The Empire (Filthy Trilogy 3)

“Do you have a mortgage?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Why don’t we pay it off and rent it out?”

“We? You mean you?” I’m suddenly intensely aware of his money that is not my money. “Eric. I have no money. They have my money and—”

He cups my face and leans in and kisses me. “You have money. All the money you could ever need, I promise you. You will never want for anything again.”

“No.” I pull back to look at him. “No, I don’t want to live off of you, Eric. I can’t live off of you. That changes us. That makes us something that I don’t want us to be.”

“First, you aren’t living off of me. The idea here is to share a life. You come to work with Bennett Enterprises and make your own way. There are so many directions you can go inside Grayson’s empire and make your own money. Mia has, which brings me to point two: you need to have a friend date with her when this is over. She didn’t come to Grayson with money and she struggled with the fear of him thinking she wanted his money, but he never felt that. I don’t feel that with you either.”

“Until I start spending your money.”

“Baby, I made all this money. I need you to share it with.”

I tear up. “Eric. Eric, you—”

“Are so fucking in love with you, woman. I will do anything for you. I’d die for you.”

“Don’t say that, especially not now.” Panic rises in me, irrational panic. “Don’t say that. You don’t get to die. This doesn’t end that way.”

“No,” he promises. “It doesn’t. It ends with us living happily ever after. You and me against the world.”

And with that declaration, Savage steps to the side of our table. “We have a problem.”

“Fuck off,” Eric says and kisses me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Harper

After telling Savage to fuck off, Eric proceeds to ignore our public location and kisses me quite thoroughly. Savage, however, isn’t willing to be dismissed. He clears his throat. Loudly. Then repeats, and the repeat i

s my trigger. I pull back, pressing on Eric’s chest. “Eric,” I whisper against his lips. “We need to know what he wants. We need to know what the problem is.”

“We need a fucking break.” He leans in to kiss me again.

I press my hands to his lips. “Baby, please.”

“Baby?”

My cheeks heat. Baby? Where did that come from? I’m not sure I’ve ever called anyone baby in my life. “Can I pretend that didn’t come out of my mouth?”

“No. No, you can’t.” His eyes warm, his hand sliding under my neck. “Say it again.”

Savage sits down across from us. “Your father had another heart attack but they revived him.”

Eric inhales a sharp breath, his jaw setting hard, his forehead touching mine, a beat, two, three, before he turns to face Savage. “Was there foul play?”

“Nothing we can pin down. We had eyes on him. No nurse or doctor had visited him from the time he settled in his room until the attack.”

“Could he have been poisoned again on the way to his room?” I ask.

“There’s too many medical hands on him to rule that out,” Savage answers.

“His heart was strained from the initial attack,” Eric adds. “No one is going to question another attack.” He moves on. “Where’s Isaac?”