Total pages in book: 211
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Embarrassed, I scramble off the bed and find my sweats, pulling them on. Once we’re both dressed, he walks to my room service tray and opens it. “Macaroni and cheese,” he says.
“My favorite food,” I reply and I have no idea why this feels almost as intimate of an admission as anything else between us tonight. I regret sharing this part of me with him, but then, why wouldn’t I? I’m just a revenge fuck to him.
He closes the space between us and I tell myself to back away. I tell myself to end this now, but I can’t stand the idea of never touching him again. I can’t resist the need to feel his hands on my body just one more time. I suck in air, waiting for it, wanting it, and when he slides his hand under my hair to my neck, I feel this man, who would be my enemy by his own definition, everywhere, inside and out.
“Just one of the many things,” he says, “that I would have liked to have known about you, Harper.” He kisses me, a light brush of lips over lips, and then he pulls back. “But that can’t happen. There’s something you haven’t told me. You haven’t been honest with me and that makes you one of them.” His hands fall away from me, rejection in the action, and then he’s walking away, the door his destination.
I want to scream at him that I’m not one of them, but I don’t, I can’t. Because in ways I don’t want to be, I am. I have to let him walk out the door and he does. He’s gone. I’m alone, but no matter how I connect to his family, I’m still a fish in a sea of Kingston sharks, and I’m going to have to grow my own teeth.
Chapter twelve
Harper
There are people who float in and out of our lives, like ships passing in the night never meant to stop or know one another, but what happens when they do?
The idea of leaving New York City and Eric behind is brutal, as if I’m leaving a piece of myself, and that’s just nuts. Last night was sex, nothing more. Six years ago was also sex, nothing more. He came. He made me come. He left. He didn’t look back. And yet here I am, fretting over leaving without seeing him again, to the point that I’m pacing my hotel room and contemplating skipping my flight.
I tell myself it’s because I need his help, but I know this runs deeper for me. That man affects me and if I thought this trip would provide closure that would allow me to move on from that party six years ago, and him with it, I didn’t get it. More of Eric fed my need for even more of him.
The doorman knocks on my door, an alert that tells me, I’m out of time. It’s officially decision time and for me, that comes back to one key thing: Eric was right. I haven’t told him everything. I also can’t lie to him the way everyone else in this family has, but if I turn the wrong pages, expose him to the deep, dark tales, his words will prove true: he’ll ruin the Kingston family and that means my mother and my father’s legacy along with it. I was playing with fire coming here. It’s time to go home before I do something I’ll regret the rest of my life. Decision solidified, I let the doorman in.
An hour and a half later, I’m on a plane, and when I should be trying to decide how to move on without Eric, creating a plan to save my family business, I’m thinking about him—and every touch, every kiss, every word we’ve shared plays in my mind over and over again and my regrets are many. I should have said more. I should have stopped him from walking away, but I remind myself I couldn’t. He saw too much and it would be foolish to expect a genius who sees too much to stop seeing too much. You don’t ask a man like Eric to help you see what you can’t and expect him not to see everything.
By the time I’m on the ground, it’s early evening, and when I walk into my downtown home, I strip down to sweats and a T-shirt, order takeout, and sit down at my computer. It’s time to focus on what’s before me. My cellphone rings with Gigi’s number and I let it go to voicemail. I need a plan before I talk to her. She’s no spring chicken and the idea of Eric helping us seemed to have calmed her down. I need to give her another rope to hang onto. Heck, I need to give myself another rope to hang onto. Hiring help appears to be my next best move, and that help has to be someone that can’t be bought off by Isaac. A difficult task when Isaac floats in a boatload of money while I have a canoe and possess limited resources.