Chapter Twenty-Nine
ELLY
MY HEART splits in two as I watch him walk out the door.
Seeing the hurt, betrayal, and anger swirling in the green and brown depths of his eyes feels like a dagger through the heart as the air whooshes out of my lungs. “No.” The word is a whisper, but I hear a huff from Harris behind me.
“Really, Elly?” His voice is nasally, and I turn on him.
When I walked into the room and saw him standing over my files and laptop on the little bar between the kitchenette and the living room, I nearly panicked. Not only is he in my room, going through my things, but Gray is on his way up here. I don’t know how he will react to Harris being in my room.
He turned to me with his smug smile and welcomed me home as he sat back on the bar stool and linked his fingers like he belongs here.
“What are you doing in my room?” I was seething at the invasion of privacy. I glanced behind him and saw my laptop open next to his. “How did you get into my computer?”
He looked me up and down like he could see through my clothes. “Well, while you were taking your little vacation, someone had to do the work.” He scoffed. “All I had to do was call IT and they let me in.”
I quickly closed the distance between us and started putting my files back into their folders and shut the top of my laptop, maybe with a little more force than necessary. “Get out.”
His chuckle is like coarse sandpaper on my nerves. “You couldn’t resist, could you? You had to look them up and learn about the family.” He leans back as I stacked the folders on my laptop and pick it up. “I knew you would fail, I just didn’t think it would be before you even got here.”
My anger hit its tipping point, and I took a step back before I slapped him, making my hand sting. His head turned to the side a little before his evil black eyes turned back toward me, and then he grabbed my jaw as he pushed me up against the wall.
I dropped the files and laptop I was holding in my hand and knocked the lamp onto the floor when I stumbled back.
“If you only knew how hard you just made me.” He leaned against me and I could feel his hard length through his slacks. When I tried to push him off me, he only smiled.
The knock on the door froze him in place and he slapped his hand over my mouth, his fingers biting into my skin and grinding on my lip. “Elly.” I heard Gray’s voice through the door and relief flooded me.
But how could he just walk out without listening? Harris made everything sound tawdry and gross, but he didn’t even give me a chance to explain.
In that second I imagine Harris being slowly dipped into a vat of acid at the same time the breakfast I ate at the ranch sours on my stomach. I turn on him. “How fucking dare you.” The question is low and my teeth are clenched as I stare at him.
His smooth manicured hand is holding his handkerchief over his nose like the pussy he is and his glare is heavy like the darkest of night. How did I ever think anything about him was attractive?
Narrowing his eyes, he stares at me. “You’re fucking him.”
For a split second, I want to fold in on myself, like I’ve done something wrong. But I refuse to be shamed, opening myself to Gray is not something to be ashamed of, I’ve felt more acceptance and affection from him in the past few days than I’ve felt in my life.
Lifting my chin, I square my shoulders. “What I do or don’t do is none of your fucking business. Now, get out of my hotel room.”
He rolls his eyes and pulls his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling Mr. Royce, he needs to know you’ve made it impossible to negotiate with them.”
Taking a step toward him, I point at him. “You make that call and I will end you.” I pause and watch his eyes slowly lift from his phone to me. “I’ll talk to my father myself.”
As he stretches his neck from side to side, his smile turns wicked. “You want to play games, princess?”
Narrowing my eyes, I say, “I’m not playing with you, Harris, been there, done that.” I’ve got nothing to lose.
His smile fades and the anger he’s been suppressing is written all over his face. “You’ve fucked up this whole deal, haven’t you? They’re never going to sign.”
I swallow the laugh that’s trying to bubble up. Instead, I scoff at him. “They were never going to sign anything, Harris! Those people care more about their home than any amount of money you can offer them. They. Don’t. Care.” My words are sharp as I punctuate each word I practically spit at him.
His upper lip curls up and shows his teeth like a dog getting ready to attack. “I don’t think you understand what is riding on this deal, it has to go through.”
This deal has been in the works for a long time and I know my dad and Harris have discussed it at length. I initially thought Harris pulled me in to discredit me, that I was just a pawn in his little game, but now I think there is more going on here that was not in the file.
“Why did you pull me into this, Harris? It wasn’t just for a fucking corner office, you’re trying to use me to shield yourself. What have you done?” My voice gets louder with each question. I realize that not only has Harris fucked up somehow, he’s also fucked me as well.
He has the nerve to look smug as he relaxes his shoulders and slides the hand that’s not holding his bloody handkerchief against his face in his pocket. If only I would have let Gray hit him again. “I haven’t done anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done.”
It takes everything in me not to stomp my foot and demand he come clean; I have to change tactics. “Fine, I’ll call dad and ask him what the hell is going on.” I move to step around him to find my phone, but he blocks my way.
“You can’t, your dad doesn’t know.” He says while looking over my head at the wall behind me, his face a mask of hate and weakness.
Clenching my teeth, I ask, “Know what, Harris?”
Taking a step away from me, he busies himself with pulling the handkerchief away from his face to see if he’s still bleeding. “There may have been a couple of things I missed while looking into the land ownership.”
My mind is sifting through the information I know, all of which comes from the file I received and my internet searches. The land has been in the family for generations, it was a cattle farm for a long time until the generation before Mr. Harlow switched it over to a horse ranch.
There were many title changes from one generation to the next, various requests for permits for horse boarding. Everything seemed transparent to me. My eyes meet his again and I shake my head, at a loss for what he could be talking about.
Rolling his eyes like I’m the stupid one, he sucks in a big breath and turns away from me.
Slipping his hands in his pockets, he looks out the glass door to the balcony for a moment before he turns to face me.
“The initial ownership of the land dates back to shortly after the end of the Civil War. The details are a little muddied by timelines, but somehow, someway, there is a stipulation that the land can’t be sold to anyone outside of the Cherokee Tribe without the tribe’s approval. ”
I shake my head in confusion. “Tribal land is sold to individuals outside of the tribes all the time, its just a matter of getting approval. Sure, it takes time, but so what?”
He eyes me for a moment before he says, “The very thing that attracted our investors in the first place is locked down tight, no one outside of the tribe will ever see a dime of revenue from the natural springs. And even if we get permits and permissions to build and don’t use the springs, we can’t even use them as an advertising draw to get people in the door.
” He takes a deep breath and his shoulders slump.
“It would just be another spa because the statutory authority over any mineral rights on tribal land falls to the tribe and they won’t give that up. ”
While I’m letting the information sink in, a laugh bubbles from my chest. Harris’ lips form a thin, tight line as he watches me. I put my fingers over my mouth to cover the smile and suppress my laughter. “You are so fucked.”
He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes narrow more with each second. He is fucked, and it feels good.
“You were going to find some way to put all of this on me, that’s why you pulled me in. You were going to sink me to save your own ass. It’s not every day I get to watch karma play out, and man, it’s fucking fabulous.”
Turning away from him, I walk to the little bar next to the small kitchen. I pull out a mini bottle of top shelf vodka and down it, the alcohol burning my throat.
“You were supposed to soften them up, get them to be more agreeable.” He spits behind me.
“Get out.” I lean against the little mini-bar with my back to him and let my head hang. I shouldn’t be surprised by the lengths men like my father and Harris will go to get what they want, but somehow they keep managing to lift that bar.
To use me.
And I fucking let them every time.
“Elly, if you don’t help me, I will bring you down with me.” The statement is thrown at me like a spear.
Keeping my head down, I point to the door. “Get. Out!”
He’s quiet behind me for several moments before I hear his feet moving across the carpet. As the door shuts, the quiet of the room swallows me and I see Gray’s face, the hurt in his eyes. I slowly sit down on the couch and cup my hand over my mouth.
He thinks I betrayed him. He’ll never forgive me.
Tears are burning the backs of my eyes, and my heart is lodged in my throat. We were just talking about trying to make long distance work. He said he didn’t want to let me go.
He turned his back on me without even listening. Like I meant nothing.
I fucking knew better.
Replaying those words while seeing the look in his eyes in my head dissolves my resistance and the tears fall. Reminding myself I’ve only known him for a week should tell my head there is no reason to feel this way, but the gaping hole in my chest doesn’t care.
It hurts.
Trying to soften some of the jagged edges of the pain that’s slicing through my chest, I wonder if I deserve this. I went to his home thinking I could persuade them they would want to give up everything they know. I was arrogant and selfish.
It looks like I’m getting my own dose of karma.
I let my head fall into my hands. His smokey scent dances around my face and I dip my nose into my shirt. I can still smell him on me and it makes the tears come faster.
The files! I lift my head and look around the floor where I dropped my laptop.
He came to my room to get copies of the files.
My eyes scan the area where I dropped my stuff, but I don’t see them.
Fucking Harris.