CHAPTER 20
Harper
The snow in Manhattan looks fake when it’s fresh like this.
It’s not yet the gray slush it turns into after taxis and delivery trucks and a million impatient boots grind it into the pavement.
Instead, it’s the rare kind for NYC that sits bright white, soft and untouched over everything, muffling the city enough.
I stand at the corner of Prince and Greene Streets after climbing out of the cab, my scarf tucked tight beneath my chin as flakes drift lazily past the glow of the streetlights.
SoHo at Christmas always exudes a cinematic vibe.
The storefronts are lit gold and white, people move slower and with more caution because of the snow, and somewhere down the block a saxophone player butchers a rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with tremendous confidence.
And somehow, despite the blustering cold biting at my cheeks, I’m still warm from the Bahamas… mainly from who I was with in the Bahamas.
The trip is still surreal to me, like I watched it happen to someone else instead of an event I lived through. Every time I close my eyes, I see turquoise water and white sand and Julian standing barefoot on the dock in linen pants looking incredibly handsome against the sunset.
And then my brain, because it apparently hates me, immediately follows that memory with another one… him above me in bed, saying my name against my skin, our bodies, hot and pulsing—
I nearly walk into a woman carrying shopping bags.
“Sorry,” I mutter quickly.
She gives me a distracted nod and keeps moving.
I exhale hard into the cold air and push through the doors of the lounge before my thoughts get any more dangerous.
Warmth hits me instantly, along with low music and the ever-present current of conversation that fills NYC bars and lounges.
The place is dim in that downtown way, candles flickering on marble tables, velvet chairs, everyone dressed like they own three apartments and a creative agency even though half of these people are trust funders and the other half will run out of money after six months in Manhattan.
And then, in the back, I spot Abby, already seated in a curved booth, one leg crossed over the other, a martini glass in front of her and another drink waiting across the table.
The second she sees me, her entire face transforms.
“Oh my God,” she says as I approach. “There she is.”
I laugh, sliding into the booth and unwinding my scarf. “Hi to you too.”
Abby’s eyes narrow immediately. “No. Absolutely not. Don’t you dare come in here pretending to be normal.”
“I am normal.”
“You went to the Bahamas with a billionaire and disappeared off the face of the earth for five days.”
“Three and a half,” I correct. “And thank you again for watching Beau for me.”
She waves off my gratitude and leans across the table. “Harper… I’ve been patient, I’ve been a dogsitter, I’ve been a friend who now deserves to hear every last detail.”
I can’t help smiling as I reach for the drink she ordered me. “What is this?”
“A peppermint espresso martini because it felt festive and because I figured you’d need hard liquor for this conversation.”
I take a sip and immediately groan. “That’s disgustingly good.”
“I know.” She points at me with her empty olive toothpick. “Now start talking.”
I laugh softly, shaking my head as I settle back against the booth.
Outside the windows, snow continues drifting past the glass in soft white streaks, the city a snow globe beneath it, but inside I’m warm and loose and strangely untethered in the best way.
Abby studies me.
“You’re glowing.”
“I am not glowing.”
“You are literally glowing. You’re radiating, Harper.” She sits back dramatically. “I hate this for me.”
I laugh again, but there’s no stopping the blush climbing into my cheeks because the truth is, I know exactly why she’s saying it.
The Bahamas changed things. Not just the relationship between me and Julian. It changed me.
For so long my life has felt like survival. Bills and schedules and responsibility and Dylan and constantly calculating how to hold everything together without sharing the burden or the toll it was taking.
But in the Bahamas…
For the first time in years, I stopped bracing. I let myself be happy.
And maybe that’s why everything is different now.
Abby watches me carefully. “Oh, this is bad,” she says with delight.
“What’s bad?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The face of a woman who is absolutely gone over a man.”
“I am not gone over a man,” I protest weakly.
“You went from emotionally constipated to glowing in under a week. That man wrecked you.”
Heat floods my entire body because unfortunately—
She’s not wrong.
I stare down into my drink to hide it, but Abby practically vibrates with satisfaction.
“Harper,” she whispers dramatically. “Did you sleep with him?”
I choke on my martini.
“Oh my God,” she gasps. “YOU DID.”
“Abby,” I hiss, glancing around, even though nobody is paying attention to us.
“How many times?”
“ABBY.”
She grabs my wrist across the table. “I need details immediately or I’ll die.”
I drop my head into my hand, laughing helplessly now because there is no escaping this conversation.
Part of me doesn’t want to because the second I let myself think about him again—his touch, smile, desire for me—it consumes me.
Abby catches it instantly. Her expression softens beneath all the teasing.
“Oh no,” she says quietly. “You’re really in this.”
I look up at her. And for the first time since I got back to New York, since the plane landed and reality started creeping back in, I let myself say it out loud.
“Yeah,” I admit.
The word hangs there between us… True.
Abby stares at me for a beat longer, then slowly leans back against the booth cushions, processing the magnitude of it.
“Well,” she says finally. “Tell me everything. I need chronological order. And don’t you dare skip ahead to the sex. I want to enjoy each step, so really build that anticipation, please.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m invested,” she replies. “Now start talking.”
I laugh and sink deeper into the velvet booth. “Okay, okay. So… from takeoff to touchdown, it was unreal.”
“That’s not enough detail.”
“I’m getting there.” I shake my head, still half disbelieving myself. “The villa overlooked the ocean and there was this insane infinity pool and a yacht and—”
“A yacht?” Abby cuts in. “That’s like Bezos/Musk–level rich people behavior. Continue.”
“And everything was just…” I search for the word and fail. “Beautiful. Like offensively beautiful.”
Abby grins. “What else?”
“We spent the entire trip relaxing. Out on the beach, by the pool, on the yacht. We had long meals and just talked and talked and talked.”
She waves that off impatiently. “That’s romantic and all but get to the sex talk.”
I laugh into my drink. “You’re exhausting and I’m not giving you details about the sex, although I’ll say it was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.”
“And here you are glowing. You look like someone kissed your soul back into your body.”
Heat floods my cheeks.
She leans forward. “Tell me about Christmas dinner.”
I smile and giggle before I can stop myself.
“There it is,” Abby says triumphantly. “That giggle. That’s the sound of a woman fully gone.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me. Now tell me.”
I take another sip of my martini. “It was nice. He had an incredible spread set up outside overlooking the ocean.”
Abby groans dramatically. “I’d expect nothing less.”
“And I gave him the scarf.”
Her eyes light up. “YES. How did he react?”
I can’t stop smiling now thinking about it. “He loved it.”
“Like fake polite loved it or real loved it?”
“Real loved it,” I say. “He kept touching it while we talked.”
Abby slaps the table once. “I knew it.”
“And he looked…” I shake my head a little. “I don’t know. Like he was emotional about it.”
“That’s because men secretly lose their minds when women make them things,” Abby says knowingly.
“I almost lost my mind making it.”
“That’s because you insisted on learning to knit in three hours.”
“That woman at the knitting store hated me.”
“She hated your technique.”
“She hated my spirit.”
Abby snorts into her drink.
“But honestly,” I continue, “it was sweet. He really loved it.”
Abby watches me for a second, then narrows her eyes. “Okay. Then what.”
My stomach flips. “Then he gave me a gift.”
“Ohhhh,” she says and takes another sip, absolutely giddy.
I sort of shake my head. “Yeah, it was a nice one.”
“That reaction means it was expensive.”
“It was just—”
“Harper.”
I exhale. “Diamond earrings.”
Abby freezes.
“Excusez-moi?” she says slowly.
“Diamond earrings.”
“How diamond are we talking?”
I stare into my drink. “Five carats.”
Her jaw drops. Like in a cartoon. Literally, to the floor.
“Five?”
“Please stop screaming numbers at me.”
“Harper Hawthorne!” she whisper-yells. “That man bought you FIVE-CARAT DIAMOND EARRINGS?”
“He said it was because I lost one at the hockey game.”
“The fake one?” she asks incredulously.
“Yes. The fake one.”
Abby stares at me for a full three seconds. Then four… then five.
“What do they look like?” she finally asks.
I lean back slowly against the booth cushions. “Champagne diamonds. They are…” I shake my head. “Honestly, they are breathtaking.”
“And you accepted them?”
“I tried not to.”
“But?”
“But he ignored me and handed me champagne-colored financial ruin.”
Abby collapses against the booth dramatically. “I cannot believe this is your life now.”
“Trust me, neither can I.”
“No, Harper,” she says, sitting upright again. “Listen to me carefully. That is not a gift men buy women they casually like.”
I look down because the second she says it out loud, my brain starts spiraling again, back to the way he looked at me across that dinner table. I could tell there wasn’t another person on earth he wanted to be there with.
Abby studies my face carefully. “You’re really in this.”
I laugh weakly. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I really don’t.”
Abby leans toward me. “Harper. You went to the Bahamas with a man who buys you five-carat diamonds and looks at you like you hung the moon. I think it’s safe to say this has moved beyond casual and into the serious zone. And I’m so happy for you.”
I stare out the lounge windows through to the SoHo streetlights.
And every thought in my head keeps circling back to the exact same thing: Julian. To the way it felt falling asleep in his arms with the ocean outside the windows. To how comfortable I was there.
“I’ve never felt this way, Abby. I mean, it’s exciting, but what if things go wrong? I’m out of my depth… I think I’m in trouble,” I admit.
Abby smiles knowingly and lifts her martini glass. “Oh, honey. You are absolutely screwed.”