32. Harper
HARPER
The blaring sound of the alarm in my head is so loud it feels real.
That’s what it sounds like inside my skull, immediate and deafening, some ancient alarm system I didn’t know I still had wired into me going off all at once.
My pulse jumps so hard I feel it in my throat.
My palms go damp where they’re resting against Maddox’s chest. The room narrows, the edges of it blurring slightly, every other sound, the quartet, the chatter, Raph’s mix, all of it dropping into the background like someone turned the volume down on everything except that one voice.
I know that voice. I’ve known that voice my entire life, known the particular cadence of it, the way it always sounds slightly too pleased with itself, and I turn toward it already knowing what I’m going to see and somehow still not prepared for it.
My father. My mother beside him.
He’s in a navy suit that’s trying very hard to look like Killian’s and missing by exactly the margin you’d expect, the fabric a shade too shiny under the lights, the fit a half size off in the shoulders, a watch on his wrist that’s loud in a way that real money never bothers being.
My mother’s in a cocktail dress the color of a bruise, too much jewelry stacked on both wrists, her hair freshly done in a style that belongs at a luncheon two seasons ago.
Both of them dressed exactly right and somehow still wrong, expensive enough to pass at a glance, not expensive enough to actually belong, smiling at me like they have every reason to be standing in this room.
This isn’t a nightmare. I’m not going to wake up.
My hands have started to shake. I press them flat against my own thighs and will them still, and they don’t fully cooperate, the tremor running fine and constant under my skin the way it does after too much caffeine or not enough sleep, except it’s neither of those things, it’s just fear wearing the same costume adrenaline always wears.
“I heard you had a little something to do with this get-together, sweet pea,” my father says, looking around the boutique like he’s appraising it for resale value.
My mother tilts her head, soft and concerned in the specific way she’s always been soft and concerned right before she says something designed to cut.
“I’m sure you would’ve done much better if you’d had more time.
You obviously had to whip this together as best you could, considering your… extracurricular activities.”
Maddox goes rigid beside me.
“Excuse me?” he says, and there’s nothing casual left in his voice at all.
“And you’d be?” my father asks, looking him over with the same appraising glance he gave the room.
“Maddox St. James,” Maddox says, not offering a hand. “Who invited you?”
“We’re her parents,” my mother says, like that answers anything.
“That wasn’t the question.”
Asher’s there within seconds, drawn over by whatever’s showing on my face, and he steps in close on my other side without a word, his hand finding the small of my back.
“Harper.” His voice is quiet, just for me. “You okay?”
I don’t trust my voice enough to answer that yet.
My legs feel disconnected from the rest of me, like I’m watching myself stand here from somewhere a few feet to the left, the floor not quite solid under my heels.
Fight or flight, except there’s nowhere to run that wouldn’t make this so much worse, so my body’s settling for the third option, which is apparently shaking quietly and hoping nobody notices.
“Well,” my mother says, looking between the two men flanking me with an expression I recognize, the one she used to wear when she was deciding exactly how much damage a sentence could do before she said it. “Isn’t this cozy.”
“Evelyn,” someone says behind us, delighted, and I don’t have to turn around to know who’s arrived.
Evelyn and Monica drift over together, perfectly timed, both of them in the kind of understated black that costs more than my entire dress, Evelyn’s smile the particular kind that means she’s already decided how this conversation ends and is enjoying the walk there.
“Rebecca, Jason, so glad you could make it. I do hope the flight wasn’t too long. ”
My mother brightens. “Evelyn. It was lovely, thank you again for thinking of us.”
Of course she invited them. Of course.
Evelyn’s eyes flick to me, then to Maddox and Asher standing on either side of me like a wall, and the smile widens. She looks like a woman who just watched her opponent walk directly into a trap she built months ago.
“HARPER.”
Sophia’s voice cuts through everything, coming in hot from across the room before I even see her moving, and for half a second her face is still lit up with whatever she was about to tell me, something about sales numbers, something good, her mouth already curving into the kind of smile she gets when a stranger compliments ROSé.
Then she sees who’s standing in front of me.
The transformation happens in real time, joy collapsing into something sharper and faster, and by the time she reaches us there’s nothing soft left on her face at all.
She plants herself directly between my mother and me like she’s been doing it her whole life, gold dress swinging, diamond studs catching the light, and she’s somehow taller than she was thirty seconds ago.
“Mrs. Miller. Mr. Miller.” Her voice could cut glass. “How lovely. Did Evelyn happen to mention you weren’t invited by anyone who actually matters?”
“Sophia,” my mother starts, attempting warmth.
“Don’t.” One word, flat, final. “I’ve heard exactly what I needed to hear about both of you from the one person whose opinion I actually trust, and none of it makes me interested in small talk.”
“What’s going on?”
Killian’s voice cuts through the cluster before I even see him, and the crowd around us, which has started gathering with the specific instinct people have for sensing a scene, parts slightly as he comes through it.
He takes one look at my parents. One look at Evelyn. One look at me.
“You two,” he says, to my parents, with no warmth in it at all, “aren’t welcome here.”
“Killian—” Evelyn starts.
“I don’t care how they got on the list. I’m telling you now, in front of witnesses, that they’re not welcome on this property.”
My father’s smile doesn’t move but something behind it does.
“It’s quite endearing,” he says, “to see how much you care about your… employees, Mr. Thorne. But we assure you, we’re only here to support our daughter.
What better way than to attend the event her temporary position afforded her?
Such a wonderful opportunity.” He pauses, eyes sharpening. “Speaking of opportunities—”
“Actually,” I say.
Every head turns toward me, including the small crowd that’s gathered close enough to hear all of this without bothering to pretend they’re not listening.
My pulse is still going too fast. My hands are still unsteady at my sides.
But somewhere over my father’s shoulder I catch the wall behind the registers, the gold cursive catching the light the same way it has all night.
Celebrate your body as the rarity it is.
My voice comes out steadier than I feel, which is the only thing I have going for me right now, so I lean into it with everything I’ve got.
“I think it’s probably best we don’t discuss supposed opportunities at an event built specifically to celebrate the hard work of this estate’s families and the guests who came to support them.
” I look at my father directly. “You flew here on an invitation that wasn’t yours to accept, to a launch you have no connection to, for a business you’ve never once asked me a single question about.
So no. We’re not discussing opportunities tonight. ”
My mother’s mouth thins. “Harper—”
“And to be clear,” I continue, because I’ve started and I’m not stopping now, “my position here isn’t temporary, and it isn’t charity, and it isn’t something I whipped together.
I built ROSé’s launch from a floor plan and an empty room.
I built the relationships with every vendor in that room behind us.
I built the schedule that’s kept four hundred guests fed and entertained for six hours without a single complaint.
That’s not a little something. That’s my job, and I’m extremely good at it. ”
Nobody says anything for a moment.
“You’re embarrassing yourself,” my father tries.
“I’m not.” I look at him, then at my mother, and feel something settle in my chest that’s been unsteady since the moment I heard his voice.
The shaking in my hands is finally starting to slow.
“You flew across an ocean to crash an event you weren’t invited to by anyone who actually knows me, in the hope of catching me off guard in front of people whose opinion I actually care about.
That didn’t work. I’m not seventeen anymore.
I’m not going to apologize for a job I’m good at or a life I built without either of you, and I’m not going to stand here and let you imply I haven’t earned every part of it. ”
My mother looks at Evelyn, like she’s hoping for backup.
Evelyn says nothing. Her smile’s gone tight at the edges.
Then Killian does something that makes my entire chest go cold.
“Your father raises a fair point, actually,” he says, and his tone has shifted, gone smooth and faintly amused, the version of his voice I’ve only ever heard him use on investors.
“Opportunities. We don’t discuss business at parties here, Mr. Miller.
In France, that’s considered a bit gauche.
Unlike across the pond, where I understand you do things rather differently. ”
My father’s expression flickers, recalibrating.
“But I’m not opposed to the conversation itself,” Killian continues. “Let’s schedule something properly. While you’re both in town.” He glances at Evelyn. “Why don’t you pick a day that works against our calendar and get the Millers on the books. Next week, perhaps.”
I stare at him.
I genuinely cannot process the sentence that just came out of his mouth.
Thirty seconds ago he told security to remove these two people from the property, and I just spent my own breath telling them exactly why they don’t belong in my life, and now he’s standing here scheduling a meeting with them like none of that happened, like I didn’t just say any of it out loud.
Evelyn’s smile turns into something far more satisfied. “Of course, Killian. I’ll take care of it.”
My mother looks like she’s just been handed a gift she wasn’t expecting to receive twice in one night.
Sophia’s gone rigid beside me, jaw tight, a look on her face that says she’s about three words away from saying something nobody in this room is prepared for.
Maddox isn’t saying anything at all. He’s just staring at Killian with an expression I’ve never seen on him before, flat and hard, the easy charm completely gone.
“Asher,” Monica says, sliding into the space the silence has left open, her voice pitched for the room rather than for him specifically. “It’s been ages. Dance with me?”
Asher blinks, visibly thrown, his attention still half on me, on the conversation that just happened, on whatever’s written across my face right now. “I— sure. One dance.” He looks at me. “I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t look like a man who wants to be dancing with anyone right now. He looks like a man who got asked a question in the middle of something else and answered it on reflex before his brain caught up.
Killian’s already turning, offering Evelyn his arm like it’s the most natural gesture in the world, my mother and father falling in step beside them, and the four of them move off through the parting crowd together, Evelyn’s hand settled into the crook of his elbow, her hips moving with the particular satisfaction of a woman who got exactly what she came for.
She glances back once over her shoulder.
The smirk she gives me could curdle milk.
I watch them go. I can’t make myself stop watching them go.
Monica’s already got both arms looped loosely around Asher’s neck on the dance floor, closer than the song requires, closer than I’m comfortable with from fifteen feet away, her body angled into his in a way that has nothing to do with the quartet’s tempo.
She catches my eye over his shoulder and gives me a wink, slow and deliberately nasty, before leaning up to say something directly against his ear that makes him tilt his head slightly to hear her.
Maddox’s arm comes around me before I even realize I’ve gone still.
He pulls me into his side, solid and warm, and I let him, because I genuinely don’t know what to do with my own hands right now.
Sophia’s watching the exact same scene I am, Killian’s retreating back, Evelyn’s arm linked through his, Monica’s mouth at Asher’s ear, and when she finally speaks her voice comes out flat with disbelief.
“What the fuck just happened?”
I don’t have an answer for her.