I arrive at the private airport where I’ve hired a jet to take me the hell out of Denver. I should have never come back. It’s like I wanted to be a fool. I am a damn fool. I was falling in love. I let this family use her to get to me because they did. Somehow, some way, they used her to get to me. I think of the bank account with the wires Harper closed. That links to Gigi and the wires we found to her account. Fucking Gigi was probably behind it all. I pull up to the private lot and kill the engine to the Jaguar. Damn straight I drive a Jag as a fuck you to the Kingstons. I should have ruined them a few months back when I had the chance, but then, it looks like they’re doing a good job of it themselves. Damn though, the satisfaction of doing it now, while they fight to survive. I’m not sure Grayson can talk me out of it this time.
I kill the engine and exit the car, clicking the locks and walking into the building to the desk inside where I hand off my keys to the rep who coordinated me leasing the car. A few minutes later, I’m on a private jet, and the pilot isn’t. He’s running late, which is fine. I get it. I booked this flight last minute, as in really last minute, but just being on the plane takes me down ten notches, which is why I don’t understand how I end up with numbers beating up my mind, pounding at me to the point that I can’t think straight. I reach into my briefcase and pull out my phone and a full-sized Rubik’s cube. I set my phone down and stare at it, the silence it represents bothering me more than the constant ringing. I start solving the Rubik’s cube. It’s done and I pull two more from my bag and repeat.
When I’m done, I have no idea why, but I pick up the phone and eye the message notifications and there are plenty of them, all from Harper. I don’t understand why, but the numbers in my head want me to listen and I can’t ignore them, something no one else would understand. Maybe Harper. Fuck. Where did that come from? I remind myself about the bank account. I’m going to listen to the messages and leave. The end. I punch the button the listen and Harper’s voice fills the line.
“I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t want you to think I was playing you and then you got rich and I was afraid you’d think it was about money. I can’t make you believe me, but you know—I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you so I just have to tell you.” The phone beeps and disconnects. She’s in love with me? What kind of game is she playing? I punch the next message.
“I got pregnant the night we were together six years ago. I know you pulled out, but you were inside me and it happened. I wasn’t with anyone else. I didn’t think you’d believe me and what would forcing you to believe me achieve? It was too late to change what happened. I lost the baby.” The machine beeps again.
I stand up. My baby? She was pregnant with my baby? I face the wall of the plane and press my hands to the paneling. This can’t be true. This has to be a lie and yet—I push off the wall and hit the next message, sitting back down as I hear, “When I missed my period, I thought it was stress, but then one night I was working late and suddenly I was bleeding. Lots of blood and Isaac was there and I was bad. I was hemorrhaging and—I had to let him help me. I didn’t even know what was happening. I was scared and when I found out there was a baby—” The machine beeps and I let out a guttural growl. Damn it. I hit the next message. “Bottom line,” she says. “I hated so much that Isaac was the one who helped me. And I really wanted that baby, our baby, but now I’m damaged goods anyway. I don’t even know now if I can have kids. They said—”
The machine beeps and my jaw clenches. I hit the final message. “Eric,” she whispers. “I didn’t betray you like everyone else in this family. Have Blake hack my medical records. If I was with Isaac and he was the father, why would I fight the ER staff and insist that I couldn’t be pregnant? Why wouldn’t I put him down on the medical records? I just—I need you to know that I didn’t betray you. You matter to me. You’ve always mattered to me and I regret that I didn’t call you. I regret—”
There’s nothing more. I inhale and take in what she just told me, numbers flying through my mind, calculating the odds of her baby being my baby. Ten percent. It’s only ten percent by scientific terms, but beyond reason, I believe her. And I left her at the office, the way I left her to bleed out and suffer alone six years ago. I grab my bag, stuff the cubes back inside and start walking. It takes me ten minutes to cancel the flight and grab my rental car again.
I’m on my way back to Kingston in fifteen, dialing Adam. “Where’s Harper right now?”
“At work,” he says. “Why?”
“Don’t let her leave. I’ll be there in fifteen.” I disconnect and replay the messages three times in the short drive.
I pull into the warehouse and park, dialing Adam. “I’m here. I assume she’s still inside?”
“Yes. She’s still inside.”
“Who else is in the building?”
“They have a robot cop at the rear door who walks the place every fifteen minutes. Other than that, no one. They don’t run manufacturing at night at this building.”
“How do I get inside?”
“I have a hacked badge to hand off to you. Give me sixty seconds.” He disconnects.
I exit my car and pocket my keys, and the minute I’m outside, a charge of unease slides down my spine. I scan the area and nothing looks off, but then, I’ve been ambushed by men who meant to kill me and nothing looked off. But it damn sure felt off just like now. Adam approaches me and hands me the badge. “Yes,” he says, when his eyes meet mine, without me saying a word. “I feel it. I alerted our team. I have two more men on the way. They’ll be here in five minutes.”
“I’m going to get Harper.”
“Wait until back-up is here to take her out,” Adam says. “I’ll call you when we’re ready.”
“Copy that,” I say, heading for the door where I swipe my badge with success. I’ve just walked inside when the lights go dark. It takes me all of one second to grab my phone, light the flashlight and start running for Harper, every instinct I own telling me that she’s in trouble and I can’t get to her soon enough…
***
Present day, back in the plane…
With Harper in my chair, and the storm now past us, I kiss her like it’s the last time I’ll ever kiss her and with good reason. I could have lost her tonight and not just because I fucked up with her, and given her enough of a reason to kick me to the curb. Those men were in that warehouse to either scare Harper or do her harm, but I don’t think it was about fear. You don’t hire those kinds of pros to just scare someone. Had I not come back, I believe she’d be dead. I know it deep in my gut and that was Isaac’s plan. Piss me off. Get me to leave. I fucking did it, too. I left. I not only left, I almost left her to die.
And right now, that bank account and the wires don’t matter. The fact that I know that she hasn’t told me everything doesn’t matter. Kissing her matters. Touching her matters. I’ll make her tell me everything and then the secrets won’t matter anymore either.
CHAPTER SIX
Harper
I’m kissing Eric in a private airplane, in the same seat with him. Just a few hours ago, I would have believed that an impossible feat. Just days ago, I would never have believed that I’d ever see him again, let alone touch him again. He molds me closer and I press into the hard lines of his body. I don’t seem to have any limits with this man. I wish I could say that I no longer have any secrets from him either, but there are things I can never say to him. They’d hurt him too badly. And I refuse to hurt him. It’s a thought that has me kissing him harder, deeper. I want to just get lost in this man and I know that’s not even possible. Someone tried to kill me tonight.
“Wait,” I pant, pressing on his chest. “No. I’m forgetting what happened. I’m forgetting what we just ran from. You say out of sight, out of mind. You say they’ll let me go, but what if they won’t? What if they, whoever they are, follow me? We don’t know what this is about. We don’t know what they want. What if I bring the problems to you? What if I’m the
reason your real life is shaken up or rocked? Destroyed even.”
“My real life?” he queries. “Sweetheart, you are my real life.”
“You have a fortune and career and friends in New York City. I don’t think I can go there with you until we know what this is. I can’t. We have to turn around or re-direct. I can pick a city and just go stay there. Even someplace in New York. I just need to know that I won’t cause you problems.”
He rolls me slightly to my back, as much as the seat allows. “You do know I was trying to fuck you thirty thousand feet in the air, right?”
“Fuck me thirty thousand feet in the air after you tell me that I’m not going to put you, or people you care about, in danger.”
“The people I care about—Grayson and his future wife—they heard I was worried about you, and immediately wanted me to send you to them to protect.”
“They did? They don’t even know me.”
“Grayson knows all about you, Harper. You know that. You saw that when you showed up at the office.”
“Yes,” I whisper, “and I was shocked. I didn’t—”
“Think you impacted me like you did?”
“Exactly. I didn’t.”
“Well, you did, and for the record, I didn’t think the princess gave the bastard two shits of a thought after I left.”
“You know better.”
“Now,” he says. “But bottom line, we let time pass that didn’t have to pass. That night we began might not have been our time, but it could have come sooner. You belong with me now. We do this together.”
Together. I belong with him. Those words do all kinds of wonderful things to every part of me, inside and out. I want to believe they’re true. I want to believe no one can ruin this for us, but I know that there is much at hand at present. Too much, I fear. “Together means that we protect the people we care about.”
“No one I care about will be in danger by us going to New York,” he assures me. “I wouldn’t let that happen. Just like I wasn’t leaving you back there. I won’t ever leave you there again.”
The implications of his words are broad and I don’t want to let myself go where they lead. Not with this much drama, not with the risks this family represents to the rest of his life.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” he says, squeezing my knee, “stop. You said a lot of things on those messages, things I understand. Things we’re going to talk about when you’re in my bed, in my home, where I’ll make sure you feel safe.” My cheeks heat. I told him I might love him. I know that’s what he’s talking about. “You want to take it back now?” he challenges.
I swallow hard and meet his stare. “No, I don’t, but what happened to us talking about this in your apartment? I thought you said we were—”
“We are,” he says, his voice low, rough, and he leans over me. “God, woman, you have no idea how much hearing those voicemails affected me. You no idea how much you scared me tonight.”
“I was never with Isaac.”
“I’m not talking about Isaac. I’m talking about those men in the warehouse. Fuck.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
“But you did. When I needed you, you were there and you have no idea how much that means to me.”
“I left,” he says, his voice turning gravelly. “I left, and if I hadn’t come back, I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened.”
“You came back,” I say, barely able to breathe now. “Both times I needed you, you showed up.”
“Because I can’t stay away, not from you. From the rest of that family, yes, but not you.”
“Then don’t,” I order, pushing on his chest and forcing his gaze to mine. “Don’t stay away. Don’t go away. Just don’t.”
I’ve barely spoken the words before his lips are on my lips. His mouth closes over mine, and I can taste his urgency, his fear. Fear I recognize as my own. I’d been certain that after he’d learned about the miscarriage we’d never be here like this again. I press into the hard lines of his body, drinking in his passion, consumed, so very willingly consumed, all that he is and could be to me. A dark feeling, a sensation that I know started back at the warehouse, even before the lights went out, tries to surface, and I try to shove it away.
Desperate to escape all those pained feelings I felt when he left, when he refused to listen to me, I lose myself in the moment. I lose myself in Eric and I tumble deeper into passion, heat low in my belly, desire spreading slick and hot between my thighs.
For now, forever if I had my way, there’s nothing but the stroke of Eric’s tongue, the spicy male scent of him, the demanding taste of him. His hands on my body, under my backside, molding me possessively to his body. God, how I need this man. I can’t get enough.
I tug at his shirt, but the space is too small for me to free it from his pants. Instead, my palms caress the flex of his hard body beneath his clothes. He responds to my desperation, a low, gruff sound of hunger rumbling in his chest that I revel in. I want him to want me. I want him to feel the same pleasure I feel with his touch when I touch him. He squeezes my backside again and I can feel the thick ridge of his erection against my belly when I want him inside me.
His hand slides up my skirt, over my thigh and there is something about this man’s touch that can be gentle and rough in the same moment, and I like it. “Harper,” he whispers, his lips traveling my jaw, down to my neck, distracting me for a brief moment before his fingers are under my panties, stroking that wet heat that drenches me and now his fingers. I pant with the flick of my clit, and then he’s pressing inside me—one finger, two, his mouth closing over mine, tongue licking my tongue, even as he does wicked things to my body.
I grab his arm, fingers closing around his shirt, sensations rocking my body, and I can’t stop what comes next. His thumb is working just the right spot while his fingers pump all the right places, and I am in that perfect place, where you both want to come and want to hold back, but I can’t. I tumble into a shuddering, quaking, incredible release, and when my body collapses in sated satisfaction, Eric leans in, his lips at my ear. “I’m learning your sweet spots. Soon I’ll know everything. I’ll know all of your secrets.”
Those words are not an accident.
He’s telling me he believes that I am still keeping secrets. And I am, but not the kind he wants to know. Not the kind he needs to know and I have to be strong enough not to tell him. Not to hurt him the way my secrets—no, not my secrets, my knowledge of past history, of his history—would hurt him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Harper
In every lie there is the truth.
With Eric, I want to be all about the truth, especially considering all the lies Isaac made him believe tonight. I don’t want to hurt him, but as I lie here with him on the plane, with his whisper about secrets in my ear, it’s killing me to believe I know things he doesn’t know.
Eric kisses my temple. “I need to log onto the internet and get an update.”
It’s the kiss on my temple that undoes me. He wants to trust me. He proved that by coming back for me tonight. I want to deserve that trust. I do deserve it. The only secret I had that was mine, he now knows. The rest is history that serves no purpose besides hurting him and eating me alive. Okay, maybe I do have a secret. No, it’s more of a gray area where I didn’t tell him everything, but I didn’t lie. It just wasn’t necessary that he know the rest of the story. And that story matters zero in present day.
Zero.
It serves no purpose but to hurt him, I repeat in my mind, because my guilt could easily make me selfish. Clearly, my clear conscience would make me feel better but at his expense.
He shifts and the recliner lifts. When I would get up and move, he actually moves with me and we end up at a half-moon-shaped booth. I slide into the seat and he walks away to grab a briefcase. It’s then that I jolt with realization. “I have nothing with me,” I say as Eric joins
me. “And I’m not talking about clothes. My phone and computer and all my work. Eric, anything I’d researched and found they’ll find. Whoever they are—Isaac, I assume.”
“Isaac’s involved,” he confirms, sitting down next to me. “Of that, there’s no doubt, but I’m guessing my father is as well.” He scoots close to me and removes a MacBook from the briefcase. “I left my things in my rental as well. This is Walker equipment. They wanted us to have a way to communicate with them on the ground.” He keys up the screen.
I have no idea how they communicated all this information, but then again, it doesn’t matter. We’re safe. We have support. We have a way to communicate with the ground. He keys the Mac to life and the magnitude of our situation, and what happened to me earlier, rushes over me.
“Thank you, Eric,” I breathe out, flashing back to that dark warehouse. Then to his proclamation of fear over everything that could have happened to me tonight. “Thank you for coming back.”
His expression is all dark shadows, his eyes full of torment. Torment that I know he shows few people, if anyone, but he lets me see the emotions in him now. It matters. It shows me he’s here with me, that he’s willing to let me see the real man and the savant beneath his walls of armor.
The air shifts around us and then this swell of heat and intensity blossoms, consuming us. I can’t breathe when he’s this close and yet I can’t imagine ever breathing again if he left.
“I wasn’t okay when you left,” I whisper, not sure why I make the confession. “Not even close to okay. I can’t fall for you, Eric, and have you leave. You have to talk to me. You have to give me a chance to explain what you don’t understand.”
The MacBook beeps with a message and he ignores it, sliding a hand under my hair to settle on my neck. “I’m not leaving, Harper.” My hand lands on his chest, and his heart races under my palm. Or maybe it’s my heart racing, radiating through my palm into his chest. I don’t know where I start and end with this man. There is just what I was before him and what I am with him.
The Princess Page 3