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“Damn straight I am. I came here for her. I’m keeping her safe and close.”
“I’ll leave a weapon outside her place and text you the location. And that data you needed is in the electronic folder I set-up for you along with my analysis. Text or call me when you look at it.” He disconnects.
I stop at the car door and unlock it before climbing inside the now-toasty interior. “You’re all set now,” I say, offering her the coat.
“Thank you,” she says. “I guess I really didn’t need this. The car is warm and we’re stopping right at the hotel door.”
“The wind is still cold, really fucking cold actually. Is there a storm blowing in?”
“There’s a winter storm warning,” she says. “I saw it on my phone earlier. And normally my mother would be the weather woman warning me. She’s not this time.”
“She sent Isaac to warn you instead,” I assume, shifting the car into reverse.
“You’re the bastard storm?”
“That’s not always a bad thing to be,” I say, backing us up and then placing us in drive, easing us down the path and eyeing the car that’s still parked in the same spot.
My cellphone rings and I grab it to find Julius returning my call. “I have to take this. There are problems with the NFL closing.”
“Of course,” she says. “Take it. Then you can tell me what you haven’t told me. No secrets, right?”
No secrets.
I can’t agree to that statement. I do have secrets. Secrets she won’t like. Secrets I don’t intend for her to find out. “We’ll talk,” I say instead and answer my call.
Harper
We’ll talk.
The man who demands no secrets, doesn’t claim he’s not keeping them from me, but at least he didn’t offer complete denial either. Still, I don’t like it. But do I really want to go down this “no secrets” path?
“No,” he says, joining me, still talking on the phone. “That’s not the deal.” He’s calm but hard, a sharp-edged quality to his seemingly nonchalant tone that I’m not sure is about me or his caller. “I don’t like being played with,” he adds. “We’ll replace you.” He disconnects the call and we pull up to the hotel and the valets are immediately upon us.
My door opens and I slip on my coat even as I step outside, and watch Eric palm the driver a large bill, a hundred, I think, which drives home just how successful and rich he’s become, but more so, it shows a generous side of this self-made man. And while this might appear like flashing his money, I don’t believe that. I don’t sense that in him, at all. He’s hard on the outside, steel forged out of pain, but how he’s survived and thrived is part of what makes him incredible.
Somehow this only serves to drive home the fact that I’ve already made mistakes with him. And I know those mistakes could hurt him, at least, if he ever found out. I don’t want to hurt this man. I’m falling in love with him, and that very idea has me walking toward the hotel rather than waiting on him, afraid of what he might read if he looks at me right this moment.
I push through the automatic revolving doors and suddenly Eric is behind me, navigating the small moving space with me, his bodypressed to mine, his hands on my waist. “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”
“Depends,” I say and then I have no idea what the heck I’m thinking with what comes out of my mouth next. “Are you going to tell me your secrets?” We clear the doors at that moment and he doesn’t reply.
He cozies up to me, wraps his arm around me, and sets us in motion, greeting staff on our path to the elevator. I don’t push him, already living the regret of driving so hard on a topic sure to burn me and him.
Halting at the elevator bank, he punches the call button and one of the doors immediately opens, his fingers lacing with mine as he guides me inside and uses his card to confirm his floor. The minute the doors shut, he pulls me to him, his fingers tangling in my hair, his thick erection throbbing against my belly. “My secrets would hurt you more than they’d help us.” And then he’s kissing me, and we taste like pain and heartache. He will hurt me. He will leave me. And this time he’ll take everything I am when he does, and I can’t even seem to care.
Chapter thirty-one
Harper
“Damn coats,” Eric murmurs, trying to pull me closer, and there’s a frenzied energy between us, so raw and uncontrollable, it feels dangerous. He takes all of me and I can’t stop it from happening. I can’t protect myself with Eric.
He’s danger.
He’s safety.
The elevator dings and he reluctantly parts our lips, his hand stroking my hair in an act that is somehow tender and erotic at the same time. “Let’s go to the room,” he says, his voice low, gravelly. Affected. I affect this gorgeous, intense, brilliant man, and even now, I have moments like this one where that doesn’t feel possible. I’m the enemy. I’m the princess. I’m hated and I’ve even felt that in his touch, in his kiss, only I don’t feel that hate anymore.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Let’s go to the room.”
