Make Me Forget - Page 114

“Are you sure you’re okay with the idea of the film, Ellie? You said in the last e-mail that you’d called Roger Findlay?” Harper asked after they’d sat and got caught up. Roger was one of Harper’s old friends from college who did a good deal of film production contract work.

“Yeah, Roger’s been great about walking me through things. That sample contract you sent over might as well have been written in Russian,” Ellie told Cyril. Cyril just smirked back at the girl, and Ellie laughed. “Actually, Cyril’s been great, too. He’s been really patient with me.”

Cyril had been surprisingly modest and quiet during the two women’s reunion. Harper had a feeling Ellie and Cyril would probably end up getting on famously. They were both scrappers, after all, both fierce individualists. Maybe Ellie herself was one of the reasons Cyril had identified so strongly with Harper’s original story.

Does that mean that Jacob identified with the tragedy of Ellie’s youth, as well? He’d been the one to originally suggest it to Cyril. Was his gravitation toward Ellie’s story a clue as to what his childhood was like?

It would make sense. Harper thought of Ellie’s scar, and her own. Jacob and Cyril weren’t the only ones to feel a kinship to Ellie Thorton.

A spike of sharp longing went through her unexpectedly as she listened to Cyril talk about potential filming locations, and Ellie chimed in occasionally. She’d been separated from Jacob for a half hour, and already she missed him. Was that because it struck her hard in that moment how little she really knew about him?

Was it because she suspected she’d fallen in love with him?

Harper jumped into the topic of filming locations, determined to get her mind off the confusing topic of Jacob. She heard the salon doors open briskly. She looked around distractedly, half expecting Marianne.

Instead, Jacob stalked into the room, his gaze flickering across Harper.

“Cyril.” He nodded at his friend.

“Jacob,” Cyril said, clearly as surprised by his unexpected appearance as Harper was. Jacob put out a hand to Ellie. “Jacob Latimer. Welcome.”

“Ellie Thorton.” They shook, Ellie looking a little starstruck. Harper wasn’t surprised. He looked impossibly handsome and compelling. His unexpected entrance seemed to ramp up the energy level of the room a hundredfold.

“You don’t seem half as scary as I thought you’d be,” Ellie breathed.

Cyril snorted with laughter. Jacob’s back was to her so Harper couldn’t quite discern his reaction to Ellie’s forthrightness.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he replied levelly, but Harper thought she heard a thread of humor in his deep voice.

“I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to meet you today. I wanted to thank you,” Ellie said, looking up at him feelingly.

“You wanted to thank me for letting you three meet here?”

“No,” Ellie said, never breaking her rapt stare on his face. “For Randolph House.”

Harper blinked in amazement. Randolph House was a women’s shelter on Mission Street.

“Harper helped get me in,” Ellie continued. “The staff there built me up while I was there, got me ready to go back out on the streets, this time to start a life, not just survive. I know you prefer to remain anonymous, but I overheard one of the supervisors talking to your lawyer once on the phone. I know that you provide the majority of funding for Randolph House. That’s why I’m thanking you.”

Harper’s stunned stare zoomed over to Jacob’s back. She wished she could see his expression. He merely straightened, smoothing his tie as he turned in partial profile to her. “Well, it’s a good thing Harper guided you there. I’m gratified to hear firsthand that it helped someone.”

“Not just helped. Randolph House changed my life. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. He started to back up toward Harper’s chair, and she wondered if he was embarrassed at being unexpectedly called out for his charity. His hand came to rest on her shoulder. Her skin tingled beneath his touch. She gazed up at him, perplexed. “I’m so sorry for interrupting your meeting,” he told Cyril and Ellie. “This will only take a second. I realized I’d forgotten something important.”

He leaned over Harper’s chair and kissed her full on the mouth. She started in surprise, but then the heat, flavor, and pressure of his kiss took over. In seconds flat, she was kissing him back hungrily.

When they surfaced for air, she realized dazedly that Ellie and Cyril were holding a determined conversation in the distance, clearly trying to focus their attention elsewhere than on the kissing couple in the room.

“You’ve always got a secret up your sleeve, don’t you?” she murmured very quietly against his lips, referring to Ellie’s revelation about Randolph House.

“I wasn’t keeping Randolph House a secret. I had no reason to tell you about it, that’s all,” he murmured dismissively before dipping his head and kissing her again.

“I’m hoping I won’t be in trouble for this?” he breathed out a moment later.

“For what?”

“Interrupting because all I could think about was tasting you one more time.”

Tags: Beth Kery Erotic
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