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For a second, she feared he might lean in to kiss her cheek. The thought of him entering her personal space, stubble scuffing her cheek, warm skin whispering against hers, was enough for her to clench all over.
Thankfully he pulled to a stop, rocking forward on his toes before settling a good metre away. His dog stopped, sat, leaned against him. A female, for sure.
“I’d hoped Lola would be here,” Harper said.
Cormac shook his head, his dark gaze not leaving hers.
She waited for an explanation. An excuse. It seemed he was content to let her wait.
“Right, then I’ll head to the hotel.” She turned to Sam, the driver, who moved like lightning, hand reaching out for the handle of the car door before Cormac’s voice said “Stop.”
Sam stopped, eyes darting between them.
Harper’s gaze cut to Cormac.
He said, “Dee-Dee and Weston are expecting you to stay here.”
She shot a glance at the Georgian monstrosity that was the jewel in the immoderate Chadwick Estate. It looked back at her. Or, more specifically, down on her. Dee-Dee and Weston Chadwick might be richer than Croesus, but they couldn’t pay her enough to stay under their roof. Water under the bridge didn’t come close.
“I’ve booked a suite at the Moonlight Inn for the duration,” she said, softening the refusal with a smile. “I’ll be perfectly comfortable there.”
“Your comfort isn’t my concern.”
Harper’s smile slipped. “Then what, exactly, is your concern?”
“Gray’s comfort. Dee-Dee’s and Weston’s. And your sister’s. Lola’s had a room ready for you here for some time now, on the assumption you’d arrive sooner. Not with only days to spare.”
Harper had been in transit for over twenty-four hours. And was still a mite tender after the rare, personal unpleasantness that had tinged the last negotiation job she’d completed in London.
All she wanted was to see her sister. To hug her sister. To see for herself that Lola was as deliriously happy as she said she was. And to do so beyond the long reach of the Chadwicks and their associates.
Tangling with a passive-aggressive Cormac Wharton hadn’t been on her radar. Yet he’d just up and slapped her with the trump card; the only thing that would make her change her mind: sisterly guilt.
Jaw aching with the effort to hold back all the retorts she’d like to fling Cormac’s way, Harper turned to her driver, her voice sweet as pie as she said, “Change of plan, Sam.”
Sam squared his shoulders before flicking Cormac a dark glance. “Are you certain, ma’am? If it’s still your intention to leave, all you have to do is ask.”
She glanced at Cormac right as his mouth twitched. Nothing more than a flicker, really. Yet it did things to his face that no other smile in the history of smiles had the power to do; pulling, like an insistent tug, right behind her belly button.
“Thank you, Sam,” she said, deliberately turning her back on the younger man. “You’re a true gentleman. But if my little sister wants me to stay, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Sam clicked his heels together before heaving her suitcase and accompanying bags to the ground. She feared hauling them up the stairs to the Chadwicks’ front door might do Sam in, so before he could offer she pressed a large tip into his hand and sent him on his way, hoping she’d made the right choice as she watched the car meander slowly up the long gravel drive.
“I think you have a fan there,” said Cormac, his voice having dropped a notch.
Harper tuned to Cormac and held his gaze, despite the butterflies fluttering away inside her belly. “Where is my sister?”
“Catering check. Wedding-dress fitting. Final song choices. None of which could be moved despite how excited she was that you were finally coming home.”
Harper bristled, but managed to hold her tongue.
She was well aware of how many appointments she’d missed. That video-chatting during wedding-dress-hunts wasn’t the same as her being in the room, sipping champagne, while Lola stood in front of a wall of mirrors and twirled. That with their parents long gone from their lives she was all Lola had.
Lola had assured her it was fine. That Gray was such a help. That the Chadwicks were a total dream. That she understood Harper’s calendar was too congested for her to have committed to arriving any earlier.
