Chapter 3
Harper
“You look like shit,” Milo says, glancing up from the architectural renderings spread across the front table as I walk in.
“Yeah, well, being told by your business partner that you can’t do your job will do that to a girl,” I say, my voice coated in saccharine sarcasm as I drop my bag onto Jessica, our office manager’s, desk.
“My guess is,” Milo says, circling the table and waving a finger in my general direction, “it’s the three to five top-shelf whiskeys you put on the company credit card while cursing me, this job, and all of mankind.”
“Not all of mankind,” I reply. “The bartender at Bar None is cool.”
Milo studies me long enough that I roll my shoulders back and stand a little taller.
We run a casual office—another way Milo and I promised ourselves we’d do things differently when we started Studio Mise—but today I wore heels.
Power heels, my mom used to call them. At five-eight, I’m not short, but the extra height puts me eye to eye with Milo.
Or any idiot teenager I might have to deal with today.
“You know I don’t think you’re incapable, right?” Milo says, and I know him well enough to hear the care in how he chooses his words. “But this Bites by Blake concept is a big deal. It’s exactly the exposure we’ve been looking for. I want it to go smoothly—”
“I’ll make it go smoothly,” I snap.
“Without it costing me my best friend,” he continues evenly, “or her mental health.”
I let out an exaggerated scoff. “Next, you’re going to try to make me meditate or some shit,” I say, but I’m already softening a bit.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Milo says, a warm chuckle to his voice.
“So where did you find this kid anyway?” I glance around the front office like my new assistant might be hiding behind the curtains. “Am I going to have to put him down for a nap or drive him back for his seventh-period homeroom class?”
“Harper, he’s not—”
“He better not ask me to fucking prom!” I say, disappearing into my office.
I try to occupy myself with spreadsheets and the latest demands from Kincade Smith, the investor behind our next project.
It was his idea to hand a restaurant to a viral TikToker—Blake Adams—on the assumption that we could capitalize on his millions of views.
Instead, the chaos this project has already unleashed is mind-numbing.
Kincade has a talent for harebrained demands disguised as brilliant ideas.
Like his call last night.
Last night.
The thought triggers a memory of my caramel-voiced bar companion. Did he say his name was Max? His hands on my body. His lips on my neck. The way his fingers coaxed me apart until I forgot, briefly, how tightly I usually hold myself together.
I’m no stranger to a well-placed one-night stand. But last night felt different. The orgasm was incredible, yes—but it was the ease of it, the connection, the way I caught myself imagining what came after, that still has me feeling off-balance eight hours later.
And maybe that’s why I left in such a hurry.
Sure, if Kincade hadn’t called—rambling about something that absolutely could have waited until morning—I probably would have let Max fish a condom from his wallet and finish what we started. But it wasn’t the interruption that rattled me.
It was the thought that I would have asked him to come home with me afterward.
Something I never do.
That thought unsettles me far more than anything Kincade was yammering about.
So I left. Without Max’s number, or any real way for either of us to find the other again. And honestly, it’s probably better that way. For both of us.
I’ve more or less given up on men. Or at least on the idea that they can be anything more than a means to an end.
I have good friends—Milo, Amelia, Jo, and Mr. Evans upstairs.
And I have good sex, when I have time for it.
But I gave up a long time ago on wanting both in the same person. That feels like a recipe for disaster.
I’m married to my job. Just like my mom was.
I’m not naive; I saw where that got her. I always thought my dad was great, and I understand he was frustrated. Mom never put him before her work. But if he couldn’t live with that, he should have had the decency to divorce her first—before…before moving on.
That’s why I keep my worlds separate.
Friends. Sex. Work.
Three distinct buckets. No messy overlap.
My phone pings. I glance down at the Disaster Recovery Team group text Amelia, Jo, and I have kept alive since college.
Jo: Weekend body count?
Amelia: Does a puking seven-year-old count?
Jo: Poor Zoey. Mine was two. Could’ve been three, but I took pity on the drunk straight guy and put him in a cab.
Jo: Harper. Roll call.
I ignore the thread.
I know I won’t get away with it for long, but no matter what I say, my best friends will know instantly that something is up. And I’m not ready to unpack that yet.
I glance at the time. 8:45. Fifteen minutes until Sullivan Bennett arrives—assuming he’s capable of getting himself out of bed before midmorning.
Milo claims he told him nine, which is already a compromise.
Nine a.m. is two hours later than I like to start my day, so my new assistant is already behind, and we haven’t even met yet.
I hear Jessica talking animatedly to someone in the front office.
I round my desk, then pause just inside my office door.
“I’m Jessica,” she says in her perpetually too-perky lilt. “You must be Sullivan?”
Great, I think. Here we go. Let’s go meet the toddler.
I straighten the belt of my intentionally all-black outfit and steel myself. I’ve learned it’s best to let people assume I’m the villain right away. Milo can be the golden retriever. I’m the black cat.
Let’s get this over with.
“Oh, here’s Ms. Wells now,” Jessica chirps as I step out. “Harper, this is Sullivan.”
“Benster!!” Milo booms from his office down the hall.
“Harper?”
That voice—confused, warm, and unmistakably caramel-soft—stops me cold.
“Max?” I choke.
“No, Sullivan,” Jessica corrects brightly.
“Benny, Ben, Benster,” Milo continues, appearing behind us.
My head whips toward him.
“You’re Harper?” he asks again, pulling my attention back to his eyes. Those same golden pools I got lost in last night.
“Yes,” Jessica says, beaming. “This is Harper Wells, your new boss.”
My stomach drops.
“Benny, I’m so glad you’re here,” Milo sings, utterly oblivious to the emotional car crash unfolding in front of him.
“Why are you calling him, Benny?” I snap, my irritation ricocheting in every direction at once.
“That’s what we called him back in our Beta Kappa days.”
“You were in a fraternity?” Jessica asks, delighted.
“Yeah,” Milo says casually. “Back when I was pretending to be straight.”
“Why did you tell me your name was Max?” I demand, turning back to him.
“Wait—you’ve met?” Milo asks, eyes bouncing between us like he’s watching a tennis match.
“That’s what I go by,” Max says tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Harper…”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t. Or I would have never—”
“Never what?” Milo asks.
“Nothing!” Max and I shout in perfect, horrifying unison.
The room goes silent. But my heart is hammering so loudly I’m sure everyone can hear it.
“Okay then,” Jessica says after a beat, glancing down at her clipboard. “So you go by Max, Sullivan?”
“Yeah. It’s my middle name.” He doesn’t take his glare off me.
Sullivan M. Bennett, I think.
“It’s on my résumé,” he adds, clipped.
“Oh! You’re right.” Jessica nods, scribbling. “Preferred name: Max. Not a problem. All your forms still have your full legal name.”
“What kind of name is Sullivan?” I quip, not entirely sure why.
“You didn’t seem concerned about my name last night,” he says quietly—low enough that only I hear.
“Okay!” Milo claps his hands together. “Sullivan Maxwell Bennett, this is my business partner, Harper Eloise Wells. I don’t have a middle name, but I like to pretend it’s Prince.”
“Could you sign here, Sull—Max,” Jessica says, thrusting the clipboard at him.
He takes it without breaking eye contact with me. He looks furious.
And while I’m not one to back down from confrontation, I suddenly have somewhere I need to be. Anywhere but here. I don’t need an assistant. And I definitely don’t need one whose hands were on my—
“I need to go,” I say abruptly. “Jessica will—” What?
Show him around? Set him up in my office?
No. I absolutely do not need to babysit some frat boy Milo dredged up—no matter how his voice does unforgivable things to my insides.
“Jessica will cut you a check for today. I’m sorry to waste your time, but your services won’t be needed… Sullivan.”
And then I walk out of the Victorian.
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going.
Only that I cannot stay here.