Chapter 7 Harper
HARPER
Carlie winces as she says, “I’m going to leave you two to… talk.”
I gulp so hard that it’s nearly painful. “Okay. I’ll call you later.”
She nods once, hugs Mason in the living room, and zooms out the front door, leaving me in the hall with Aiden.
Tall, dark, looming Aiden. Still just wearing his pajama bottoms. Still sporting a V-taper and a thick torso of tattooed muscle. His voice is gravel. “Harper.”
Something in his tone makes my stomach drop. “What?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He looks past me for a second, out toward the windows down the hall, as if debating to say what’s on his mind. Then his eyes come back to mine. “The—”
“Can we have grilled cheese for lunch, Mommy?” Mason asks. Since I wanted to spy on Carlie and Aiden, I parked him in front of the TV, so he’s still there and hollering at me in the hallway as if he was raised in a barn.
He could have asked for a pony, and I would have said yes.
Aiden’s about to hash things out with me, things he and Carlie discussed.
It was wrong of me to spy on them, and one day, I’ll apologize for that, but how could I not spy on them?
Especially since Carlie was fuming when she walked into his office.
I give him a tight smile. “Now that that’s settled, what do you want to talk about?”
“The fire at your bar. It wasn’t an accident.”
The words don’t land all at once. They slide in sideways, snag on something, refuse to make sense. “Come again?”
“They found evidence of tampering.” His voice is steady, but I know him too well not to hear what it costs him to keep it that way. “The electrical issue was real. But someone loosened the gas line.”
My breath stutters. “Loosened it how?”
“Deliberately. Then they taped it into place and put pinholes in the tape to create a slow leak.”
The hallway feels suddenly too bright, too open. I grip the edge of a low bookcase behind me, grounding myself in the cold stone. “So,” I say slowly, carefully, “you’re saying someone sabotaged my bar.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re just… telling me this now?” The question comes out sharper than I mean it to.
Aiden’s eyes flick to Mason and back. “The inspector called me as a courtesy two minutes ago. He knows I know you. He wanted me to give you a heads-up before it becomes official.”
Official.
I can’t think about this right now. Maybe not ever.
My mind races, scrambling to catch up. Gas line. Fire. Timing. The night it happened. The way I’d joked afterward about bad luck, about old buildings and bad wiring. But it wasn’t just the old building that did this. Someone did it on purpose.
Nope, nope, nope. Can’t think about that.
Someone intentionally put my son in harm’s way.
Oh, fuck that. Puppies, lattes, rainbows, vacations, anything but that. Mason is safe. Think about good things.
The way Aiden looks at me. The things Carlie said. The silence last night when I asked him if he regretted me. “You didn’t want me to move on,” I say quietly, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
His jaw tightens. “That’s not—”
“You didn’t,” I repeat. “Did you?”
Aiden exhales, frustrated. “That is not what we’re talking about right now.”
“It kind of is. Because I’m standing here trying to process the fact that someone tried to blow up my bar, blow me up, my patrons, my son… and at the same time finding out that the man who made me need to rebuild my life, my confidence, my everything… he never actually let me go.”
His eyes flash. “Harper—” He blinks and shakes his head once. Not a denial, but a reset. “Enemies?” he interrupts himself, pivoting abruptly. “Anyone who might want to hurt you. Disgruntled employees. Business disputes. Anything?”
The shift is so abrupt it almost makes me dizzy. And then Marcus Chen’s face snaps into focus. The day I fired him. The way his mouth twisted when I told him I had proof. The threats he’d muttered under his breath.
On his way out the door, he barked, “You’ll regret this.”
“I fired a bartender three months ago. Marcus Chen. He was stealing. When I caught him, he got… angry.”
“How angry?” Aiden asks.
“Irrationally angry,” I admit. “But I didn’t think he’d actually do anything. Men say stupid things all the time.”
Aiden’s posture changes instantly. The air around him tightens, his focus narrowing, every instinct snapping into place. “You’re not going back to the bar. Not until we know it’s safe. You and Mason stay here.”
I straighten. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
His voice hardens. “Someone tried to blow up your bar, Harper. With a gas leak. You could have been killed. Mason could have been—”
“Quiet down.” I snap my head toward him, keeping my voice low. “He can hear you.”
Too late. Because the reality smacks me again. Mason could have been hurt. Or worse.
The room goes very still, like the air itself is holding its breath.
I stare at the floor for a second too long, letting the image form before I can stop it—Mason perched on one of the bar stools he likes to spin on, his sneakers hooked around the rung, laughing while I tell him to stop before he cracks his head open.
My hands shake. I force them into fists and look up at Aiden, fury and fear tangling together. “You don’t get to say things like that in front of him.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“Keep your voice down!”
Aiden’s jaw tightens, but he nods once, sharp and controlled, the way he does when he’s forcing himself to back off. He glances toward Mason, who’s watching us now, cartoon forgotten, his body curled in on itself like he’s trying to take up less space.
I move toward him immediately, dropping down to his level. “Hey. You okay?”
He nods, but his eyes are serious. Too serious for five. “Is the bar gonna be okay?”
Something in my chest cracks. “It’s not the bar that I’m worried about. It’s you, kiddo.” I smooth his hair into place. “You’re okay here. You know that, right?”
Aiden clears his throat behind me. “We’re safe here.”
Mason considers that. “Is the bad guy gonna find us here?”
The question is small. Direct. And it terrifies me.
I keep my smile steady. “No. This place is very safe. Remember the key card you have to use to get in the elevator? The bad guy doesn’t have one of those.
So, you’re safe here.” I want to tell him that he’s safe everywhere. But I try not to lie to my son.
Mason nods, apparently satisfied, and turns back to his cartoon. The moment he’s distracted again, I stand and step away to the kitchen, pressing my back to the counter. Do I need coffee? I can’t tell. My knees feel weak.
Aiden closes the distance between us, lowering his voice. “Harper—”
“I said I’d stay,” I cut in. “And I will. But don’t confuse that with me being okay with it. Or me taking orders from you.”
His eyes soften just slightly. “I know. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I hate this. I hate feeling like I can’t protect my own life. My own kid.”
“You’re protecting him right now,” he says immediately. “You’re being smart about it.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Funny. That’s what David used to say every time he made a decision for me.”
Aiden’s granite jaw clenches, just a fraction. “I’m not him.”
Silence stretches again, heavier now, filled with things we’re not saying. The bar. Marcus. Six years of unresolved bullshit pressing in from all sides.
“I should call my lawyer,” I say finally. “And my insurance.”
“I’ll walk you through it. I’ve dealt with this kind of aftermath before.”
Of course he has. Firefighter. Fixer. The man who runs toward disasters and knows how to clean up after them.
I nod, hating how grateful I feel for his competence. And how jealous of it. If there’s a cola syrup shortage at work, I know exactly what to do. Broken glass in the ice machine? I’m your girl. But this? This is beyond me.
And I hate that I have to lean on Aiden for more help.
Mason shifts on the floor, stretching. “Mom,” he says, voice suddenly sleepy. “Can we make dinner tonight?”
I guess food is on his mind. I’ll take that over the alternative. “Yes, we can.”
Aiden leaves for work not long after breakfast. His turnout gear isn’t involved—just a plain shirt, boots, keys in hand. A day shift. Normal hours. The kind of schedule that belongs to a life with routines I don’t share. No such thing as normal hours when you own a bar.
He pauses by the door, glancing at Mason, then at me.
“I’ll check in.” It’s not a question.
“I know,” I reply.
He hesitates like there’s more he wants to say, then decides against it. The door closes behind him, and the penthouse goes quiet in a way that presses against my brain.
If Aiden hadn’t gotten that call from the fire inspector, how different would things be now? We would have had an entirely different conversation when he stepped out of his office. He might have admitted that he… well, I’m not entirely sure what he would have admitted.
I heard him tell her, “If we do this, that means I’m involved. Which means it’ll go wrong.”
And Carlie said, “That’s Dad talking.”
We’ve been best friends since childhood, but she almost never talks about her father.
All I know is that he left them when she was young, which means Aiden was more aware of the state of his parents relationship than she was.
He told her we’d go wrong, and she countered by saying that’s their father talking…
which means his father blamed himself for the divorce?
I’m not sure. Maybe his father told him he was a screw-up or something.
I don’t know. But if a man Aiden hasn’t seen in decades is the person screwing up his love life, then we need to do something about it.
Mason settles onto the couch with his tablet, legs tucked under him, humming softly while bright colors flash across the screen.
I hover nearby longer than necessary, pretending to tidy a space that doesn’t need it.
The place is too clean, too orderly, like it’s waiting for its real owner to come back and put it back in use.