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As long as she deserves it.
His words echo in my mind. She deserves it. Of course, she deserves it, but what’s his definition of her crossing a line? And why am I even worried there might be a line she crosses?
Eric approves of the taste of wine he’s been offered and our glasses are filled. Once we’re alone, I sip the beverage, a sweet yet oaky flavor touching my tongue. “It’s excellent,” I say.
“Glad you like it.”
I burn to ask him about my mother again, but the moment feels lost and a new one resists introduction. His arm is back on the seat, his body angled to mine, and there’s an easiness in him I do not want to lose. This man interests me, and it has nothing to do with this family, or business, though certainly his ability to manage all of the above is sexy as hell. I might not be a Cinderella waiting to be rescued, but there is a strength and confidence about Eric I find beyond appealing. I envy this quality, but I am also drawn to it in him. I set my glass down and rotate toward him, eager to test his claim to being an open book tonight. “About that anger.”
He reaches up and strokes my hair behind my ear, an unexpectedly tender touch that shivers through me. “I’m angry atyou for making me want you so fucking badly that I had to come here.”
Those words are raw and real, vibrating along my nerve endings. “Are you going to make me regret it?”
“There are many things I want to make you feel, Harper, but regret is not one of them.”
Chapter twenty-three
Harper
Eric presses his cheek to my cheek and whispers, “Do you know how badly I want to take you to the bathroom and fuck you right now?” Heat pools low in my belly as he pulls back to look at me and adds, “Or anywhere, for that matter?”
My body melts while my mind fights for reason. I can’t end up naked and confused again with this man and in no different a place than we are now. “Which would be fine if you could do it without hating me along with the rest of the family,” I say, and somehow my hand is on his tattooed arm and I should move it, I know, but I don’t want to stop touching him.
“Do it the Bennett way, not the Kingston way, and judge me for me.”
The waitress chooses that moment to reappear and say, “Are you two ready to order?”
I curse the interruption and Eric grits his teeth as if echoing my sentiment. “Do you know what you want?”
“Yes. Spaghetti and meatballs.”
He glances at the waitress. “The same for me.”
The waitress asks a few questions and then she’s gone. For several beats, he faces forward and then shifts back to me, his stare warm enough to sizzle. “Iwantto know your story. I want to knowyou.”
I’m pleased with this admission and yet, I remain, I believe, rightfully skeptical. “I know you told me why the change, I do, but it’s hard to digest that right now. You’ve tried so very hard to hate me.”
“Fair enough,” he says. “Let’s be frank.”
“Please,” I encourage. “Please do.”
“You were the only one in this family that had a chance to get me here, and you knew that.”
“Because I’m not them. Not because we slept together, and I hate so much you might think that and it makes me feel like the last place I should be is right here, right now.”
“But you want to be here. Don’t you, Harper?”
“Would you believe me if I said yes? You have a file on me, but files don’t tell you the real story. Not about people.”
“Then you tell me.”
“Are you going to really listen?”
“I assure you, sweetheart, no one has ever had my full attention more than you do now, for about ten different reasons. Youtell meyourstory.” “And you’ll tell me yours?”
“I already started telling you my story. You know far more about me and my life choices than I do yours.”
A story of lies, secrets, and pain that I push aside. I hunger for a deeper look into this man, but I push that burn aside. He doesn’t want to talk about him. He wants to talk about me and my willingness to open up helps erase the divide between us. Or I hope it will. “I was close to my father and his heart attack pretty much destroyed me, but my mother was such a mess that I somehow found a way to step up and be strong. I was close to my mother, too, until we joined this family.”
