Chapter 7
I have one week.
One week to convince her to stay. For her to realize that she doesn’t need to spend money on another shitty place out in the suburbs. And a whole week of restless nights, knowing she’s sleeping under the same roof as me.
Sleep hadn’t come easy. I’d laid awake in the deafening silence for hours, waiting for a sound to puncture it. Any sound at all. Footfalls as she moved around downstairs, running the shower, creaking doors. But Harper’s been soundless from the moment she closed her bedroom door and disappeared into the guest wing that’s hers.
Will I ever be able to think of it as anything but hers now?
Maybe she has been making sounds, but my townhouse is soundproof. I’ve never listened to sounds this intently before.
I’m up and ready to head out before she’s awake in the morning. I’ve got an early meeting with our contractors in Japan. It’s a fourteen-hour time difference between Tokyo and New York, but it’s only nine with me being in London, so my brother likes to delegate these calls to me.
Before I leave, however, I make sure to order breakfast. I don’t usually eat it myself, but I promised Harper it’ll be here. It’s delivered while I’m still on the doorstep. A large box of pastries and smoothies, and freshly squeezed orange juice. I bring it in and leave it on the kitchen island for Harper to find.
The workday moves the way it typically does, which is fast, and I’m grateful for it. It’s easy to sink into a million things that constantly need to be done. I have a feeling I’m going to need to do more of that in the coming week than I ever have before.
One week. That’s all I have.
One week to savor… and one week to survive.
My phone is usually on silent while I’m in meetings, but I keep it on the entire day in case Harper calls. In case she can’t find the key I left for her, or something breaks, or anything else. Anything at all.
In the few quiet moments I get during the day, my mind mulls over the place I’d seen yesterday.
The studio apartment from hell. Apartment is too generous of a label. It was a room with a nonfunctioning mini fridge.
In the area where I wouldn’t let anyone I care about walk home alone at night.
Getting her out of there was the only thing that mattered. Making sure she is safe. And now she is… for a week.
“Nate,” my assistant says. She’s standing in front of my desk, her brows drawn low. Like she’s studying me. “Hey. Do you still want me to sort out the car for tonight?”
“Tonight?” I repeat.
“Yes. The ribbon cutting at the new library up by Hampstead Heath. You mentioned how going would be strategic, seeing as the main benefactor is Mads Knudsen.”
“Right,” I say blandly. Knudsen is a major stakeholder of a European company Contron has been trying to partner with for months, with no luck. It’s one of my several key priorities as a Connovan and the Contron’s representative in Europe.
We have lawyers. We have strategists. We have one hell of an executive team. But we only have three Connovans, as my brother Alec loves to say, and sending one of us in is the equivalent of the nuclear option.
“Cancel the car,” I say. “Tell them I won’t make it.”
Her eyes flare in surprise. “All right. Shall I make alternate plans?”
“No. Actually, yes. Send flowers to the event—tell them I wasn’t feeling well. Make a donation to the library. Something for one of their programs for underprivileged youth.”
“Got it. Delivered directly to Novus Tech’s board members?”
“That’s too direct. Send it to the opening itself, but make it excessive. A giant bouquet. Something that won’t be missed.”
She nods briskly. “Right.”
It’s Harper’s first night at the townhouse. I don’t… I should… but I don’t want to leave her there alone.
Maybe she has plans. Tons of them.
Maybe she would rather I wasn’t home.
But still, I can’t bring myself to attend the function, to smile and network, knowing that, at the same time, Harper might be sitting in my home and looking up new places to live.
Or exploring the townhouse on her own… I showed her most of it. Everywhere except the gym in the basement and the third floor.
My floor.
It doesn’t have much—a small library, my bedroom, and an ensuite. A large wardrobe.
But it does have plenty of art on the walls. Even more of the kind that reveals too much.
If she looks into it more.
Thinks about it further.
About why I bought everything she’d ever said she liked.
I’d need to play up the investment angle more. Strictly speaking, it’s not untrue. False impressions, her voice echoes through my mind. Chidingly. But I’ve built a career out of giving people exactly the kind of impression they want.
I leave the office and drive home earlier than I have in months. My assistant hasn’t left her desk yet, and I rarely walk out before her. But now I’m the one telling her to have a good evening.
The commute home is calming. It always is, even amid the London bustle, the traffic, the pedestrians. There’s something about all of it that sets my nerves at ease. The vehicle under my control, the solid feel of the steering wheel in my grip, the power of the gas pedal beneath my foot. It’s like mediation.
One week with Harper.
I can do that.
That’s not the problem, I think. Because I might enjoy it too much… and then she’ll move out, get on with her life, and disappear from mine.
At least, as Dean’s girlfriend—and later fiancée—she was still in my social circle. Even while she was across the ocean and in love with my friend.
One week to make her see we can still be friends.
Or one week to make peace with letting her go for good.
I park the SUV next to the McLaren 720S I drove yesterday to take Harper to the London Modern and head up to the townhouse.
The look in her eyes last night had been… The word escapes me. Disconcerting, maybe? She looked at my cars, my home, and then at me like she saw a different man.
I don’t know if it’s in my favor or a strike against me.
“You shouldn’t care either way,” I mutter. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I walk up the stoop to my familiar black door. I bought this place two and a half years ago. An investment property, and the Connovan base in London. Odds are, I’ll never sell it. When my tenure here is done, it’ll be maintained as a residence for whenever Alec or Connie need to pop over. Or I’ll rent it out if we don’t need it for a while.
When I unlock the front door, I’m greeted by the sharp shrill of a fire alarm blaring at the highest volume. It echoes off the hallway walls as the light sheen of smoke hangs in the air. As if it’s a living entity, it sees a way to escape and billows out through the still-open door behind me.
Shit.
“Harper!” I holler. I drop my briefcase and rush through the living room. “Harper?”
The beeping is coming from the kitchen. It’s almost impossible to hear anything over the piercing sound. Where is she? What’s happened?
I find her in the kitchen. She’s standing with her back to me—the oven door is down, and smoke rises in a thick column from the inside—while she’s waving a towel in the direction of the gaping back door.
“Harper!” I yell. She doesn’t hear me, so I walk around the counter. “Harper?”
She jumps back with a shriek, her eyes wide. “Shit! Nate?”
“What’s happened?”
“I tried to bake!” There’s frantic energy in her movements. I can barely hear her over the incessant alarm, and it’s starting to make my ears ring.
I grab one of the dining room chairs and scan the ceiling. There. Climbing up, I reach until I can grab the damn thing and twist it off, then press the button.
Everything goes mercifully quiet.
“Nate. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, there’s no fire or anything. Just a lot of smoke.” She coughs and keeps fanning the oven. The cloud of black has started to dissipate. Rushing toward the open door to the garden and freedom.
“What were you doing?”
“I was trying to bake. It didn’t go… great.”
The tame use of words makes me laugh. I lean against the kitchen island and just watch her, standing in an apron I didn’t know I owned, waving a beige towel. Her blonde hair is secured in a giant hair clip but small curls have fallen out, framing her face.
“Glad you’re finding this funny,” she says, but she’s smiling, too.
“How could I not?” The inside of the oven is marked by sooty stains. “What were you trying to make?”
“Scones.”
“Scones,” I repeat. Then, I chuckle again. “Aren’t they very simple?”
“Okay, do you know how to make them?”
“No,” I admit. “But if eating them counts, I have my fair share of experience.”
“Yes, well, the butter… melted. I don’t think I used the right tray. It dripped onto the bottom of the oven, and when I opened the door…” She stops waving the towel, standing up straight. “It billowed out.”
“Mm-hmm. Trying to burn down my house on day one?” I cross my arms over my chest and try to hide my amusement. “You’re making me think you want to go back to the bug-infested hellhole.”
Harper rolls her eyes. I love it when she does that. “At least there’s no oven there, so I’m safe from my own stupid ideas.” She cradles her right hand, absently touching a finger. “And I managed to burn myself. Fantastic.”
I step closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get some cold water on it.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea…” She steps to the sink and my hand falls away, where it belongs at my side. “I feel so stupid. I’m sorry Nate, this isn’t what I intended for you to come home to. I didn’t know if you’d be home at all, and I thought… I just wanted to try making scones.” She blows out a heavy sigh. “Guess trial batch number one didn’t go so well.”
I look at the small golden lumps lined up on a tray left on the counter. “They look good.”
“They look awful.”
“Edible, though.”
She gives me a withering look. “Barely.”
I lean against the island, resting my hands on the edge of the stone surface. “Why did you decide to bake scones right after work?”
There’s a tiny suspicion in my mind, and it has to do with the list I’d seen yesterday. The one that had fallen out of her bag.
30 Under 30 list.
Sometimes it pays off to have a photographic memory. I only scanned half the entries in the second before she grabbed it out of my hand, but it had been more than enough to understand what I saw.
She’s made herself a list of things to experience.
And number seven had been try a new recipe.
Was this it? Scones?
Harper sighs. “It’s stupid.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“You’ll laugh,” she warns, but her voice is dryly amused, too. “Okay, so I watched a lot of The Great British Bake Off in the last few weeks.”
“Wherever you were going, I didn’t expect that,” I say.
“It’s a comfort show. And I rarely bake, so I wanted to try. Make something British.” She looks over at the scones. “Well, I guess trial batch number one is a bust.”
“Mm-hmm. You’re welcome to try again.”
“Even though I almost burned down your kitchen?”
“Even if you do end up burning it down.” I nod toward her hand. “Need a Band-Aid?”
“No.”
“Medical attention?”
She chuckles. “No.”
“A scone, ordered from the nearby bakery?”
She rolls her eyes. “Insulting. And no.”
“All right then.” I close the oven; the smoke is gone now. The cleaners will handle the disaster zone when they swing by next time.
Harper turns off the faucet and gently dries her finger. The burn looks small. Thankfully.
I shut the back door to the small garden, blocking out the lingering evening chill of the early spring.
“I didn’t think you’d be home,” she says.
Right. “Hoped to have the entire house for yourself?” I drawl.
“No, no, it’s your place.” She leans against the counter, much like I had earlier. “I just figured you’d have plans. Considering you’re, you know… you.”
“Because I’m… me?”
“Yeah.” Her lips turn into a smile. “No event to go to? No ribbons to cut, no investors to woo?”
“Contron doesn’t have investors,” I say. “We invest.”
She smiles. “Sorry, my bad. What a faux pas.”
“Quite horrendous, actually.”
“So sorry,” she says again. “Does that mean you’re the one being wooed?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Usually, yes.”
“Wow. What a life you must lead,” she says. There’s teasing in her tone, and I love it. It’s so much better than the stilted awkwardness of our first meeting in London, when Dean was a shadow between us, and her eyes held distrust. “But there must be someone, no? Are you dating anyone? Tell me when I need to be out of the house.”
“Harper,” I say.
She rubs her hands together. “Because I can leave for an evening or be out of here all weekend if you need. Is there a girlfriend coming over? Or someone who spends the nights?”
Fuck.
False impressions, I think again, reminding myself that I’ve always been great at delivering. “Not this week,” I say. “Have to give them some time off.”
She chuckles. “Of course. How generous of you.”
“I try.”
Her fingers tap against the stone counter, and her lips purse in thought. “Maybe that’s how I can repay you for letting me stay here. I can be your wingwoman.”
“Harper,” I say again.
“No, no, think about it. Let me buy you dinner and a few drinks this weekend. I’m great at this.”
“Have you ever been someone’s wingwoman?”
“Yes! I was a wingwoman all the time in college. Of course, I wasn’t always successful, but I don’t think I was to blame. Except for the time I made a guy think I was into him instead of my friend, but really, I was just buttering him up by speaking about—anyway. Not important.” She gives me a bright smile. “Let’s do that. Tomorrow night, if you don’t have any plans.”
I make a mental note to cancel my attendance at the fundraising gala for the Sustainable Technologies Foundation, too.
“Sure. But I don’t need a wingwoman, Harper.”
She nods, and her smile turns a bit embarrassed. “I don’t doubt that for a bit. I’m just… trying to repay the favor. Somehow.”
Right. I nod and glance down to her hand, at the burn on her left index finger. You’re the one doing me a favor, I think.
“Throw in some freshly baked scones and we have a deal.”
She flashes me a truly beaming smile. “Okay. Awesome. Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow.”