Her smile slipped, and a number of emotions passed through her expressive eyes. Surprise. Desire. And maybe just a bit of fear. For some reason, she was scared of their connection. Why? Because it was so intense? Because she had a bad history with men?
“Harper!” Her gaze shot toward the kitchen at the sound of Barry’s voice. “Can I get some help?”
“Sure.” She glanced back at Cody, but the smile was well and truly gone. “I’ll, um, go help in the back.”
As she walked away, it washisturn to smile. Because he intended to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. And he also intended to break through her walls and gain her trust.
The next couple of hours were a mix of women eating, drinking, and talking business. Well, mostly business. He was pretty sure he heard a fair bit of gossiping as well.
When he wasn’t needed out front, he went into the office and tried to stay busy with a couple of things just to give himself space to breathe. Before long, footsteps sounded outside the door, and for a second, he thought it might be Harper. It wasn’t.
Vanessa stepped inside and partially closed the door. “Wow, being in here brings back memories.”
Was she talking about when he’d try to work and she’d sit on his desk and attempt to distract him? Before the cheating, of course. Because nothing else had happened in this room. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I just want to say thank you again for letting me host this event in the bar.”
“You’ve already thanked me.”
She stepped closer, starting to step around his desk. “I know. But after what I did to you, you could have said no.”
Heshouldhave said no.
“I never meant to hurt you, you know.” This time her voice was lower, almost sultry. “Cody—”
He stood quickly. “I need to get back out there.” And get away fromher. The two of them being alone in here felt too intimate.
He moved the opposite way around his desk to open the door and step out. Harper looked up from behind the bar, a small smile stretching her lips when their gazes collided. The smileslipped when her gaze fell behind him—right on Vanessa as she followed him out of the office.
Was she overthinking this?Sure, Cody and Vanessa had been in his office alone, and yeah, she’d looked smug as hell when she’d strutted out. That didn’t mean anything had happened. And even if it did, that was none of her business.
It was just…confusing, because Cody had been giving off all kinds of signs that he was interested in her.
Yes. That’s why she was out of sorts. Because she was confused.Notbecause she was jealous that the two of them had been alone in his office doing God knows what.
She walked into the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher. She felt Barry’s eyes on her before he spoke. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s fine. Absolutely fine. I mean, people can do whatever they want, right? It’s not like we can predict how people will act, or wish for certain behaviors. And even if peopledidact the way we wanted, a part of us shouldn’t want that. We might even be scared of it. Because hope can be a terrible thing. Hope makes us believe something good is possible when sometimes it just isn’t. And I just—”
Barry touched her arm. Christ, she hadn’t even heard him come toward her.
“I’m not following much of what you’re saying,” he said gently. “But I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty that hope isn’t always a terrible thing.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m a wise old man who’s been given the gift of hope a few times in his life.”
Gift. Barry saw hope as a gift. Whereas whenever she’d hoped for anything, it had been ripped away so violently she’d been scared to ever hope again.
She opened her mouth, not exactly sure what was about to come out, only to stop athisvoice.
“Harper.”
Her heart jumped, and she looked up to see Cody standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his beautiful ocean-blue eyes boring into her.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.” The words came out too quickly and far too high-pitched.
