“For?” Weston asked, attention already beginning to slide away.
Harper knew just how to get it back. “The highest bidder.”
Weston blinked and seemed to see her for the first time. “That so?”
Harper wondered if Weston Chadwick recognised her father in her eyes. In her heart.
“And isn’t she luminous?” Dee-Dee gushed. “Look at her skin.”
“A benefit of not living under the Australian sun all your life,” said Weston, his deeply tanned skin creasing as he smiled.
All Harper could think was that the only reason she’d had to leave this place was in order to chase the highest bidders, was so that she’d make enough money to provide Lola with every opportunity the Chadwicks had been able to gift their son. And the only reason that had become her responsibility was because of him. Her sister’s future father-in-law.
“And that dress,” said Dee-Dee, cheerfully. “So striking. Not that Harper wouldn’t look just as beautiful in a hessian sack.” Dee-Dee looked around for agreement just as Cormac moved into her line of sight. “Cormac, wouldn’t Harper look lovely even in a hessian sack?”
Cormac glanced around the group before his gaze landed on Harper. She still couldn’t get used to it; those familiar deep brown eyes looking right at her.
It was a relief when he broke eye contact to do as Dee-Dee requested and determine whether she would look good in a hessian sack. His eyes dancing over her with speed and ease. Nothing at all untoward to an untrained eye.
Only Harper read body language for a living, noting the rise and fall of his chest, the flaring of his nostrils, the way his throat worked.
Cormac liked what he saw.
Seeing that flare of attraction in the eyes of any other man, she’d have been flattered and moved on. In the eyes of Cormac Wharton it was a threat to life as she knew it.
Harper shook her head just a fraction. Please, no. Don’t go there. Don’t answer. Don’t make this week more complicated than it already is.
Cormac smiled, his voice a rough rumble that skittered down Harper’s arms as he said, “I for one would love to see Harper in a hessian sack.”
Gray’s laughter was like a sonic boom. Though he quickly sank into his gargantuan shoulders when his mother slanted him a Look.
“I am truly disappointed in all of you. Harper is going to think we are a bunch of yokels,” said Dee-Dee, pointing a finger at each man in her midst.
“Not at all,” Harper said, hoping they’d all now move on.
She had no problem being centre of attention, but only when she was prepared, armed with not a single question she did not already know the answer to. And Cormac’s “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?” rang in her head like a promise. Or a portent.
Lola cleared her throat. “Sorry to break up the fun, but after all the wedding stuff I did today I’m famished.” She winked at Harper, who could not have loved her sister more.
“Of course,” said Dee-Dee. “Let’s head into dinner.” She took her husband’s arm as he escorted her from the room.
Then Lola put her hand through Gray’s elbow and allowed herself to be swept out the door as well, like something out of a royal procession.
“Miss Addison?”
Harper turned to find Cormac beside her—eyes front, one arm behind his back, the other crooked her way. As if he’d read her mind.
She laughed before she even felt it coming. Then, with a long outrush of breath, she placed her hand in the proffered elbow.
Though she took the first step, leading him out of the room.
But his legs were longer, and he wasn’t wearing heels, meaning soon he was a smidge in front. So she picked up the pace. He lengthened his strides to match. And soon they found themselves all but jogging.
When Harper’s high heel caught on a knot in a rug and she had to grip on to Cormac’s arm to steady herself, Cormac shot her a look.
Giving in?
Never.
Yet they called a silent truce. For now. Walking at a sensible pace.
And in the silence Harper felt the warmth of him beneath her hand, even through the layers of clothing. Felt his leg as it brushed against her skirt. Felt her pulse quicken when he let go a quick hard breath, as if he too was unduly affected by their proximity.
Not that it mattered. All that mattered was Lola. Making sure she was happy. And that she would continue to be so once Harper left. Meaning she had to get to the bottom of Cormac’s cryptic quip while she had the chance.
She licked her lips. Swallowed. And said, “Cormac?”
He glanced down at her, catching her up in his deep, warm brown eyes. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember what she’d been about to say.
When an eyebrow cocked and a smile started tugging at his mouth, she had to say something. She went with, “How far away is the dining room?”
“It’s a big house.” Cormac’s cheek twitched, bringing his dimple out to play. Have mercy.
Whatever he saw in her eyes made him breathe deep. Then his gaze travelled down her cheek, her neck, pausing on her dress. His voice dropped a fraction as he said, “You didn’t actually pack a hessian sack, did you?”
Harper shot him a look that would flay the top layer of skin off a less self-assured man. While Cormac only grinned. A quick flash of teeth that had her heart slamming against her ribs, hard enough to make her wince.
“Good,” he said. “For a second there I thought I’d have to track one down too in an effort at maid-of-honour-best-man solidarity.”
“No need,” she said. “For the sack or the solidarity.”
“Is that so?”
“You stand for Gray. I stand for Lola.”
“There was I, thinking that’s the same thing. Why do I get the feeling you don’t?”
Right. That was what she wanted to talk to him about. “Earlier, before the Chadwicks arrived, when I asked if you thought Lola was happy, that she would be okay, what did you mean when you said you couldn’t make any promises?”
Cormac lifted his spare hand to run it up the back of his neck. A sign of frustration, no doubt. With her. But it wasn’t her job to make his life easier. It was her job to protect her sister.
“You’re not going to cause trouble this week.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m not a troublemaker, Cormac. I’m a fixer.”
Cormac’s gaze was unreadable.
Voices murmured ahead as they neared the dining room; a long table covered in elegant settings of fine china and huge floral centrepieces was visible through a pair of double doors.
“Who else is coming?”
“Just us.”
“All that view is missing is a pair of armoured servants holding swords,” Harper muttered.
“Night off.”
“Ah.”
Harper’s pace slowed, the thought of having to play nice with the Chadwicks turning her legs to jelly. She may even have tightened her grip on Cormac’s arm.
She felt Cormac’s gaze slide to hers before his voice came to her, low and slow. “Harper.”