Unsurprising. For him, those later high-school years were pretty much a blur.
The driver moved in to ask her a question right as a mobile-phone tone sounded loudly in the restive silence. She stayed the driver with a hand as she answered the call with a clear, “Yes?”
Was she for real? Cormac coughed out a laugh. Then ran a hand up the back of his head as he counted down the hours until the wedding. The hours he’d have to make nice with his counterpart in the lead-up. When he could have been working. Surfing. Staring into space. Any of which would be a better use of his time.
Friendship, he reminded himself. Loyalty. Respect. Balance. Duty.
The driver glanced Cormac’s way, his face working as if unsure what his next move ought to be. Cormac lifted his hand in a wave and half jogged towards the car to take the passenger off the poor guy’s hands.
As if she’d heard his footsteps encroaching, the woman turned.
Cormac’s pace slowed as if his batteries had drained, till he came to a complete stop.
For the woman was a fifties femme fatale brought to life. A swathe of shining hair curled over her right eye. Shadows slashed under high cheekbones. Full nude lips sat slightly apart, as if preparing to blow a kiss.
Cormac found himself engulfed in an instant thwack of heat. Like a donkey kick to the gut, it literally knocked the breath right out of him.
Then she flicked her hair from her face with a single, sultry shake of her head, said something into her phone before dropping it into a structured bag hooked over one elbow, and then both of her eyes met his.
A flash of memory hit like a rogue wave, and he knew he’d remembered her right.
He saw himself bounding down the D-Block staircase with Gray, Adele, Tara and the rest of the school gang at his heels. There she was, the unruly brunette, homemade posters covered in pictures of flood or famine tacked to the post behind her, collection tin in hand, eyes locked on his with that same unrelenting intensity.
A wet snout pressed into Cormac’s hand and he flinched.
Eye contact broken, he glanced down. Novak leaned against his shin, his knee, his thigh, looking at him as if he was the greatest thing on earth.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, giving Novak a scratch under the chin, before pulling himself the hell together and striding over to meet the woman he’d been waiting for.
* * *
Cormac Wharton.
Of course, his had to be the first familiar face Harper saw upon arriving back on home soil for the first time in a decade.
Her breath had literally stuttered at the sight of him ambling towards her. It had taken every ounce of cool she had not to choke on it.
Harper glanced back towards the Chadwicks’ gargantuan house, hoping Lola might still come bounding towards her, arms out, hair flying, exuberantly happy to see her. Alas, she understood what Cormac’s presence meant: the Chadwicks had enlisted him to babysit. And nobody in this part of the world said no to the Chadwicks, least of all Cormac Wharton.
Her fault, she supposed, for making her arrival a surprise. But the moment she’d fulfilled her rocky last contract, she’d wanted to get on the plane and fly away as fast as she could.
Pulling herself together, Harper turned her attention back to the man in question. Dark sunglasses covered half his face. A bottle-green Henley T clung to the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen, and his jeans fit in all the right places. His haircut hadn’t changed—all preppy, chestnut spikes. The sleek toffee-coloured dog trotting at his side was new.
He looked good. Then again, Cormac Wharton had always looked good. Dark-eyed, with charm to spare and a smile that lit up a room, he’d claimed the attention of every girl in school. Including, she deeply regretted, her.
“Ma’am?”
Harper turned to find her driver still standing beside the car, awaiting instructions.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head and offering a quick smile. “Sam, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Sam’s the name. And no apologies necessary. I’m used to passengers coming off long flights. May I help take your luggage inside?”
“No. Thank you. I’m not staying. Not here. This was a quick stop in case my sister was here. Seems she’s not. You were kind to drive me this far, so I’ll point the way to the hotel and then you can head home.”
“Not at all, ma’am. It’s always lovely to find myself in here. Dare say it’s one of the prettiest places on earth.”
The driver’s smile dropped a smidge when a shadow fell over the car. A shadow in the shape of Cormac Wharton.
The back of Harper’s neck prickled as it always had when he’d walked by. She shut down the sense memory, quick smart. Enough water under that bridge to require an ark.
Seeing no use in putting off the inevitable, Harper turned, bracing herself against the impact of the man, up close and personal. He’d taken off his sunglasses, hooking them over the top button on his shirt revealing an array of frightfully appealing smile lines fanning from the edges of his deep brown eyes. Then there was the sun-drenched warmth of his skin. Sooty stubble shading his jaw. And the fact that, at five-foot-nine—plus an extra four inches in heels—she had to look up.
No longer a cute jock with a knee-melting smile, Cormac Wharton was all man. Just like that a warm flutter of attraction puffed at the dust shrouding her ancient crush.
“Cormac Wharton,” she said, “as I live and breathe,” her neutral tone owing to years spent working as a professional negotiator.
“Harper Addison. Good to see you.” His voice was the same, if not a little deeper. Smooth with just a hint of rough that had always brushed against her impressionable teenaged insides like the tickle of a feather.
For a second, she feared he might lean in to kiss her cheek. The thought of him entering her personal space, stubble scuffing her cheek, warm skin whispering against hers, was enough for her to clench all over.
Thankfully he pulled to a stop, rocking forward on his toes before settling a good metre away. His dog stopped, sat, leaned against him. A female, for sure.
“I’d hoped Lola would be here,” Harper said.
Cormac shook his head, his dark gaze not leaving hers.
She waited for an explanation. An excuse. It seemed he was content to let her wait.
“Right, then I’ll head to the hotel.” She turned to Sam, the driver, who moved like lightning, hand reaching out for the handle of the car door before Cormac’s voice said “Stop.”
Sam stopped, eyes darting between them.
Harper’s gaze cut to Cormac.
He said, “Dee-Dee and Weston are expecting you to stay here.”
She shot a glance at the Georgian monstrosity that
