Chapter 41
Harper lies halfway on top of me. Her bare right leg is thrown over mine while dappled sunlight shines down through the tree canopy above us. The blanket we’ve spread on the lawn of my garden is soft beneath me, but a few sharp blades of grass have poked through. One is tickling my ear.
“Keep going,” she says.
I refocus on the list I’m holding and run my right hand along her back. “Get a tarot card reading. We never did that.”
“No, but there’s time left. I found someone on Brick Lane who seems good.”
“Seems good,” I repeat. “What does good mean here? Do they have great Yelp reviews? Like what’s the metric here.”
She chuckles and nods, her finger tracing patterns on my chest. “Yes. Four-point-five stars and over three hundred ratings.”
“A guaranteed psychic, then.” I move on to the next point. “Stay out all night… spend an entire day in bed. Both checked off. Try archery, checked off. Visit the Louvre. Checked off, too. We were really busy there.”
“We were,” she says.
“You checked off number thirteen,” I say. Look at the tiny red check mark she’s drawn with pen. Sleep with someone who is wrong for me.
She smiles. “Yes. Although now, I suppose, technically, I haven’t.”
“Oh?” I raise an eyebrow. “And why’s that?”
“You know why. Because you’re not completely wrong for me. You’re actually completely right.” Her eyes dance with amusement. “But I don’t want to uncheck it.”
“I don’t think you should, either,” I say. “Your list, your rules, right? Besides, baby, I was wrong for you at the time.”
“I suppose you were. Off-limits. My ex’s best friend.” She rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe that ever bothered us. It feels like such a nonissue now.”
I kiss her. It’s impossible not to. I kiss her as often as I can, relishing her softness and warmth. “Agreed.”
“So… I’ve done eight in total,” she says. “I have a ton left.”
“Some of these are definitely doable.” But I frown, looking at that familiar number. My hand splays over her back, my fingers touching the bare skin above her camisole. “But baby, if you’re really insistent on number seventeen…”
Her eyebrows rise, and a smile flutters across her lips. “Yes?”
“If it’s important to you, I won’t stay in your way. We can do it.” The idea makes my jaw clench. “It’ll be hard for me, though. I have to admit that.”
She digs her teeth into her lower lip. “You’d have a threesome just to please me.”
I take a deep breath. The mental image that flashes through my mind, of watching another man or woman touching a naked Harper… It makes my stomach turn. “Yes. If it’s important to you. But I’d rather not.”
“How about with Austin Silver?” she asks. “I can text him.”
My entire body tenses. “Absolutely not. Someone else.”
Harper smiles and leans closer until our lips are only a few inches apart. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I say. “Does that mean we need to do it?”
She shakes her head, and a lock of curly blonde hair falls to tickle my cheek. “I wrote that list half-mad on a plane across the Atlantic. I was angry and sad, and wanted to shake up my life. I don’t actually want to have a threesome.”
“Thank fucking God,” I say, and my hand tightens around her. Slides down to grip her ass. “Because the idea of sharing you, just about gave me a heart attack.”
“You need to say what you want, too.”
I chuckle. “I’m not shy about what I want, baby.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not just me. But with us, with this relationship. We can work through my list if you want to, but you don’t have to. We don’t need to try… paintballing just because it’s something I thought of and wrote while sobbing and watching Pretty Woman.”
“They still show that movie on the plane?”
She nods. “Yes. I think the other passengers in my row thought I was crying because I was so moved, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”
I lift my head to kiss the bridge of her nose. The idea of her crying doesn’t sit right with me. The idea of her coming to any kind of harm never will, I suspect. It’s a new feeling to care so deeply for someone. I haven’t done it in a very long time, and never in this way.
“We do things for me all the time,” I say. “Besides, all I need is you. Here. This picnic idea is growing on me.”
She smiles. “Right? I know you were skeptical, but what’s the point of having your own little backyard in London if you won’t use it?”
I look past her up at the blue sky. It’s a beautiful day in July, a couple of weeks after my siblings departed, and the second day after Harper moved back in with me. Somewhere in the tree branches above us, a bird sings, and the air around us is thick with the scent of freshly mowed grass.
“You were right,” I say.
She chuckles. “I know. I so often am.”
“Love has made you cocky.”
“Do you object?”
I kiss her again. “Not in the least. Now, what are we doing tonight? I know you spoke to Richard about having him over for dinner.”
“Yes, but it’ll have to be tomorrow,” she says. “His brother is actually in London today. Funny story, when he went to the hospital, they notified his next of kin by mistake. Huge breach of privacy, really, but that happened to be his brother… even though they hadn’t spoken for years.”
I frown. “Damn. Did that bridge the gap?”
“Oh, I don’t think it even came close, but it was an opening. Today, they’re meeting.” Her smile turns warm. “I’m looking forward to hearing about it tomorrow.”
“He’s a good chap.”
“He is,” she says, and chuckles. “Chap.”
“I’m a Londoner, you know.”
“Yes, you are.” She rests her chin on my chest and looks at me through long lashes. “It’s a shame you never spoke to any of your neighbors for years.”
“I needed you to come into my life. Teach me to stop and smell the roses,” I say.
She rolls her eyes again. “I think you smelled plenty of roses before me, Nathaniel. A rich bachelor in London, and before that, in New York… Driving sports cars. Tall, dark, and handsome. Charming, and with money to burn…”
I lift an eyebrow. “Nathaniel? And are you implying that I’ve been around the block, so to speak?”
“Maybe I am,” she says. “And I know that’s hypocritical, because you had to see me with Dean, which I’m so sorry for now. I never meant… If only I figured things out sooner.” She sighs and shakes her head. “The past is the past. But regardless… I don’t think I want to know about all the women who’ve been up in your third-floor suite here before me. Pretend they never existed.”
“Before you, I’ve never slept with a woman in this house.”
Her eyes widen. “Never?”
“No. Harper… since the day I met you, I lost interest in others. There haven’t been many encounters at all since I saw you at that bar four years ago.”
Her green eyes are on mine. There’s a soft vulnerability there that I could drown in. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Nothing ever went anywhere, because I was emotionally entangled with you. It wouldn’t have been fair to someone else, to encourage a relationship when I was in love with you.”
She swallows. “I can see that. I’m?—”
“Don’t apologize again,” I say quietly and brush her hair back. “There’s no need. You had your journey, and I had mine. And I’m very, very happy with where it led us both.”
A smile curves her lips. “You’re a romantic, you know.”
“I’m well aware,” I say with a grin. “It was my bane until it became my strength.”
She sighs softly and rests her head on my chest. We lie in soft silence for a bit, my hand stroking along the soft skin of her arm, before she speaks again.
“There’s one letter left to open.”
I sigh. “I know.”
She reaches for the manila envelope lying beside us on the blanket and turns it over to reveal the stamp on the back. The letterhead I recognize all too well. Contron. But the name written on the front is mine and it’s in my father’s nearly illegible scrawl.
I look over at the sky. “If he’s resorted to ranting in handwritten letters now, I’m not sure I’m interested in hearing it.”
“Have your siblings gotten letters?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes.” My group chat with Connie and Alec had lit up three days ago when they got their letters in New York. Mine took longer to reach me across the ocean.
They’d told me to read it. Wow, Connie had written. I need time to process this, Alec had said. Let’s reconvene in a few days.
Which could be good.
Or, more likely, very bad.
“You can read it.”
Harper’s hands freeze on the letter. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I like your voice.” I close my eyes. Listen to the sound of paper being torn, and hear her small gasp of surprise.
“It’s not very long.”
“He’s a concise man,” I say dryly. “Now that we’ve all stood up to him in the span of a year, has he decided to cut us out of his will? Is he making an offer to buy out our individual shares in Contron?”
“No. He’s saying he’s sorry,” she says quietly.
My eyes open. That’s impossible. “Read it.”
She clears her throat. “Nate. You’re my secondborn. The most like your mother. Now you’re in London, working for Contron.”
“He’s starting by listing the facts,” I mutter. “This isn’t good.”
She ignores me. “You had harsh words for me when we last spoke. But some of them were accurate. I have indeed raised all three of you to be firm, independent, ambitious, hardworking. On all counts, I can say that I have succeeded. I’ve brought up three strong-minded children.”
“Yay him,” I say.
Harper continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “This has caused friction between us. I understand I’ve had my part to play in this. But I don’t want to leave you with just a legacy. I want to leave you with a few good memories, too. This August, I’d like to invite you to the new house in The Hamptons for a small ceremony. I have asked Lauren to marry me. We’re currently in prenup negotiations. This will not affect my will.”
That makes me chuckle. “Of course. He never changes.”
“But this is change,” Harper says, her voice rising with excitement. “This is an apology. Right? Veiled as it may be?”
“It’s the closest he’s ever come to one, yeah,” I say. “Is there anything else?”
“I know I don’t say it often,” she continues, “but I am proud of all three of you. Contron is more prominent today than it was during my time, and that’s because of you and your siblings. I recently visited your mother’s grave for the first time in years. She wanted the world for you. It struck me, how disappointed she would be with me—” Harper chokes up a little and takes a moment to audibly swallow,”—for wasting the God-given time I have with my children in anger, while she was robbed of so much of it with you. The shame I felt then is not one I want to relive.”
I blink up at the sky. See my mother in front of me, as clear as if it was just yesterday. With her auburn hair and wide smile, telling me how stylish I looked in my little kid tux. It’s my favorite memory of her to return to.
“Finally,” I mutter. He’s spent so long avoiding talking about Mom. Avoided mentioning that he was dating again when we all knew that he and Lauren from the executive team were closer than mere long-standing acquaintances.
“For a long time, I knew my role. It was to be strong for you. To guide you. But as you reminded me, Nathaniel, all three of my children are now grown. Perhaps, I can afford to take a different approach. Come to the house in August. I’ll text the details. Partners are welcome. Dad.”
It takes a lengthy moment before I can form a response. “Well, damn,” I say.
Harper sets the letter down beside us on the blanket. Her warm hand finds my neck. “That sounds promising. Doesn’t it?” she asks softly.
“Yes. Which is why I don’t trust it… not yet.”
She smiles. “Trust but verify?”
“Something like that. Partners are welcome,” I repeat and watch the tender expression in her eyes. “I don’t know if I want to expose you to him. He loves to put his foot in his mouth.”
Her lip quirks up. “He’s not you. I know that.”
“He definitely isn’t,” I say.
“I think it sounds good. Like the possibility of a new beginning.” She runs a light finger along my jaw. “And I am a big fan of new beginnings.”