Footsteps approach.
A glass of dark red wine is placed in front of me. Christopher throws back a shot of clear liquid—probably vodka. There isn’t a third glass. “What about Sutton?”
Dark eyes study me. “I’m sure he can get a drink wherever he’s gone.”
“Shouldn’t you go talk to him or something? You were partners.”
“We were partners. Now we’re nothing.” A shrug, all the more hurtful because of how casual he seems. “You didn’t expect him to stick around, did you?”
“I kind of… did. Yes.” What’s the etiquette for a backroom threesome?
Christopher sighs as if I’m terribly naive. “What we did here… it isn’t going to last.”
That makes me laugh, sharp and breathless. Because it’s been a long time since I was naive. “You mean you’re not going to marry me with an ironclad prenup and then divorce me in a year so that we can spend the rest of our lives hating each other? I’m shocked.”
A quirk of his lips. “Not every man is your dad, Harper.”
“And not every woman is your mother. Why do you think I expect anything permanent? Because I’d like someone to say goodbye after… after…”
“Sex,” he says gently.
I hate the look in his eyes, almost like pity. It was better when he stared down at me like he was going to devour me. Better when he snapped and snarled at me from across the poker table. “After sex,” I repeat, only a little broken. “Isn’t that what normal people do?”
“I have no idea what normal people do, but I don’t think Sutton is anything near normal. Oh, he may have fooled you with that Southern boy act, but he’s as fucked-up as any of us. More.”
“You would say that,” I say, though I sense the truth of his words. The weight of them.
“I’ve seen Sutton date a lot of women. Charm them. Make them fall in love. He doesn’t stick around. At least I’m honest about it. I’ve never promised anything to a woman.”
“Never promise anything, never let them down, right?”
“Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s perfectly right.” I’m unable to hide the hurt. “Christopher Bardot, always doing the most correct thing. A-plus on your Honesty in Sexual Relations exam. The model student.”
His eyes flash at my tone. “I’m going to drive you home now.”
As if I would take a ride from him. He was burning for me only thirty minutes ago. Now he’s so cold I’m practically shivering. I would probably freeze to death by the time we got there. “No, thanks.”
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Difficult. Difficult? Oh, you haven’t seen difficult yet.”
“Goddamn it, Harper. Would it kill you to do what I say once in a while?”
“I might listen to you if I thought you actually gave a damn. Sutton told me what you did, keeping all the construction crews away from us.”
“That was for your own good.”
My laugh feels like acid in my throat. “Right.”
“I know you’re upset,” he says in an overly reasonable tone. “You’re under a lot of stress right now. Do you need more help at home? I can speak with the service.”
I want to set him on fire with my eyes. “Now you want to help? When my mother struggled for so long, so many years, that you could have made easier? Because it took her getting cancer before you let me control the fucking trust fund?”
He could be made of stone, this granite statue planted in front of me, eternal and unfeeling. “The money doesn’t help?”
The money… God, the money. I would burn it all to the ground.
Some speck of sanity remains inside me, because I know that wouldn’t help anyone. “No, the money doesn’t help when cancer cells are eating her alive, when they’re starving her from the inside, and she refuses medical treatment.”
He looks at me with his onyx eyes, and I think he might actually say something human. Something like the Christopher Bardot I met years ago on my father’s yacht. It would devastate me, to see kindness from him. It would give me hope.
A lift of his shoulder. “It’s probably for the best.”
“For the best? It’s for the best that she isn’t letting the doctors help her. They have new treatments, advances in medicine.” My voice rises, and I know I sound crazy. I feel crazy. Maybe it was foolish to expect kindness from this man, but this coldness is a new level. “How can her dying be for the best? Tell me that, Christopher.”
“Better that she goes sooner than prolong it.”
He should not be able to shock me. I know every dark angle inside Christopher Bardot. I know better than to expect anything like compassion from him, but God, I’m stunned. My mouth is open. No words come out. There’s only silence for an endless moment.
“I hate you,” I whisper. And it’s not a sexy blowjob kind of hate.
It’s a bone-deep grief.
I don’t want wine, but I take a sip anyway, letting the acid wash away any lingering taste of him. The first sob takes me by surprise. It’s loud, filling a room made for excess and pleasure. The second one I capture with my hands, shaking with the force of it. Sorrow isn’t a quiet thing; it’s an earthquake inside me. It takes over until I’m breaking apart, sitting still, trying to catch my tears and failing.
Someone appears in front of me. A large hand on my shoulder.
Then I’m wrapped in strong arms and lifted.
It could be anyone taking me anywhere. Christopher taking me home—finally, finally. That terrible prince taking me to the depths of hell, for all I know, but I press my face into the broad chest. The linen becomes soaked immediately, cold against my skin from tears that are hot on my cheeks. One long sob that I can feel in the base of my throat, and I suck in air, breathing in the earthy scent of Sutton.
Thick night air. The smell of exhaust. The muted sound of a car door, and then I’m in the back of a limo, still ensconced in Sutton’s arms. He doesn’t try to stop me from crying.
“You left,” I finally manage to say, my voice heavy with tears. Drenched with them.
He holds me a little tighter. “I came back.”
Freida is kind enough to pretend like it’s ordinary to arrive home completely disheveled, my dress stained with something mysterious, my eyes red and puffy from crying. She gives me the information for the evening, what my mother ate, what she didn’t eat, with a completely straight face—which is all the more impressive when I actually look in the mirror.
“I really have to shower first,” I say with a groan. Mascara has made track marks down my cheeks. I look like a girl in a horror movie who’s been running for her life and about to die. “She’ll call the police if she sees me like this. You can go home now.”
Sutton shakes his head. He doesn’t seem himself, not quite as assured, but he looks very certain about this. “I’m staying until you go to bed.”
I give him a sideways look. “You hoping for a round two?”
A faint smile. “Always.”
Maybe Christopher was right about him. Maybe a hundred women have fallen in love with Sutton. I’m just one in a long line. Does that make it any less real? “Well, Freida makes a mean chicken salad. In the fridge, if you’re hungry.”