about you, middle child?” Violet asked. “Spill thy secrets.”
Isobel looked uncomfortable. “Harper should go first.”
“I already did. About DuPre.”
Isobel scoffed. “You just told us that something we already knew about was finished. Hardly a big reveal.” Realizing Harper was going to remain tight-lipped, she blew out a breath. “Okay. I haven’t had any man action in over two years.”
Violet looked less than impressed. “Not exactly earth-shattering. I guessed as much with your ceramic dick that looked nothing like a real, live penis.”
Isobel flicked a glance at Harper. “Well, since I got injured, I’ve been having a crisis of confidence with—well, a lot of things. But guys, mostly. Though it’s not as if I was knocking them dead before.”
It may have been subconscious, but Isobel’s hand touched her hairline. Anyone who didn’t know about her injury would barely notice the edge of the three-inch scar above her ear where a skate had sliced into her skull, ending her pro career.
“Is it bumpy?” Violet asked, squinting at Isobel’s head. “Your scar?”
“Um, no, it’s pretty smooth.”
“Can I?” Violet raised her hand. “I’ll show you my boob scars later.”
With a nervous giggle, Isobel inclined her head, inviting Violet for a closer look.
Vi pushed her hair back. “Wow, you’re one tough broad. Isn’t she, Harper?”
“She sure is.” Harper blinked back tears and reached for the wine bottle.
Iz flushed in embarrassment. “Yeah, well, my tough broad act isn’t getting me any action.”
Violet looked sympathetic. “I’m not exactly cleaning up myself. Especially as the only guys I meet are hot hockey players who I’m forbidden to fraternize with.”
“Believe
me, I’m doing you a favor,” Harper said.
“Why? Are you saving me from a crapfest between the sheets? Though now you mention it, Isobel did say the guy who punched her V-card sucked.” She slapped the kitchen island. “I knew it! DuPre’s stick-handling skills are lacking.”
“No! That was never a problem,” she said. A touch smugly, if she was being honest.
Her reward was half a Samoa bounced off the side of her head.
Isobel pointed at Violet, who had thrown the baked-good missile. “Stop wasting the cookies!”
“Jesus wept, Harper,” Violet said with much more passion than the situation called for. “You have a sexalicious Cajun on the hook and you’re throwing it away for what? Because ‘sex and hockey don’t mix.’ ” She said that last part in a high voice that Harper assumed was a really bad impression.
“It’s not so simple.”
“Isn’t it? Think of the poor women starving for orgasms”—she gestured toward Isobel, who shrugged in agreement—“while you hog them all. You can’t even appreciate them or the hot piece of ass who’s doling them out!”
“Yeah, Harper,” Isobel piled on. “You’re so fucking greedy.”
Violet giggled, clearly pleased with herself. “So you know what this party needs?”
“More wine?” Harper offered, because they weren’t drinking nearly fast enough.
“The musical stylings of . . .” Violet opened up iTunes on her phone and the soft notes of a guitar were soon made sweeter by a witchy voice. “Miss Stevie Nicks.”
One hour, two bottles of Pinot, three boxes of Samoas, and the entire Rumours album later . . .
“I was once with a guy whose cock head was shaped like a cauliflower.”
Harper squinted at Violet, who had just unloaded that gem. “Dick pics or it didn’t happen.”
Violet tapped the screen of her phone.
Isobel screeched. “Are you kidding? You actually have a dick pic?”
Their youngest sister held up a hand. “I have never solicited a dick pic, but once it’s sent to me, it goes in the dicktabase.”