by Tess Summers
****
Ben
I’m a fucking stud.
He’d made Harper come three times before breakfast, and that was after making her climax multiple times Friday and Saturday. Or maybe they were just the perfect match, because he’d had his own share of orgasms this weekend. Mind-blowing ones.
But across the table from him at the pool where they were eating breakfast, Harper was glowing.
Glowing.
Her raven hair was piled high on her head, and other than the touch of mascara and clear lip gloss he’d watched her apply after she got of the shower, she didn’t have an ounce of makeup on. Still, her cheeks had a natural blush to them, and she looked happy and relaxed.
He was in heaven.
Watching her peruse the menu, he decided they were, indeed, the perfect match.
Harper looked up from the culinary choices of omelets, pancakes, and waffles and found him staring at her. He could feel the goofy smile on his face that he couldn’t wipe off, even if he’d wanted to.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just happy we’re together.”
Her smile broadened, and she grabbed his hand. “Me, too.”
“Wanna get married today?”
She went back to looking at the menu, flipping it over as she answered.
“I’m half-tempted to call your bluff.”
With his finger, he lowered the laminated sheet she was studying.
“No bluff, baby girl. Just the say the word, and we’re outta here and on our way to the Chapel of Love.”
“Cassie would kill us if she wasn’t at our wedding—she sent me a text with those exact words already this morning.”
“I don’t give a fuck. She’ll get over it.”
“My parents would be furious; I’m their only daughter, and my grandfather would probably cut me out of the will or fire me, or both. Besides, it’s too soon. It’s probably too soon to even be considering living together.”
“Too late. The movers are packing my shit as we speak,” he teased.
“Hold on. What exactly are you planning on bringing?”
“Just my Pamela Anderson posters, Harley Davidson mirrors, neon beer signs…”
“Ha ha. I’m serious.”
“I don’t know; I haven’t really thought much about it. I’m thinking my tools, clothes, probably some kitchen stuff you don’t seem to have, a lot of things from my garage and my office…”
She nodded thoughtfully, and the waitress appeared to take their order. After she left, Harper took a drink of water looking like she was deep in thought, then said, “We can turn the guest bedroom into your office, and maybe we could buy a shed and convert it into a workshop for you in the backyard.”
“I like that idea. Put it in the side yard off the garage?”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Ben smiled in satisfaction. He liked that they were on the same page.
But his smile was quickly replaced with a frown when she stated matter-of-factly, “I don’t think you should sell or rent your place though.”
“Why the hell not?” he snarled.
“Just in case… you know.”
He wasn’t letting her off the hook. “No, I don’t know. Just in case what?”
“In case it doesn’t work out,” she sputtered out quickly.
His smile was cocky as he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“I’m not worried, Scout. I love you, and that’s not going to change.”
She scowled as she peered down and rearranged the cloth napkin in her lap.
“We’ll see.”
The ominous way she said it made him pause. What wasn’t she telling him?
He furrowed his brow and asked, “Why do you think it won’t work?”
Her shrug was too nonchalant.
“I just think once we get to really know each other, your feelings will change.”
My feelings will change—not hers. What’s this all about?
He leaned forward and reached for her hand.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She opened and closed her mouth several times, as if looking for the right words, and finally said, “I—ha—” just as the waitress appeared with their breakfast.
He took his hand back and leaned against his chair, not taking his eyes off her as their food was placed in front of them, even though she refused to look at him.
Finally, they were alone again.
“You what?” Ben prompted.
“I just think you’ll change your mind about not wanting biological children.”
He sat up straighter.
“Are you serious? That’s what you’re worried about? I couldn’t give two fucks about how we have kids. Hell, if you decide you don’t even want kids, I’m okay with that, too.”
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“The fuck I don’t.” People at the surrounding tables were looking at them, so he lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Look, I love my niece and nephew, and Luke and Cassie’s kids—sure. And if you decided you wanted a houseful, I’d be okay with that. But I don’t need to be a dad in order to be happy. I do, however, need you to be happy.”
She looked up at him through her lashes with a timid smile.
“Sometimes you make me feel like I really could have a normal life.”
He had no idea what the hell that meant, but she wasn’t shit-canning the idea of living together, so he just went with it.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” he authoritatively declared with a brief nod of his head. Then he broke out into a grin as he bit off a piece of bacon.
It was a good thing, right?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Harper
She walked in the office Tuesday morning, tanned and smiling.
“Someone looks like they had a restful time off,” Becky said with a grin when she saw Harper.
“We had such a great time.”
“So, when do I get to meet Ben?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure he’s going to want to have lunch soon. Although…”
“Although?”
Harper stepped closer to Becky’s desk and lowered her voice. “He’s moving in so he might not be that concerned about lunch.”
Her assistant tried to disguise her surprise—possibly shock, maybe slight disapproval.
“Congratulations! When is this happening?”
“Well, really, we’ve only been apart one night since we met, but he officially brought a few things over yesterday when we got back. I think we’ll move most of his things this weekend.”
Becky looked at her thoughtfully and smiled.
“I’ve never seen you this happy. Ben seems wonderful, and like he’ll take good care of you.” She gripped Harper’s hand. “I’m so happy for you. You deserve this.”
Did she, though?
She’d had an opportunity to tell him the truth this weekend and chickened out. She hadn’t been honest with anyone at work about her MS. Other than her family and doctor, the only other person who knew her secret was her friend, Lauren.
“It’s nobody’s fucking business,” her BFF had snarled in response to Harper’s laments last summer about what a bad employee she was for keeping her disease from her bosses.
“I’m pretty sure Becky knows there’s something wrong. But I trust her to keep her suspicions to herself.”
“Then you give her a big, fat Christmas bonus and keep your mouth shut. Don’t confirm anything for her.”
“What about when I’m dating? Shouldn’t I tell him?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know… in case I have to cancel a date because I’m too tired to go out. Or explain why I have to ask him the same question three times before the answer sinks in.”
“That’s your call,” her friend said before taking a sip of wine. “Personally, I’d wait until things were serious.”
The first guy Harper had started seeing after her
divorce, she’d told on the first date. There was never a second, even though they’d seemed to hit it off. The next guy, she waited until they started discussing sleeping together. They slept together once, and she never heard from him again.
“Men are fuckers,” was Lauren’s response. “I’m telling you, unless you’re planning on marrying the guy and going on his health insurance, it’s none of his fucking business.”
That seemed a little extreme.
But now, she was thinking about marrying Ben—or at least, they were moving in together. She definitely needed to tell him before they moved the big things from his house to hers this weekend. Lauren was going to lose her shit when she found out. She had been in Singapore on business last week, and Harper hadn’t even talked to her to tell her she was dating someone—let alone sleeping with him and planning to have him move in.
Harper probably needed to let her parents know, too… but that could wait a while. However, she needed to let Lauren know today.
“What’s on my calendar for lunch?” she asked her assistant.
****
“Shut the front door!” Lauren squealed as she fished the olive out of her glass and popped it in her mouth. One of the benefits of owning your own business—martini lunches, and no one said shit. “Have you run a background check on him?”
“Well, um, no. But I’ve been to his house and his business, and I’ve met his best friend, Luke—he’s a SWAT sergeant with SDPD—and gone to his house with his wife and kids. He’s on the up and up. Actually, Luke was Honey’s foster dad.”
“No kidding? That’s kind of cool. Small world, huh?”
“It really is.”
“So does assface know you’re moving in with a man?” Lauren asked before catching the waitress’s eye and raising her glass to indicate she’d like another.
“By ‘assface,’ do you mean Tyler or my father?”
“Well, I meant Tyler but now that I think about it, both.”
“I haven’t spoken to Tyler in almost two months—since he pulled that ‘I want you back’ crap.”
“He ruined a good thing with that nonsense.”
Lauren knew she and her ex had continued fucking each other over the three and half years they’d been divorced. Harper hadn’t complained: It scratched an itch, she was comfortable with Tyler—he knew her secrets—and neither of them expected anything afterward.
Until a few months ago, when he’d dropped the bombshell that he wanted to try again.
Oh, hell no.
“I don’t think I owe Tyler an explanation. He’ll find out soon enough from my daddy, anyway. If I decide to tell my parents, that is.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. Tyler had Harper’s father on his side—he was all she ever heard about now, on the rare occasion she did see her parents. How good Tyler was for her; how she should give him another chance; how she needed Tyler.
Yeah, no.
“Ugh. I hate that you wasted four years of your twenties with him.”
Harper laughed. “It would have been okay if it’d been my thirties or forties?”
“No, but you’re you’re supposed to be wild and slutty in your twenties—people expect it. You started dating him at twenty-five and married him by the time you turned twenty-six, divorcing him just in time for like—what, a month left of your twenties?”
“It was a learning experience. It made me who I am today.”
“A fucking kickass attorney who takes no prisoners.”
“I don’t know about that…”
“Pffft, I do. Honey, your reputation precedes you.”
That made her smile. She was a kickass attorney.
“But I kind of like the idea of being more than that, ya know? Like part of a couple. Having something other than just my work.”
“I totally get that—and I support you, as long as it’s not with Tyler. It’s personally not for me, yet, but maybe that’s just because I haven’t met my own sexy auto mechanic. Does he have any brothers?”
“Um…”
Her friend chuckled. “You don’t fucking know, do you?”
“I know he has a sister. He talked to her on the phone the first night we met. And I know his parents are still together. He had dinner with them a week ago on Sunday—the only night we’ve been apart since we met.”
Lauren raised one eyebrow. “I’m surprised he didn’t invite you.”
“I think he was trying to take things slow.”
The blonde advertising executive snorted. “Obviously.”
Harper took a drink of her diet soda. “I’m moving too fast, aren’t I?”
Lauren chewed on the olive delivered in her new drink. She swallowed hard and said, “Only you know if you’re moving too fast. Not your parents, not your friends, not society—what do you feel in your heart?”
“That I need to tell him about the MS before we go any further.”
With a shrug, her friend said, “So fucking tell him.”
With renewed resolve, Harper said, “I’m going to. Thursday before he’s had a chance to move anything else.”
“Why not tonight or tomorrow?”
“I’m working late tonight and tomorrow to catch up for taking Friday and Monday off. Plus, to be honest, if he doesn’t take it well then it will affect me at work.”
“So why don’t you just wait until Friday night after work when you don’t have anything else to worry about?”
She thought about it for a minute and nodded her head.
“That’s probably a good idea, thanks.”
Lauren winked as she finished martini number two. “Anytime.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ben
“Wow, you look nice,” Harper said when Ben came out for breakfast Thursday morning. He was dressed in a navy suit with hair-thin pinstripes and a starched white button-down.
He jutted his neck out and adjusted his sky-blue tie before smoothing it down his front.
“My meeting with the property owner is at ten thirty. I’ve only got fifteen minutes to make my pitch for my third location.”
He purposely hadn’t told her he was going around the man’s attorney. He wasn’t sure she’d approve of such tactics, and didn’t want her telling him all the reasons that what he was doing was wrong. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
She was still in her pajamas with the sexy bedhead he loved, reading the news on her iPad as she drank orange juice and ate toast with strawberry jam—her morning routine. Normally, he would be sitting across from her, eating a high-protein breakfast and sipping coffee, trying not to stare at how beautiful she was and wondering how the hell he’d gotten so lucky.
“Well, let me know if you need my help for anything. This is kind of my wheelhouse.”
“I will, if we get that far. First things first.”
“You’ll do great. You have a way of making people see things your way,” she teased.
He filled his travel mug with coffee, setting it and his briefcase on the counter near the garage door, then came around to where she was sitting with her feet under her on the dinette chair.
Boxing her in with one his arm on the table and the other on the back of her chair, he bent down and kissed her thoroughly, as he usually did when given the opportunity. She let out a little whimper when they finally broke apart.
“Want to have lunch with me today?” Ben asked with his forehead against hers.
Her eyes were still closed, and she subtly nodded her head yes. “Mmm hmm.”
He smiled and stood up straight, breaking the spell he seemed to have put her under.
“How about I pick you up at eleven thirty? That should give me enough time to get to your office in case my meeting runs long.”
“Eleven thirty works perfectly, actually. I have a deposition in my office at one thirty.” She grinned wide. “Oh, my assistant is going to be so excited to meet you.”
He winked and picked up his briefcase and coffee.
“Bye, baby gi
rl. I’ll see you soon.”
****
Mark Dufresne seemed to somehow be involved with the car racing world. The waiting area in his lobby was adorned with pictures of the same two men—Mr. Dufresne, Ben assumed, and a younger man, possibly his son, although he didn’t see the resemblance—with famous car drivers and owners, apparently taken shortly after their wins.
Ben had arrived fifteen minutes early, so he had plenty of time to peruse the pictures on the wall. Most of them were from decades ago—judging by the clothing, hairstyles, and cars. There was nothing from the last ten years. Ben followed racing and none of the younger drivers from the last decade were on the wall.
Mark’s assistant came out to the lobby. She was an older woman, her brown and gray hair in a tight bun, wearing a pale pink suit with matching pumps and pearls.
“Mr. McCallister? Mr. Dufresne is ready for you.”
Ben stood and followed the woman down a long hall, also lined with racing photos. The man likes having his picture taken. Ben should have done more research on him. Damn it.
He walked into a large office that probably hadn’t been updated since the 1970s, although the rest of the building was modern, as was his assistant’s area. A distinguished looking man with a full head of white hair stood from the other side of his desk, wearing khakis and a white polo. He was tan and seemed to be in good shape. Probably golfs a lot.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. McCallister,” he said, warmly shaking Ben’s hand. “Please, have a seat.”
They sat down and after the pleasantries were exchanged with offers of water or coffee, Mark Dufresne got down to business.
“So, what can I do for you?” he asked. He steepled his fingers together and sat back in his chair to eye this young man who’d made an appointment with him out of the blue.
Ben was about to start his pitch when something on the credenza behind the man’s desk made him pause.
He stood with his hands on the desk and bent closer, squinting his eyes while trying to see past the man.
“Is that Scout?” he asked, almost as if to himself, then glanced at the man staring at him curiously and remembered where he was. “I mean, is that Harper?”
A slow smile formed on the man’s lips. “The day she graduated law school. How do you know my granddaughter?”