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Eric
Iwake at sunrise with Harper pressed to my side, the heat of her body next to mine warming me in places I thought to be unbreakable ice, but I was wrong. She’s changing me. She doesn’t know it, but I do. With every moment that I’m with her, she seeps deeper inside me, and she was already there to begin with. She’s been there for six illogical years. Proven by the fact that for a solid fifteen minutes, I lay there, just listening to her breathe. When I finally force myself out of the bed to get ready for a phone conference I’ve set-up on the NFL deal, I stand above her and watch as she snuggles into the covers, and to me—this represents trust. With all she has going on, with all the fears she’s nursing, she feels safe with me here. And she is.
No one is ever going to hurt her again.
I pull on my boots I took off hours ago, drag my jacket on without a shirt, stick the gun in the back of my jeans, and then head downstairs, exiting the house into a cold Denver morning to grab my garment bag from the trunk of my rental. I check in with Blake by text, despite texting with him a few hours ago. When I re-enter the bedroom, Harper hasn’t moved. I finish showering and she’s still in a deep slumber. I shave and dress in an expensive as fuck suit, worthy of the Bennett brand, and then accessorize with the gun at the back of my pants, under my jacket. I make coffee and predict how Harper takes hers based on the supplies she has in the house and then head upstairs.
I set the cup on the nightstand, sitting next to Harper, my hand settling on her arm. She blinks and brings me into focus. “Eric? God, is that really you?”
My lips curve at her sleepy, dreamy reaction. “Yes, sweetheart. It’s really me. I brought you coffee.”
She rockets to a sitting position. “Eric?”
I laugh. “Yes. It’s still me.”
“I was—I think I was—”
“Dreaming?”
“Yes. I was really asleep and I think you were—It was just a dream.”
Dreaming of me. Fuck. She’s undoing me here. I should have come back for her. I never should have left her.
“Oh God,” she says, grabbing my arm. “What time is it? I have that union meeting.”
“It’s only six-thirty.” I offer her the coffee. “You have time.”
“You really made me coffee?”
“I really made you coffee,” I confirm as she accepts the cup and sips.
“And you made it how I like it. Was there some statistical reason you chose my perfect mixture?”
“I guessed based on how you stock your supplies.”
“You did good,” she approves, “and how very un-bastard-like of you.” She eyes my suit. “You look really, really good in that suit. Actually, you look really, really good in a T-shirt. And apparently, I have no filter this early in the morning.”
“No filter equals honesty. Keep it coming. And for the record, you look damn good in my shirt. You’d look better in my bed. I may have to go back to New York for a meeting on this NFL deal. Come with me.”
She sets the coffee down. “I can’t leave in the middle of this, but you need to leave before this all blows up on you. I fell asleep thinking about that. You need to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you. Come into my world, into my life, and be a part of it.”
“Would that include you telling me what all your tattoos mean?”
“Yes, Harper. I’ll tell you what my tattoos mean.”
“That’s tempting, really tempting and I wish I could, Eric, but I can’t leave. You know I can’t leave.”
“You can,” I say, and when she opens her mouth to object, I hold up a finger. “Hear me out, sweetheart.”
She hesitates but nods before I continue, “We’ll convince them that I gave you a reason to leave and backed you the hell out of this mess. In theory, they then let down their guards while the Walker team is hacking and watching.”
“You really think that will work?”
“I know this family far better than I wish I did, Isaac especially. He is never smart about how he covers his tracks.”
“He covered them well enough to keep us from uncovering them now.”
