by Louise Bay
“Seriously?”
Scarlett just shrugged. Why hadn’t she told me she wasn’t coming? In fact, why was she in Manhattan at all?
“Sorry,” Scarlett said. “I thought I told you. The vet called me this morning. He hasn’t had one of the injections he was meant to have.”
Amanda slouched against the wall of the elevator just as the doors opened into the lobby. “There’s no point in going tomorrow if Scarlett’s not there and I can’t ask Harper. We’ll just end up fighting,” she said.
“It will be fine,” Scarlett said.
I ruffled Amanda’s hair. “Come on. We’ll find something, I promise.” I stepped off the elevator after Scarlett, holding out my elbow for Amanda, glancing at Harper who was staring at my daughter, her eyebrows pulled together.
“Please, Harper? Come with us? I promise I’ll take no more than an hour. Just two stores, maximum.”
Harper inhaled and the elevator doors started to close with Amanda still slumped against the mirror.
“Come on, Amanda,” I said as I held the doors open. “I’m sure Harper’s busy.” I turned to Harper. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine … I … want you to have a great dress and I have a couple of hours tomorrow morning.”
“You do?” Amanda clasped her hands together. “You’ll come?”
My palms started to get sweaty. It was the last response I’d expected. Working with her this week had been difficult enough. I’d been haunted by flashes of her bent over the conference room table, me pushing her skirt up to reveal her high, tight ass.
“Amanda,” I barked. “You can’t expect people to just drop everything and do whatever you want.”
“Why not?” she replied. “You do.”
I caught Harper trying to stifle a giggle. “I don’t mind. Honestly. We’ll have fun.” She grinned at Amanda. “But now I have to go to the gym.”
Amanda shot out of the elevator. “And you won’t change your mind?”
“If she does, then—”
Harper cut me off. “I won’t change my mind. I promise. Have a good night.”
Harper glanced up at me as the elevator doors closed, and I had to fight the urge to peel them open, push her against the wall, and press my lips against hers.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. The thought of spending time with Harper on a Saturday with Amanda had given me a headache. What would I say to her? I didn’t want my employees to know any other side of me other than the one in the office. And although Harper and I had fucked, it wasn’t as if we’d had dinner and I’d confessed all my secrets. Despite being gorgeous, sexy, ballsy with a hint of sweetness to add to her sour, she was my employee. And Vegas was behind us—we were in Manhattan full time now.
Chapter Nine
Harper
I slumped on my couch, my phone clamped to my ear. Dressed and ready to go eighth grade dress shopping with Amanda and my boss, I was just waiting for the knock on my door. “I’m cured. I’ve been dreaming about his penis and just like that, it’s gone. Any attraction I had to him has just disappeared because I never knew him.”
“Just like that?” Grace asked, her voice suspicious.
“I’m serious. I can’t find someone attractive who had a daughter who wasn’t important enough to tell me about, who wasn’t man enough to marry the woman he knocked up. I’ve lived my entire life with the consequences of that kind of selfish behavior.” Running into Max in the elevator last night had been a shock. When I’d seen the woman with him, I’d assumed I’d run into him and his wife and child and I’d almost exorcist vomited all over the place. Relief she was his sister had only lasted for as long as it took to register he had a kid.
He was a father and hadn’t told me. What else was he hiding?
It wasn’t like we were dating; he didn’t owe me anything, but the fact he was so secretive about it? It seemed dishonest. He never mentioned his daughter in interviews or around the office, there weren’t even any photographs on his desk. It was as if he was hiding her. Ashamed. It made me sick to my stomach. Had that been how my father had felt about me? Embarrassed or ashamed I existed? Poor Amanda.
“But Max isn’t your dad. I mean, when did Charles Jayne ever take you dress shopping?”
I dropped my head back on the cushion and stared up at my ceiling. “So he has his daughter on the weekend occasionally—doesn’t mean he wants his kid around. Looked like his sister was the one who was looking after her anyway.” I sighed. “But this is a good thing. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed being attracted to Max—I hated the fact that I’d slept with my boss. Now I’m cured.”
Being a controlling asshole was one thing. Turning your back on your family was quite another. Max being a tyrant in the office seemed inextricably linked to his success on Wall Street, so maybe I’d been able to forgive him that on a professional level. Maybe I even enjoyed it. A little. But his hiding the existence of his daughter changed my view of him completely.
I checked my watch. Amanda said she’d swing by at ten. She was a sweet kid, and I couldn’t begin to fathom what it would be like to try to pick out a dress with a man who resented my existence. She deserved more, so despite wanting to spend the day in bed recovering from my grueling work week, I’d agreed to go shopping.
“I still don’t get why you just stopped wanting to jump his bones because you found out he was a father. Most women would find that at turn on,” Grace said.
“Yeah, well, I’m not most women. And I doubt he’s winning father of the year anytime soon.”
Max wasn’t about to win decent human being of the year anytime soon either. He’d seemed to leave Vegas without looking back. He wasn’t affected by me at all in the office. Even that first morning after I’d turned up drunk at his door. He’d set up the war room and we’d had our first meeting about JD Stanley. There’d been no compassion in his voice, just cold calculation. He’d seen an opportunity to make money from my connections and nothing more. Well, I’d make it work in my favor, too. I’d ace the Goldman presentation so he couldn’t say no to me doing the JD Stanley pitch. If I could go in front of my father as an adult, a business woman—show him what I’d become without any help from him—maybe he’d just wither in my mind and I’d never think of him again. I’d be free.
“So no more sleeping with the boss?” Grace asked.
“Definitely no more sleeping with the boss. I’m not having my father find out and assume that the only reason I got the job was because I looked good on my back.” That was the only thing he thought women were good for.
“I thought you said you didn’t find Max attractive anymore.”
“I don’t.”
“So if you still found him attractive, you’d still be sleeping with him?”
“Why are you giving me such a hard time, Anderson Cooper? I have more than one reason not to sleep with him.”
“Does that mean you’re going to call George?”
My brain had to rifle through its filing cabinet to place the name. Oh, the art gallery guy. “Maybe.”
“He said you took his number.” I had. I’d liked him.
So why hadn’t I called him?
I jumped at the loud bang at my door.
“Harper,” Amanda called from the corridor.
Shit, this was it. I took a deep breath. “Gotta go,” I said into the phone and hung up. I glanced in the mirror by the door, removed a clump of mascara from the corner of my eye, and smoothed down my hair. I could handle a couple of hours with a guy who was my boss and his daughter. Especially now Vegas was over and any attraction I’d had to him had disappeared. This would be a piece of cake.
*
Being in a cab with my boss and his daughter after we’d agreed to stop having sex was beyond weird. I’d let my sympathy for Amanda override my logic when I’d agreed to go shopping today. I’d underestimated how awkward spending time with Max would be. I thought it would be a simple case of saving a fourteen-year-old from her uncomp
romising, uncaring father. The problem was I’d forgotten the father in question was my boss and had seen me naked.
“Do you agree?” Amanda asked, looking at her dad.
We’d taken a cab uptown and Amanda had been chattering away about the kind of dress she wanted to buy. Max seemed to have little interest in her as he stared out of the window.
“I think it’s going to rain,” he said.
“Dad.” She punched him on the leg and he caught her hand and wrapped it in his. “Do you agree about the dress?”
“I’m not committing to anything until I see it.”
“Well, if we don’t find something today, I’m going naked.”
Max chuckled. “If you were a couple of years older, I might worry. Right now, I think your teenage angst is my insurance policy against that happening.”
“I don’t understand what you just said,” she said.
“And so that’s a double win for me, peanut.” As he scooped his arm around her shoulder to pull her close, he caught my jacket sleeve. “Sorry,” he said and I smiled, staring at my hands in my lap. Unclear whether I was imagining things, I wanted to stare at the two of them. They seemed comfortable with each other, happy to be in each other’s company. A pang of jealousy ran through me.
“Here we are,” Amanda announced as the cab pulled up.
The humidity hit me as I got out of the car.
“It’s definitely going to rain,” Max mumbled, staring up at the sky.
He held the door open, gesturing for me to go before him as Amanda led the way into a boutique. I hoped this would be a one-stop shop and I’d be back home by lunchtime.
As we started looking around, Max found a chair outside the dressing rooms and concentrated on his phone rather than his daughter. Typical. Why had he come at all?
“What about this?” Amanda asked, holding a long purple gown against herself as she turned toward me.
I grinned. “We should definitely try it.”
We picked out six dresses in total, and Amanda managed to sneak a couple of strapless ones in that I was sure wouldn’t go down well with her father.
“We can do shoes and a bag once we get the dress,” I said as Amanda stopped on the way to the dressing room, transfixed by a table of sparkly evening bags.
I hung up the dresses I was carrying, then shut the curtain on Amanda.
“Harper, will you stay there while I change so you can see it before my dad? I want to surprise him with the perfect choice.”
“Of course,” I replied and leaned on the wall opposite Amanda’s room. “Which one are you going to try on first?”
“The purple one. Uh-oh,” she said. “My dad isn’t going to like this one.”
The moment she opened the curtain, I knew she was right. Max would never go for the dress. And I couldn’t blame him. A twenty-five-year-old would have to make an effort not to look slutty in it. The neckline dipped very low in a big swath of fabric, but it was so low her bra was showing.
“I don’t think it suits you,” I said, not wanting to hurt her feelings or for her to feel as if her dad’s opinion was the only one that counted. “People say that you should wear the dress, the dress shouldn’t wear you. Now I’m not sure what that means, but I think we’re in dangerous territory. What about the shorter one?”
Next she appeared in a beautiful yellow dress with spaghetti straps, diamanté beading across the bodice, and a netted skirt that fell just above the knee.
“What do you think?” I asked, grinning.
“I think my dad would like it,” she replied, but the look on her face said even though she thought her dad would approve, she wasn’t in love with it. “But I think I want to look more … grown-up.”
I nodded. The dress was beautiful on her, though it was a lot like a bigger version of something an eight-year-old might wear. And if Max would like it and she didn’t, then we wouldn’t even show it to him. “Try the royal blue one. I think it would look great against your black hair, and silver accessories would go beautifully with it. It’s more sophisticated.”
She turned and swept up her hair and I realized she was asking me to unzip her. “Would you wear it?” she asked as I helped her out of her dress.
I nodded. “Yes. It’s beautiful. Not that I would have anywhere to wear a dress like that.” I closed the curtain so she could dress in private.
“On a date?” she asked. “Do you have a boyfriend yet?”
My stomach flipped over as I remembered our conversation in the laundry room. Had she told Max anything I’d said? I glanced at the exit to the changing rooms. Could Max hear our interaction? “No, not at the moment.”
“You’re super pretty. When I’m older, I want to love my job, but I want someone to love me, too.” I’d not ruled out love. It had just never found me. Maybe Grace was right and I was looking for perfection. “My dad’s like you. Always busy with work. He always says that between work and me, he has more than enough for any man.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. She clearly wanted her dad’s approval, and I was getting the impression the two of them actually talked. Maybe they were closer than I thought. “Do you hang out a lot?” I asked, lowering my voice.
“Me and my dad? Yeah. Like all the time,” she replied.
Before I got a chance to ask Amanda more questions about her and Max’s relationship, she opened the curtain, grinning. “I really like this one,” she said, stepping out in a long skirt of pleated crepe, which had a slit up the side.
“It’s really pretty.” I leaned forward to even out the skirt. “I love it. This looks beautiful.” The shoulders were a contrasting silver material that came down and crisscrossed around her bust, in a Greek-like style. There was no cleavage, but at the same time it was dramatic. “And it looks gorgeous against your hair. Let me grab some shoes. Stay there.”
As I walked out of the dressing rooms, my eyes met Max’s as he looked up from his phone.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just getting some shoes.”
As I passed, he grabbed my wrist. I froze. Almost immediately he dropped my hand. “Sorry. I just wanted to say thank you. This means a lot to Amanda.”
I nodded but didn’t look at him. My brain was misfiring. One minute Max was thanking me for making his daughter happy, the next he was yelling at me if I didn’t get his sandwich order right. And then there were those kisses.
And I couldn’t quite work out the dynamic between Max and Amanda. He seemed quite involved in Amanda’s life. More than I’d thought. But if he’d never been married to her mother, how had that worked? It had never worked with my father.
I grabbed a pair of silver sandals with a small heel and rushed back to Amanda.
“Will he like it? Can we convince him?” she asked, taking the shoes and strapping them up. “This is the one, right?”
“You know him better than I do, but I think you look beautiful in it.”
“Daaad,” she called out. “I’m coming out. And I really like this one. It’s perfect, so you can’t be mean.”
Her smile was so wide, I couldn’t help but smile back. I really hoped he approved. Amanda deserved to wear this dress. It was age appropriate and really elegant.
She stepped out onto the shop floor and I peeked around the corner at Max’s face. His eyebrows were halfway up his forehead as she twirled around three hundred sixty degrees for him. “What do you think?” she asked.
He gave a small shake of his head as he stood and took a deep breath. “I think you look far too grown-up.” Amanda’s shoulders slumped. “And completely beautiful.” He pulled her into a hug. “You found your dress, peanut.” He lowered his voice and spoke into her ear as they continued to hug. “You’re growing up so fast; you have to forgive me for wanting to keep you mine for longer than I should.”
Tears welled in my eyes. He sounded so genuine. So completely besotted with his daughter.
“I’ll always be yours, Dad,” she
said as she smiled. He kissed her on the cheek and released her.
Max seemed to regain his composure. “Twirl for me again,” he said, lifting her hand in his and pulling his daughter into a spin.
The skirt of the dress lifted as she turned faster and faster. Max grinned and Amanda giggled. My heart squeezed. It felt as if I were encroaching on what should be a private moment. I should have my own memories like this, not have to steal other people’s.
*
“You know what this means?” Amanda asked as we stepped out onto the sidewalk, the heat swallowing us up immediately. She carried two white boutique bags, one with the dress and one with the shoes and a bag we’d spotted on the way to the cash register.
“We let poor Harper get on with her weekend?” Max replied.
My stomach jolted. Had I overstayed my welcome? I’d just been trying to help. Max didn’t need to be so ungrateful. I opened my mouth to excuse myself, but Amanda took her father’s hand and tried to pull him along the street. “No silly. It means we have something to celebrate.”
Max rolled his eyes. “As if you need any excuse.”
“I’ll leave you guys to it. Your dress is beautiful, Amanda.”
Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “No. You have to come,” she said. “You have to celebrate with us.” She beckoned to me to follow them.
“You celebrate with your dad,” I replied, glancing in the other direction. Shopping hadn’t really involved much interaction with Max. Most of my time had been spent with Amanda. Other than the cab ride, things hadn’t been too uncomfortable. And seeing Max with Amanda suggested they had a better relationship than I’d ever had with my father. If I left now, I would be ahead. I’d survived without calling my boss an asshole and without getting naked with him. Perhaps there was middle ground. And hopefully the constant comparisons I’d been making between Max and Amanda’s relationship and my father’s and mine would stop.
“I want you to come,” Amanda said.
I smiled but before I could think up an excuse, Max intervened. “Amanda, Harper has things to do. We have imposed on her free time enough.”