Page 15 of The Truth of Us

Harper pulled her hand back with a polite smile. “I’ll decide later if I should consider that a warning or if it’s your brand.”

Theo clutched his chest. “Oh, I like her.”

“Don’t,” I said.

His grin widened. Julian and Lucy reached us then, and introductions passed around with all the expected grace and undercurrents. Lucy flushed when I told her she cleaned up well, and I felt Harper shift beside me. It was small, barely anything, but there.

I looked down at her, and she was smiling. But it was the tight, polite smile I didn’t like.

I held out my arm, and she stepped into it.

“There you are,” I murmured.

Her eyes cut to mine. “Where else would I be?”

“Hopefully somewhere near me.”

“That sounds dangerously close to unprofessional,” she said, her eyes still locked on mine.

“Everything about tonight is unprofessional,” I said in a low, teasing voice.

Harper straightened and replied, “Not for me.”

“No?” I let my thumb brush once over the inside of her wrist where her hand rested against my arm. “Shame.”

Harper looked away first, and I smiled.

The night moved the way these things always did at first. Drinks, greetings, donors with too much money and too little personality. Board members pretending not to assess the women at our sides. Wives who saw everything and said almost nothing.

Harper was perfect. She listened with just enough interest to make people expand, asked the right questions, and smiled like she understood the difference between attention and validation. She made donors feel important without appearing impressed by them.

I wanted to kiss her in the middle of a conversation about youth literacy, but that was probably not aligned with her PR goals.

At some point, she leaned closer and murmured, “You interrupt when you’re bored.”

I kept my smile aimed at the man in front of us. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“What else do I do?”

I was excited and terrified to hear her answer.

“You touch your cufflinks when someone mentions money or board approval, look at Rowan when you want confirmation but don’t want to ask for it, and smile wider when you’re annoyed.”

I looked at her. She sipped her champagne, eyes still forward.

“Anything else?” I asked, not exactly sure my ego could handle more.

“Yes.”

I waited, and she glanced up at me. “You stop performing when you’re watching your friends.”

That landed somewhere I didn’t want it to. I looked away first.

Fuck.

Across the room, Julian had his hand on Lucy’s back, guiding her through questions with that controlled, careful intensity of his. It looked protective if you didn’t know him. Possessive if you did.