46. Harper

“Are we really watching this?”

In response, Zara gave me a clipped nod.

My kids were in bed. Hers were home with the nanny. And instead of having fun, we were watching the playback of today’s Boston Revs press conference.

“Why?” I sank deeper into the couch cushions.

“I want to see what Asher said.” Zara picked up her glass of wine and took a sip, her eyes locked on the screen.

That was code for I want to see if Asher mentioned me .

“You could call him,” I suggested.

She scrunched up her nose and finally turned to me. “He hasn’t reached out at all. He doesn’t even call the kids. He just waits for them to call him.”

My heart hurt for her. Every day, I expected a call from her. One where she’d giddily tell me that Asher had finally called and told her this break idea she’d come up with was ridiculous. But he hadn’t. And the more time that went on, the more I started to wonder if maybe Zara was right. Maybe he didn’t mind the break.

For the first fifteen minutes of the press conference, Coach Wilson droned on about game plans and stats that made little sense to me.

“I thought the players would get to talk.” Zara pouted, bringing her glass to her lips again.

“I think they do eventually.” Piper lived for this stuff, so I’d caught enough of these over the years to have some idea. It was another five minutes, though, before I was proven right.

“Now I’ll open the floor to the guys.” Coach Wilson flashed a smile at the camera. It was hard to believe the guy was Avery’s father. He hardly looked forty. And when his dimples popped, I could see why he was so popular.

“Bosco,” a man in the sea of reporters called out.

The camera zoomed in on Kyle as he rested his left forearm on the table in front of him and raised his brows in expectation.

My heart clenched as I drank him in. My worries about his hair were so silly. The short cut only made his deep brown eyes more fathomless. If possible, he looked sexier this way.

“Is it true your new tat is messing with your swing?”

He chuckled, and I swore the sound vibrated through my chest. “Wow, talk about the gossip mill working overtime.” He glanced at a person on one side of the room, just off camera, and rolled his eyes. “I will firmly deny that I have any issue with my swing.”

“But you don’t deny the new tat?”

“Nosy much?” Kyle teased, making the reporters and his teammates laugh. “But sure, I’ll tell you about it. My life is split into two parts. There’s the fun side.” He held up his left arm, showing off the words inked on his arm. “Then there’s the shit that matters.” He held up his right.

The camera zoomed in, and when it focused on Kyle’s new tattoo, I sucked in a hard breath. There, on the underside of his bicep, in matching script, were the words Harper , Piper , and Sam . “This year, I just added some people to my life that really matter to me.”

We were broken up. We were over. Lacking a future. And yet he cared so much about us that he’d had our names permanently inked on his skin. And then he announced to the world that we were people who mattered to him.

I swallowed back a mixture of awe and heartbreak.

“Bloody hell.” Huffing, Zara shifted on the couch and hit me with a look. “How many gestures do you need?”

“I could ask you the same thing. Asher would literally buy you the world.”

“Buying things I haven’t asked for is not a gesture,” she argued. “Asher doesn’t do stuff. He throws money at it. To him, the kids and I…” Wearing an expression of pure misery, she sniffed and shook her head, as if shaking off the hurt. “We’re convenient when we’re convenient. And when we’re not, we don’t exist.” Slumping against the couch, she closed her eyes. “I told him I wanted a break, and he didn’t even put up a fight. He just left for spring training. He hasn’t called or texted to check in. He’s out living his baseball dreams. That’s what matters to him. That’s what he’d tattoo on his arm. Not our names.”

Heart aching, I sighed and slumped back too. I hoped she was wrong. Asher must have cared. Maybe he just didn’t know how to show it.

“Kyle is different. He sends you a message every day. And you don’t even answer.” She gulped her wine this time. “What would you have done if he’d told you he was your…” She frowned. “Your cousin?”

With my head dropped back against the cushion, I groaned. “We are not related.”

“The King doesn’t have a problem with cousins marrying, and I’m certainly not going to judge.” She shrugged.

I chuckled. Zara was something.I couldn’t deny her humor made me feel a modicum lighter.

“If he’d told me…” I hedged, wishing I could say I would have given him a chance. That we would have had the same beginning, just without the horrible end. But that would be a lie. “I would have asked him to leave us alone. And I would have shut him out, just like I have with James.”

“So he wasn’t wrong to keep it from you?”

Irritation flickered through me. “He should have told me.”

“When, though?” She cocked one thin brow. “At what point could he have admitted his aunt was the shrew suing you without the threat of having the door slammed in his face?”

“She’s not suing me,” I said for what had to be the zillionth time. She hired an attorney so she could sue the estate. It had very little to do with me.

Zara only lifted that brow higher.

I sighed. “Lying isn’t the answer.”

“So you said, ‘Hey, are we cousins?’ and he denied it?”

Scoffing, I picked up my drink. “Of course not. Can you imagine if I’d said, ‘Hey, Kyle, do you happen to know if were related?’ How would that even go?”

She shrugged. “My father and uncle are lords. In some circles, asking is a necessity.”

Her life was so odd.

“Not telling me is still a lie.”

“Not telling you was a god-awful decision. But.” She held up a single finger. “Tell me about one time he actually lied.”

I tipped my chin up and inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly. This was something I’d thought about over and over since the day Jace apologized. I’d tried to pinpoint small lies Kyle must have told me to cover up the truth. But I couldn’t find one.

“Like I said, it was a bloody awful decision. But he didn’t lie.” She scooted closer and grasped my hand. “His omission doesn’t negate all the good things. Because there were bucketloads of those. If you expect perfection from everyone, you’ll only be disappointed.”

“I don’t expect him to be perfect,” I snapped, lurching forward and slamming my beer onto the coffee table. “I’m the issue here.”

“What?” She cocked her head, her brow creasing.

“You’re right. He may have withheld information, but he didn’t lie. I’ve replayed every interaction we’ve had, and I can’t come up with one time he lied to me. I get it. But still, this awful feeling lingers inside me.” My voice cracked as I pressed a hand over the ache in my chest. “What if I can’t trust him? What if I drive him away with my need to constantly question things? What if I’ll never be good enough for his family? What if I’m the problem?” Now that I’d said the words aloud, the fear crept farther up my throat.

This was exactly what Eleanor had warned against. This was why I couldn’t forgive Jace. It was why I didn’t trust my half brother enough to let him in. This was what I did. I pushed people away. So it was only a matter of time before I did it to Kyle.

“Darling.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in. “Self-sabotage is such an easy trap to fall into.”

Reeling back, I glared at her.

“But nothing in life is certain. It’s all a risk. And I don’t think Kyle expects you to be perfect either.”

I slumped against her.

“Is someone knocking?” Zara tilted her head, frowning. “Blimey, Harper, you need to fix the doorbell.” She released me and shuffled to the door, and a moment later, tone accusatory, she asked, “Who are you?”

I straightened and turned toward the door, my stomach dropping.

James stood at the threshold. Behind him, his mother and his aunt hovered.

“James.” I jumped to my feet.

“Oh.” Zara, who’d glanced back at me, spun on them, hands on her hips. “It’s the brother and the wicked stepfamily.”

“Zara!” Heart lurching, I winced.

“What? The term seems fitting, no?” She crossed her arms over her tan cashmere sweater.

James cleared his throat, his focus fixed on me, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “Sorry to drop by without calling.”

“No we’re not.” A gray-haired woman stepped up and pushed James back. “We all know Harper would never have agreed if we’d called.”

My breath caught. If that didn’t sound exactly like her son…

Zara, clearly thinking the same thing, stuck her hand out forcefully. “You must be Kyle’s mother. My husband plays with your son.”

Vivianne dipped her chin in agreement. “We adore Asher.”

“Almost everyone does.” The humor in her tone was dark in a way I’d never heard from her before.

“Can we come in?” Vivianne asked.

“Why?” Zara snarled.

Quickly, I hustled around the sofa. “Yes. Please come in.” I grabbed Zara’s arm and forced her back, giving her a pointed look. “It’s fine.”

“But only if you’re perfectly pleasant. Otherwise, I’m calling Lud,” she threatened. Her bodyguard was in the car, waiting for her. And if she called, he’d be up here to toss everyone out in less than a minute.

The other woman cleared her throat. “Maybe it’s best if we talk in private.”

For the first time tonight, I took Susan in. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been cloaked in grief, having recently lost her husband. She looked better now. The color had returned to her face, and her ashy-blond hair was styled.

“I will not leave,” Zara said, straightening beside me. “Harper is wonderful, and yet you’ve been nothing but awful to her. I won’t stand by and allow anyone to try to convince her she is not worthy of all the best things in life.”

Chest aching, I gaped at her.

“What?” she asked, frowning at me. “Friends have each other’s backs, no?”

I smiled and nodded. It was the only response I could muster.

It had been so long since I’d had a friend. I had coworkers and neighbors and people I spoke to often because of Piper, but all my friends had faded away after I got married and had Piper. Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I’d been living with my guard up. Worried people would judge me or her. Zara, though, had forced her way into our lives because she was pushy. Kind of like Kyle had.

I surveyed his family, anxiety burning in my stomach, and reached into my pocket for a Tums, only to realize I didn’t have any. It had been so long since I needed them. Not since before Kyle had started coming around.

I wiped my hands on my leggings and took a strengthening breath. “Zara’s my best friend. She’s staying.” For a moment, I worried about how she’d take that statement. But she simply beamed at me.

“We understand your need to have your best friend around for moral support, don’t we, Susan?” Vivianne crossed her arms over her chest.

“Yes.” Susan sighed, shaking her head, though I thought I saw a hint of a smile.

Beside her, James chuckled, although I didn’t get the joke.

“You want to sit?” I waved to my small table.

As they moved to sit, Zara whispered, “I’m going to grab the chair from your desk in your room.” Then she was gone.

“We came to apologize and clear the air,” Vivianne announced the moment we’d all settled.

“I’m not sure you have anything to be sorry for,” I said, surprising myself with my boldness. “And James has apologized twice.”

Zara dragged the chair back into the room and pulled it up next to me.

“I’m here for moral support. Like Zara,” Vivianne corrected.

“I’m the one apologizing.” Susan shifted in her chair, her face pained. “I have not been fair to you.”

I didn’t disagree, so I simply laced my fingers and waited for her to continue.

“You probably know this already, but betrayal is a hard thing. And I was hurt when I found out about you.” She tilted her chin up. “Though it was years ago, I never dealt with it correctly. James and I put it in a box and moved past it.” She twisted her hands in her lap and exhaled a shaky breath. “But it wasn’t fair of me to keep your family from you.”

When she was silent for a moment, Vivianne said, “And?”

“Your father would have liked to have seen you. To set up some kind of shared custody arrangement.” She cleared her throat. “But I didn’t think I could handle that. I was sure that having you in my home would do nothing but remind me that he’d betrayed me. Remind me of why I couldn’t trust him.”

I wanted to be mad. I was mad. But I could also understand how hard it was to trust a person after a betrayal. And being asked to care for the reminder of that betrayal? Yeah, that would be a challenge.

“I’ve been awful. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But I would like to try something else.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes sad. “I’d like the chance to get to know you as the person who makes my nephew so happy.”

“I don’t know…” I shook my head. Lately, I was the opposite of a source of happiness for Kyle.

“Oh, I do. At Thanksgiving, he practically bit my head off over you.”

My breath caught at that. Thanksgiving. That was before we were even together.

“First time that man ever yelled at me.” She chuckled a bit uncomfortably.

“You should have seen him at Christmas. You would have loved the way his face lit up every time he got a text from her.” Vivianne piped up.

“Wait.” James tapped the table. “Before we go on to Kyle. I have something to add.”

I tensed. The last time we’d spoken, he’d been angry. Was that still the case?

“My mother has also decided to stop being petty.” He frowned at Susan, who glanced down. “She’s no longer contesting the will.” He pulled a beige envelope out of his pocket. “And in turn, the checks to you and the kids have been cut from the estate.”

My lungs seized completely for a moment. When I finally forced air into them, I squeaked out an “Oh, I can’t.”

But Zara snatched the envelope from his hand and clutched it to her chest. “She can and she will.” She pursed her lips at me. “Don’t be stubborn.”

I opened my mouth to argue. Instead, I blew out a long breath. The truth was, the hundred thousand dollars each would go a long way. It would pay for therapies for Piper, and I could set up a college fund for Sam. “Thank you,” I said, taking the beige envelope from Zara.

Leaning forward, James put his hand over mine. “I know I’ve messed up too many times to count. But I do honestly want to get to know you and the kids better. I want to be involved in your life. The stress of the past doesn’t have to hang over us anymore. Not if we don’t want it to.”

I studied his amber-colored eyes, realizing then that I had two choices. I could keep trying to be an island. Alone and safe. Or I could have people on my side. People in my life. Friends. Family.

“I’ll work to make it less of a challenge,” I agreed.

He stood and pulled me into a hug. The first we’d ever shared. It was more comforting than I could have imagined. For a moment, I closed my eyes and soaked in the peace he imbued.

After another minute of small talk, they said their goodbyes and left. And though much had been resolved tonight, it didn’t feel like an end. It felt like a beginning.

“Well.” Zara clapped, the sound loud in the suddenly silent space. “I think this takes care of the family worry.”

I nodded.

“He loves you.” She laced her fingers and brought her hands to her chest. “Just talk to him. Trust yourself.”

And for the first time in weeks, I felt like maybe I could.