“You have her credit card statement?” asked Lucas skeptically as he looked over the paper that Meredith handed him.

“Believe it or not, you weren’t our first choice in tracking down Lily. We did hire a real investigator, but I feel that time is of the essence. He wasn’t able to find her, but he was able to find you.”

“That’s because I wasn’t hiding because I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said between clenched teeth.

Harper reached over and set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, it’s early. We had trouble sleeping last night. We’re both very excited to start the search for your daughter.”

Lucas scoffed. She had trouble sleeping? She didn’t have a full-on erection for over half the night. If he was smarter, he would’ve gone to the bathroom and taken care of himself, but he kept on assuming it would go away.

Of course, when it came to Harper, his erection wouldn’t just go away. He was half convinced she would eventually let him crawl into that bed with her, but she held steady in her refusals. He wanted to respect her for that, but the sexual frustration made respect just a little bit too damn hard right now. Between sexual frustration and the normal run-of-the-mill frustration, he was SOL.

“So what do you expect me to do with this information that your other PI couldn’t?” he asked in as civil a tone as he could manage.

“To be bluntly honest, I expect you to call Lily the second you’re free from this house and hopefully the two of you can sort this out easily enough.”

“Trust me. If I had her number, I would’ve called her already.”

“Trust is earned.”

“And yet somehow I’m supposed to trust that you’re going to have the bullshit drug charges dropped any day now?”

“I don’t care if you trust me or not, Mr. Stone. I’ve laid out my terms and conditions, and you can take them or leave them. I don’t need you to sign your soul away in order to get your consent.”

A rumble somewhere between a groan and a growl escaped his throat as he sat back. He half expected Meredith to be recording everything that had gone on in Lily’s bedroom with video or at least audio. He’d been one hundred percent comfortable with the idea of them listening in on any frisky times he and Harper might’ve had—hell, it would serve them right—but from the sounds of it, Meredith was a hundred percent convinced that Lucas knew exactly where Lily was.

Harper took the credit card statement and looked it over. “This will give us a place to start. I’m ready to head to the city when you are.”

He glanced over to her and didn’t see any hint of sarcasm or humor. She was taking this joke of a “case” seriously. He still wanted to know why. Harper wasn’t anything to him. He’d only just met her.

“You know, forty-eight hours isn’t a lot of time,” said Harper as she looked over the statement.

“It’s already forty-eight hours from when I’d like to have her home,” said Meredith. “Consider yourself lucky I’m giving you this much time.”

“What if we get some concrete information about your daughter’s whereabouts? Can we get an extension?”

“You don’t have any cards to play here. You don’t have any bargaining chips. This isn’t a negotiation. I’m holding your friend’s life for ransom right now. Now pay me what I’m demanding, or I’ll make sure Lucas is put in the hole so far down that no appeals court will ever get him out of it.”

Harper forced a smile, but Lucas could tell there were a lot of violent thoughts going through her head right now. Meredith should consider herself lucky Harper couldn’t bring her gun.

“I’ll be in the rental car.” She glanced at Lucas out of the corner of her eye. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Meredith looked at him skeptically. “I would’ve thought you would want to get out of here faster than anyone.”

“Oh, trust me. This isn’t exactly my idea of a holiday, but there has to be some part of you, deep down, that knows Lily isn’t a saint. I didn’t force her to do any of this.”

Meredith looked at him, emotionless, nothing on her face giving away whether she believed him or not. “And you trust me, Mr. Stone. There is a lot I believe is possible, but right now that burden of proof is on you. If you’re accusing my daughter of being a thief and defrauding our family, prove it.”

“That’s hardly fair, now is it?”

“Very early on in our marriage, my husband taught me a valuable lesson. It’s vulgar and rude, but I’ve come to understand exactly how true it is.” He was sure she was waiting for him to ask what it was, but he wasn’t about to give her that satisfaction. “Fair is for pussies. Now man up, and bring my daughter back to me.”

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“What was that all about?” asked Harper as Lucas crossed to the driver seat.

“Just wanted to speak my piece. Don’t know why I bothered.”

He glanced over at Harper to see her scrolling through her phone. “I’m surprised you didn’t snatch up the driver seat while you could.”

“Oh no, you’re my chauffeur for the day.”

He frowned. “You have something, don’t you?”

“I don’t have anything. I have an inkling of an idea that I want to follow up on.”

“What’s your inkling?”

“The credit card statement. It shows that our girl Lily bought drinks at this one club in the city. Club Cuestar. One of my friends is a part owner of it. I want to see if we can get a meeting with him today, which is easier said than done, so I might have to make a few phone calls.”

“Just because your friend’s a part owner doesn’t mean he’ll know anything about Lily.”

“Maybe not, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Paranoia is basically this guy’s middle name. I bet there are cameras everywhere in the place. If this really is one of the last days that Lily was on the radar, we might be able to find something interesting.”

“Who’s this friend? Is he from your military days?”

“Not exactly. He’s a friend from high school.”

“A friend from high school who’s extra paranoid? I’m guessing this has something to do with the Wade situation too?”

Harper looked over at him with narrowed eyes. “What? I didn’t say that.”

“Deduction. I deduced.”

“Well, stop deducing. And you better not mention anything about that when we’re talking to him.”

“Okay, okay, okay. And what this guy’s name? Or am I not allowed to know that either?”

“Don’t be so sensitive. His name is Leo West.”

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Oddly enough, Harper had been okay with the blackmail, and the wrongful arrest, and a lot of other things that had gone down the past week. Maybe not okay, but she could deal with these things as they happened. But the idea of seeing Leo West again had her heart practically beating out of her chest. And not out of anticipation, either.

Leo was... he was a mess. She’d only seen him once or twice since they graduated from high school, and those were all sightings in passing. She had a feeling he didn’t want to see her.

Harper knew how traumatizing the entire experience had been for her, and Leo had it a thousand times worse. It was his mother who had died. It was his hands the blood had been on. Literally. Even if they all shared the blame, Leo bore the brunt of it.

She supposed after they all helped him cover it up, he owed her one, but it didn’t seem as though she were doing him a favor at the time. It just seemed like common sense. He was their friend. Even if he’d done something terrible, they couldn’t let him get punished for it. In hindsight, there were so many things they’d done wrong. The fact that they hadn’t been caught was a mixture of dumb luck and a sign of just how much everybody despised Maxium Senior.

But this would be fine. It wasn’t as if she were going to see Leo and talk about the past. She would keep the conversation solely focused on Lucas and his ex-girlfriend. An easy, businesslike exchange. Nothing more complex than that.

“You okay?” asked Lucas.

“I’m fine,” she snapped all too quickly. Great—even she didn’t believe herself. “I haven’t seen Leo in a while, that’s all.”

“You guys weren’t like... a thing, are you?”

Harper’s mouth fell open. Then suddenly it all made sense. Lucas thought she was nervous because she was about to see an ex-boyfriend.

“Leo and I were never a thing. He was far too busy with the cheerleaders to pay attention to a tomboy like me.”

“Yeah, jocks gotta jock.”

“Hey, I was a jock too.”

He raised a brow and looked at her. “Oh yeah. Please tell me of all the cheerleaders you screwed.”

“You wish.”

“Wait, I wish you would’ve actually screwed a cheerleader, or you did screw a cheerleader, and I just wish that you would tell me about it? This is a very important distinction, and I demand to know it.”

“You demand all you like,” she said with a smile.

Harper tried to fight back her smile. Usually the only thing that could help her through stressful situations was a nice long ride on her bike, but somehow, Lucas had a way to put her at ease. Odd considering ever since she met him, it had been nothing but one crisis after another.

“Just drive the car, Stone. I have a lot of calls to make.”

The drive to New York City from Connecticut wasn’t that bad. Because it was later in the morning, they avoided a lot of rush-hour traffic. Harper knew it was stupid to have their own car in the city, but she needed to be able to get around when she needed to and not have to depend on cab drivers. They would just have to stomach the exorbitant parking fees and overcrowded city. She hadn’t been able to get a hold of Leo, but she managed to get in touch with the bar manager who said they’d message Leo and he would meet them at the club that afternoon.

She wondered whether there were some other reason the bar manager had called her back instead of Leo. Some sort of power play?

It was telling that he wouldn’t agree to meet her at a restaurant. Instead, she needed to go to his territory. Talk to him through his people. They might get to his place around twelve, which would be hours before they’d actually start preparing for the nightly crowd. So basically, he’d rather open up his closed place of business to talk with her than grab a cup of coffee.

Yeah, this wasn’t going to be easy. Lucas had damn well better not underestimate what she was going through to help him. Though considering how hard it had been to convince him to let her help in the first place, he probably thought he was doing her a favor.

She turned to look at him just in time to see his eyes bounce away from her and back to the road. She took a nervous gulp. Had he been looking at her? No, he must’ve been looking out the passenger side window. It was selfish to think everything was about her.

But if he’d been innocently looking out the window, why did he look away? It wasn’t that selfish to assume it was about her. He made his opinions about their situation very clear.

And to be honest, the thought was more and more tempting by the minute. Sure, Harper didn’t have the most extensive dating life, but with Lucas that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if they needed to go out and have coffee to see whether they meshed. They already knew they got along. Not that it mattered all that much in a casual relationship.

Wait.... Did she want a casual relationship? She never really had one before, but she really hadn’t had many relationships in her past, casual or not. The few times she’d gotten close to a man, they’d all wanted too big of a commitment or been too needy. She couldn’t imagine staying at home, cleaning and cooking dinners for somebody, and none of the guys she’d even considered doing anything with were comfortable with her running all over the world to some of the most dangerous countries and putting herself in danger.

What if Lucas was the perfect mixture? Easy to get along with, seemed to respect her; she knew him well enough to at least trust him to wear a condom. And commitment definitely wouldn’t be an issue with him. From the stories he’d told, it sounded as if he went through women like pieces of chewing gum.

She scowled at the mental metaphor. Somehow the image of her being chewed up and spit out made the whole idea less appetizing.

“What are you thinking about over there?”

“Nothing,” she spat out. Damn. She really had to work on her tells around him. “What kind of question is that anyway? What am I thinking? Is that how you get all your girlfriends? By being all sensitive and caring?” The attempts to push the attention back on him might be a little too obvious, but it was more than apparent that she wasn’t exactly a smooth operator around him.

Lucas let out a little laugh. “A little sensitivity never hurt. And yeah, if you want to know the truth, girls love it. Nothing gets a girl’s panties wetter in this day and age than talking about how dangerous toxic masculinity can be.”

“Is that right? Are you the beta male of everyone’s dreams?”

“Honey, I’m whatever any girl wants me to be. Beta, Alpha, Omega—I got the whole Greek alphabet covered.”

Harper let out a laugh. Damn, this would be easier if he didn’t make her smile so much.