Page 50 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

“She had a very memorable name.” He picks up his glass. “And it wasn’t a completely sober experience on my part, which I feel is relevant context.” He takes a sip. Sets the glass down. He’s looking at the table now rather than either of us. “Harper’s different.”

He says it simply. Not as a declaration, just as a fact he’s arrived at and sees no reason to qualify.

Neither Asher nor I respond because there’s nothing to add to it. We both know it. Maddox knows we know it. It’s why we’re sitting at this table at six in the evening instead of wherever else we’d otherwise be.

Asher refills his glass. “So we give her time.”

“We give her time,” I confirm.

Maddox nods slowly. “And we don’t crowd her.”

“And we don’t crowd her.”

We drink. The Pomerol is as good as it smelled and the table is quiet in the comfortable way of three men who have known each other long enough to sit in silence without it meaning anything other than that they’re thinking.

The right call. All three of us are sure of it.

I take the long way back through the south terrace.

I tell myself it’s because the evening air is good after a full day indoors and that’s true as far as it goes.

They’re at the far end of the terrace, arm in arm, Harper and Sophia, Sophia holding her phone out toward Harper with the full-body enthusiasm she gets when she’s found something that requires immediate external validation. Harper tips toward the screen and then she laughs, the real one, the full version, the one that takes over her whole face before she decides whether to let it.

Sophia says something else. Harper shakes her head, still laughing, and they keep moving, easy together in the way they always are, the particular shorthand of two people who have been each other’s reference point for years.

I stop walking.

I watch them cross toward the south entrance, arm in arm, until they go through the door and the terrace is empty.

The right call.

We’re sure of it.

I turn back toward the main house and carry that certainty all the way to my suite, where I pour a second glass of something and sit by the window and think about her laughing until I run out of evening to do it in.

18

HARPER

It’s been a week.

Seven days since I slipped out of Killian’s suite before the sun came up and walked back to my room in the previous night’s dress and decided, very firmly, that I was not going to spend the summer being weird about this.

I’m not chasing anyone. That’s the position I’ve arrived at and I’m standing on it. Three grown men who between them own multiple businesses, several properties across three continents, and at least one private security company based on something Maddox said once that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear, are perfectly capable of picking up a phone. If they want me they know where I am. If they don’t, then I had a spectacular night and I’ll survive the embarrassment of having feelings about it in the privacy of my own suite like a functional adult.

I’m not playing the first-contact game. I refuse. We’re all too old for it.

I’ve been keeping busy.

The boutique space sits on the east side of the estate, tucked between the tasting room and the vineyard’s private event corridor, with three sets of tall windows that look out over the rows. It’s beautiful and it’s been sitting empty for two years and Sophia has been mentally decorating it since the moment her dad said yes.

This morning she’s got her tablet, a printed floor plan, and approximately one thousand opinions about traffic flow and display hierarchy and whether the fitting room should go in the back left corner or the back right corner. I have a measuring tape and a pencil and the patience of a woman who has planned more events in spaces like this than she can count, which makes me useful. We’ve been at it for two hours and I think we’ve moved the fitting room four times.

“Left corner,” I say.

“Right corner gives better sightlines from the entrance.”

“Left corner gives you more wall space for the editorial displays and puts the fitting room behind the service desk which means your staff controls the flow naturally without having to direct it.”