Harper bristled, but managed to hold her tongue.
She was well aware of how many appointments she’d missed. That video-chatting during wedding-dress-hunts wasn’t the same as her being in the room, sipping champagne, while Lola stood in front of a wall of mirrors and twirled. That with their parents long gone from their lives she was all Lola had.
Lola had assured her it was fine. That Gray was such a help. That the Chadwicks were a total dream. That she understood Harper’s calendar was too congested for her to have committed to arriving any earlier.
After all, it was the money Harper made from her meteoric rise in the field of corporate mediation that had allowed Lola to stay on in the wealthy coastal playground of Blue Moon Bay, to finish high school with her friends, to be in a position to meet someone like Grayson Chadwick in the first place.
And yet as Cormac watched her, those deep brown eyes of his unexpectedly direct, the tiny fissure he’d opened in Harper’s defences cracked wider.
If she was to get through the next five minutes, much less the next week, Cormac Wharton needed to know she wasn’t the same bleeding heart she’d been at school.
She could do this. For Harper played chicken for a living. And never flinched.
“You sure know a lot about planning a wedding, Cormac,” she crooned, watching for his reaction.
There! The tic of a muscle in his jaw. Though it was fast swallowed by a deep groove as he offered up a close-mouthed smile. “They don’t call me the best man around here for nothing. And since the maid of honour has been AWOL it’s been my honour to make sure Lola is looked after too.”
Oh, he was good.
But she was better.
She extended a smile of her own and placed a hand on her heart as she said, “Then please accept my thanks for playing cheerleader, leaning post, party planner and girlfriend until I was able to take up the mantle in person.”
Cormac’s mouth kicked into a deeper smile, the kind that came with eye crinkles.
That pesky little flutter flared in her belly. She clutched every muscle she could to suffocate it before it even had a chance to take a breath.
Then something wet and cold snuffled under Harper’s coat and pressed against the back of her knee. With a squeak, she spun on her heel to find Cormac’s beautiful dog standing behind her. Panting softly, tail wagging slowly, it looked at her with liquid brown eyes that reminded her very much of its owner.
She was surprised to find a soft, “Oh,” escape her mouth.
“Harper,” Cormac’s voice rumbled from far too close behind her, “meet Novak. Novak, this is Harper.”
“Novak?”
“After the great and glorious Kim.”
“The actress? From Vertigo?”
A beat, then, “One and the same.”
Spending more of her life in planes and hotels than her high-rise apartment, Harper didn’t see a lot of dogs these days, so wasn’t sure of the protocol. What could she do but wave? “Hello, Novak. Have we been ignoring you?”
Novak’s tail gave a quick wag before she sat on her haunches and—No. Surely not.
“Is she...smiling?” Harper asked. “It looks like she’s smiling. Can dogs even smile?”
She looked over her shoulder to find herself close enough to Cormac to count his lashes. There were millions of the things...long, plentiful as they framed those deep, molten-chocolate eyes.
When she didn’t look away, his eyes shifted slowly between hers, lingering a beat before shifting back. Then he smiled. Turning her thoughts to dandelion fluff.
Then suddenly he was leaning towards her, a waft of sea salt, of summer, tickling her nose. Then he leant down to grab a couple of her bags, hefting the long handles over his shoulders as if they weighed nothing, and the moment passed.
She reminded herself—stridently—that he might look like the boy she’d thought worthy of secret teenaged affections, but those affections had gone up in smoke when she’d discovered he had it in him to stick in the knife. And twist.
Harper grabbed the handles of her last couple of bags and took a discreet step away.
Not discreet enough, apparently, as Cormac’s cheek kicked into a knowing smile before he said, “Could you have brought any more baggage?”
Honey, you have no idea.
“Come on, then,” he said, and with that he crunched over the white gravel and up the huge front steps of the big house.
The impressive Georgian-look manor was the first house built on the bluff over Blue Moon Bay by Weston Chadwick’s father. When the next generation relocated the head office of their world-famous surf brand to the area, making the holiday estate their permanent home, the sleepy town had fast grown into a haven for wealthy families looking for a sea change.
Those who could keep up with the Chadwicks thrived. Those who couldn’t...
“Come!” Cormac called.
Harper’s eyebrows rose sharply, until Cormac’s dog trotted up the stairs and she realised the command had not been for her.
Cormac and dog disappeared inside the double front doors as if they’d done so a thousand times before. Which they likely had.
Rumour had it that Cormac had moved into the Chadwicks’ pool house right after high school. Then he and Grayson had gone on to take law together at Melbourne University before Grayson had taken his place on the board of his family’s behemoth company, while Cormac opened up his own firm, servicing one client: the Chadwick family.
By the look of things, insinuating himself had been a smart move. As Harper made her way up the front steps, she wondered how much of his soul he’d had to give up to do it.
None of which made Harper feel any better about the fact that her little sister was about to marry into that world, that family, for good.
Well, she’d see about that.
Through the impressive two-storey foyer, walls unexpectedly lined with some pretty fabulous modern art, Harper kept eyes front as she followed Cormac up one side of a curling double staircase.
She found him in a large bedroom suite, leaning against a chest of drawers as he played with his dog’s ear.
Her bags had been placed by a padded bench at the end of a plush king-sized bed. Sunshine poured through large windows draped with fine muslin, picking out shabby-chic furnishings and duck-egg-blue trim. A vase of fresh gardenias sent out the most glorious scent.
The room was elegant and cool. It suited her to a T.
Lola, she thought, her chest tightening, knowing Cormac hadn’t been kidding. Her little sister had decorated the room with her in mind.
Harper slowly unwrapped the tie around her waist and hung her coat over the back of a padded chair, leaving her in a neat cream shift with a kick at the hem and her ubiquitous heels.
Cormac cleared his throat. She looked his way to find him watching her, his deep, rich brown eyes still holding the glint of affection he held for his hound.
“So,” she managed, “am I meant to stay in here until Lola arrives, or have you been given further instruction as to what to do with me?”
Something flickered across his eyes, but was gone before she could take its measure. His hands slid into the front pockets of his jeans, framing all he had going on down there. Not that she looked. Then he pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the door. “You hungry?”
“I’m fine,”