6. Elliot #2
Harper didn’t look around. Most people looked around in a place like this.
Even people who belonged in places like this.
They checked who was there, who was watching, who mattered.
Harper just moved, like it didn’t matter who was in the room or if anyone noticed her.
I felt something strange low in my chest. It wasn’t attraction; I knew attraction. Attraction was easy.
This was different. This was… satisfaction? As if some arrogant part of me liked the way she looked beside me.
The ballroom was already full when we entered. The Northwell table was exactly where it should be, close enough to matter, not so close that it looked eager. Julian would appreciate that kind of placement. He liked power best when it didn’t need to announce itself.
I spotted him near the mezzanine first. He was standing still, watching the doors. Waiting.
Well, well.
“Is that Julian?” Harper asked softly.
I followed her gaze. “Yes.”
“He looks like he’s about to negotiate with that pillar.”
I barked out a laugh. “That’s just his face.”
Her mouth twitched. “And Lucy Bennett?”
“Not here yet.”
“Hm.”
I looked down at her. “Hm?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“No, that was not nothing. That was a professional hm.”
“It means I’m observing,” she breathed.
“You’re irritatingly good at that.”
“I know.” She laughed.
Before I could respond, Lucy Bennett arrived. I watched Julian watch her, because frankly, it was more interesting than half of what was going on in the room. The man looked as if someone had thrown a brick through his emotional support window. Then he moved toward her and actually stumbled.
Beside me, Harper’s attention sharpened. “Interesting,” she murmured.
I leaned down so my lips brushed the hair tucked behind her ear. “That was another hmm without the hm.”
“That is a man who is not nearly as unaffected as he wants people to believe.”
“Welcome to Julian North.”
“No,” she said quietly. “That’s not Julian North. That’s the crack in his foundation.”
I looked at her then, really looked. Her eyes were on them, but not cruelly. Not with gossip or amusement. She was reading the room as if it were a language she had been born fluent in.
That should not have made my cock twitch. And yet.
“Remind me not to let you assess me too closely,” I said.
She glanced up at me. “Too late.”
Before I could respond, Theo appeared from somewhere with the timing that made me believe impending chaos had summoned him.
“There he is,” Theo said, grinning at me. “And you brought a stunning blonde. Are we going for the whole Barbie and Ken thing?”
Harper’s brows rose.
I gave him a look. “Harper Lane. Theo North.”
Theo caught her hand and bowed over it like an idiot prince in a fairy tale no one asked for. “A pleasure. You look like you were made to break men like my poor friend Elliot.”
Harper laughed, actually laughed, and I immediately decided I hated him.
“Theo,” I said.
“What?” he asked, eyes bright. “I’m being welcoming.”
“You’re being Theo.”
“Exactly.”
Harper pulled her hand back with a polite smile. “I’ll decide later if I should consider that a warning or if it’s your brand.”
Theo clutched his chest. “Oh, I like her.”
“Don’t,” I said.
His grin widened. Julian and Lucy reached us then, and introductions passed around with all the expected grace and undercurrents. Lucy flushed when I told her she cleaned up well, and I felt Harper shift beside me. It was small, barely anything, but there.
I looked down at her, and she was smiling. But it was the tight, polite smile I didn’t like.
I held out my arm, and she stepped into it.
“There you are,” I murmured.
Her eyes cut to mine. “Where else would I be?”
“Hopefully somewhere near me.”
“That sounds dangerously close to unprofessional,” she said, her eyes still locked on mine.
“Everything about tonight is unprofessional,” I said in a low, teasing voice.
Harper straightened and replied, “Not for me.”
“No?” I let my thumb brush once over the inside of her wrist where her hand rested against my arm. “Shame.”
Harper looked away first, and I smiled.
The night moved the way these things always did at first. Drinks, greetings, donors with too much money and too little personality. Board members pretending not to assess the women at our sides. Wives who saw everything and said almost nothing.
Harper was perfect. She listened with just enough interest to make people expand, asked the right questions, and smiled like she understood the difference between attention and validation. She made donors feel important without appearing impressed by them.
I wanted to kiss her in the middle of a conversation about youth literacy, but that was probably not aligned with her PR goals.
At some point, she leaned closer and murmured, “You interrupt when you’re bored.”
I kept my smile aimed at the man in front of us. “Do I?”
“Yes.”
“What else do I do?”
I was excited and terrified to hear her answer.
“You touch your cufflinks when someone mentions money or board approval, look at Rowan when you want confirmation but don’t want to ask for it, and smile wider when you’re annoyed.”
I looked at her. She sipped her champagne, eyes still forward.
“Anything else?” I asked, not exactly sure my ego could handle more.
“Yes.”
I waited, and she glanced up at me. “You stop performing when you’re watching your friends.”
That landed somewhere I didn’t want it to. I looked away first.
Fuck.
Across the room, Julian had his hand on Lucy’s back, guiding her through questions with that controlled, careful intensity of his. It looked protective if you didn’t know him. Possessive if you did.
Dinner began after that, and the night settled into speeches, courses, and applause. I barely listened. I knew when to clap and when to smile. It was easy… It was always easy.
When Richard North arrived at the table, the energy changed. Some men entered rooms and filled them. Richard entered rooms and drained them.
Elaine greeted Harper warmly enough that most people would think it was sincere. Harper returned it with equal polish.
Richard took Lucy’s chair like an entitled asshole because he was one, and I felt Harper go still beside me. He started in on Julian about legacy, optics, and women. Something about trying one or two before buying one, that made me want to push my champagne flute down his throat.
Harper’s fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.
I leaned toward her. “Welcome to Family Night.”
She didn’t smile. “He’s vile.”
“Yes.”
“Does Julian always let him speak that way?” she asked in a tone I wasn’t sure how to interpret.
“No,” I said, watching Julian. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
Her gaze moved to me then, sharp and cool. “That isn’t funny.”
No, it wasn’t. But if I stopped making things funny, I might have to deal with them, and nobody wanted that.
When Julian stood and took the woman Richard had dragged over to the dance floor, Harper watched him go with an expression that told me she was already calculating the damage.
“Bad?” I asked.
Her eyes flicked to Lucy across the room with Theo. “For Lucy? Yes.”
“For Julian?” I asked because this woman fascinated me, and that was rare.
“For Julian, too. He just won’t know it until later.”
That sounded annoyingly specific.
“You say that as if you’ve seen this before.”
Her smile this time was small. Sad, almost. “I grew up around people who thought optics mattered more than people.”
Something in her voice made me want to ask more. Not to flirt or tease. I… I wanted to know what could make someone like her feel small. But then the music shifted, and couples moved. I stood before I thought too much more about what Harper had said.
She looked up at me. “What are you doing?”
“Asking you to dance,” I replied.
“You didn’t ask.” She laughed.
“I’m about to,” I said with a wink.
“That is not how asking works.”
She had fire in her ice-blue eyes, and I wanted to see more of it.
I held out my hand. “Harper Lane, will you dance with me so I can further damage the professional boundaries you’re so committed to pretending exist?”
She stared at me and then laughed.
God, I liked that sound.
“That was terrible,” she said, the corners of her mouth still tipped up.
“But effective.”
She placed her hand in mine. “One dance.”
“Liar,” I said as I pulled her up to me.
“Elliot.”
Fuck me… my name on her lips.
I focused on leading her to the dance floor before she could change her mind, or I might have gotten the wrong idea and tried to drag her into some dark corner.
The second my hand settled at her waist, the noise in the room dulled.
She fit against me in a way that felt suspiciously like memory.
Like New York, silk sheets and skyline lights, and her hair tangled through my fingers.
Except tonight, she wasn’t some nameless woman I could pretend didn’t matter after morning.
She was Harper Lane. PR manager and a professional pain in my ass.
The woman who lived in a Gold Coast townhouse and had a Thomas.
The woman who watched too closely and saw too much.
The woman I could not stop thinking about.
“You’re quiet,” she said.
“Am I?” I asked, and pulled her a little closer.
“Suspiciously,” she whispered.
“I’m trying not to say something inappropriate.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
“True.”
Her mouth curved, and she turned her face away from me. We moved easily, as if her body knew mine, or maybe mine remembered hers. Either way, it was inconvenient.
I lowered my voice. “You’re very good at this.”
“Dancing?” She laughed.
“Everything.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and something flickered there. Surprise, perhaps, or caution.
“That almost sounded genuine,” she said.
“It was.” The words came out before I could polish them into something safer. Her expression softened for half a second, and I felt it like a hand around my throat. Then she looked away.
Good. No, not good. Fuck, I didn’t know anymore.
We turned, and I caught sight of us reflected in the dark glass beyond the ballroom. Me in black, her in cream, my hand at her waist, her hand in mine.
We looked…