CHAPTER TWELVE

COLTON

I stand outside the restaurant looking down the driveway. I thought Branton was the middle of nowhere already, but this place is taking it to the extreme. I’m waiting for a group of survivalists to come storming from the forest, a zombie apocalypse perhaps.

I check my cell again, but it’s the same blank screen it was two minutes ago. I check my watch too, and once more for good measure. Why am I so fucking nervous? It’s like I’m back at Senior Prom waiting for my date, a raging hard-on in my pants and a flattened condom burning a hole in my pocket.

She might not show—that is the simple truth. I don’t dinner alone, the thought of returning to the flat with nothing but Mrs. Palmer to relieve the tension is far from appealing.

Lights cut through the treeline, the telltale crunch of tires on gravel as the town car comes into view. My cell chimes, the Uber I ordered for Harper arriving.

I watch from the steps of the restaurant as she gets out, bare legs showing under her quilted coat, her hair washing around her shoulders… and heels—black, strappy, no doubt turning her already perky ass tight as a Californian plum.

She stands before me looking sheepish, far removed from the teacher I know in class.

“You came,” I state.

“Twice, if I recall,” she smiles, a hint of cheekiness showing.

I offer her my hand. “Let’s make it three, shall we?”

We’re greeted at the entrance, one of the staff materializing to help us out of our coats. I expected Harper to look amazing regardless, but the silky strapless she’s wearing blows my fucking mind. If I keep staring at it, I’m likely to blow something else.

The close-fitting top falls into cascading frills cut high to show off her legs. It’s lipstick red, the brightest thing I’ve seen since I arrived in Branton. I know fashion. I know women. There’s no way she isn’t wet simply slipping that thing on.

Harper’s looking at me with concern. “Everything okay?”

Fuck me. I can’t stop staring at her, at this grand slam of a dress so hot it’d make Jessica Rabbit blush. “You could say that. You look…”

“Silly?”

“No, you look amazing.”

She blushes. “Thank you. It’s Mindy’s, actually. I told her I needed something sexy and she said my wardrobe was a ‘Mary Poppins-inspired clusterfuck of fashion faux pas,’ thus…” She smooths the dress down, still looking unsure. “And you… You’re wearing a sports blazer.”

I’m still salivating at the way she said ‘fuck.’

I take hold of the navy lapel of my blazer. “Dunhill, perfected over a century.”

She’s shaking her head in astonishment. “I mean, how? How does a guy your age even get away with wearing that and not looking like…?”

“Archaic?” I fill. “You can get away with a lot when you’re a Beckett.”

“So I imagine.” She looks up at the cedar wood ceiling, the contemporary way it’s been crafted to look like an overturned boat. “What even is this place?”

“Canaque, I believe. It’s only been open a week, what I’m assured is the coming culinary jewel of the region.”

“You read that in the local paper?”

“My Insta feed, actually.”

“Let me guess, full of your former conquests, duck-face beauty queens, and bro bible quotes?”

I stand beside her, run my hand down the bare shallow of her back until my hand rests an inch above the crack of her ass. “Nothing, no one compares to this,” I tell her, letting my fingers dance over the silky globes of her buttocks. My hand stops, a knowing smile telling me she knows exactly what I’ve discovered. “You’re not wearing any…”

She puts a finger to her lips. “It is a little breezy outside.”

If my dick was hard before she arrived, I could hammer nails with it now.

“This way, please,” a cheerful staff member beams, directing us to a table next to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a lake at the back of the property. This is my kind of place. Even LA never drummed up this kind of class.

I order wine, conversation flowing just as easily between us. Hand-shelled mud crab, smoked Blackmore wagu… The food’s fucking good, even by my lofty standards.

“You know,” says Harper, her eyes sparkling with the same highlights as her wine glass, “James used to take me to this place, this crappy Italian restaurant called Pepe’s in town. He thought I loved it, but the food was terrible—reheated slop he thought was as authentic as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”

I raise my wine glass. “I hope I’m doing better.”

“You are.” She smiles. “And there’s still dessert to come.” The way she trills the last word tells me I’m in for something far better than crème brûlée.

But I know precisely what kind of dessert I want—another taste of the sweet delights between her thighs, my tongue darting in and out of her heat. I keep my composure, surveying the menu. “There’s ten-textured chocolate cake, if you’re keen.”

She cups her ear. “Did someone say chocolate? Consider my chastity belt unlocked, O sugary one.”

“You really like chocolate, huh?”

She looks into her glass. “My father was a chocolatier and his father, Swiss, before him.”

“So you’re part-Swiss?”

“Part-French, too, which I suppose is how I ended up in Montreal. Mom was a professor at McGill, basically as close to Ivy as you’re going to get up here.”

“Cultural studies too?”

“Philosophy, which is probably worse given the navel-gazing she used to get up to.”

“Where are they now, your parents?”

I see her swallow before she meets my eyes. “Dad passed a couple of years ago, cancer, Mom early last year in a car crash. Drunk driver.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. They led full lives. They were respected in their fields.”

“Is that what you want?” I ask, careful to moderate my tone. “To be respected?”

Harper places her wine glass down and presses her hands together on the table before looking back up to me, her eyes wet. “I was.”

“You’re worried about us, here? We’re thirty miles out of Branton. No one from that backwoods college is going to show up here.”

“No, you don’t get it. Us meeting like this?” she points between us. “Yes, it’s a bad idea, but as for respect? I can’t imagine I’m ever going to get it at Branton.”

I’m confused. “So… why are you here, considering you hate it so much?”

Her composure starts to crack. There’s something she’s not telling me. I want to know what it is, what makes her tick and work and go about her day. More than ever, I want to know this woman beyond what’s between her legs or what happens between the sheets. It’s not a feeling I’m familiar with, but I’m as desperate to know her mind as much as what turns her on. I need to know. “Tell me, Harper. What are you trying to hide? A kid? A giant debt? A third nipple, because I’d totally be into that…”

“No. I don’t have any secrets per se. I just… wanted more for myself. That’s all.”

“But you’ve got the smarts, the passion. I see it every day when I come to class. You make even the most mundane subjects interesting,” I tell her. “So, why don’t you go out and get it, the ‘more’?” I don’t want to sound patronizing, but I’m genuinely curious.

She looks at me directly. “I did—once. I attended McGill myself, you know, a PhD student to a professor there, but he… he wanted me to be more to him. I turned him down and he threatened to ruin me. And then he did, just like that,” she clicks her fingers, “no ‘innocent until proven guilty’ or inquisition, just a quiet kick in the ass out of there, my dignity and reputation in tatters.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“You’re right, and the craziest part? I never said anything to defend myself. I kept thinking it would make things worse.”

I reach across the table and take her hands in mine. “Harper, you can stand up for yourself. You should.”

She starts to cry, wiping away a tear with the back of her hand.

“Oh, hell. I didn’t mean to—” I start.

“No, no,” she says, smiling again, “it’s just that no one’s ever really said that to me, or… you know, given me a…”

“Orgasm?” I whisper, throwing her off.

“That too.”

“And that is a damn fucking shame.”

She straightens up, sniffing. “But enough of the doom and gloom, did someone say chocolate cake?”

*

The conversation inevitably moves to my own situation. I detail the first time I came to Canada, right after I was booted from Abbotsleigh. I lasted all of a week back then being jetting down to LA for my brother Hunter’s treatment, sunshine and sand.

“But why were you expelled from Abbotsleigh in the first place?” she asks. “It must have been pretty serious given your father’s influence.”

The less said about Dad, the better, but I answer her question all the same. “There was this prick, Dwayne, giving my older brother Cayden shit, trying to force himself on Cay’s girl at the time, now wife. We were at a bar and he tried to have a go at her, called her a slut, and that was enough. I snapped.”

“You were in a barfight?”

That I have to laugh at. “A couple, you could say, but that particular one was what got me my marching orders.”

“Isn’t the older brother supposed to stick up for the younger brother?”

“And he has, on many occasions. We have each other’s back, you know.”

“But they just let you get expelled?”

“It’s wasn’t that clear cut. Cay and Hunter were tied up in the football team, all big money and sponsorship. I was a freshman playing lacrosse. I was expendable so the college could keep its shiny rep and Dwayne’s daddy could be sated justice was served.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shrug, and honestly it doesn’t bother me much anymore. I’ve matured… a bit. “I was impulsive back then. I should have known better.”

“You still seem rather impulsive if recent events are anything to go by.”

“I see what I want and I go after it. We all do.”

“Your brothers?”

“That’s right.” The wine has loosened my tongue. “But I can’t see them coming up here to this icy hell hole.”

“To borrow your line, you really hate Branton that much?”

I press my knee between her legs. “Well, it’s not all bad.”