4. Harrison
4
HARRISON
“W hat do you mean he’s not in London?” I growl over the phone. “Where is he?”
After the short, tense conversation with one of my staff—whom I’d instructed to drop in on my brother when he wasn’t answering his phone—I determine Ash’s current location, along with the company he’s still keeping four days after the event.
I’m checked out of my Manhattan hotel and on my way to the airport an hour after the close of the business day. The entire chartered flight over, I stew.
When my plane arrives in Ibiza the next morning, I jump in a car, realizing I haven’t called Natalia or Toro to let them know I’m coming. An omission that catches me when I barge into my house.
Natalia appears over the upstairs railing. “ Dios mío ! Senor King.”
She gets over her surprise and runs down the stairs.
“I’m fine,” I assure her.
Her concern turns to scorn. “You didn’t call. Toro is out with Barney. I have been working on the gardens.”
“I would very much like to see them. Later.” My jaw clenches. “I need to find my brother and Raegan. I thought they would be here.” I scan my memory for the hotel Ash stayed in last summer. “I’ll be back.”
Halfway to the door, a voice stops me. “No, senor.”
I do a double take because it’s the same tone she used to scold me for eating all the salami before my parents’ friends could arrive for brunch.
I arch a brow at her glowering face and folded arms. “Toro will be back soon, and he will drive you. In the meantime, I will show you the garden.”
* * *
“I hope you will be… kind.” Toro’s gaze meets mine in the rearview mirror.
“I have lots of things to discuss with my brother. None of them are kind.”
Like where the hell he got off asking Raegan out, not to mention thinking he could touch her the way he did.
I knew they were friends, but I always figured their common bond was me. I didn’t expect them to stay connected without me.
I stare out the window, cracking my knuckles.
“Would you like to hear the news of the island?” Toro asks as he deftly navigates the curving roads.
“Fine.”
“Your dog has learned to roll over on command. There is a new hotel in Ibiza Town.” He proceeds to regale me, and I half listen until he says, “Ivanov came to the island early for the season.”
I straighten. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You haven’t been around.”
My teeth grind together. That feels like the damned refrain this week. I’m running a billion-dollar business. I can’t be everywhere at once.
“I’m here now,” I mutter as the car pulls up outside the hotel. I leap out without waiting for my driver to hold the door.
In the lobby, I tell the concierge, “My brother. Sebastian King.”
His eyes widen with fear, and he names the room number. He doesn’t want to piss me off.
I jab the button in the elevator, and when the doors open, I stalk down the hallway and bang on the door. Silence greets me.
They’re probably out.
Images of them strolling the boardwalks, eating ice cream, and other such nonsense fill my brain.
Or they’re inside and the reason they’re not answering is that they’re otherwise occupied.
I pound on the door again, hard enough it rattles in the frame.
At last, footsteps sound on the other side.
The hairs lift on my neck, and I brace myself for a fight. I’m expecting to see Raegan, but when the door cracks, it’s not her.
“Hawhoh, brozuh.” Sebastian peers out from the gap in the frame, his mouth full of something, the chain lock still engaged.
“Where is she?” I demand.
“Who?”
I slam a hand against the door, and he jumps.
“Calm down, man.”
“Sebastian, if you don’t open this door…”
His gaze runs down my form. “You’re wrinkled, Harry. You blow in on a tornado?”
I reach through the gap and grab his shirt. “Open. The damn. Door.”
Eyes widening, he reaches for the chain and slides it open.
I push the door in and step inside before he can think of getting me back out. My brother looks completely at ease, including the amusement in his expression. He’s wearing a T-shirt and boxers, eating…
“What is that?”
“Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Raegan brought it for me from America.” The sound of her name on his lips reminds me why I’m here, why my blood pressure feels dangerously high, before he grabs another bite. “This is good, Harry. They’ve been holding out on us.”
I hit him, hard enough the blow or the surprise sends him to the carpet.
The bowl falls from his hands, and cereal flies everywhere—his face, the carpet, the foyer.
“Jesus,” he gasps, rubbing his jaw. “Did you have to do that? Waste a perfectly good bowl of the stuff? This was almost the last?—“
“What’s going on?”
We both freeze as Raegan emerges from the hall in the suite. She’s wrapped in a white towel, her hair dark and dripping around her shoulders.
When she spots me, her mouth falls open. She’s obviously stunned to see me, emotions chasing one another across her face. Disbelief. Anger.
“What did you do?” she demands.
It’s half her sudden appearance that slams into me and half how she looks.
Fresh, wary, beautiful.
The woman I spent months loving and even longer aching for is here, a few feet away.
“Not nearly enough.”
Before I can think twice, I step over my brother and cross the room, grab the back of Raegan’s neck, and drag her to me.
I crush her lips beneath mine. She tastes like toothpaste and home, and I kiss her with desperation and anger and exhaustion.
Every trip I’ve taken, every time I’ve reminded myself my decision to leave was for the best—it all took a toll on me. From the outside, I might look as powerful as ever. On the inside… my soul corrodes.
I need her .
My tongue slips between her lips, stroking and claiming as my fingers tighten in her damp hair. Her scent is floral from her shower, but beneath that, it’s all Raegan.
A wet hand grabs my forearm and pushes me away.
My heart hammers as I take in her swollen lips, her hazy eyes.
Of all the decisions I’ve made in my life, I’d regretted exactly one—telling my parents to get out of the business and causing their deaths.
Since I learned they weren’t trying to leave, that regret faded away, replaced with rage and confusion. The past year, I’ve been angry at them, and at Ivanov for killing them and setting me on a path that made me build a business that would redeem and honor them.
But around the anguish, I’ve found a new regret: losing this woman.
Because I can’t regret loving her, not when the feel of her under me is so jarringly exquisite.
Before I can speak, her palm cracks across my face.
Stars explode behind my eyes, a riot of white and black blossoming as pain radiates up my cheekbone and jaw.
When I can see again, my neck is craned awkwardly and I’m staring at Sebastian reclined on the floor and chewing a piece of rescued cereal.
“Fuck,” he declares. “I’ve never seen a woman hit you before.”
But when I turn back to Rae, she looks surprised by her own reaction.
“We need to talk,” I say. “In private.”
“No.”
Frustration rises up. “I’ll take you for dinner.”
“I have a show tonight.”
“It wasn’t on your schedule.”
I catch my mistake at the same time she does.
“A recent addition,” she says.
She’s changed since I saw her last. Besides the quiet confidence that’s more than skin-deep, she has “recent additions” that come up, independent of me apparently.
Her gaze narrows. “I need to get dressed.”
“Need help choosing an outfit?” Sebastian offers from the floor. “The two you talked about on the plane sound good, but I’d like to see them in person.”
I could hit him again.
“Both of you stay out,” she tells my brother before turning that hot gaze on me again. “If someone so much as knocks on the door while I’m getting ready, I will tear them a new one.”
She heads back down the hall, her hips swinging under the towel in a way that has me furious and horny at once.
“If we’re done with the violence, you could buy me dinner,” Sebastian says, grimacing at the mushy cereal pieces on the carpet.
When I came here, I thought I knew my intention—reminding my brother he has no business with this woman. But looking at her, sharing space with her, kissing her…
I know it was a lie. I need Raegan Madani in my life again, and it can’t wait until my work is done.