The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

I press my hands to my face and then drop them to my legs, thinking back over the years. “Isaac is the one recording me,” I assert. “Your father doesn’t see those recordings. I’m certain of it. Isaac uses them and me. He’s always a step ahead of me. He knows what I’m going to do before I get to do it. He claims every big moment I attempt. Your father always ends up impressed with him and disappointed in me. He steals my ideas.”

“Once a cheat, always a cheat,” he says, pulling us into Starbucks. “That’s his way. That’s how he beats you.”

He’s right, I think as he parks the F-TYPE. That is Isaac’s way, and yet I’ve foolishly played this game his way all this time. Eric kills the engine and I turn to him. “He didn’t beat you. Everyone knows he didn’t beat you. You came out on top, better off than him. I know that doesn’t come without personal consequence for you, Eric. I know asking you to come here was selfish, but I need you. We need you.”

“Because he didn’t beat me,” he repeats.

“Exactly. He didn’t beat you. He can’t beat you.”

His jaw sets hard. “Right,” he says flatly, that word, his only reply, holding about ten thousand meanings I want to understand. There is so much about this man I want to understand. I wonder if anyone really knows him. I wonder so many things.

“Eric,” I say, a million possible words playing on my tongue when my cellphone starts ringing in my purse. I ignore it and focus on him, taking a chance, and assuming I might read him right. “I hate that you might think me needing your help translates to me using you like they would. I’m not them. I wanted—more.” My cellphone finally stops ringing.

He shifts to face me, the full force of his piercing blue eyes on me now. “More,” he repeats.

“Yes,” I whisper. “More.”

My cellphone starts ringing again.

“Take the call,” he says softly.

“I don’t want to take the call,” I say. “I want you to talk to me.”

He surprises me then and reaches up, his fingers brushing my cheek, a light touch I feel everywhere, and I want everywhere, sending a shiver down my spine. My phone stops ringing and starts all over again. His hand falls away. “Take the call, Harper. It could be your union groper.”

“He is a groper and yes,” I reluctantly agree, “it could be him.” I grab my phone to find my mother calling, no doubt about Eric. “It’s my mother,” I say, sticking my phone back in my purse. “I’ll call her back.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” My phone starts ringing again. “She goes for three,” I explain. “After that, she leaves a voicemail.”

He studies me a few beats, something dark and unreadable in his stare, but I don’t need to read his expression to read his thoughts. He knows I don’t want him to listen in on this call. “Look,” I say. “She probably found out that you’re here. She’s going to be a freaked-out mess, afraid of you, and pissed at me. I really don’t care if you hear that call, but it’s going to be painful and long.” It rings again. I grab it from my purse and hit decline before sending it to voicemail. “Eric—”

“Don’t let me find out you’re lying to me, Harper.” His voice is low but hard. “That’s a broad statement so let me repeat and expand on it. Don’t let me find out that you lied to me about anything.”

“I’m not,” I say, looking him in the eyes, letting him see the truth. “I swear to you, Eric. I’m not lying to you about anything. There are things I haven’t told you, but not because I don’t want to tell you. I just haven’t had the time or privacy.”

“I seem to remember things differently.”

“You mean the night you told me the only way you’d come back was to finish off the family?” I challenge.

“I didn’t come back to ruin them,” he says, his blue eyes watching me closely as he adds, “I came back for you.”

He’s here for me.

Those were the words I’d wanted to hear from this man, but now that he’s said them, they’re layered with complexity, the meaning holding a world of possibilities, some good and some not good. “That could mean a lot of things,” I say.

He leans in closer, his hand on the back of my seat. “What do you want them to mean?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Harper

He came for me.

I want to know what that means to him.

He wants to know what that means to me.