The Bastard

by Lisa Renee Jones

  He doesn’t immediately reply. He just stands there, looking at me, seconds ticking by before his gaze sweeps my mouth, his body so close to my body, and Lord help me, I think he might kiss me. I think I want him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He pushes off the door. “The job offer stands. Safe travels, Harper, because we both know you won’t stay.”

  My lashes lower with the rejection I’ve felt not once now but twice with this man. I open my eyes and force my gaze to his. “Thank you for seeing me.” I open the door and exit, my knees weak as I rush through the offices and toward the elevator. I punch the button and the doors open, allowing me to rush inside, but once I’m there, alone in the car, reality hits hard.

  I am alone. Eric isn’t going to help me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Eric

  I stand there in my office, staring at the doorway, hot and hard, with the scent of Harper’s perfume in the air, the memories of her naked and in my arms in my mind. I want her. I have always wanted her, but we aren’t even close to possible. She’s on top of the Kingston throne. I will never kneel to that throne, and yet, she has stayed with me all these years. Maybe because she’s on that throne. Maybe because she’s untouchable. Maybe because she has those damn beautiful eyes. All I really know is that me wanting her this fucking bad makes her a weakness that every Kingston, perhaps her included, would happily use against me.

  I want to believe her intentions are pure, but six years in the folds of that family make that damn hard. I’d also like to believe that I know more about what’s happening at Kingston than her, which would make her visit authentic. I scrub my jaw and cross to my desk, where I grab my briefcase and head for the door. I have a deal to close and money to make for a man who deserves his success.

  By the time I’m in a hired car on the way to the bar in Grayson’s apartment building, I’ve replayed every word of that conversation with Harper ten times, but I keep going back to Gigi, that bitch of a woman who all but ensured my mother’s miserable death. I hate her at least ten degrees deeper than I do my father, who at least saved his punishment for me, not my mother. The car drops me at my destination and I walk inside to find Grayson in his normal booth.

  He lifts the bottle he’s ordered, an expensive-ass whiskey I welcome right about now. “I thought you might need this.”

  “In duplicate,” I say, settling into the booth as he fills my glass.

  I down the contents and pull a contract from my briefcase to get to work. “Where were we?”

  He arches a brow. “Where were we? Talking about Harper.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “You damn near turned down this job to go back there again and we both know it was over her.”

  “That was when I thought she was too green to protect herself.” I refill my glass. “She’s been with them for six years. She doesn’t need her hand held.”

  “She knows the company’s in trouble,” he assumes, downing his own drink.

  “She knows.”

  “And?” he prods when I offer nothing more.

  “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

  “No,” he says. “Because friends don’t let friends deal with shit alone, as you’ve proven over and over both professionally and personally. Talk to me.”

  “We have a contract to deal with.”

  “That we’ll handle.”

  I inhale and let out a breath. “She wants me to go to Denver. She wants me to save them.”

  “Them or her?”

  “Both. My grandmother sent her.”

  “Gigi?” he asks, incredulously. “Why would she think that you would ever help Gigi?”

  “Obviously, that’s why Gigi sent Harper. Or the whole clan of them sent her.”

  “You think they know you two hooked up?” he asks.

  “When I look into her eyes, no, I don’t believe she’d tell them or use me. When I’m with that woman, I’m one hundred percent into her. She seems honest, sweet, smart, too smart to be with those assholes. When I step back like now, I see six years of her with them. Something doesn’t add up.”

  “You almost went back to them just to be a part of a family unit,” he reminds me. “Maybe she needs that unit.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “But she does, correct? She’s not one of them.”

  His question comes from understanding. He’s the only person I talk to, the only person in this world I really trust, outside of a few of my SEAL buddies, and we never speak. We’d die for each other, and be there for each other with one phone call, but they don’t know me beyond blood and sacrifice. Grayson does. He knows about the moment I saw her on that stage. He knows how it affected me. He knows how I reasoned that away, as some Bastard/Princess head game I’d put on myself. “Six years, Grayson,” I repeat. “That’s loyalty, not obligation.”

  “But she doesn’t feel like one of them,” he presses. “You keep saying that for a reason, and you have the best instincts I’ve ever seen.”

  “I have a head for numbers. I have a head for statistics. That’s not this. I can’t trust my instincts when it comes to a woman I want to fuck. Maybe I just want what I didn’t have or can’t have.”

  He studies me for several long moments, not entertaining my musings. He gets right to the point. “You don’t want to turn your back on her. What are you going to do?”

  “I told her to get out of there and I offered her a job.”

  “Which you knew she’d decline,” he comments, lifting his glass in my direction. “Where does that leave you and her?”

  “I made sure she knows the door is open. She can leave.”

  “You mean she can come to you.” He leans forward. “Do you really think she knows she can come to you?”

  “I repeated the offer more than once.”

  “In a short meeting after a six-year wait for a reunion. How do you know anything about her and her motives at this point?” He taps the table. “Let’s be honest. Let’s get to the meat of this. We both know the state of that company for reasons you probably don’t want to share with Harper. We both know there are things going on that spell trouble.”

  “Get to the meat, Grayson.”

  “How much trouble is that for her? Is she in danger? Maybe she can’t get out without your help. Maybe she was afraid to tell you that, for reasons we can both surmise. You could turn on her.”

  “Fuck. Stop already.”

  “Do you care what happens to her?”

  “I barely know her.”

  “And yet you never forgot her. That’s how this works. It’s how it worked for me with Mia. I met her and it was her. It was never going to be anyone else.”

  It’s not her, I think. It won’t ever be her. He just doesn’t get the dynamic between me and this woman. He can’t. He’s never been the bastard. He’s a better version of Isaac, the heir, and Grayson is the king now that his father is gone. I tap the contract. “Work. Money. Your money. Now.”

  His lips quirk. “I hit about ten nerves, I see.”

  “Clause eight,” I say, and once I start talking, I distract him with business, even if my mind is constantly going to Harper. Is she in danger? I need help. She said that several times.

  I’m still thinking about those words when Mia appears by the table, looking gorgeous in a pink dress, her long dark hair loose around her shoulders. “Hello, you two handsome men.” She slides into the booth and kisses Grayson, her hand settling on his jaw. “I missed you.”

  I have no idea what it is about this moment that gets to me. I see these two together all the damn time and I never think of me with someone else, but right now, I’m thinking about Harper. I’m thinking about me with Harper. “Fuck,” I murmur, pushing out of the booth and grabbing my phone from my pocket.

  I step outside, welcoming the cold October night, and I dial Blake Walker of Walker Security, a man who’s not only a world class hacker and ex-ATF
agent, he and his team, just helped us through another nightmare. I trust them. “Eric,” he greets. “What’s up?”

  “Kingston Motors.”

  “I know the connection to you,” he offers without prodding. “I make it a point of knowing the people I’m working with.”

  “Good. This will go faster then. Find out what’s dirty there. If you can’t get real answers, hack the financials with enough detail to allow me to dissect it all. Look at the officers, especially my half-brother and father.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ll email you a list of questions on my mind in a few minutes. I need this to be comprehensive. Take the time you need. What I need now: find out if my grandmother had a heart attack about a year ago. Text me the information.”

  “I can tell you that now.” I can hear him banging on his keyboard and I wait, every nerve in my body on edge and I know why. I need one little piece of information proven to be honest, a pebble of truth that might indicate she isn’t lying to me.

  “Yes,” Blake finally says. “She did, in fact, have a heart attack, but she’s now recovered.”

  “Harper Evans,” I say, relieved with his response but already wanting more. “I need to know everything there is to know about her and tonight.”

  “I can get you an overview tonight. The rest will have to be tomorrow.”

  “That works.” I hang up and Grayson steps outside with me.

  “You need to go deal with this.”

  “I need to be here closing this deal,” I argue.

  “You are more than capable of doing both. Close it from the road. She got to you, then and now, and this is your blood family.”

  “If I go there, I won’t save them. I’ll finish them off.”

  “Then maybe you need to go to her tonight and convince her to take the job. Or not. I just know that you don’t have closure. I feel it. I see it. You need it. Go get it, and her, like you get everything else you decide you want.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He walks back inside the bar.

  I don’t stand there and think about his words. He knows me and he’s right. I need closure, not with my family, but with Harper. I pull my phone back out and dial Blake. “Give me an hour, man,” he says when he answers. “I’m good, but I still require time.”

  “Harper’s in town tonight. I need to know which hotel.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Harper

  After contemplating tucking tail and licking my wounds on an early return flight home, I decide against that cowardly action. I’m going to talk to Eric again tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll wallow in room service and champagne, when I usually don’t drink. Of course, champagne is the drink of celebration and I’m far from celebrating, but it’s my favorite drink, so I’m improvising and turning it into a pity party drink.

  Pity works well for me.

  I’ll wallow and then get it out of my system and fight again.

  And it’s a hell of a pity party, considering I’ve been dumped by the hottest man I’ve ever known not once, but twice. He’s too good at goodbye. I’m too good at wanting him. I have let one night with that man affect me in lingering ways that make no sense.

  I sit down on the love seat in the corner of the room and fill my glass, since I ordered a champagne dinner before I decided that was a bad idea, and right after pulling on sweats and a tee; because I’m feeling really, really sexy tonight after Eric barely gave me a blink. Once my bubbly is in my glass and I’m sipping, I think about how Eric affects me. That man makes me feel everything, and I don’t even know what that means. I’m just aware in every physical and emotional way when he’s in the room and no one else has done that to me. I’ve tried to make it happen. I’ve dated. I’ve dated attractive, powerful, sexy men who did absolutely nothing for me. It’s ridiculous. I was with Eric one night and we didn’t even have real sex.

  The doorbell rings, and yes, there’s a doorbell because that’s just how they roll around here, I guess. I down my champagne and stand up, the buzz of two glasses hitting me rather suddenly. Clearly, I should have waited for my food before I indulged in the champagne. After all, what have I eaten today? Not much. Some cashews, I think. Does Starbucks count as a meal?

  I cross the room and open the door, only to suck in a stunned breath to find Eric standing there, his jacket and tie gone, his brightly colored ink that was once up and down one arm now on both. I stare at that ink, intrigued by the random designs—a timepiece, a skull, numbers—lots of numbers and the heat of his stare has me snapping my gaze back to his face, those blue eyes fixing me in a piercing stare.

  I can’t breathe. Why do I react like this to this man? “I thought you were room service.”

  Those gorgeous lips of his quirk. “I can be.”

  “Don’t say things like that.”

  I don’t even have time to process him moving, and he’s right here in front of me, his hands on my waist, sending a rush of heat all over my body as he walks me inside the room. The door slams behind him, and suddenly we’re so very alone. “Why wouldn’t I say things like that, princess? We have unfinished business. I know you feel it, too.”

  My hand flattens on his chest and his heart thunders beneath my palms, and that tells a story. He’s not as cold as I’d felt he was when I left his office. He’s just as present as I am in this reunion, just as affected by us being together again, but I don’t fool myself into thinking this means more than it should. I’m certain this need between us comes from another place for him than it does me. From anger and conquest of the enemy he believes me to be and I don’t want this like that. I twist away from him and quickly place the coffee table between me and him.

  “How did you find me?” I demand.

  “I’m resourceful,” he says, his voice pure silk. “If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t want me, now would you?” He glances at my champagne. “Celebrating?”

  “Wallowing in failure,” I say because it’s true and I prefer every truth I can embrace, plus I’m buzzing. “And I can’t seem to drink anything else.”

  “I could help you expand your tastes.”

  There is innuendo in those words that has me snapping back at him. “But you won’t be around to expand my tastes, now will you?”

  “That depends on you.”

  “What does that mean? Because if sleeping with you is a negotiation strategy, I don’t want to sleep with you.”

  He closes the space between him and the table and I have nowhere to go. He’s in front of me, so close I can smell that earthy scent of him again. He picks up the bottle, reads the label and fills my glass before drinking, his mouth now where my mouth was only minutes before. His eyes twinkle with mischief and suggestion as he says, “It’s good,” and then adds, “for champagne.” He sets the glass down. “And yes, I want to fuck you. No, it’s not a negotiation. Fucking you and getting fucked by the Kingston family are not synonymous, even if that’s your intent.”

  “I didn’t come here to fuck you, Eric,” I snap. “I came for help. Just leave, okay? I told you, forget I was here.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Not until you finish what you started?” I challenge.

  “We aren’t done with each other. I think we both know that.”

  “We’ve been done for six years.”

  “If we were done, I wouldn’t be here right now. You’re the only reason I’m here.”

  I cut my gaze, and I’m back in that night I met him, standing on that stage, staring out at the audience and looking for him. “Harper,” he says softly, and when his voice was hard moments before, it’s not now.

  I force my gaze to his. “I went back to the cottage, hoping you hadn't really left.”

  His lashes lower and now he cuts his gaze, like the idea of me going there actually affects him, and when he looks at me, his blue eyes are laden with emotions I can’t read. “I had to leave.”

  “I know,” I say, because I do. He hates that place. H
e hates me as an extension. How can I want a man that hates me?

  The doorbell rings again and it’s sweet relief and my escape. “That’s my food. You can go. I know you won’t help. I knew almost the moment I walked into the lobby today.”

  He studies me a moment and turns to the door. My heart squeezes with how easily he’s going to leave, how certain his steps, when I just told myself and him that I wanted him to leave. He opens the door and I hurry around the table to greet the delivery person. Eric steps back and allows the woman to enter, and I expect him to exit, but he doesn’t. “Where would you like it?” the woman asks of the tray in her hand.

  She asks this question of Eric and he arches a brow at me. “Right here,” I say, indicating the coffee table.

  The woman sets everything up for me and still, Eric doesn’t move. I give him a “you can go” look and he returns it with a short shake of his head, a silent no, and the look in his eyes is pure heat. I cut my gaze and sign the ticket with a generous tip. The woman hurries to the door and then I’m alone with Eric again. He saunters to the couch and sits down in front of my tray, and when he tries to lift it, I have no idea why, but it sets me off.

  I rush forward, sit next to him and hold down the lid. “You don’t get to know what I order or what I like. You left. You’re going to leave again. Who I am and what I like is not your business.” I stand up. “Leave now.”

  He pushes to his towering height and faces me, and I’m immediately aware that joining him on this side of the table was a mistake. He’s close, big, and he smells all earthy and perfect. I have about ten seconds to have that thought before he drags me to him, and my God, he feels just as good as he did back then, and it’s too much but not enough. “You keep talking about me leaving,” he says. “Why? Because you can’t believe that the bastard could walk away from the princess?”

  Anger flares hard and fast. “I’m going to forgive you for saying that because I know how they treated you. I know where it comes from, but you told me not to make us about them, but you did, then and now.”

  “I was wrong when I said it wasn’t about them. I saw you up on that stage, with them, a part of them.”