Then it comes. Pete’s ringtone, and I sweep up my phone, heart pounding. This is what I’ve been waiting for. What I’ve been working for.
“Hey, man, my phone’s blowing up. What’s going on?”
Before he answers, the guys’ phones start to ping and vibrate too.
Axe mutters a weighted curse and holds up his phone to show me.
And my world comes crashing down around me.
“Oh fuck.” I need to find Harlow. Now.
Harlow
The workday has barely begun, and I’ve already got two people in my office with two more waiting outside the door.
I don’t know what Junior spent his time on before his accident, but it wasn’t this job. He ordered business cards and stationery—there’s a ton of it. And pens. Fountain pens from Mont Blanc. But the flagged wire transfers that have been moving up the line stopped with him, along with pretty much every other request that’s come through in the past two weeks.
I found a pad with some notes I can barely read, not that it would have mattered since, after about three lines, he started sketching a woman in a bikini with her breasts spilling out of her scanty top.
This is the guy my father chose over me. I’m trying to be sympathetic, but it’s a challenge. Junior’s in rehab in Aspen. I called to check on him Sunday, but he had a massage scheduled so he couldn’t talk to me directly. From what Amber relayed during the brief call, he was bored but fine. And he wanted me to know that I could keep my job because it “sucked.”
Carrie and Tim are still working down their lists when there’s a hard rap on my door and my father’s assistant ducks in.
“Dan, what can I do for you?”
His cheeks are red, thinning hair spiked like he’s sweating. “Harlow, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Philip needs you in his office.”
I blink. “Sure, of course. Let me wrap things up here and—”
He gives a sharp shake of his head. “He said now.”
And now Dan’s not the only one with a red face. I excuse myself, trying to ignore the too-polite smiles and then the wide-eyed exchanges between coworkers as I follow, then follow faster through the corridors.
When I get to Philip’s office, I smooth my hands over my suit and hair. But taking a second to compose myself takes too long, and my father’s voice snaps from beyond his door.
“Now, Harlow.”
I have no idea what’s happening. Dan won’t even look at me.
“Philip, what’s going on?” I ask with a calm I’m not feeling.
He’s parked behind an enormous desk, black suit immaculate, not a hair out of place. Eyes an arctic blue so cold they chill me to the bone. His voice is even colder. “I give you a chance and this is how you repay me?”
I can barely breathe. My hands come up in question. “I’m sorry. I don’t know—”
“You should be. If you don’t have enough respect for yourself, I at least expect you to have it for PHR. For me.”
He shakes his head in disgust, tossing a sheaf of papers across the high-polish mahogany. The first thing I see is a picture from the wedding. It’s Wade and I standing together, his front to my back, his arms around me. Our heads tipped together.
It’s beautiful.
“Philip,” I whisper. “He’s a good man. The best. He’s—”
But then I see it. The next picture isn’t as clear, it’s older. But even without his name in bold letters, there would be no mistaking that the man—the boy—in the mugshot is Wade Grady.
“Another junkie. Worse. That’s an arrest for intent to sell.”
“No. He doesn’t do drugs. Dad—Philip,” I correct at his indignant cough, “where did you get this?” Based on the date, Wade would have been a minor. This should be sealed.
That night at the bar comes back to me. That bad blood with Collin, the guy who’d been the fuckup that nearly cost Wade his future. This has to be what he was talking about. “Let me call him. There’s an explanation. I know there is. This isn’t who Wade is. He’s so careful. He’s—”
God, he’s waiting on a contract.
Examining the printouts, I can see they came off the web. It’s from one of the hockey sites I’d been skimming before the wedding.
This picture is already out.
“We’ll sort this out. But I need to call Wade.” He must be going out of his mind.
“What you need to do is lose this player’s number. End it. Now.”
I didn’t hear him right. I couldn’t have. “Excuse me?”
“I won’t be embarrassed by you any more than I already have.”
“Dad—”
“Harlow. Remember where you are.”
I look around, and it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time.
“I know exactly where I am. I’m in my father’s office. Having a disagreement about the man I love.”
His laugh is like a slap in the face. “This isn’t about love. It’s not even about whether there’s some explanation, as you say. It’s about perception. It’s about showing you’re capable of putting this bank, this family, first. We don’t need this kind of association tainting our image.” He meets me with his level stare. “You’ve been desperate for my attention your whole life. Congratulations. You’ve got it. Think twice before you throw it away for some jock.”
Wade
Motherfucker!
I can’t reach her. I’ve called her phone a hundred times. Got in a cab and started heading to her office. Called the bank, lost my fucking mind getting passed from department to department, put on hold so long that I was actually in the lower atrium of PHR headquarters when I finally got Nettie on the line. But she didn’t know much more than I did. Harlow was apparently gone for the day and she wasn’t answering her phone.
This is bad.
Her name was listed with mine in the picture from the wedding. Her father’s and the bank too. This is everything she didn’t want, everything she was afraid of.
No.
This is one hundred times worse.
I should have told her about the arrest. When she asked about Collin, I should have explained in detail, right fucking then.
But hell, there was just so much going on.
I wasn’t hiding it. I figured I’d tell her someday, but it never even occurred to me that she’d find out about it like this. The charges had been dismissed. The records sealed. Hell, I’d actually thought the courthouse had them incinerated at some point.
So I didn’t tell her that at fifteen, he’d hidden drugs in my truck without me knowing it, then let me get arrested before coming clean. That he’d been the close call that could have cost me my career before I even had it. And now that close call has the potential to cost me Harlow.
Now I’m pacing in front of her apartment—Pete bellowing in my ear—praying she’ll come home, and when she does, she’ll give me the chance to explain.
“This is your career, Grady! Get your ass down here now.”
I shove a hand through my hair. He doesn’t get it. This is my life.