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I hurried down the steps as silently as I could, but the stupid wooden floorboards betrayed me, and now we’re going to die.
Harrison makes me want to throw up my heart when he steps closer to the man with the gun and grabs it. He moves his hand quickly, looking like a fucking pro, and soon enough, the ping of bullets hitting the same stupid floor rings out in the otherwise silent room.
“He signed an NDA that says he can’t ever repeat anything that’s been said in this house, so don’t give a judge a reason to release him from it.” He sounds so… possessive. His words are like steel, but it’s not just anybody in front of him. It’s the only man who could go toe to toe with him on the ‘Who has more power in Manhattan?’ race.
“Harry,” Eian answers, and just the way he says the name tells me everything I need to know. It’s like they have a whole conversation with their eyes, until Eian sighs heavily, and… petulantly?
I’m still frozen in place and let’s add looking like an idiot because my jaw drops to the floor when Eian looks up to the ceiling as if asking the heavens for patience, then drops to his knees and starts collecting the bullets.
“What the actual fuck,” I whisper when he stands and starts methodically putting them back inside the… I have no idea what it’s called. Then he puts that thing inside the gun and stashes the gun in a holster hidden by his light gray jacket.
He looks at me and his gaze—you can feel the power of it even from feet away—locks on mine, freezing me in place again. “I’m not gonna let them go to waste,” he tells me, and his whole demeanor changes when he shrugs, and he looks… like a normal man.
Well, a handsome, jacked, very well-dressed man.
“You see why I told you not to come down now, huh?” Harrison asks me and I see him pouring an amber liquid in three glasses.
“Yup,” I manage to say.
“Well, no use in being coy now. Eian, this is Tristan Jones, my fake boyfriend who I’m for real sleeping with.” Harrison brings two glasses to where we’re standing near the door. I down mine as soon as it touches my hand and regret it immediately. I don’t like whiskey.
Harrison leads me to the couch grabbing my arm as I cough as delicately as I can.
“Pleasure,” Eian tells me once I’m seated.
“Tris, this is my cousin, Eian.”
“Uh-huh,” is all I can come up with as I look from one man to the other. There’s no huge resemblance except for the height, and maybe the hair?
I have no idea what exact shade Harrison’s hair was before he started going gray, but Eian’s is light brown with only a few grays starting to peek out. He also has deep brown eyes and a very crooked nose.
“Well, if you feel the need to satisfy your curiosity further, I guess you can ask whatever you want,” Harrison tells me as he settles next to me and drapes an arm over my shoulder. I’m still holding the empty glass in front of me. I need to hold on to something and I’m for sure not asking any questions. I’m keeping my mouth completely shut.
“At your own risk,” Eian adds ominously.
“Yeah, no. I—” I shake my head once, twice, and I can’t seem to stop. I keep shaking my head, looking at Eian until Harrison grabs my jaw with two fingers and stops the movement then turns my head to him and smashes his lips on mine, hard. The kiss is quick, but it snaps me out of my stupor. My body is like a live wire, shaking though less now, and the hard hold Harrison has on my jaw is helping me calm down.
“He’s not going to hurt you,” Harrison says quietly, then he looks at Eian. “Sit down and just say what you came here to say.” The words have a certain tension to them. I reach up to hold the hand on my thigh and squeeze it. This must be horrible for Harrison.
I may have only known him for twelve hours, but I know one thing he hates is not having control. It’s the very reason he reached out to Zoe and me in the first place.
Eian sits on one of the chairs facing the desk and spins it until he’s facing us. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a long moment, and when he opens them, I see a different man than the one who met me with a gun.
He’s looking at Harrison with relief, worry, and patience. I see so much history in them, and I can’t begin to understand what their relationship must be like.
“I promise you, Harry, this won’t blow up in your face.” He waits until Harrison nods at him to keep talking. “Like I started to say before, it’s done. I got to the end of the line.” I’m pretty sure he’s being vague on purpose. I can’t fault him for that, he doesn’t know anything about me, something I’m sure he’ll be rectifying soon.
I manage to hide the shudder that wants to move over my body at the thought of Eian Dempsey investigating me, learning my sister’s name, my parents’. I have to trust that he won’t do anything to harm Harrison, though. “I got the same answers as before, there’s still no one besides us and the few we trust who know we’re related. And I’ll keep it like that. I promise.”
Harrison exhales a big breath, then, releasing me, he stands and gestures for Eian to do the same. They hug, for a long minute, and the way they tuck their faces on the shoulder of the other in the same way makes my chest warm. “Thank you,” I hear Harrison say.
They love each other.
What a clusterfuck.
“I swear on my life I won’t tell anyone,” the words escape me when the two men separate. And I mean the oath, now that I’ve had a few minutes to think about it, I know it would damage not only Harrison but his children, his companies, and countless lives would suffer if it got out that the most influential man in the city is the cousin of the man who’s considered the face of New York crime.
“Tell me what this is about,” Eian points a finger at me then at Harrison, but he keeps his gaze on me so I answer him.
