“Why? What changed?”
“You hit a few hotspots back there in the car. This place makes me too like my father and my brother. I’m not the me I know as me now when I’m here. They taught me to distrust and attack. The SEALs and the Bennett family taught me to reserve judgment and give people the benefit of the doubt. I prefer that version of me.”
“Meaning me?”
“Yes.” He strokes my hair behind my ear. “You. Definitely you, but I don’t trust my judgment with you, Harper. I’m too invested.”
“Invested?”
“You know I am or I wouldn’t be here.”
“You have a lot to be invested in here that isn’t me.”
“Nothing I want to be invested in but you.”
“But you—”
“Left. I know. And as I said, I’m here now. This time is different. I feel it. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Despite you being angry at me. I feel the difference now.”
“We’ll talk about my anger. We’ll talk about a lot of things.” And with that coded promise, he wraps his arm around my shoulders and turns me toward the front of the house. “Let’s go get that pasta.”
He sets us in motion and we walk in what is surprisingly comfortable silence, but my curiosity about this man gets the best of me. “I’m surprised someone with your academic capacity stayed here for school. Why not Harvard all the way?”
“I got into some trouble when my mother was sick. We had money issues and I shoplifted. It fucked up my academic history.”
I’m stunned at this confession and I want to ask about it, but we’ve reached the door of the restaurant. He opens the door for me and we’re greeted by a hostess that takes our coats and promptly escorts us to a half-moon-shaped booth. I slide in one side as Eric goes to the other and when I think we’ll sit across from each other, he scoots all the way around and pulls me close, his hand on my leg. “This okay?”
“Yes. This is good.”
“Good.” His voice is a low rasp, his eyes warm and reluctant as they leave my face and focus on the waitress. “Let’s start with drinks.” He looks at me again. “You do like wine, right?”
“Love it. Red, white, and trying new variations.”
“Then I’ll order my favorite here and you can tell me what you think.” He gives the order to the waitress and refocuses on me. “Do we feel like enemies, Harper?”
“You never felt like my enemy. And if you think taking over the company makes me see you as that, it doesn’t. The only thing that makes you my enemy is if you turn on me or my mother.”
“Your mother is aligned with my father.”
“I know. I’ve tried to get her to see that we have real problems, but she’s is blinded by love. I feel like there’s something illicit going on. She’s not involved, she’s just not helping to solve the problem. So, I’m asking you to please keep her out of this.”
“I will,” he says, his fingers brushing my cheek, sending a shiver down my spine. “You have my word.”
I reach up and catch his hand. “Thank you,” I say, a wave of heat between us and I think there is something real between us, something that isn’t fantasy sex and “what if” but real.
“Your wine has arrived,” the waitress announces and we linger together, seconds passing before we turn our attention to the waitress who hands Eric a sample of the wine and waits for his approval before filling our glasses.
Once we’re alone, I sip the wine, a sweet yet oaky flavor touching my tongue. “It’s excellent,” I say.
“Glad you like it.”
I set my glass down. “About that anger.”
He sets his glass down on the table and his hand slides under my hair, settling on my neck. “I’m angry at you for making me want you so fucking bad that I had to come here.”
Those words are raw and real, vibrating along my nerve endings. “Are you going to make me regret it?”
“There are many things I want to make you feel, Harper, but regret is not one of them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Harper
Eric presses his cheek to my cheek and whispers, “Do you know how badly I want to take you to the bathroom and fuck you right now?” Heat pools low in my belly as he pulls back to look at me and adds, “Or anywhere, for that matter?”
My body melts while my mind fights for reason. I can’t end up naked and confused again with this man and in no different a place than we are now. “Which would be fine if you could do it without hating me along with the rest of the family,” I say, my hand pressing to his chest, the other landing on his tattooed arm as I place more space between us. “I’m not them. Do it the Bennett way, not the Kingston way, and judge me for me.”
The waitress chooses that moment to reappear and say, “Okay. Just had to deliver another order. Are you two ready?”
Eric studies me several beats before he asks, “Do you know what you want?”
“Yes. Spaghetti and meatballs. You?”
“I do,” he says, glancing at the waitress. “The same for me.”
The waitress asks a few questions and then she’s gone. Eric’s attention is immediately riveted to me. “I want to know your story, Harper, not theirs.”
“Do you? Because you seem to think you already know it. I dreaded the idea of you thinking I thought because we’d slept together I could manipulate you in some way. You walked away from me without looking back. What power could I ever have over you?”
“You were the only one in this family that had a chance to get me here, and you knew that.”
“Because I’m not them. Not because we slept together. You have a file on me, but files don’t tell you the real story. Not about people.”
“Then you tell me.”
“Are you going to really listen?” I challenge.
“I assure you, sweetheart, no one has ever had my full attention more than you do now, for about ten different reasons. You tell me your story.” He rotates to fully face me.
I do the same of him. “And you’ll tell me yours?”
“I already started telling you my story. You know far more about me and my life choices than I do yours.”
A story of lies, secrets, and pain that I push aside. I focus on what matters right here and now. The part of my story that I hope he understands. “I was close to my father and his heart attack pretty much destroyed me, but my mother was such a mess that I somehow found a way to step up and be strong. I was close to my mother, too, until we joined this family. She was a young mother, seventeen when she had me, and instead of dividing us, it brought us closer together. But since she married your father, there’s been a slow divide.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I know why. It’s because I push back and fight for what I think is right in the company, more so this past year when I felt that there were things that didn’t add up. I felt that even before the recalls. That pushback has not been well received. My mother just wants me to appease your father and brother.”
He leans in closer. “What don’t I know?” he asks, those blue eye glinting with intelligence. “You said you needed time and privacy, but that there were things you hadn’t told me.”
“You already know I’m aligned with Gigi. That was the thing I dreaded telling you the most, but I told you. I knew I needed to tell you.”
“Aligned?” he asks, his entire mood darkening. “How fucking aligned?”
I reach out and grab his hand. “Not against you. I swear to you, Eric. I don’t believe Gigi is fully repenting for her sins. I believe she’s worried about losing the company. She doesn’t want her legacy to go down in flames.”
“You do know that I hate that woman enough to want to burn it to the ground, right?”
“You said you came for me, not her.”
“I did come for you, Harper.”
“Then please, I beg of you, don’t burn it to the ground. My father’s world was half that comp
any.”
“Your father is gone. His legacy is you. You don’t need that place.”
“So you’re going to ruin Kingston?” I try to turn away and he pulls me back around.
“No,” he says. “I’m not going to ruin them. I don’t need to do that. I don’t need them at all.”
“But you thought you did. You told me that in the past.”
“I had a need for family after I lost my mother and the Navy filled that void. I came here to Denver the night I met you because I’d lost that connection. I thought I needed family but these people were never family.”
My gaze goes to one of the tattoos on his right arm, a black and gray skull with an anchor that I assume represents his years as a SEAL. My hand dares to settle over it, our eyes locking, warmth waving between us. “Harvard graduate. Genius IQ. Navy SEAL. Self-made billionaire. You are so many things that this family is not.”
“This family will kill you to get ahead. My fellow SEALs, and anyone with the Bennett name, that’s real family to me, the kind that would bleed to protect you.”
“Then you understand family, despite this family. You protected your mother. You understand why I stayed for mine. I know you do. You say you don’t, but you’re not seeing me and the real picture. The company is all I have left of my father and my mother—I love her. She might not be perfect, but she’s all I have.”
He inhales and cuts his stare before he looks at me again, his eyes turbulent, a story in their depths that I don’t understand but want to understand. “I understand why you were here. I don’t understand why you’re still here, though.”
“My mother—”
“Is my father abusing her? Is she in danger?”
“If there was negligence that was intentional, there’s criminal liability that she could get wrapped up inside. I could end up with that liability, too. You know Isaac will look for a fall guy. I’m terrified. I can’t leave now. I could end up the fall guy.”
“Have you done something to expose yourself?”
“No. Not that I know of, but who knows what fingerprint I could have on something I don’t understand. I don’t know what’s happening. I just know something is. The recalls. Weird money movement.”
“You need to be honest with me.”
“I am. I am being honest with you.”
“What don’t I know?” he presses, and I want to scream with the impossibility of this situation.
“I already answered that question. I can show you everything I have collected, the paperwork, the notes I’ve taken. The information Gigi gave me. I have it at my house.”
He tangles his fingers in my hair, and drags my mouth to his, obviously oblivious to anyone else around us. “If you burn me, Harper, you won’t like the results.”
“What can I do to make you trust me?”
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m here for you. I came for you. I want, and can, protect you but you aren’t being straight with me.”
“I am,” I whisper. “Stop saying that.”
“I say what I see, sweetheart, and clearly,” he adds, “the only way I’m getting everything from you is with your clothes off. I need to talk to you and I need to fuck you and I can’t do both here.”
Heat rushes over me. “You don’t have to get me naked for me to talk.”
“Let’s do it anyway. Any objection to that plan?”
“No,” I whisper. “No objection.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Harper
After announcing that he’s basically taking me home to fuck me, Eric kisses me, a deep slide of his tongue that is over too soon, but he doesn’t pull back. His lips are a breath from mine, lingering there, taunting me with another kiss that doesn’t come, and the sound of the restaurant buzzes around us, fading away. The intensity of the pull between us stealing my breath. “Holy hell, woman,” Eric murmurs, stroking my hair and then lifts his hand to flag the waitress.
That stroke of my hair undoes me. It’s intimate. It’s possessive and tender, a command and a question. No man has ever made a simple act so very provocative. No man has ever affected me like this one. He’s ruined me for anyone else and that’s a little bit terrifying.
The waitress joins us and Eric is quick to get us out of here. “We need boxes,” he says. “We’ll take it all with us.”
The woman looks confused. “Oh. Yes. Of course.”
“Quickly,” Eric adds, impatience to his tone that he makes up for by adding, “There’s a big tip in it for you.”
Her eyes go wide and she rushes away. Eric immediately leans over and brushes his lips over mine again. “You taste like trouble.”
“I wish I weren’t,” I say, my eyes meeting his, “but we both know I am.”
“Yes, but trouble suits me, sweetheart. Wait and see.” He winks and my stomach flutters. God, how he affects me with the smallest of acts.
The waitress re-appears and in a few quick minutes, our food is boxed up, wine corked, and the bill paid, all the while I’m thinking about his comment about trouble suiting him. Once we’re ready to go, we both stand and the minute we’re on our feet, Eric laces his fingers with mine and leads me through the restaurant. With each step, I can feel the swell of need between us. We pause at the door to grab our coats and Eric helps me with mine. That simple act is intimate, the air around us charged.
We exit to the street and he pulls me under his arm and aligns our hips. We start walking, neither of us speaking for a full block, a mix of sexual tension and unspoken words between us. A push and pull of lust and need with questions that need answers. It’s then that this connection I have to Eric, with Eric, drives home another feeling. I have so much guilt where he’s concerned.
I stop walking and turn to face him, the dim lighting of the cozy little neighborhood now mixed with the beam of a bright full moon. “I don’t want to be trouble for you, Eric.”
He cups my face. “I told you. I’m good with trouble.”
My hands go to his face. “I was selfish asking you to come. I know what Gigi did to you and your mother. I’m sorry.”
“And she’s doing it to you, too,” he says. “You just don’t see it.”
“At least she wants what I want,” I say. “That’s where my head is. I can’t do this alone. I’ve tried. I can’t get answers from Isaac or your father. I got shut out.”
“You have me now.”
“Because I pulled you in. Because I didn’t let you just do what you wanted and stay gone.”
“I did what I wanted,” he says. “I came here for you. I wanted you. I want you. I need to trust you, though, Harper. I don’t like your connection to Gigi.”
“I know that. I’ve been honest with you about it. And I need to trust you. I don’t care what your plan is if it saves my mother. Take the damn company. You’re right. I’m my father’s legacy. I don’t recognize Kingston as anything he was anymore.”
“Deep breath, sweetheart. Better things are coming. I promise you. You know what I need to do for you right now?”
“Do for me?”
“Yes. Do for you. What you did for me the night we met. Fuck this damn family out of your head.”
“Is that what I did?”
He lowers his head, his lips near mine, breath a warm fan on my cheek. “And a lot more, sweetheart, or I wouldn’t be here now.” He brushes his lips over mine. “Come on,” he says, turning us back onto the sidewalk.
This time, we have a short one-block walk and everything but that need between us fades into the wind. There is something happening between me and this man, and it’s not just sex, but it drives that need to be intimate between us. My skin is flushed. My sex has clenched just thinking about being naked and in Eric’s arms again. We turn down my drive. “Back door,” I say. “I always go in there.”
We close the space between it and us, that combustible need between us, just that, combus
tible. I unlock my door and we enter directly into the kitchen, white stone beneath our feet. I flip on the light, illuminating an island in more white stone, and cabinets a slate gray wood wrapping a half-moon-shaped room. I slip off my coat and set it on a barstool, turning to face Eric as he shuts the door and locks it, before setting the take-out on the counter to his right. He shrugs out of his coat, his T-shirt stretching over his broad chest, before he drops it on a stool next to mine, his eyes never leaving me. He steps into me, aligning our bodies, and I feel the heat of him. I feel the change in us. This isn’t a power play. This isn’t us climbing walls to get to each other. The dynamic between us has shifted.
His hands frame my face. “I nicknamed you princess because you were so fucking beautiful and regal standing there by the pool that night.”
“I wasn’t regal,” I say. “I don’t want you to think of me that way.”
“In a good way, sweetheart. This is me telling you that you had me before hello.”
It’s everything I want to hear from this man, perhaps too much. “Did you know it was me? Did you know who I was?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I knew it was you. I’d seen pictures.”
“And?”
“And I knew I should stay away,” I admit.
“Why?”
“That whole forbidden, taboo stepsibling thing. And all the hate between you and the family.”
“And yet you still came to the cottage?”
“You made me mad.”
“Let me make it up to you,” he says, his mouth closing down on mine, a deep slide of tongue undoing me. I moan and that’s all it takes. We are crazy, wild, kissing, his hands sliding over my waist, over my hips, cupping my backside. I tug at his shirt, desperate to feel warm skin over taut muscle. Desperate to feel him. He tugs my skirt up and that’s when my doorbell rings.
We both pull back. “Expecting company?” he asks.
“No. No one visits me.”
He pulls my skirt down and strokes my hair again. “Get rid of whoever it is.”
I nod and hurry down a hallway that leads to the front door. I peek through the curtain to find my mother standing there. “Oh God.” I rotate to find Eric in the hallway.
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