I guess we could stand here making awkward conversation till someone gets home.”
Harper glanced deliberately at her watch. It was two in the afternoon. On a Monday. “I vote no.”
“Hmm. Big shock.” He took a step towards the door. “If we’re up to our throats in my famous ham and mustard sandwiches there’ll be no need to make small talk. Let me make you something. Let me feed you.”
She wondered how often that line worked. By the gleam in his eye, probably every time. She actually found herself wavering towards his suggestion when a bang, a crash, a flurry of voices preceded the thunder of feet taking the stairs two at a time.
Then a whirlwind of blonde hair, yoga gear and running shoes rushed through the door and launched itself at her.
Harper’s knees hit the back of her bed as she fell, laughing despite herself.
While Lola hung on tight and cried, “You’re here! You’re really here!”
After a quick mental scan to make sure nothing was broken, Harper hugged Lola back. Hard. Drinking in the feel of her little sister, the hitch of her voice, the scent of her skin.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight when she felt the sting of tears. Not now. Not here. Not with an audience. Their story had always been a personal one. The two of them against the world.
“Of course I’m here,” Harper said through the tight clutch at her throat. “Now get off me before I crumple. Or before you bruise yourself. You are getting married this weekend, you know.”
Lola rolled away, landing on her back. “I’m getting married this weekend.”
Harper hauled herself to sitting, fixed her dress and swiped both hands over her hair. “So the rumour goes.”
A noise, movement, something had her looking back towards the door to find Cormac leaning in the doorway. Watching her.
When their eyes met he smiled. Just the slightest tilt of his mouth, but it filled her with butterflies all the same.
She felt her forehead tighten into a scowl.
For she’d been hanging out for this moment, this reunion with her flesh and blood, her heart and soul, her Lola, for so long.
And he—with his history, his link to the Chadwicks and his knowing eyes—was ruining everything.
“Oh, hi, Cormac!” said Lola as she crawled to sit beside Harper on the bed, before leaning on her like a puppy. “I didn’t see you there.”
He tilted his chin and gave her a wink, his stance easing, his eyes softening, his entire countenance lightening.
“Have you two been getting reacquainted, then? Chatting about the good old days?”
“Not sure we had much in the way of ‘old days’, did we, Harper? You were—what, a year or two below me at school?”
“A year below,” she said, her voice admirably even. Then, with a deliberate blink and a turn of her shoulders, she cut him out of the circle.
She took one of Lola’s hands in hers and pulled it to her heart, then pressed her other hand against her little sister’s face. And she drank her in like a woman starved.
The last time she’d flown Lola to holiday with her in Paris, she’d still had apple cheeks. Now they were gone. New smile lines creased the edges of her mouth. Her hair was longer too, more structured, blonder.
And shadows smudged the skin beneath her bright blue eyes.
Late nights? Not enough water? Or some deeper concern?
When their family had fallen apart all those years ago, Harper had done everything in her power to shield Lola from the worst of it. Taking every hit, fixing every problem, hiding every secret, so that Lola might simply go on, having the blessed life she’d have enjoyed otherwise.
Meaning Lola knew nothing about the part the Chadwicks had played in it all.
Here, now, seeing her sister in the flesh, Harper knew—it was time. It was time for Lola to know the truth.
“How you doing, Lolly?” Harper asked, her voice soft, her expression beseeching. “Truly.”
At which point Lola’s bottom lip began to quake and she burst into tears.
HARPER PACED UP and down the long wall of the Chadwicks’ library. A clock somewhere struck seven, and her eyes flickered to the open doorway as she waited impatiently for her sister to appear.
It had been hours since Lola had burst into tears.
In the several beats it had taken Harper to come to terms with the fact her sister was sobbing in her arms, Grayson Chadwick had filled the doorway of Harper’s room.
With a grunt he’d lumbered inside, climbed up onto her bed and wrapped them both in a bear hug.
At which point Lola had come up laughing, wiping her tears, looking from fiancé to sister with shining blue eyes, claiming she had no idea why she’d broken down. Likely nervous excitement, over-stimulation, and pure joy that Harper was finally here.
Harper hadn’t pushed it. Not then. Not there. It had been clear Lola had not wanted to appear upset in front of Gray, which rang all kinds of fresh alarm bells.
Lola had pushed away from the bed. “You must be exhausted. If you look in the bedside drawer you’ll find I’ve left you a little relaxer.”
“Wow, you guys are close,” Gray had murmured.
Lola had smacked her fiancé, her hand bouncing off his pec. “Not that kind of relaxer, you degenerate. A yoga nidra. I bookmarked links to some awesome guided meditations in my favourite yoga book so she can centre herself before heading down for dinner. If I know my sister, and I do know my sister, she’ll need it to handle your parents. I’ll come find you in the library,” she’d said, pointing a finger at Harper. “Seven p.m. sharp.”
Then they’d piled out of her room, Cormac the last to go.
“A little prolonged relaxation should never be underestimated,” he’d said with a nod towards her bedside drawer, before he’d caught her gaze, delivered a knockout smile, rapped a knuckled fist against the doorway and was gone.
Harper swallowed. And rolled her shoulders.
The moment she had her little sister alone Harper would get to the bottom of Lola’s tears. Would see how much Lola really knew about her future in-laws. And then she would fix everything.
A scrape of shoe against floor had Harper turning to the library door and once again staring down Cormac Wharton.
He’d changed into a charcoal suit, sharp white shirt open at the neck, no tie. He looked slick and relaxed. Debonair and yet with the unshaved scruff on his jaw a little rough around the edges. Forcing her to admit—if only to herself—that, while the boy had been swoon-worthy, the man was a far more dangerous beast.
She said nothing as she waited for his gaze to finish its travels over her.
She’d chosen a fortifying dress in which to meet the Chadwicks; midnight-blue and dramatically detailed, with a full skirt and fitted bodice, the sharp horizontal neckline and long sleeves leaving neck and shoulders bare.
Cormac’s eyes paused at her ankles, her waist, her décolletage, before they swept swiftly back to hers. Her breath snagged in her throat as their gazes clashed.
“Evening, Harper,” he said as he prowled into the room.
She nodded, not yet trusting her voice. And began to pace as well. “No sign of Lola on your way down?”
“I