“You mean to tell me if I’d have said yes to your party you would still be coming around here?” he asked.
A thought the size of a soap bubble popped into my mind. Tiny, but suddenly it was the biggest thing in the world.
Looking up at him, I swallowed, wanting nothing more but to know. “What if I did?”
“Then I’d say yes,” he said simply. “In a heartbeat.”
I shivered but shook my head. “That’s not why you should do it, Harper. You should be doing it because it’s a good idea,” I said. My eyes dropped. “But you don’t seem to think so.”
He frowned. “You’re mad.”
“I’m really not. I’ve just got a lot to do. Too much to be hanging around here when nobody’s going to take me seriously.”
“You are,” he grumbled, leaning closer so he could catch my fallen eyes.
I gave them to him. Glaring. Pouting. I don’t know what, but I was staring enough that hopefullyhecould decipher my emotions. “I’m not mad. Anger and frustration are two different feelings.”
“What’s got you so frustrated?”
“You,” I grumbled. When he waggled his eyebrows, my mouth wobbled, the tiniest smile slipped free before I chuckled helplessly. “I don’t know. Everything? My brother out there, he’s also my boss, and before you interrupted, I was trying to get him to agree to let me move to the marketing department at the company.”
“He’s got that much pull?” he asked.
I blinked, remembering that Harper wasn’t from here, so he didn’t immediately know everything about my family’s influence in this town. I nodded, “Yup. He makes the decisions, and he’s great but he’s busy and Ifinallygot him to make time to hear me out and?—”
I broke off, my voice shriveling as the backs of my eyes stung. I’d really screwed this up. I was never going to get out from under my family’s false illusion now.Never. Not without Ox’s blessing.
You let him order you around.Ox really thought I was that weak.
Harper’s voice was sullen as he realized his mistake. “But I screwed it up.”
I sighed, my entire body depressing into the sound. “No… I mean yes, you ticked him off for sure. But he was already backing out. My sister needed his help.”
“But I thought you were getting his help.”
“Melissa comes first,” I said, my voice betraying me as it wobbled, frustration leaking from every word.
“Why?” he asked.
I glared. Not at him, but near his shoulder, feeling peeved. “Because she’s important and I’m me.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Boss,” he grumbled and I must admit, I did sort of enjoy the sound of Harper being grumbly on my behalf. It was like having an ally in an unlikely source.
I just shrugged. “Then you don’t like the sound of the truth.”
“Why don’t you just say something?” he asked. “Stand up for yourself. Tell them how you feel.”
I looked at him, and suddenly my throat felt the size of a straw, the swallow I attempted rough and stinging. “Because Ican’t.”
He looked at me, his thumb grazing up and down my jaw lightly. His gaze caressing me with the same considering appraisal he always held. Something about his expression told me that he knew. Even though I hadn’t said the words, he understood why I couldn’t stand up for myself. I was stuck, and just because he’d somehow broken the seal to my prophetical niceness didn’t mean everyone else had.
No one elsehad truthfully.
After a moment Harper’s gaze caught a strange quality to it. One of guileful intrigue I’d never seen before. Like he was both studying my reactions and ready to probe them forward.
“You know,” he started slowly, his eyes meandering up and down my face like he was memorizing something about it. My pulse jumped and his finger landed there next. That rising heat from when he’d pulled me back here started its way up my back again, swirling around until it met my belly. The soft murmur of his voiceplummeted that feeling to my thighs.What in the world?“You’ve been so stressed out lately. It’s like anything will set you off.”
“So?” I asked, my palms pressing against the surface of his office door as I stepped back.
