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)
I draw in a breath and try to focus. I dial Smith. He answers on the first ring. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I just got a blocked call. It went dead when I answered. I thought you might want to track it.”
“Right. We have your phone monitored. If it was traceable in any way, Blake will have it handled.”
“Okay, great thanks.” I start to hang up.
“Wait,” Smith says. “You sure you’re okay?”
Damn it, even Smith knows me already. “This is all just—a lot. You know?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “Do you want me to get an update on your mother?”
“No. I’m going to call her.”
He’s silent a moment. “Let me know what I can do.”
“Actually,” my eyes burn, “if I needed a safe place to stay that’s not here—”
“You’re safe with Eric. Stay there.”
“Yes, but—”
“Stay there,” he repeats. “You need to stay there.”
“Okay,” I whisper and hang up.
He calls me back almost instantly. I don’t take the call. I dial my mother. She answers. “Harper?”
She sounds lucid. “How are you?”
“Numb. I can’t believe he’s in the ICU. I can’t believe I’m on lockdown.”
It hits me that she has yet to ask if I’m on lockdown or safe. “To protect you.”
“I need to be with him. If he’s gone—”
“He’s not. He’s a stubborn bastard who won’t die,” I say. “Mom, I need to know what’s going on. Why would anyone do this?”
“I don’t know!” she declares, her voice a shrill attack. “You think I know?”
“You know what he did to Eric’s mother and kept it silent. So yes, I think you know things you don’t share. Bad things.”
“I don’t. I don’t. I’m not that person.”
“You knew he denied Eric’s mother treatment. How do you live with that?”
“It wasn’t true. I told you that.”
“But while you were drugged, you were worried Eric found out.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t worry Eric found out. There’s nothing to find out.”
“What is going on, mother?” I stand up. “Tell me now.”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it the unions and the mob?”
“No—I—no—”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She sobs. “My husband is dying and my daughter’s attacking me. This is just priceless. I’m hanging up.”
“Okay. And don’t worry, mom. I’m safe. Just in case you wondered.” I hang up. I know she knows what’s going on. I have to go there. I have to make her talk. Walker can take me there and protect me, although I really don’t have any money. Not enough to survive on and pay them. Maybe I just need to go back to Denver. That’s what I’ll do.
I open the bathroom door and jolt to find Eric standing there, his hands on either side of the doorframe. He’s so damn big and I can smell that earthy, male scent of him. And those blue eyes. Those blue eyes look at me with piercing judgment I don’t want to feel from this man. And right now, now, he’s all cold and calculated, unemotional. “Eric,” I breathe out.
“You asked for a safe place to stay? You want to fucking leave?”
He’s not cold and calculated anymore. He’s angry all over again.
“What did you expect? Because the minute I hit a nerve, you shut me out. You let me feel temporary, like a house guest. You did that to me.”
“We had a fight. People fight.”
“And you treated me like shit.”
“You think because I have that family’s blood running in my veins, I’ll control you and manipulate you with my money. And I don’t like it. You want to leave, leave.” He pushes off the doorframe and starts walking. I hug myself, fighting tears, certain he’ll walk out of the door. But right when he would, he grabs the doorframe and lowers his head.
I suck in a breath, waiting for what comes next. Eternal seconds tick by and when he rotates to face me, tall and broad and too good looking for his own good, his blue eyes are still the orange fire of his anger. But he says nothing, as if he doesn’t even know where to begin, but I do. From my heart.
“I know you’re hurting,” I say. “I do. But I’m in this, too. I lost my father, who I loved like you did your mother. And now my mother is a horrible person. I can’t go to the house. I don’t have a job—”
“You have a job. I told you that.”
“We can’t work together and I’m not taking a pity job.”
“Neither me nor Grayson hand out pity jobs.”
“I’m going to Denver. I’m going home.” My eyes burn with the word “home” and I turn away from him, intending to go pack.
He catches my arm and walks me around to him. “Is your home in Denver, Harper? Is that what you are saying and is that what you mean?”
“You made me feel like I was homeless with nobody in this world who cares about me.”