Take a Chance (Chance, #1; Rosemary Beach #7)(41)

Grant

Aphone call from Dean had gotten me past the large iron gates of Manor in the Hills. I didn’t intend to go inside. I just wanted to park and wait on Harlow to come outside. She’d been here at least two hours by now. I closed the car door and stepped around the front of the car so I could see the front doors. When she came out, I would be here.

If she didn’t want to see me, fine. I’d just follow the limo back to Vegas. But if she needed me, I was available. I was stupid enough to think that because I had gotten her to f**k me in a bathroom, all was forgiven. I still had a lot to prove to her. And if she would give me a chance I’d always be there when she needed it.

I hadn’t been waiting but ten minutes when the door to the Manor opened and Harlow walked out. From here, I could see she’d been crying. I made my way toward her. She didn’t notice me at first. She was wiping her eyes and walking down the steps when I made it to the bottom. Her eyes lifted and widened when she saw me standing there. This was it. She was going to yell at me to leave or she was going to—

Harlow ran down the stairs and threw herself into my arms and began sobbing. I held her against my chest tightly and closed my eyes. I was immediately thankful I’d come. I’d been right. She needed me.

I didn’t ask. I just let her cry and held her. Both her hands grabbed fistfuls of my T-shirt as her body shook. My chest ached with each pitiful noise that came from her. I wanted to fix this. I wanted to go inside and fix anything that upset her, but how the hell did I fix this? I couldn’t.

“He . . . he brushes her hair,” she said as a sob racked her body again.

He brushes her hair. What? Was she talking about her dad? I didn’t ask. I just let her talk.

“She smiles at him,” she choked out.

Yes, she was talking about her dad. I tried to imagine Kiro brushing a woman’s hair, one who couldn’t speak or move. It didn’t seem like those two things went together. I couldn’t see Kiro brushing anyone’s hair but his own, and that was rare.

“Oh, God, Grant, my heart hurts so bad. He’s so sweet with her. It’s like there’s this man I never knew existed. She can’t do anything. Nothing. I don’t even know if she even understands what he’s saying, but he talks to her like she understands everything. He still loves her. Completely. And he gets nothing in return.”

I glanced up at the mansion in front of me and tried to imagine what she was telling me, but I couldn’t. I’d seen Kiro f**k a woman on his pool table who I was pretty sure was barely nineteen. He was drinking vodka straight out of the bottle and smoking a joint at the same time as he did this. It was forever burned in my thirteen-year-old brain.

I held Harlow and ran my hand down over her hair, trying to soothe her even if it was impossible. She didn’t say anything else. Finally her sobbing eased off and she let go of my shirt and smoothed it out where she had wrinkled it. Not that I gave a shit. She could have the shirt if she wanted it.

“You’re here,” she finally said, looking up at me with a wet face that was still breathtakingly beautiful. How did she do that? Always so damn perfect. She made it hard on a man.

“I thought you might need someone.”

She gave me a shaky smile. “You were right.”

I reached up and wiped away the tears still clinging to her cheeks with my thumbs. “If you ever need me, I’m here,” I told her.

She sighed and closed her eyes briefly. “That doesn’t help,” she said.

“Why?” I thought having me at her beck and call would be pretty damn helpful.

“I’m trying to keep you at arm’s length. Being sweet makes it hard.”

So that’s what this was about. Well, she hadn’t seen anything yet. I was gonna make it even harder before it was over.

“I thought we had gotten rid of that arm’s-length thing in the bathroom on the plane,” I replied, trying to get a real smile out of her.

She cocked her eyebrow. “No. That was because you’re ridiculously sexy and you give me really amazing orgasms.”

I could work with that.

“Anytime you want one of those all you have to do is crook that pretty little finger,” I replied, and this time she did smile. A real smile. One that lit up all the darkness in her eyes.

I reached down and laced my fingers through hers and she let me. “I drove a rental car. You want to ride with me?”

She glanced over at the limo. “Yeah. I do. Dad wants to stay until tonight and I need to leave him the limo.”

Good. I wanted her beside me.

“You ready now?” I asked.

She glanced back at the house. “Yeah, I am. I can’t take any more today. And he needs his alone time with her. I think she needs him, too.”

I wasn’t sure what all went on in that room today, but I knew it had changed things for Harlow. Her life was forever different. The crying wasn’t over, either. I had a feeling more mourning would come. And I intended to be there. She wasn’t going to deal with this alone.

?

We were headed back to the desert and I had let Harlow pick the music. I also left her to her thoughts. She needed to think and process all she had seen today, and I understood that. I glanced over at her every once in a while to make sure she wasn’t crying.

“I’m not going to break down again,” she finally said.