So we tried to take back control.
Ruchi and Adrian booked us segments together, so we could snipe and argue live on air.
I told Victor I rescinded my previous missive, that I wanted to hop on Harper’s publicity and we should find a project together.
It wasn’t just the press and the hounding of the public. It wasn’t just that Harper couldn’t go anywhere without people screaming “murderer!” after her, that restaurants asked her to leave because kicking her out was better promo for them than letting her stay or that everyone seemed to want her for thrillers and slashers while the rom-coms and dramas that had become her niche began to dry up and recast.
It was also the police, ringing at all hours, asking more and more questions.
“Can we go over that argument you had one more time?”
“And to confirm, you went back to LA on the twenty-sixth?”
“We just wanted to check again, in case you’d had any further thoughts, of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your husband?”
I wanted to suggest she have her assistant field them, to limit their access to her. But it wouldn’t look particularly sympathetic if she wasn’t cooperating with the police.
“Let’s go out,” I urged, because Harper had been avoiding it, canceling appearances and brunches, not even daring to visit her mother in case her home was bugged too and Greta, knowing about the two of us, mentioned and implicated me. “We could go to your bar?”
“And be seen partying while Joel is dead?”
“They’ll vilify you either way,” I said. “Besides, he still cheated on you, still lied, was still going to leave you. Your grief is allowed to be complicated.”
There was, I believed, a fine line to tread of appearing right for the public and having the public opinion so firmly anchored in your mind you could not move for the weight.
We dressed. I plugged my iPod into its dock and music filled the house. I poured us glasses of champagne, and we threw my clothes everywhere as we assembled our outfits and I tried not to think about my need to replace Amos. (I didn’t, in the end. He might be extorting me, but he could still do his job, and better someone who suspected and had proved themselves controllable than someone new to let close.)
I hadn’t told Harper about his blackmail.
I didn’t want to worry her even more.
Harper’s pink top slouched off one shoulder, exposing a single freckle, and I came up behind her to plant my lips there. She hummed, deep in her throat and caught my gaze in the mirror.
I did that—even in the depths of her despair. I brought that smile back to her face.
We booked two cars to take us to the bar. If people saw us together, we would simply be playing nice, for once. Pissed off at choosing the same bar, sure, but not willing to ruin our night.
But those plans fell away with each tequila shot.
A group gathered around us—Harper’s friends and D-list celebrities. Enough that we had a buffer, could be a part of the same group without more than a raised eyebrow.
Life seemed to flow back into her with each thundering beat.
The edges of her blurred a little as the alcohol curled in mystomach, and against the hazy club lights she appeared almost ethereal—her hair an ebony slash through the smoky air, her hips swaying, bangles on her delicate wrist forming their own beat.
She danced. She sang. She beamed.
And I watched, trying the same but reveling far more in her than in the music that pulsed through us.
But then her heel snapped and she tumbled, caught onto me and started laughing as she kicked her shoes off entirely. I wore a silver minidress, belted with a neon pink band at my waist, and that’s where Harper’s hand fell, and she was so close, those dark eyes of hers a trap that would never fail to ensnare me.
She moved closer, the sweet fig and rose scent of her perfume underscored by the alcohol on her breath.
She was so very close to kissing me when I realized what we were doing. And I saw her eyes shoot open in panic as she did too. She reached for my hair like she still might close the distance and we lingered, for a second longer in that moment ofwhat if.
What if we did? If I kissed you here and now? What if we stopped burying everything and exposed it to the light?
And the moment we decided we couldn’t, and like a choreographed dance I pushed her back, hard.
