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“You don’t take on a Kingston without leverage. I made sure I had leverage. To help you. You asked for help. I’m here. So, let me repeat this,” His hands settle on my face, his voice softening, “I camefor you.”
Heat sears the air between us, a hot flash of desire fueled by how good we are naked together, by how much we really aren’t done with each other. “I’m afraid to trust you.”
“Good,” he says, pulling back to look at me, wicked heat in his eyes. “I haven’t earned that trust.”
“I haven’t earned yours either,” I say, and it’s not a question. “And I never will.”
“If I wasn’t willing to see beyond this family, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re here to ruin them, and me with them.”
“From what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen far more than Isaac thinks I’ve seen, you didn’t need me for that. I could have sat back with a bag of popcorn and watched the fun.”
Realization hits me. “You came because you knew you could take over. It wasn’t about saving us. It’s about getting what you always wanted.”
“Princess, I haven’t wanted or needed this place in a long time. I got out and got right like you should have.”
“I couldn’t. I told you that. I told you why. I would have left the legacy behind, if not for my mom. Seriously, what if it was your mother? Would you just leave? I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“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 distinctivelyherscent 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 standing 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?”
