by Karina Halle
I just hope that he knows he’s always free to break with me.
“That was . . . ,” he begins, licking his lips.
I smile. “I know.”
He lets out a low chuckle and shakes his head. “I’m not sure what came over you.”
“Does it matter when you came inside me?” I say, joking.
Another rough laugh escapes him. He leans in and kisses me softly on the lips. “You really are something, you know that?”
“I’ve been told.”
And please keep telling me.
He lets out a long exhale, resting his forehead against mine for a moment, and then reaches down and pulls out. I feel bereft at his absence already.
“Made a mess,” he says, eyeing the dryer.
“Good thing we’re in the laundry room,” I tell him.
I move my legs to the side, and then he wraps his large hands around my waist and gently lifts me down to the ground. I grab a towel from a laundry basket and quickly wipe away the mess we made.
“You know those are royal towels, right?” he comments.
I stare at the towel, with its logo of the Fairfaxes. “Whoops.”
He grins. “It’ll be our secret.” Then he pauses. Clears his throat, his eyes turning serious. “You know, this should probably stay a secret between us.”
I swallow, nodding. “I know.” I want to tell him about what Monica had said, that she disapproved of the idea of us together, but decide against it. We already seem to be on the same page. “I can keep a secret if you can.”
He gives me a wry smile. “You know I can. I’m a vault.” He pulls up his pants and buckles his belt. “It’s not that I’m ashamed, though. I don’t want you thinking that. It’s not about Eddie or Monica either. I . . . I just need some time to . . .”
“I get it,” I say quickly. “You don’t have to explain. I know you have a job to do, and I know things might get complicated. But we’ll figure it out. Right?”
He nods. “We’ll figure it out.”
And I’m going to have to trust him on that.
Sixteen
“Piper.” my mom’s impatient voice breaks into my head. “Can you please pass the sugar?”
My head slowly swivels toward her, and I blink.
There’s cornstarch in her hair as she stands at a saucepan on the stove, wearing an impatient look on her face.
I absently reach for the bag of sugar beside me and pass it to her.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re supposed to measure it. One cup. Where is your head at?”
Where is my head at? Good question.
It’s been one hundred percent compromised by Harrison.
Specifically, what Harrison and I did on that dryer.
It’s been about twenty-four hours since Harrison and I consummated our strange relationship in the laundry room, and I haven’t recovered even a little.
After he left, I spent the rest of the day in a daze, hiding from my mother like I was sixteen all over again, having lost my virginity to my loser of a high school boyfriend, Mark. I felt like if she took one look at me, she would know. I mean, when I looked in the mirror, I thought it was painfully obvious. My lips were swollen (the ones on my face, but also . . . ), my eyes were bright, my cheeks flushed. I looked like I was brimming with life.
I had all night to replay it over in my head, bringing out my vibrator to give myself an encore. I won’t lie—I’d used it many times with Harrison in mind, but now that I had the real thing to compare it to, my old fantasies didn’t stand a chance.
Today, the feelings from last night are still coursing through me. My mother hasn’t noticed anything is off, well, aside from my silence, but she doesn’t know it’s because Harrison has become the subject of each and every thought I’ve had. I can still feel his rough stubble between my legs, still see the way his face contorted with pleasure moments before he came, the look in his eyes afterward as he gazed at me, a peace to them I’d never seen before.
It was everything I’d wanted and more.
But I was at a loss as to how we were supposed to move on from here. He said we’d find a way, he said he wouldn’t leave it at just that, just that moment. I’m unsure of how we’re going to keep it going. Will we see each other once in a while? Is that sustainable? Is it even fair?
I’ve never had a purely physical relationship with someone. I’ve been a serial dater in the past, always monogamous but always quick to rush into a relationship. I form attachments easily, especially after sex. I don’t know how to deal with my growing feelings for Harrison, nor how to proceed when everything is so . . . secretive.
The funny thing is, Harrison really doesn’t seem to care either way. I would have assumed he would have been the first to make this all stay hush-hush, but his fear is more to do with him, and what he can give me, rather than his job or his relationship with Monica and Eddie.
It’s my relationship with Monica that has me worried. I know she warned me about this on the boat; I know that a relationship between Harrison and I would cause me to break a girl code. And as someone who has struggled to make friends, I don’t want to do anything to put our friendship in jeopardy.
At the same time, it feels wrong to have to hide it from her.
Same goes for my mother. There’s no way she’d understand, but for totally different reasons.
My mother is watching me like a hawk right now as I awkwardly dump sugar into a measuring cup and hand it to her.
“What is with you?” she asks as she pours it into the saucepan and stirs with a whisk. “You’ve had this look on your face all day.”
“What look?”
Please don’t say pathetic puppy dog eyes.
“I don’t know. Daydreaming. You’re somewhere else. Don’t tell me you’re bored.”
“Bored? I’m making a lemon meringue pie with my mother—how could I be bored?”
She gives me a pointed look as she whisks away. “Don’t be cute, Piper. Why don’t you do another podcast?”
I wave at her dismissively. Doing a podcast is the last thing on my mind right now, as is reading. I can’t seem to think of anything else but Harrison.
“I’m fine.” I clap my hands together. “What else do you need me to do?” Being distracted is probably key, because if I dwell on this too much, my mind is going to start running away on me and create something bigger than reality.
“You can . . .” She trails off as the saucepan bubbles on the stove, and starts skimming over the recipe on the iPad. “Oh, shit.”
“What? Did you miss a step?”
She closes her eyes and makes a grumbling noise.
“What?” I repeat, reaching for the recipe. I take the iPad and look at it, unable to see what the problem is.
“The piecrust,” she says, looking at me after a moment. “The recipe only gave the recipe for the meringue and the filling. I forgot I needed a crust!”
“Maybe you don’t?” I say, looking over the recipe. But there it is. “ ‘Pour mixture into your pre-baked piecrust.’ ”
Uh-oh. My mom looks on the verge of losing it. She’s been doing so well, and baking is usually her happy place, no matter what happens to the final product.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her, going to the stove and switching off the burner. “We’ll come back to the filling after. Let’s start on the crust. Do we have what we need for that?”
“I have no idea,” she whimpers, throwing her arms in the air. “I have never made a piecrust.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sure it’s easy. Don’t panic. It will be fine.”
I pull up a piecrust recipe and start reading the ingredients. “Flour. We have plenty of flour, right?”
My mom opens a cupboard and pulls out a bag and plops it on the counter. It’s not even closed, so flour flies
out into the air.
I ignore the particles gathering on my shirt. “Okay, so that and salt, water, and we just need either butter or shortening or lard.”
“I have butter and shortening, I think,” my mother says, opening the fridge.
While she looks, I start measuring out the two-and-a-half cups of flour, which naturally gets everywhere. I’m definitely no better than she is when it comes to not making a mess.
“Which one should I use?” she asks, pulling them both out.
I’m about to tell her I have no idea when there’s a knock at the door.
We look at each other in surprise, just as Liza comes charging from around the corner, barking and heading to the door.
I walk over, dusting my floury hands on my black tunic, then open the door.
It’s Harrison. Suit, aviators, hands behind his back.
My heart does a triple axel.
A stupid grin spreads on my face as my body tingles, muscle memory from everywhere he touched me.
“Hi,” I say. “You’re here.”
A ghost of a smile flits across his lips. “I am.”
“Mr. Cole?” my mother says in the background. “Need to use the machine again? Liza, come here.”
Liza has already given up on barking, but now she’s doing circles around Harrison’s legs and sniffing him, getting her hair all over the fine material of his suit.
He clears his throat. “Actually,” he says, louder so my mother can hear, “the duke and duchess were wondering if you would join them for dinner on Friday.”
Not gonna lie, my stomach sinks a little with disappointment, as if I really thought he was here to see me.
“Friday?” my mother says. “Sure. Say, you wouldn’t know how to make piecrust, would you?”
“Mom, don’t bug him,” I chide her.
“It’s not a problem,” Harrison says to me. He removes his sunglasses and slips them in his jacket pocket. “I would be happy to help.” He takes a step forward and pauses, his eyes drifting to my lips and up to my gaze. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”
I make a squeak that means “of course” in fluttery crush language and step aside as he walks in. He brushes past me, his scent filling my nose and making those butterflies take flight, my knees feeling weak.
I close the door and follow him into the kitchen, where he observes the mess.
“So what happened here?” he asks mildly.
“Argh,” my mom says. “I was trying to make a lemon meringue pie and forgot all about the crust. Now I’m stuck on whether to use butter or shortening.”
Harrison watches her and nods. “I see. Well, you can use both. In fact, that’s what I prefer.”
“Both?”
“Here, let me,” he says. He takes off his suit jacket, and I hurry over to take it from him, hanging it up by the front door. He then rolls up the sleeves of his white dress shirt to his elbows, his tattoos on display. “Can you get me a larger mixing bowl?” he asks.
My mother grabs a bowl and hands it to him, while I lean against the kitchen island, taking immense delight in the sight of him in my kitchen, helping my mother. It’s like when she was making focaccia, but it shows how far our relationship has evolved.
Man, if I only knew back then that I’d end up sleeping with the man. I was so innocent.
“Need any help?” I ask him.
He glances up at me and gives me a soft smile, warmth in his eyes. “I’ve got it.”
Grabbing the measuring cups and a knife, he starts cutting out the butter and shortening. “See, the shortening is needed because it has a high melting point. It creates flakiness. That tender melt-in-your-mouth feeling you get from a good crust. And the butter, well, nothing beats it. It gives that rich, unmistakable smooth flavor. Now, generally you want your butter in the freezer, especially when the temperature outside is hot, but if I work fast, it should be okay.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about but I’m fascinated, watching the muscles in his forearms as he works. “Why is that?” I ask.
“Because you want your dough as cold as possible. That’s why you have to use cold water.”
“Shit, I probably would have used warm,” my mother says, also watching him like I am.
“Common mistake,” he says, giving her an assuring smile. “We want the dough cold so that the fat from the shortening and the butter don’t melt while you’re working on it. They need to melt in the oven, where the steam created will help separate the crust into those flaky layers you want.”
“Okay, you have to tell me how you know all this,” I say. “Don’t tell me it was the army.”
“Actually,” he says, “it was the army. We had downtime, and that’s what I did. Improved morale, got my mind off of what was happening, and was a nice change from the bloody awful food.”
“You need your own cooking show,” my mother says.
He laughs quietly, with a genuine smile that lights up his whole face and makes me dizzy all over again. “I definitely do not need that. But I am happy to help out when I can. Now, I need to work fast. Do you have a pastry cutter? Two forks will do.”
“I just ordered from Amazon,” my mother says proudly as she hands it to him.
We watch as he starts using it to cut up the butter and shortening into small chunks, and then we help by adding ice to the cold water and adding it a little bit at a time as he stirs with a spatula. With flour liberally applied to the counter, he rolls out the dough until he’s made a few dough discs that he wraps in plastic and then puts in the fridge.
“How long do we have to wait?” my mother asks.
“Two hours at the very least,” he says. He nods at the saucepan. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine with the rest of the recipe.”
My mother grabs his arm firmly, looking him in the eye. “I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve been so kind.”
Harrison looks mildly embarrassed. “It’s not a problem, Mrs. Evans.”
“Please, call me Evelyn,” she says. “And let me make you a cup of tea.”
She turns around and starts ransacking the cupboards for tea. All the boxes are empty, which means the bags are all over the place, complete chaos.
“It’s all right,” he says.
“He likes coffee, anyway,” I tell her. And since I know she’s now going to insist that he has coffee, I say, “And if you’re making any, I’ll have some too.”
“No problem,” she says. I know it makes her feel good to do simple things for people, especially after Harrison just helped her with her baking.
While her back is turned and she brings out the coffee canister, I take my time staring at Harrison.
My god, I’m freaking lucky. Not that I have any claim to him, per se, but I still can’t believe what happened. After playing it over and over in my head and now having him here in front of me, it’s like a fantasy come to life.
Harrison Cole.
The bodyguard.
The man I never thought I would get to know, the man I never thought would be mine, has become so much more than what I had imagined.
He stares right back at me too, his eyes soft, his expression warm. No longer guarded, no longer worried. We don’t even have to speak to each other to know what the other is feeling—we can just be. Sure, I don’t want to gawk at him when my mother is watching, but these stolen glances and hidden moments, they mean the world to me already.
Good lord, I want to jump him.
“I have dark roast, is that okay?” my mother says, turning around, and we both whip our eyes toward her.
I clear my throat. “It’s fine. Right, Harrison?”
He nods. “Did you know that dark roast actually has the lightest caffeine content?”
“I don’t think that’s true,” my mother says. “But we’ll find out when we’r
e all bouncing off the walls, won’t we?”
She gets the coffee going and then leans against the counter, looking at Harrison. Specifically at his arms. “Why do you have those tattoos?” she asks, not hiding her disapproval.
“Mom,” I chide her. I look at Harrison with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, she hates tattoos.”
He chuckles. “I’m used to it. But the reason I have them is because they all tell a story. They remind me of moments in my life. They remind me of who I was then, and they tell me to keep trying to be the man I’m supposed to be.”
“That’s sweet,” she says hesitantly. “What does your mother think about them?”
Oof. So nosy.
But Harrison takes it in stride. “My mother has tattoos herself.”
“Oh?”
He nods, running his hand through his hair. “Yeah. I may look like I come from the well-bred portion of British society, but I assure you I’ve come from the bottom. My mother raised me alone, after my dad fucked off somewhere. I had to help her raise my siblings, and then I got into the mean shite on the streets. It wasn’t a pretty life for me back then. I got tattoos to remember those moments. Of course, some of those moments are just me high as a bloody kite and getting a friend to ink me, but most of these tattoos serve a purpose. I suppose even the ugly ones do, just like the ugly moments in life remind us of where we’re headed.”
My mother blinks, stares. I know for a fact she’s never heard him talk this much before, not to mention the fact that he’s let out something that I know he keeps tucked away, whether out of shame or guilt. I have to say, I’m shocked too that he would let my mother in like this. Shocked but grateful.
My heart swells, feeling warm and impossibly full that he trusts her like he trusts me.
“My goodness,” my mother says after a moment. “I had no idea.”
He lifts up a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t talk about it. Even the media doesn’t know, which I’m grateful for. I know I’m just their PPO, but in the UK, they’ll go digging up dirt on absolutely everyone who even says hello to them. I’ve always been able to spare my mother and my brother and sister that intrusion.”