Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
“CALL ME IN the morning,” Roxie said, hugging her again. “As soon as you’re awake.”
Zairn eased his wife from the embrace. “Leave the woman alone or she’ll press charges.”
“She would not in—” Roxie faltered, loosening a little. “We’re still in LA, right?”
“Still in LA,” Zairn confirmed, offering a warm smile. “You’re welcome at the club any time, Harper.”
“Next time we’ll bring rubies,” Roxie said like that meant something and dropped her head against her guy. “We still have a shift at the club tonight, Casanova?”
“Yes, Lola. We do.”
Roxie exhaled a kind of mutter. “Okay, well, sex in the car it is.” Snagging her hand, Roxie gave her another squeeze. “You want us to take you to Bastian?”
“No, he’s with people at the bar. I’ll be fine.” For the ten or fifteen seconds it would take her to walk over there. “You have a good night. And thank you.”
Another squeeze, another smile, and the couple disappeared from the room. She was done for the day. Zonked. Exhausted and ready for bed. Roxie and Zairn were on their way to another party. Unimaginable. They were true champions of their lives.
As they’d gone around the room meeting this person and that, Roxie exuded an interesting mix of professional and personal. Her new friend knew most of the people, not that familiarity mattered, somehow Roxie walked away pals with everyone.
Maybe it was easier being in a room of friends. She didn’t imagine Carolyn would invite enemies to celebrate with her. Though this was LA, truths were often hidden behind facades, which made her work a whole lot harder.
The number of revelers had thinned, though not by so much that there was a clear route to Bastian. Last she’d seen him was by the bar with a group. That wasn’t as intimidating as it might’ve been at the start of the party.
Throughout the night, she’d kept one eye on him, as he did on her.
They’d danced, and not just together, she’d danced with more men that night than she’d probably met in her life.
Bastian had some attractive and curious friends.
As each song ended, Roxie was there to whisk her off to meet someone else, or to provide another dance partner.
The Hunt family were well loved. They deserved to be. People in that room cared about each other, the ones she met anyway. There was safety, a security that surrounded them all. Could be a money thing. Could people really have serious worries when their financial futures were guaranteed?
There she went jumping to conclusions. Again.
Of course, no one else’s attention was as absolute as Bastian’s.
Even when they weren’t together, he was always right there, just on the periphery, ready to step in.
It was a thrill when he did, when his arm held her to him or their fingers interlaced.
Having him near was so flattering that she had to remind herself not to get too used to it, he wouldn’t always be there.
And don’t think the saving was only for her.
It wasn’t. More than once, he’d used her as an excuse to leave a conversation, whether to dance or get another drink.
Sometimes he needed the reprieve and she was happy to give it.
Wasn’t that her whole reason for being there?
Singletons sticking together? Saving each other.
Before his congratulatory speech, he kissed the end of her nose and went to do his sonly duty. Smiling through his address, she loved not only the sound of his voice, but the response of the crowd. Some of the guests would be pandering no doubt, but there was a real affection in the air.
After his speech, Bastian descended the dais to be swallowed by the horde. She hadn’t seen him for a while after that. She and Roxie talked with another half dozen people before he emerged from the fracas of adorers doing their best to waylay him.
The second he spotted her, he came to her, everyone else seemed to become irrelevant. And she knew the feeling. With him at the end of the bar, back almost to her, Bastian didn’t notice her approach.
“It’s ten days, not two weeks,” Carolyn was saying to her son.
“Mom, if you’re trying to manipulate—”
“I’m not trying to manipulate anything. I’m offended by your accusation.”
Wrapping an arm around him, Harper smiled at his quick surprise that accepted her in a heartbeat. “Am I interrupting?”
His strong hand pressed her lower back. “You’re never interrupting, Sweet.”
Pushing up a little, she kissed his jaw. “I’m not sure those you talk to would feel the same.”
“We do,” Carolyn said. “You look wonderful together.” Was that a hint toward their mended breakup? “Have you enjoyed yourself tonight, Harper?”
“Bastian’s proud of his family and his friends. You’re lucky to have each other.”
“Sometimes,” he said, stroking her hair from her face. “Mom is thrilled you’re here.”
She’d just assumed that the family knew they were back together and that they’d be over any excitement about the couple reconnecting.
“I would have thought that after the picture—”
“Pictures don’t always tell the full story.”
Harper couldn’t deny that. Half of what had been written about them on the internet was nonsense.
“No, I suppose they don’t,” she said, flattening her hand on his tie, sliding it down and curling her fingers around the smooth fabric.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Tired?”
“A little.”
Concern erased his dimple. “We can go if you want to—”
“No, the party is still going—”
“I was the headliner,” he said. “Now I’m done, nothing else will measure up.”
“I could do with taking my shoes off though.” She raised one foot, then the other. “They’re new.”
“You should never be uncomfortable in this house,” Carolyn said. “There are dozens, maybe hundreds of shoes in this house.”
“There are hundreds in one section of Keely’s closet,” Bastian said, backing her up to perch her on a stool. “She wouldn’t even know they were gone. Take your shoes off.”
She toed off one and then the other. “I won’t raid your sister’s closet.”
“Then home it is.”
“No.” She tucked her head against his chest. “We should stay.”
“Whatever you want, Sweet.”
The rhythm of his hand moving from her hair, down her body loosened every muscle. On a yawn, her eyes closed. Forget the shoes, this was by far the most comfortable she had ever been, and she already regretted the minute they’d have to part.
Staying like that, curled against him, wouldn’t last, but for just a minute, she wanted to live in the illusion.
“Bastian…”
His name passed her lips in a whisper of its own volition.
“You are tired, Sweet.”
Somehow, he knew that. Was it the sound of her voice? Her breathing? The way her body begged his to keep it upright?
May not be tiredness, not entirely. Being near to him intoxicated her mind, her heart, every cell of her being.
“If we stand here much longer,” she murmured. “I’ll fall asleep.”
As a joke, it was meant to be a joke. Though she’d be the first to admit she hadn’t sold it.
Bastian stroked her hair. “Time for us to say goodnight.”
“And you can rest right here,” Carolyn announced. “You don’t need to go traipsing out into the night. Bastian’s bedroom is upstairs, get comfortable there. No one else shares that hallway, you’ll be alone.”
That piqued her trepidation.
“We’re staying here?” Harper asked before she’d fully processed Carolyn’s wily smile.
Carolyn had a way of conning her and Bastian into intimate situations. In her sleepy haze, had she walked into another of those setups?
“Do you want to stay here?” Bastian asked. “I can just as easily get the car—”
“Nonsense,” Carolyn said as Thomas joined them. “You pair go up to bed. We’ll see you at breakfast.”
“Mother,” Bastian warned.
Harper’s feet slid from the stool’s crossbar. She was too tired to fight the matriarch. Carolyn was a strong woman who didn’t give up easily. And if there was no one else in that hallway, Bastian wouldn’t have to share space with her.
“Someone give me directions,” she mumbled.
“Son,” Thomas said, “be a gentleman.”
Harper yawned, not expecting to be suddenly plucked from the stool into Bastian’s arms.
“Oh my God, you don’t have to…”
He didn’t flinch as he carried her across the room.
Other guests were interested, she couldn’t blame them.
No one could’ve predicted that spectacle.
Including her. Socialites cleared a path but watched as long as they could.
Resting her head against him, sure that she was safe in his control, she relaxed.
If people wanted to watch, they could watch, she wasn’t about to cause a scene. More of a scene. Sometimes the unexpected wasn’t so bad.
After he maneuvered them through a couple of doors and up a set of stairs, Bastian opened a final door. A breath later he bowed, laying her down on a deep duvet that smelled of Bastian and sunshine.
He returned to the open door and a distant murmur of conversation. Had someone followed them upstairs? Had that person brought her shoes?
She sat up in sync with Bastian closing the door.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “You can sleep now. There’s no one around.”
Another yawn. Man, where were they coming from?
“I should get changed,” she said, stroking the delicate blood-red cotton that adorned the four-poster bed. “Where’s your car key?”
“Someone will bring your things up.”
No, she wasn’t used to this lifestyle, though it made sense someone could be sent to fetch her things, otherwise what was the point of Bastian carrying her up the stairs?
She hadn’t seen another bag in the trunk. “What about you?”
“This is my room,” he said, opening the closest drawer to show his clothes in it.
“Oh,” she said, lying down while reaching under her arm to unzip her dress. “We’re supposed to have sex, aren’t we?”
“If you insist.”
A grin spread on her face before she laughed. “I meant that’s what people will think we’re doing.”
He smiled and opened a door on the far wall. A spark of light revealed a bathroom. Bastian went in, leaving the door open a crack.
“My shoes are downstairs,” she called, listening to the water in the bathroom as she wriggled out of her dress and tossed it aside.
Ideally, she wanted to lose her thong too. That wouldn’t be polite, given that, by the looks of things, she and Bastian would be sharing a bed.
The water went off.
“They’ll be fine,” he said. “I can have someone bring them up if you’re worried.”
“No. I just thought I should say in case someone asks.”
“Who would ask?” he asked with that smile in his voice again.
She didn’t know the practices of a house like this, or what was acceptable of its guests.
Presumably when the party was over and everyone was gone, staff would clean up.
They’d find a random pair of shoes… and hopefully not get rid of them.
Maybe they’d end up in Keely’s closet. If she was going to be leaving her shoes lying around the place, she should start writing her name in them.
The last thing she’d want to do was accidentally pilfer a billion-dollar pair belonging to someone else.
“Whoever.”
A knock drew her attention to the hallway door.
“Yeah,” Bastian shouted from the bathroom.
Her silent inhale was almost a gasp; she had just enough time to clamp her hands under her arms to cover her naked breasts before the door opened. At the same time, Bastian stepped out of the bathroom.
The uniformed man in the doorway lost his stoicism to a flash of surprise.
Bastian’s double-take was fast. “Out,” he shouted at the steward.
Drawing her lips into her mouth, the horror on the steward’s face almost warranted a laugh. The employee didn’t have to be told twice, he dropped her bag and literally fell out of the room.
When the door closed again, she looked to Bastian. “Oops.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Her humor faded under the heat of his anger. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t… I’m sorry I wanted to—”
“What?” he demanded, marching to the side of the bed. “Don’t cheapen what’s going on here! He’ll tell every man on the staff exactly what he saw. Those men want you. They’ve thought about you—”
“Bastian,” she said, kneeling up in front of him. “I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes and turned his back, bringing his hand up to his forehead.
“Cover yourself up,” he commanded and marched back into the bathroom.