He placed another kiss on her forehead. “I have a few business things to tend to, but I’ll make sure you’re up in time to get ready for dinner.”
Harper nodded. She was too tired to argue. These long nights were catching up to her, not to mention working during the day and the fatigue from pregnancy. Everything she’d read said that the first trimester was rough with nausea and the need to sleep all the time. Too bad she didn’t have that luxury. Which was why she should take advantage of the opportunity to nap while she could.
“Wake me if you need me before,” she told him.
“Don’t worry about anything but getting some sleep.”
As Ethan stepped back into the elevator and left her alone, part of her wondered if she should be completely open and honest with him. Should she tell him she was falling for him? If they were going to enter into marriage, she figured honesty was the best option.
After dinner, she vowed on another yawn as she crawled into Ethan’s king-size canopy bed. Tonight would be one to remember with the two men in her life. She just wished she knew where she stood long term with both of them.
Fourteen
Ethan pounded on the wood door, clenching his other fist at his side.
A snick of the lock came a second before the door swung open to reveal a spacious ocean-view suite.
“Well, that took longer than I thought,” Robert reprimanded. “I’m disappointed.”
Ethan shoved his way into the suite. “I don’t give a damn what you are. You’re not staying here.”
Robert closed the door and turned to face Ethan. He’d changed into some tacky tropical shirt and a pair of khaki pants. Just the sight of him made Ethan sick to his stomach, and it took every bit of his willpower not to punch that smug look off his face.
Spreading his arms out wide, Robert raised his brows. “Looks like I am.”
Ethan had waited years for this moment. Years to make this bastard pay for everything he’d done—for destroying a legacy built by a single mother, for robbing two boys of their future.
But the dynamics had completely changed, and now so much more was at stake. Once again, Ethan’s future and everything he’d come to care for were on the line.
“You’re going to sign Mirage back to me.” Ethan widened his stance, matched Robert’s gaze and held his hands at his sides. “My attorney has the paperwork all drawn up. I have copies in my safe in my suite. I’ll email a copy to whichever assistant of yours you want. But we’re getting this deal done now. Today.”
Silence settled heavy between them, but Robert made no move; he barely blinked. Ethan had no idea what reaction he’d expected. Perhaps mocking, arrogant laughter, but that’s not the response he got. Robert continued to stare, and Ethan didn’t know if the man was stunned speechless or weigh
ing his attack.
Either way, Ethan was more than ready to tackle this beast.
“Is that why you’re hanging all over my daughter?” Robert finally asked.
Ethan ground his teeth. “Don’t act like you give a damn about her or anyone else. You care about yourself and your bank accounts, and that’s it.”
Ethan hoped to keep Harper out of this conversation as much as possible. Before Harper ever entered his life, Ethan had had one goal in mind. He hadn’t lost sight of that—if anything he was more determined than ever to stake his claim and secure his mother’s legacy so he could hand it down to his own child one day.
And Harper? She deserved to be rid of this piece of trash. She might not like that at first, because she had no clue who she was dealing with, but Ethan would protect her...at all costs.
“Why the interest in Harper?” Robert asked, quirking one silver brow. “Were you just passing the time? Waiting on me to arrive? If you’re lying to her, deceiving her, that’s no better than what you accuse me of.”
Robert was trying to goad Ethan, but he wasn’t having it. Guilt already laid a heavy blanket over him, and he was trying to make the right decisions from here on out. There were factors that were simply out of his control, much as he hated to admit it.
Now more than ever, he had people relying on him to make sure the right thing happened. This situation wasn’t about him or Dane or even their mother right now. Harper and the baby were his future...his life.
Damn it. He couldn’t lose her. He just...
He couldn’t.
“You don’t honestly think I’ll just give you this property, do you?” Robert mocked with a sharp bark of laughter. “You’re still a foolish kid. I did you and your brother a favor by taking these off your hands. What would kids have known about running a high-profile business like this?”
Ethan took a step forward, clenching his fists at his sides. “Our mother raised us in these resorts, and we knew every in and out of her work. We also would’ve trusted the managers she hired to work with us as we grew into our roles. But that’s all in the past. Right here and now, I’m telling you that your time here is over. You’re not keeping this place.”