Page 8 of The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

CHAPTER SIX

Harper

I knew coming here was trouble but I didn’t expect to stare into this man’s blue eyes from across the desk and melt all over again. I was certain I’d built the attraction up into more than it was over time, certain I’d turned it into more than it was, but I was wrong. He affects me and not just physically. I mean, yes, he’s one hell of a good-looking man and he wears that expensive suit he’s got on like he owns it and the world, but it’s more with him. There is something raw and dark about him that reaches beyond his sharp cheekbones and jawline. Something in his eyes, something I feel in every part of me, that I hunger to understand. Which of course, I won’t, considering why I’m here and who I am.

“What aren’t you telling me, Harper?” he demands again.

Too much, I think. So much. I focus on the only part of any of this that might matter to him. “People died, Eric. I’m here to make sure no one else does.”

“And whose idea was it for you to come here?”

“I wanted to come after the first recall,” I say. “I did. I should have.”

His eyes narrow. “Who sent you?”

And there it is. The question I hate with the answer that he’ll hate. “Gigi, but—”

“Holy fuck,” he growls, pushing off the desk at the mention of his grandmother’s name. “You should have left that part out. No to anything and everything she wants, now or ever.”

I lean on the desk. “Eric.”

“Don’t look at me with those big blue eyes and say my name and expect anything but another orgasm. And if you came here thinking the fact that I already gave you one influences me, you were wrong. I can want, and do, when it comes to fucking you, and it changes nothing.”

My body defies the level head I’m trying to have right now. It remembers that orgasm. It remembers his hands. It wants more, but he’s trying to rattle me and I understand why. I know his past. I know why Gigi is the plague to him. I push off the desk. “I don’t think an orgasm, or two since you had one as well in case you’ve forgotten, influences you. I’m just asking that you hear me out.”

“For the record,” he says. “I remember both orgasms with crystal clarity. I also remember everything about Gigi.”

“I know, and I could have lied and told you I made this decision on my own, but I feel like I’m swimming in lies back at Kingston. I don’t want them with you, too. I know Gigi was horrible to your mother. She told me that. She has regrets over trying to deny her, and you, your rightful place in the company.”

“My place in the company? My mother was sick and we were living in a shithole of a trailer park we could barely afford. I’m pretty sure she didn’t give a shit about my place in the company. I damn sure don’t.” He inhales, seeming to rein himself in before he folds his arms in front of his broad, perfect chest, his tattoo sleeve partially exposed. The tattoos that I know tell a story that I am certain has a lot to do with Gigi and his mother. “That woman doesn’t have regrets,” he adds. “Saying she does is a lie.”

“She was horrible to me, too, but I was with her when she had a small heart attack a year ago. It changed her.”

“Nothing changes who we are at the core and if you really believe that, then you’re as naive as you were six years ago.”

“Naive?” I repeat, my voice low and calm when I really want to punch him right now. “I guess if I was naive, we can blame my decision to get half naked with my stepbrother on me being young and stupid.” It’s out before I can stop the words that place our intimate past right here in this room.

His eyes darken and heat. “Why would we do that? It wasn’t a mistake.”

“It was a mistake,” I assure him, “for about ten different reasons I’m not going to list.”

“The mistake was me thinking you weren’t one of them,” he says dryly.

I feel those words like a punch, with guilt I shove away before he reads it and me. “I’m not one of them,” I say and I don’t have to cut my gaze as I’m certain he expects. I’ve never meant those words like I do now. “I told you why I’m with them. This is a piece of my father.”

“Six years is a long time to work with someone you’re not devoted to,” he muses. “And you’re trusted enough to be their spokesperson to me.”

“They don’t know I’m here,” I say, trying not to think of the hell that will follow if they find out or the many things about this past six years that he can never know.

“Gigi is them,” he says. “If she knows, they know.”

“She’s been shut out.”

“She’s the primary stockholder.”

“Who isn’t exactly in great health. Your father threatened to go to the board to get her removed as CEO.”

He rounds the desk and we turn to face each other and damn it, he smells just as earthy and perfect as I remember. And he’s so big and overwhelmingly male. He’s also had his tongue in all kinds of places and I need to not go there. He arches a brow. “What are you thinking, Harper?”

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