Page 15 of A First for the Playboy Dragon

“Sweetheart, that was a big burden for you to be forced to carry. You did your best, that’s all you can do sometimes,” he said, pulling her close again. “I know that it’s not easy to let someone you love down, but maybe it’s time to forgive yourself. You were just a kid back then.”

“I wish I could, I’m so tired of carrying around all this guilt,” she said. “But I still care about him. He’s my brother, Harrison, I can’t just turn my back on him, I still remember the little boy that he was.”

Harrison rubbed her back. “Thank you for telling me all this, it couldn’t have been easy,” he said, mimicking her earlier words and making her smile. “If there’s ever anything I can do to help, all you have to do is ask.”

She knew that was the moment to tell him the rest; she even opened her mouth but closed it, remembering the fear in Joe’s voice when she’d talked to him the last time. “I’ll remember that,” she said, looking up at him. “I hate talking about all this. People usually have two reactions: either they feel sorry for me and try to make up for it all, or they avoid me.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t feel sorry for you,” Harrison said. “What I feel is a whole lot of respect. You’ve had a lot of obstacles in your life, Juliet, but you fought through them. You’re a lot stronger than I ever imagined.”

“I didn’t really have any choice,” she said. “I had to fight or end up like Joe.”

“Those kids in your class are lucky to have you in their lives,” he said, then smiled down at her. “And so am I.”

CHAPTER 10

***HARRISON***

Harrison was whistling as he walked down the hallway to Max’s office, but he stopped when he walked through the door and saw the look on his friend’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly on the alert. “Do we have a problem?”

“You were whistling.” Max said, his voice full of disappointment. “I’ve never heard you whistle before.”

“I was whistling, so what?” he asked. “Can’t a man whistle around here?”

“A man can whistle all he wants as long as it’s not because he’s falling in love,” Max said, giving him a dirty look. “I warned you, Harrison, now look at you.”

“I’m not falling in love, I don’t fall in love,” he said. “In fact, I already told Juliet about George and Annie. She knows how I feel about it, she understands.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Max asked. “As far as I know, you’ve never told another woman about them.”

“It just came up in conversation, okay,” he said. “We were getting to know each other, that’s all. She’s easy to talk to, she gets my pain, she’s had a lot of her own, you know.”

“No, I don’t know, but it sounds like you do,” Max said, shaking his head. “Are you really that blind? You’re falling for Juliet and falling hard.”

“I am not, I’m just enjoying having a different kind of relationship with a woman,” he defended himself. “It doesn’t always have to just be physical, I’m capable of connecting on a deeper level, you know.”

“I’m not saying that you aren’t,” Max said with a sigh. “I’m just saying that you’re getting in deep, and there might not be a way back out if you’re not careful.”

“That’s not going to happen, we’re mostly just friends,” he said, ignoring the little voice that said Max might be right. “Friends talk, they share secrets, don’t make a bigger deal of this than it is, and don’t even think about bringing up the island. The simple truth is that I’ve found someone I can connect with; it just happens to be a woman.”

“I see,” Max said. “Have you kissed her?”

He didn’t answer right away. “Of course you have,” Max said, shaking his head. “Kissing kind of blurs the lines of friendship unless I’ve got the definition wrong. You can’t have it both ways, you’re either friends or you’re more than friends.”

“I’m not trying to have it both ways, I’m just trying…well, I don’t know what I’m trying to do,” he finally said. “But I can guarantee you two things: I’m not falling in love, and the island isn’t trying to get the two of us together. When our time on the island is over, we’ll both go our own way, and the time we spent together will just be a pleasant memory.”

“Whatever you say, but I’ve seen this happen six times now,” Max said. “I know what it looks like, Harrison, and once you fall, I’ll be the only one left.”

“You make it sound like the others died,” he said, shaking his head. “They just fell in love and got married, Max. I just saw Keith and Stella yesterday. I’ve never seen him so happy.”

“Just forget I said anything, you’re flip-flopping on this like a fish out of water,” Max said, shaking his head. “But remember that I warned you, your days as a single man are coming to a close, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Okay then, on that note, I think we should change the subject,” he said. “All your doom and gloom is ruining my good mood.”

“Like talking about how to keep people off my island is going to improve my mood any,” Max said. “But since that is why you’re here, let’s get on with it.”

When he left Max’s office an hour later, he wasn’t whistling; in fact, he was wondering if he was making a mistake, if he really was falling for Juliet. As much as he’d tried to play down his friend’s warnings, he knew deep down that he’d never felt the things he’d been feeling with Juliet. He knew he was playing a dangerous game, but he’d never had a problem controlling his emotions in the past, had always known where to draw the line.

He’d already stumbled over that line and back again several times; that alone should make him wary, but all he could think about was seeing her again. Letting out a groan, he considered backing out of the hike they were supposed to go on in a couple of hours. It would be the smart thing to do. It would be easy enough to use work as an excuse, and there was plenty he could do with the rest of the hours in the day, but the thought left him cold and filled with disappointment.

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