Harper
My relief over hearing my mother is safe is short-lived. I didn’t miss the way Eric disconnected his call without looking at me or the subtle, but distinct, stiffening of his spine. My mother might be safe, but something’s wrong. “Eric.” I touch his arm. “Talk to me.”
Seconds tick by before he looks at me, his blue eyes unreadable, hard. “Your mother is safe,” he repeats, tension vibrating off of him.
“I know that,” I say, reminded of what he said about triggers that create a paralyzing influx of numbers in his mind. Whatever is wrong isn’t about my mother. It’s about him.
My hand goes to his hand, and I turn it over, pressing our palms together but I don’t push him to talk. He doesn’t look at me, his lashes lowering, his expression tightening. I wait, silently letting him know that I’m here, until finally, his eyes open. “My father’s on his way to New York City.”
It’s an odd development, unexpected even, but what strikes me now is Eric’s mood, his edginess. This man is an ex-SEAL and a billionaire savant, who has taken on enemies and the world and this family, even his father, yet right now, his father hangs in the air between us like a nuclear bomb about to drop and blow holes in him.
I search his handsome face that is all hard lines and shadows, his expression unreadable. “Why is he coming to New York City?”
“Why do you think he’s coming?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “You tell me.”
“To fuck with me, Harper.” He’s intense. He’s big-time intense.
“I know that we’re new,” I say. “I know that I haven’t spent every day of the last six years with you, but I’ve experienced your reactions to your father to some degree, and it’s not like this. What else is going on?”
He cuts his stare, unhooks his seatbelt and his hands flatten on his knees. “I need out of this plane,” he says, and I have this sense he’s coming out of his own skin or perhaps drowning in a sea of numbers.
The exterior doors to the plane open and I’m confused, not sure what to do next, aside from just trying to be here with him, the way he decided to be here for me when he followed me back to Denver. I lean over and kiss his cheek and when I pull back, there’s surprise in his eyes I really don’t understand. A moment later, his hand is cupping my head and he’s kissing me deeply and fiercely, before he says, “And I need you.”
He speaks those words with a deep raspy voice that I feel like a vibration through my body. He needs me. I never thought I’d hear those words from this man. “I need you, too.”
The minute I speak those words, the tension in his body eases, his expression softens. “Show me when we’re finally alone. Come on. Let’s get out.” He stands and helps me to my feet, and my instinct is to reach for the jacket I don’t have with me. I have nothing of my own at all. No coat. No purse. No phone. I’ve left everything in Denver, including my mother.
Eric urges me into the aisle and I point at the MacBook. “Do you need that?”
“Walker will come pick it up.”
“What about your rental c
ar? And my car is still at the office, though I don’t think that’s an issue.”
“Walker will take care of it for you. I talked to Adam about my rental and your car before we took off.”
“I didn’t give them my keys.”
“They’ll figure it out.”
He means dig in my purse, which feels invasive, but at this point, I think I just need to be glad to be here and safe.
Eric’s hand slides to my back, urging me forward ahead of him, but I rotate to face him instead. “Thank you for saving me, Eric,” I say, my hand flattening on his chest, “I’ll l fight for you just as hard as you’ve proven you’ll fight for me.”
His eyes soften, warm, a gentler side of Eric surfacing, and I feel the connection between us like a blast of warm sun on a cold day.
“You tried to shoot my attacker, Harper. I know you will. Come on. Let’s get out of this pile of steel you were certain was going to kill us.”
“Don’t go there,” I say, letting him turn me toward the door, before I glance over my shoulder and add, “We shouldn’t have been in the air.”
We joke back and forth about that decision, and while yes, Eric is fully engaged in the exchange, I can still feel the tension in him, no doubt, the aftermath of hearing his father is coming here. My bond with my father was special. His bond with his father is poison, even more so than I’d ever imagined.
We exit side by side and travel the narrow, double-wide stairs into the dark, cold night. I block out the weather as best I can without a coat and manage to glance at Eric’s watch; it’s eleven in Denver, which makes it’s one in the morning here. A really cold early morning, I decide, as we hit the runway and a gust of New York wind that is ten times colder than the Denver chill I know well. It’s damp and biting in a way the low altitude makes possible, but the truth is, Denver is cold and biting beyond the weather. In this moment, I know that I’ve allowed it to be my prison, that I’ve allowed the beauty of the city and the beauty of the family I once knew in my father and mother, to seduce me, to hold onto me. I didn’t want to let go of what I’d lost in my father, so I held onto what I had left of him. The wind gusts again and Eric throws his arm around me, pulling me close.
“That’s our ride,” Eric says, as an SUV halts a few feet in front of us.