Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I approach the vehicle, completely regretful for what I’m about to do, because she’s so absorbed in her phone she doesn’t see me coming. I rap my knuckles twice on the driver’s-side glass and she startles so completely that her phone launches from her hand and falls down onto the passenger seat floorboard.
Her head whips my way, mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes as round as saucers. I hold up a hand in apology through the window.
Harper stares at me for several long seconds, chest heaving from the fright, expression caught somewhere between alarm and disbelief. She cracks the window a few inches. “You just took ten years off my life.”
“I apologize for that,” I say, hands still up. “Couldn’t be helped.”
To my relief, she chuckles. “I normally love the thrill of a good scare. Is everything okay? Do you need to go somewhere?”
I tilt my head, tucking my hands into my pockets. “Like, what kind of a good scare? Surely not people approaching you in a dark parking lot at night?”
Another laugh, soft and tinkling as she shakes her head. “No, that’s the kind of scare I’d like to avoid, but you know… horror movies and stuff. The suspenseful ones when you know someone’s in the closet and you investigate, but then they pop up behind you.”
That’s adorably… weird and I have a sudden and intense desire to watch her watch a horror movie to see the delight she’d get over such a fright.
I shake that thought away. “How about you come inside to watch the game?”
Harper frowns only briefly, as if confused by the request, then her face smooths out into that distant politeness she’s been giving me. “Sir, I mean… Julian. I’m fine out here.”
“It’s forty degrees,” I observe.
“I have a heated car.”
“You have a heated car and no hockey game,” I counter, hoping I’m wearing my most charming smile. “Come to the suite. The Vipers are up 3–0 in the first period and you said you wanted to understand the sport.”
“I said I didn’t understand the sport,” she corrects. “That’s different from saying I wanted to.”
“Semantics.”
“Accuracy,” she quips, eyes locked on mine, and I see the defiance even though her words are softly unassuming.
“Are you genuinely content sitting alone in a parking lot?”
“I have my phone.”
“Everyone has their phone. That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a very good answer,” she says. “I was in the middle of something.”
“What were you in the middle of?”
A brief pause. “A podcast.”
“About what?”
Another pause, slightly longer. “Reptile care.”
I blink in surprise. “But… why?”
Harper blows out a breath. “Dylan keeps lobbying for a snake, and I keep saying no, because… eww… snakes, but in fairness, I don’t know much about what it would take, so I’m doing due diligence research to hopefully find information about caring for a snake that gives me a good reason to continue to deny him the request, because… Ewww… snakes apparently isn’t good enough for him.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I’m impressed by your foresight, but you’re sitting alone in a cold car and there is a full suite upstairs with food, drinks and a hockey game that, by your own admission, you know nothing about and perhaps should.”
“But I’m your driver,” she says. “Not your guest.”
“Tonight you’re both.”
She opens her mouth and I cut her off before she can reload. “The team is implementing your community campaign next week. You should probably understand the sport you’re about to help promote.”
That lands. I can see it in the slight shift of her expression—not quite caught, but close. “That’s a bit of a stretch,” she drawls.
“It’s entirely reasonable.”
The corner of her mouth moves. Just barely, but I catch it. “I wouldn’t know what I’m watching,” she tries.
“I’ll explain it.”
“I’d have a lot of questions.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
She looks like she’s searching for the exit from a conversation that has systematically closed off every available route.
“Harper.” I gather myself and choose my words before speaking. “I’m suggesting to you, as your employer, that it would be good for you to watch the game.” I hate that I’m using authority to get her agreement, but I’m also not above such tactics.
Finally, she lets out a slow breath of capitulation. “If I embarrass myself by asking obvious questions in front of important people, that’s entirely on you.”
“Agreed,” I say immediately.
Harper leans over to grab her phone from the floorboard and then steps out of the car, offering me a somewhat reluctant smile before she schools it back into neutrality.
The second period is minutes away and I think the game will be best observed from the first row of seats that border the balcony overlooking center ice.
When we enter, all eyes come to me because I’m always the man of the hour. Harper gets curious glances, but it’s hard to tell who she is. Her black trousers and jacket are tailored well enough that she’d easily be mistaken for someone in my business orbit. I manage to put off more handshakes or attempts at people trying to stop me to schmooze by blaming my desire to watch the imminent start of the second period. Everyone accepts it because no one would dare insist otherwise.