Chapter Eleven

Her apartment was just as she’d left it, but with a stale odor that inevitably developed when a place was empty for too long. She moved straight to the balcony to open the door before hustling around to open the windows. She was conscious of Bennet watching her the entire time, and she couldn’t explain why was she was having such a hard time meeting his eyes. He seemed to be offering her everything she wanted, so why was she so reluctant to hear it?

She was scared. There it was, and no escaping the epiphany. She was frightened of what an escalation in their relationship might mean. He already meant so much to her that the prospect of losing him made her tremble. How much harder would it be to endure losing him if she loved him even more than she did already?

She stilled as the word love flittered through her brain, forcing her to turn and face Bennet. He was near the recliner, so she crossed over to it and sat down, bringing them almost to eyelevel. She was still feeling a bit of shock from her personal revelation, so it took her a moment to realize he had started speaking. She blinked and shook her head as though that would help clear her thoughts. “I’m sorry. I missed that.”

“I said I want you to come back to the palace with me. I know you can’t be my physical therapist officially, but you can certainly be my girlfriend.”

She lifted a brow. “Are you sure you’re ready for that sort of commitment? Your track record—”

“Isn’t important,” he cut in. “I’ve never felt the way I feel about you for anyone else, so of course everything before you was brief and meaningless. I don’t want to lose what we have.”

She nodded, taking the hand he extended. “I don’t either, but I’m afraid it’ll be so much harder to break up later than now.” A pang shot through her at the thought, making her doubt her own words. Would it hurt any worse to lose him in a few weeks or months than it would today? She didn’t think it would. It was going to devastate her either way.

He frowned. “And you might not lose me at all. I’m being candid with you, and I hope you believe me. I want this to last. I think we should see where it takes us. I love you, Harper, and I don’t want to let you go.”

She blinked, and her mouth dropped open for a moment. “You love me?” She almost stuttered the question when she finally managed to regain control of her mouth.

He looked a little uncomfortable as he shifted in his chair “Yeah, I do. How do you feel?”

For some reason, tears scalded her eyes, but she blinked them back and swallowed the lump of moisture that appeared in her throat. “I love you too, Bennet.” She sounded as hoarse as a frog with laryngitis and immediately repeated her statement to ensure he had heard every word. “I love you.”

He looked slightly smug, but mostly just satisfied. “I knew it. How could you not?”

She rolled her eyes even as she giggled at his attempt to lighten the mood between them. Things had gotten rather intense for a few moments there. “You’re pretty irresistible, Prince Charming.”

“So are you.” There was a gleam in his eyes that spoke of hunger and urgent need. “I assume you have a bed somewhere in this apartment?”

“It’s not that small.” It was a reasonably sized one-bedroom apartment, but she could see way he might consider it small or cramped when compared to the conditions in which he lived.

“Why don’t you give me the tour, starting with the bedroom?”

She got to her feet, mentally calculating if she had time to change the sheets. They had been fresh when she left weeks ago, but they were likely to be musty by now. When he pushed forward, gently bumping into her legs so that she fell across his lap, she knew she didn’t have time to change the sheets. Her need was as urgent as his, and all thoughts of bed linen fled her mind when they were in the bedroom a few moments later.

***

They were on the plane back to Montrovia the next morning, and she snuggled into the seat, which was almost as comfortable as the bed she hadn’t slept in last night. There’d been snatches of naps here and there, but one or both had reached for each other several times, leaving her sated but exhausted. Bennet appeared to be in a similar condition, and there were light shadows under his eyes that revealed his lack of sleep. She had the same, but had dug out her rarely used makeup to hide the effects of their night.

Now, she warred between taking a nap and bringing up the topic of discussion she didn’t want to think about. It had to be done though, and she forced herself to take a deep breath before speaking as calmly as possible. “We need to figure out who reported my ethics violation. I did something wrong, but they violated our trust.”

He sounded a bit growly when he answered. “I still maintain we did nothing wrong.”

She shrugged, knowing she wouldn’t persuade him to accept she had violated the rules, though she had surprisingly little regret for doing so even though it had cost her the license she had worked hard to obtain. She’d loved her career, and she loved helping people, but she couldn’t regret having to give that up if it meant getting Bennet instead. There would be other ways to help people, but there might not ever be another Bennet for her. “Okay, but we still need to figure out who did it.”

“I’ve been thinking about that all night.”

She arched a brow. “When? There was barely time to sleep, let alone think.”

He laughed. “I can multitask.”

Harper let out a little harrumph. “You’re telling me you were thinking about that while we were making love?”

He shook his head. “I was thinking about it when I was supposed to be sleeping.”

“I actually didn’t think about it at all.” Maybe it had been a willful suppression on her part, or perhaps she’d simply lost herself in the moment with Bennet, but it wasn’t until early this morning, while she was applying makeup in the bathroom, that the question had occurred to her. Who had set all this in motion?

He looked reluctant. “I think I have a theory.”

For some reason, her stomach tightened before she asked, “What is it?”

“I think it had to be Tucker.”

She started instinctively shaking her head. “He wouldn’t do that to either one of us.”

Bennet held up a hand. “Normally, I don’t think he would, but this is different. He’s still in love with you.”

Harper shook her head. “He’s not, I promise you. You know how he feels about Fiona.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I know he told you that, but I don’t really believe it. How could anyone feel that way about Fiona? I think he’s been scheming to get you back since before you even came to Montrovia. He’s the one who hired you, wasn’t he?”

She hated to think it meant anything, but she had to nod. “He was the one who suggested that I take the job, and he emphasized the challenging aspect.”

“And he didn’t make a move on you at all until the swimming pool”

She shook her head. “Not at all.”

He arched a brow. “Not even subtly?”

She opened her mouth to refute his words, but couldn’t make herself speak. She recalled a few times he’d seemed to suggest he missed her and wanted more. At the time, she just dismissed it, but now she was forced to re-examine those moments in a different light. “I’m not really sure.”

He sighed. “He’s my friend, and I hate to think it was him, but I’m trying to be realistic. I understand his need to have you back at any cost. It seems clear he was setting you up to need to flee to him. He expected you to be heartbroken for losing your license, and you’d need to turn to someone. He probably wasn’t expecting you to return to Montrovia, so he was going to swoop in as your hero and rescue you.”

She glared at him. “I don’t need anyone to rescue me. I might not have my license now, but I’m sure I can find a job helping people in some capacity. I don’t need a man to take care of me, Your Highness.”

“Whoa, don’t attack me. It’s just a theory, and I understand you don’t need anyone to take care of you, but I hope you’ll accept someone taking care of you if they want to.”

She hesitated for a moment before inclining her head. “I’m happy to have you to take care of me sometimes, as long as it’s reciprocal, and it’s not a constant thing. I don’t need to be kept by anyone, and I’m sure Tucker knows that. That makes me question your entire theory, simply because I know him well enough to know that he knows me. I needed a temporary shoulder to cry on, and I was happy to have you with me, but it wouldn’t have been a way for him to ingratiate himself back into my life. I’m sure he knows that.”

Bennet looked like he wanted to argue, but he just said, “Men do desperate and crazy things for the women they love.”

“I just have a hard time believing Tucker would do this to us. He’s your friend, and he knows what a betrayal of trust this is. He wants you to get well, and losing your physical therapist would be quite a setback.”

“If he did this, he did it because his thoughts were centered on you and not me. I was just collateral damage to his plan.”

She frowned at him. “It sounds like you’ve already convicted him, and we haven’t even talked to him yet.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I truly hope I’m wrong, but I don’t expect to be.”

She leaned back even farther in her chair as she sighed. “I know it makes sense that he was the one who did it. He knows how the licensing system works, and he knows I violated my ethics. Perhaps he turned us in because of conscience rather than an attempt at manipulation.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t like how you phrase it as turn us in, as though we did something wrong.”

She sighed with a hint of impatience at his continued insistence of their innocence. “I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that and perhaps avoid the subject in future. I’m just trying to find an alternate reason, one that makes more sense, for why Tucker would report our relationship.”

“I think you’re giving him too much leeway.”

“And I think you’re too quick to judge him harshly,” snapped Harper. “He might be guilty, but he might not. We have to figure out how to handle it delicately when we approach him.”

Bennet squared his shoulders. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve had years of practice at decorum and diplomacy. I’ll be able to finesse the answer from him and find out why he did it.”

“If he did it.”

He inclined his head. “If he did it.” His tone revealed his skepticism.

She was irritated with his continued insistence that Tucker was guilty, so she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. It wasn’t long before the pretense became reality as her long night caught up with her.

***

Bennet watched her sleep, knowing he should take advantage of the moment to do the same, but unable to look away from her beauty in repose. She looked so calm, and he feared things would be anything but when they reached the castle. He was tempted to confront Tucker on his own, but he immediately discarded the idea when he acknowledged how enraged Harper would be at his high-handed decision to bypass her. He was certain he had a better chance of getting Tucker to admit to what he had done, and more quickly, without her presence, but it could do irreparable harm to their relationship if he tried that.

It felt weird to think in such terms and to worry about the stability of a relationship. The attachments he’d had with women in his past could barely qualify as relationships. They had been shallow and unsatisfying, though he hadn’t realized at the time just how lacking they were until he contrasted it with what he had now.

Where he had once reveled in his tabloid name of the Playboy Prince, he now found it slightly appalling and more than a little disturbing how quickly he had gone through women without a second thought. He hadn’t used any of them, and they had been aware that he wasn’t out for anything permanent, but he still felt a niggle of guilt. Admittedly, most of the women he had dated had probably been with him because of his wealth and title, and not because of him personally, so perhaps it balanced out. They had used him as much as he had used them.

It still felt wrong now that he realized what a relationship could be. He wasn’t certain when he had fallen so hard for Harper, but the words “I love you” barely seemed adequate to describe the depth of his emotion. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for her hand and holding it. He smiled when it tightened around his in her sleep, and her lips quirked up into a small smile.

Just having her skin against his was enough to make him feel better, though he dreaded the confrontation with his friend. He might understand Tucker’s need to have Harper back in his life, but he couldn’t condone the lengths to which he had gone to accomplish that. Surely, Tucker had known Harper was likely to lose her license when he’d filed the report, but he had done it anyway. He was willing to hurt her to have her, and that left him completely unworthy in Bennet’s eyes.