The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

“Agree

d,” Eric says. “What do you know about the wires she’s been getting?”

“The identifier as you called it, is not a bank transaction, a foreign exchange number, or anything that pulls up electronically with any ease at all. I’ll dig into personal emails and documents over the next few days. I’ll let you know what I find.”

Eric eyes me. “Questions for Blake?”

“A very broad one. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“A cover-up for sure,” he says. “My concern is that it could be a set-up with Eric as the target.”

“I’m not setting him up. Eric, I’m not setting you up. I’m not part of this.”

“We’ll talk later, Blake,” Eric says, disconnecting the line. “I know you’re not setting me up, but they may be setting me up through you and I can’t allow that to touch Grayson Bennett. He’s been too damn good to me.”

Panic rushes over me and I pop to my feet. Eric is there with me, his hands settling on my arms. “I’m not going to let them hurt me or you. I’m here. I have a world of resources, which means you have a world of resources.”

“There’s something weird about Isaac having me take over this union negotiation.”

“Meaning what?”

“Involving me came out of nowhere. It’s not what I do and it could have been to keep me busy, but it feels like more. My instinct, the first thing that came to my mind, was that he was setting me up in some way.”

“Never disregard your instincts,” he says. “And I’d already planned on going to the union meeting with you.”

“Maybe that’s the idea. Connect you and me to something unsavory. Don’t go with me.”

“I’m going with you, Harper. End of subject.”

“Eric—”

He drags me closer and kisses me. “It’ll be fine.”

“We don’t even know what’s going on. We don’t know where the bullets are coming from. Blake’s assumption feels right. This is a set-up. I brought you into a set-up. You have to leave.”

“I’ll leave if you’ll come with me.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Then I’m staying.”

“I’m a bad person. I need to tell you that I’m a bad person.”

His eyes narrow, and I feel the slight stiffening in his body next to mine. “What does that mean, Harper?”

“The honorable thing to do right now is to make you leave.”

His expression softens. “You can’t make me leave.”

I wish that was true, I think. I wish so much that I didn’t have a secret that would make him hate me. I tell myself to tell him now, but it’s embarrassing and I’m ashamed that I didn’t handle a piece of my life, of his life, in a better way. He’ll leave when he finds out. He’ll go home and that means he’ll be out of this. He’ll be protected and I care about this man. I need to suck it up and take the hate. I need to force him to leave. I need to just tell him. I need to do it now.

But then he strokes my hair in that way he does that is both tender and sensual, and it undoes me. “We’re in this together, Harper,” he says with that warm, gravelly tone of his that is sex and sin and friendship all in one. “Which is why,” he adds, “we’re going to get comfortable, drink wine, and dig through the data Blake gave us. Together. We’re going to do this together. Say it.”

“Together,” I repeat, and I like this word for us. I like it so much that I’m selfish. I can’t tell him right this minute. I’ll tell him tomorrow. I’ll tell him everything in the morning.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Eric