“Because you want me to be human enough to care.”
“Are you?”
He cups my face. “Enough to bow to a princess, it seems.” His voice is low and raspy as he leans in and brushes his lips over mine and then suddenly he’s kissing me, drugging me with his tongue, before he says, “Decide what you’re going to do with that power, Harper. Then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with mine.” He strokes his thumb over my cheek. “I’ll see you soon.” He releases me and in a few, graceful strides, he’s out of the office, and I’m alone. Only, I’m not sure I am alone anymore.
I’m with him, I’m with Eric, but I’m not sure if he’s my friend or my enemy. I just know that if that man touches me, I’ll melt, and I won’t care if that means pain or pleasure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eric
Harper’s like the apple in the Garden of Eden, tempting me in ways that I simply can’t resist. I know she could be poisonous. I know she could be playing with my head, but I still want her and in a wicked, fierce way. I want her so fucking badly that I’m here at Kingston Motors in a building I swore I’d never step foot in. The taste of her. The feel of her against me. The sweet floral scent of hers that clings to me as I exit her office, a distinctively her scent that’s a giveaway to how that conversation behind closed doors went just now: up close and personal, the only way I want things with Harper.
I won’t hide that fact from her or anyone. That’s not my style. I want. I need. I take and I never shy away from announcing that intent, nor would that benefit Harper, considering her present position. With the way my appearance went down, she’s officially placed herself inside a war zone. More so, she’s declared herself standing on my side of the battlefield, and for that, she’ll pay without my protection. Isaac will come at her with that desperate viciousness I know all too well, just as he knows where that leaves him with me. He needs to know what that means with Harper.
In fact, there’s no reason to play this on the lowdown with Isaac. I’m halfway to the lobby when I turn around and walk my ass back to Isaac’s office. His door is shut but I don’t care. I open it and step inside. He’s sta
nding at his window, his phone in his hand, with his back to me. He whirls around and his expression reddens the way it had every time our law profession pitted us against each other in mock trials.
“I need to call you back,” he says to whoever he’s talking to before he disconnects the line. “Knock, you little bastard,” he snaps. “You might be performing an audit, but I run this place.”
“Last I heard, your father still ran this place. Good to know who’s responsible for its current state of destruction. I won’t keep you. I have data to dissect. I just want to be clear. Harper’s a pawn Gigi used to get to me. If you use her or lash out at her, you’ll suffer, and as in the past, when I make a promise I keep it.”
“No matter what you have to do to make me pay, right?” he challenges. “I thought Grayson Bennett and his ever talked about moral compass would have changed that in you.”
“I operate based on who I’m dealing with and we both know you don’t even understand the words moral compass. Leave Harper out of this.”
“Harper put herself in this. She wants the company.” He leans on the desk. “Smarten up, brother. She’s brought us together for a reason. We just don’t know what it is yet, but I promise you, at its root, it’s about power. It’s about how damn much she thinks her father contributed to this company.”
“Last I heard, she’s the one who contributed and with no stock to show for it. You have her trust fund.”
He gives an amused snort. “I didn’t know you were so fucking naive,” he says. “She has no trust fund. Her father left it fluid and under her mother’s control. She wants you to take me down so she can take over. She wants what’s mine and assumes as the bastard, it will never be yours. Believe me, man, she’ll fuck you up and down and sideways to get what she wants.”
He hits a nerve I didn’t realize still existed about this company, this life, and even the woman I came here to help, but I beat it down. “What you fail to understand, dear half-brother, is that I don’t want or need this place. If she takes it from you, I’ll be amused. This isn’t my life.”
“Then why come here at all?”
“We’re family,” I say dryly. “Harper said so.”
“That’s why you wear the jaguar, a competing emblem, inked on your arm? Because we’re family?”
“That’s exactly why. It’s all about family to me.”
“If that’s family to you, you’re ten more shades of fucked up than I even realized.”
“I have a feeling we’ll be reinventing how we define family and fucked up many times over before I leave.” My lips quirk. “Harper works for me. Remember that. You need her, you come through me.” I turn and exit the office, cutting left and down the hallway. I’ve just cut right when I end up toe to toe with Harper, who all but runs into me.
I catch her shoulders, and holy fuck, touching this woman sets me on fire, muddying the water in ways that I allowed to pull me into this hell. “Hi,” she says softly.
I narrow my eyes on her, thinking about her six years with this family, thinking about what it takes to live like one of them that long. “You wanted me here. You got me. You work for me now. You report to me now. Put together any data you think I need to see and don’t make any move related to that data, and I mean any move, without talking to me first.” I release her. “I’ll be in the conference room.” I turn away and head for the front office, but I don’t make it far.
“Eric,” she calls out, and my name on this woman’s lips easily halts my steps, but I don’t immediately face her. For a moment I’m back in that hotel room with her naked, in my arms, me buried inside her when she used my name and told me that she saw me, not the bastard. I wonder who she sees now. I wonder who she really saw then. My jaw clenches with that thought and I turn around to find her stepping in front of me, the small space of the narrow walkway shrinking and wrapping us in intimacy.
“I don’t know what I sense in you right now,” she says. “But remember this: Isaac has trashed you every day of your life you’ve been connected to this family. You think we’re different, but he sees me just like he sees you, and he is not kind to me. I deal with it. I handle it, but to you, we’re different. To him we’re alike.”
“And to you?”
“In some ways we are. We both got forced into this family and we both wanted it to be a real family. I, however, wasn’t smart enough to get out of here like you did when I could have, but I was smart enough to ask for your help. Because the way I see it, doing nothing wasn’t an option. If you take everything, then at least I’m finally free.” She turns and walks away and I watch her disappear into her office, the damn floral scent of her every-fucking-where, the way I want her naked in every fucking thought. Which would be fine if that nerve Isaac hit wasn’t jumping again.