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And there it is. The money shot that softens me to mush. “You made me feel really bad.”
“I’m understanding that now.” He stands and guides me to my feet, catching me to him, and molding me close. “I’m crazy about you. Don’t let me fuck it up.”
I press my hands to the side of my head and curl my fingers around my hair. “You confuse me.”
“Sleep brings clarity to most things.” He turns me toward the back of the plane and smacks my backside.
I rotate to face him. “That’s not okay.”
He laughs. “That’s not what you said the last time I did it.” His hands settle warmly on my waist and he walks me backward until we’ve reached our destination, the two side-by-side recliners. If I stand here with his hands on my body, I’m going to melt and after what he just did, he’s not getting that reaction, this easily. I claim my seat and he’s quick to slide into the recliner next to me.
For a few beats we both sit there, facing forward, a pulse between us, but somehow, in unison, we lean our seats back and turn to face each other, the intimacy between us a bubble of warmth I want to live inside, get lost inside, but I’m not sure I dare. The world around me is a warzone, and it’s impossible to think straight while dodging bullets, perhaps quite literally.
That’s when a thought hits me and I turn away from Eric, raise my seat and press my hands to my face.
He’s upright in an instant. “Harper?”
I twist around to face him. “If they framed me with that bank account, and who knows what else, maybe when you showed up they got spooked. Maybe that’s why those men came at me. Maybe I was a get out of jail free card. If I died and was framed for whatever this is, then it would have ended for the rest of them.” Another thought hits me. “Oh God.”
“What is it? What are you remembering?”
“What if Gigi sent me to get you so she could frame you for my murder in some way?”
Chapter fifty-one
Eric
Harper unhooks her belt and stands up as if she’s coming out of her own skin with the idea of Gigi betraying either of us, as if that is some novel idea. I have no idea why she wants to believe the best in that woman. I thought it was her being naïve at one point, and maybe it is, but I’m coming to understand that part of her only exists because she’s just such a damn good human being.
Not something I can say about myself.
I’m on my feet, moments after her, stepping in her path and catching her waist before she can escape. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t just sit in that seat. I’m losing my mind right now. This family is like the plague. The bad stuff just multiplies.”
“I warned you about Gigi.”
“I know that times about a hundred right now. So, do you agree? Do you think she set us up?”
“Evil doesn’t disappear. As you said, it multiplies and it all blossoms from her. She’s the matriarch of the family.”
The plane starts to quake around us again and she grabs a hold of my waist and hangs on. “Can this flight be over already?” As surely as she asks the question, the plane jerks, this time violently. I catch the ceiling, and mold Harper close, holding onto her, the way I plan to hold onto her from this point forward.
The extreme jolts ease, and I act. “Let’s sit back down,” I say. “We need to buckle up.”
The plane drops and I have to grab the damn seat to keep us from tumbling. The minute I regain my footing, I rotate us and plant Harper in her seat. Another rumbling of the plane beneath my feet has my hands planting on the arms of her chair. “Eric,” she breathes out, grabbing my shirt as if she’s trying to protect me, not steady herself. Like she could hold onto me and keep me from flying if we jolted much more. “I won’t let them use me to get to you.”
She says those words with such passion and emotion that I wonder how I ever doubted her, but of course, I know the answer.Theyare why I doubted her. I let them get into my head and I judged her the same way they judged me: by where she came from. “They don’t get to use either of us anymore, Harper. No more.” The plane calms for a moment and I quickly buckle her seatbelt, and sit down, securing myself as well.
She glances over at me. “I thought we were through the storm a long time ago?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but not likely anytime soon. We have storms riddling the entire flight path.”
“Kind of like our entire lives right now.”
“Once we’re in New York, we’re in control. That’s where I have a world of resources at my fingertips. Grayson, the Walker headquarters.”
“What happens when they come for me in New York City?”
