put her into debt. She was protecting Clark.
How could someone who’d fought his own condescending father most of his life not respect that?
The baby stirred again. Harper went to the kitchen and got the bottle.
Just as the little girl began to fuss, Harper was back, bottle in hand, lifting Crystal, settling her on her lap and feeding her.
It all seemed to simple, so easy. He’d seen his sister-in-law, Avery, do something similar. But Avery had tons of help. Not just Seth and Jake’s mom, but Avery’s mom, her dad and a nanny. He’d always thought Avery made being a mom look easy, but he’d apparently missed a lot about parenting in his years of avoiding babies.
“So, I’m kinda broke, but not really,” Harper said, feeding the hungry baby. “With the sale of the condo I have a hundred thousand dollars to play with. Either to use for a down payment on a new condo or to live on until I find a job.”
He sat back down, feeling oddly foolish for being so persnickety about kids as he watched Harper’s baby happily suckle her milk. “Honestly, if you weren’t out on the street in six days, I’d say your first order of business should be to get a job.”
“But I am out on the street in six days. In that time, I have to pack and arrange for a mover, as I find somewhere else to live. You wouldn’t happen to have an extra room?”
She’d said it as a joke, but he did have an extra room. She’d even have a private bathroom. There were only two problems with taking her in. First, he really wasn’t comfortable around babies. Very few single men were. But he was super edgy around them. Preoccupied with a million little details for his job, he worried he’d step on Crystal, trip over her, knock her down.
But he knew that was just a cover for the real reason he didn’t want Harper Sloan Hargraves to move in with him.
She was supposed to be his.
He’d adored her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. But he wasn’t the settling-down kind. His parents’ farce of a marriage had ruined him on the fairy tale of happily-ever-after. The emotional abuse he’d suffered from his manipulative dad had made him far too cynical and too careful to want a relationship.
So, he’d let Clark ask her out.
And he’d become a playboy. He’d dated so many women he’d lost count. He traveled, was a regular in Las Vegas and couldn’t remember the last Saturday night he’d spent alone.
“I was kidding about the room, Seth. You can talk again.”
He shook his head. This wasn’t about him. It really wasn’t even about Harper. It was about Clark. He’d been Seth’s best friend in every sense of the word. When he left his family home and his emotionally abusive father, Clark had found him in the library. Alone. Broke. And rich-kid stupid. Seth didn’t even know he couldn’t hide in the library stacks, wait for the lights to go out and spend the night. He didn’t notice things like cameras and security guards.
Clark had asked a few pointed questions, gotten the real scoop and taken him to the run-down apartment he shared with Ziggy, next door to Harper. He’d told him he could stay until he got on his feet, but for three kids going to university, fighting for money for books and tuition, there was no getting on any feet. He’d found a job as a waiter, shared a room with twin beds with Ziggy and paid his part of the rent and food.
All his life, his dad had told him he didn’t understand the real world and tried to teach him by withholding money, embarrassing him, belittling him, and Clark had taught him everything his dad couldn’t in three years of paying for school and supporting himself.
Now here he was with an extra room, about to turn Clark’s widow out on the street because he’d at one time had a crush on her?
That was ridiculous. He was a grown man now. A wealthy man in his own right who’d built exactly the life he wanted. He had his pick of woman and absolutely no desire to settle down.
She was safe...and so was he.
“You can have the room.”
“What?”
He rose from the trellis-print chair. “You can have my spare room. Arrange to have your furniture put into storage. Have Crystal’s crib delivered here.” And just as Clark had said to him twelve years ago, he added, “You can stay as long as you need to.”
HARPER BLINKED. “WHAT?”
“I’m offering you a place to stay. Clark took me in when I was in trouble. I owe him.”
“Okay. But, Seth, as beautiful as your condo is, it’s small and Crystal can be very noisy.”
He walked toward the kitchen and the coffeemaker. “And I’m not home a lot. I work from nine to six. Most evenings I have dinner meetings or dates. You’re going to find you have the condo to yourself more than you think.”
She didn’t know why that gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.
He made his coffee, then glanced at his watch. “I have just enough time to get ready for work.” He motioned to the door. “You go home, get things settled and come back when you need to. I’ll have keys made for you.”
She slid Crystal into the stroller. “Are you sure?”
He smiled. Harper’s heart thumped. The grown-up version of Clark’s best friend was absolutely gorgeous.
“This is not a big deal.”
Harper totally disagreed. Ten minutes ago, Seth wouldn’t get within six feet of her baby. Now he thought he could live with her? Not to mention the way she kept noticing he was attractive, reacting when he smiled. She was lonely and vulnerable, missing Clark, and Seth wasn’t known for discretion when it came to women.
Moving in together did not seem like a good idea.
Seth headed back down the hall, probably toward his bedroom. “As soon as you’re settled, we’ll go over your résumé, find you a job and start house hunting.”
Because those were things Clark had helped him with.
He hadn’t said it, but she realized this was nothing but payback for Clark’s kindnesses and, honestly, she needed it. If her mother saw her, six days away from being homeless, she’d blame Clark and never forget.
Harper could not let that happen.
She said, “Okay,” but he was already opening the door of his room.
Harper blew her breath out on a long sigh. This was not going to be easy, but it was better than living in the street.
After spending an hour contacting movers, Harper finally found one who had a cancellation in his schedule the following day. She booked the appointment and spent the rest of the afternoon, evening and the next morning packing. Right on time, the movers arrived and picked up her furniture and boxes of household
