Chapter 23
HARRISON
I’d come to see her for several reasons. The first of which was the easiest to talk about.
Upon my request, Jameson had rushed Aurelia’s commission. I was completely in the dark about her finances, but ever since that first week, I’d suspected that she’d stuck her neck out on this deal. I wanted to be sure she had money to pay her rent on this apartment. Or her mortgage. Whatever it was.
Aurelia seemed like she was a survivor, someone who would and on her feet, but it couldn’t hurt to make sure she received what she was owed. I’d simply made sure that the payout she was due came earlier.
“Harrison, what’s going on? Why are you here? Has something happened?”
Strangely, she sounded genuinely worried and I frowned, turning to face her and feeling desperately confused when I realized that it looked like she was about to burst into tears.
“I’m fine. We’re all good. Why are you about to start crying?” I stared at her, my head tilting until it suddenly hit me like a wet fish. “Oh, God. The shit wine. Have you even been able to buy groceries while you’ve been waiting for this money?”
Her eyes widened, her lips parted, and for a second, I thought I’d been right, but then she doubled over laughing. “Please don’t tell me that’s what’s got you so worried. Are you seriously stressed about my financial situation?”
I blinked hard. And again. My eyebrows rose slowly as I watched her walk deeper into the room, finally shrugging out of her coat and kicking off her sky high heels. She hung her purse on a hook near her door and then padded over to the kitchen.
I followed her, absolutely not checking out her ass in those tight jeans. “Why did it look like you were about to cry, then? Also, why did you buy shit wine?”
“I didn’t buy shit wine.” She was facing the other way as she crossed to the fridge, but I practically heard her rolling her eyes as she spoke.
“I never said it was bad. It’s just not the kind of bottle that should bring me my slippers in the morning to make up for how much it cost.” She opened her sleek, stainless steel fridge and brought out a bottle of admittedly decent white wine. “Would you like some?”
“Yeah, sure.” I moved over to her kitchen island and watched her pour us each a glass, reminded of the first time I’d seen her do that and the kiss that had followed.
Instantly, my brain threw up a reel of our next kiss, the one that had almost gotten out of control in my apartment, and I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket to distract myself. “I’ve got something for you.”
“What is it?” She pushed my wine glass across the marble counter and swept up the envelope I’d just taken out of my pocket. “It feels thick. Have I been accepted to college again? I don’t remember applying.”
I gave her a blank stare, but it only lasted a moment before I felt my lips curving into a grin. God, it felt like I hadn’t done that in years, but the last couple days hadn’t exactly been a happy, easy time for me.
“It’s the check for your commission, as well as our prenup.”
For just a moment, she went completely still, her finger not even moving under the flap of the envelope any longer. Then she set it down and reached for her wine instead. As she picked up the glass, she sat down across from me at the island, those blue eyes landing directly on mine.
“So it’s time, then.” Her eyes were lined with coal that didn’t look like she’d touched it up in hours, a thin, almost nonexistent layer of mascara on her naturally long lashes.
She wasn’t racing to go freshen up and she was barefoot in her kitchen with me. I’d never had such an easy relationship with a woman before, but especially not one as gorgeous as her. It made me feel damn lucky that she was wearing my ring—around her neck, if not on her finger, but still.
I realized then that romantic or not, our relationship, our friendship, had come to mean something to me. I frowned as I held her gaze. “Time for what?”
“The ‘are we really doing this’ conversation,” she said, her eyes never once leaving mine.
That golden blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, but tendrils had escaped during the day, framing her face as she rested her chin in an open palm, her elbow propped on the counter between us.
“You know, for a minute back there, I was actually wondering if you were calling it off.”
I felt my frown deepen, my eyes narrowing. “What?”
While I didn’t ask if that was why it’d looked like she’d been about to burst into tears, I definitely felt a surge of something sweeping through me at the possibility. Something smug and proud, possessive and greedy.
She cracked a tiny smile. “Yeah, you looked so serious when I got here that I thought you might’ve changed your mind.”
“No, I didn’t.” I said it without any hesitation whatsoever. “It’s just been an eventful few days. There’s lots going on. Stuff I need to talk to you about.”
Her eyebrows crept up. “To me? Why?”
“Because it might affect you. Unless you’ve changed your mind, that is?
” Somehow, I knew she hadn’t, but I still wanted to look into her eyes when she actually said yes, making the sober and fully informed decision to be with me when we weren’t swept up in post-victory adrenaline. “Do you still want to marry me?”
“Yes.”
Fuck, I love it when she says that.
I felt a slow grin tug at the corners of my lips. “Good. I still want to marry you, too.”
“You know, you’re the last person I expected I would marry. It was unlikely we would even ever become friends, but this? It really is insane.”
My grin came out fully this time, practically splitting my face in half as I nodded. “That’s the only reason either of us is doing it. It would’ve been boring if it wasn’t insane.”
“So you keep saying.” She glanced at the envelope again, but she still hadn’t opened it.
When her eyes came back to mine, they narrowed a little, like she was trying to puzzle something out.
“What happened, Harrison? You said the last few days have been eventful, but why? It really didn’t look like you were okay when I first walked in. ”
“My dad is retiring,” I said, admitting it out loud for the first time. “It’s likely Sterling is going to put me in charge of acquisitions at W&S. They know I’ve always wanted it and they’ve all been grooming me to take it over eventually.”
“Wow. That’s huge.” Her head tilted slowly and she paused for a beat. “Is it still what you want? Because I’ll be honest, it really doesn’t look like it.”
Unlike when I’d been in the room with my brothers, I told her the truth.
“What I want is to work with you.” The words tumbled out, raw and unpolished.
“I don’t think I can, uh, shit, I don’t think I can work without you now.
We’re great together. And if you don’t come work with me at W&S, then we’ll start our own thing.
Because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a new account again without wondering how you’d handle it. ”
For a heartbeat, she just stared at me. No teasing retort. No sharp, dismissive laughter. Just a long silence that made me wonder if I’d said too much, but then, finally, she smiled.
It was small and quiet, almost grateful, which was off. “That’s the first time anyone has ever acknowledged that I’m good at this.”
She said the words softly, almost like she was savoring them, and my chest tightened practically to the point of pain. How has no one in her family seen it? How has no one said it?
She was brilliant. Ruthless in the best possible way. Sharp as hell, and yet she thought no one had noticed? I wanted to tell her she was extraordinary and I’d known it ever since that very first day, but the words stuck in my throat. It was too much, too soon.
“Is this what’s been bothering you?” she asked, her voice quiet and careful, but steady. “I could tell something has been off, but was this it or is there more?”
I took a sip of wine, swallowed, and shook my head. “It’s this, but it’s also everything else. My place in my family. In the business. I mean, I’ve told you before that it’s always weighed on me, but things have been coming to a head and I honestly don’t know what to do about it.”
The admission felt like it cost me something, but there was a strange relief in saying it to her out loud. For a beat, she said nothing, but then she reached for the envelope and my pulse jumped when she tore it open.
Her gaze skimmed over the pages quickly before she uncapped a pen she plucked out of a drawer and signed at the bottom in one clean stroke. I blinked hard. “Was that our prenup? You’re not even going to have a lawyer look at it?”
“I don’t need to. The terms are fair,” she said simply, setting the pen down. “I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, my voice suddenly a little rougher than it’d been before.
She looked up then, meeting my eyes with a small smile tugging at her mouth and her gaze sparkling with something that made my pulse race. “I know that because we’re friends and I trust you.”
Friends.
The word lodged in my brain, landing with a sharp and unsatisfying thud that just didn’t feel right. I took a step closer to her, unable to help myself. I needed her to see it. To feel what I did.
“Is that all we are?” I asked quietly, my eyes directly on hers.
Her breath caught, and for a moment, she was speechless, but then her lips parted. No sound came out at first. The air between us grew thicker with every passing second until it became almost unbearable.
It suddenly felt like my shirt was clinging to my torso.
My collar was too tight. It kind of felt like my clothes had shrunk three sizes from one heartbeat to the next.
The heat of her apartment seemed to be sizzling between us and I had the dizzying sense that the walls were closing in, as if the universe itself needed me as close to her as possible.
I took another step toward her, Aurelia the only thing I could see and her shallow breathing the only thing I could hear. She just sat there, watching me with her signature drying on my prenup like it was nothing for her to trust me with everything.
I took yet another step forward before I even realized I was moving. My pulse thundered hard enough to drown out reason. God, I want her.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it, but then it buzzed again. Louder this time, or maybe just more insistent.
“Sorry,” I muttered as I pulled it out, feeling a lot more annoyed than I should’ve been since there was no way for whoever it was know what they were interrupting.
My mom’s name flashed across the screen. I hesitated to take the call, my thumb hovering over the button. Relief trickled through me when it stopped, but a second later, it started ringing again.
I exhaled, blinking myself out of that weird haze and giving Aurelia an apologetic half-smile. “I should take this. Something might be wrong, if she’s this insistent.”
Aurelia’s brows lifted, but she didn’t speak as I swiped to answer the call and pressed the phone to my ear. “Hey, Mom.”
“Harrison, darling,” she said brightly, as if I hadn’t stormed out on her the last time we’d spoken. “We’re having a family dinner tonight, a private celebration of your father’s retirement. I need you to be here. Now, actually.”
“Now? Are you out of your—”
“This isn’t open for negotiation.” She was using the motherly tone that brooked no argument.
“I know it’s been a difficult week, but your father deserves for us to put everything else aside tonight.
The man has spent his entire life working day and night to be able to hand over a healthy company to all of you.
You will be here to celebrate his retirement. ”
I noticed the subtle emphasis she’d put on the word all, knowing this was part of her way of telling me they weren’t going to stand for me opening my own firm, but this was hardly the time to get into it.
By the time I hung up, the charge in the air between Aurelia and I had faded a little. It wasn’t gone by any means, but it was buried from my side at least beneath familial obligation and duty.
I met Aurelia’s gaze, still feeling the burn of what had almost just happened between us. “I have to go. Family dinner.”
I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. “My father’s retirement seems to be the gift that keeps on giving this week, but hear me out. Wild thought. Would you like to come with me?”
Aurelia’s eyebrows shot up. “You want me to come to your family dinner?”
“Yeah, I do. I really, really do.”
She studied me, doubt flickering across her features. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, my gaze dropped to the faint glint of gold peeking out from the neckline of her shirt.
Before I could second-guess myself, I reached out.
My fingers found the delicate chain and drew it out.
Aurelia sucked in a sharp breath when the backs of my fingers grazed her skin.
Her eyes flew up to meet mine, and for a long moment, neither of us moved.
As I held her gaze, I unclasped the chain slowly and carefully. The ring slid free and I held it in my palm for the briefest second before turning it between my fingertips. I took her hand, my eyes never leaving hers.
My thumb brushed over her knuckles, lingering, grounding myself and hopefully her as well, and then I slid the ring onto her finger, putting it firmly where it belonged.
“Yeah,” I said quietly but confidently. “I’m ready.”