“Harp,” he drawled out.
His use of my name hit different this morning. Somehow, it didn’t sting.
“Things are… good. For the first time since I left Chad,I feel—” I shrugged again, shoulders bouncing like they were trying to dance—“happy. Like,reallyhappy.”
Damien chuckled, finally digging into his own breakfast. “Alright, I like it. You deserve that. And hey, if your happiness means free food for me, I’m all in.”
“Oh! And heads up—I should have enough cash to get out of your hair soon.”
He raised a brow, chewing another bite. “Yeah? How much is this mystery guy paying you?”
I licked the sticky syrup off my fingers, pulled out my phone, and flipped the screen toward him, my bank balance glaring at him in all its glory.
Damien choked on his bacon, eyes wide as saucers staring at the zeros.
“What the fuck?”
I laughed, sliding my phone back into my pocket.
“Who on earth is paying you that much for therapy—” Damien cut himself off, mouth falling open as he looked at me like I was on a ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ poster. “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you? Is he pressuring you? Harp, if this is about you crashing on my couch, you don’t need to go to those lengths. And what kind of sleaze ball is—”
“Damien!” I half-shouted, the thought of Ambrose as some mystery man buying women like a noir villain making me laugh out loud. “It’s not like that. He’s a good guy.”
Damien scoffed. “A good guy? He’s on anillegalapp—”
“Oneyoupointed me to.”
“—Looking for women. Sure, it’s some pheromone thing, but if he’s got that much money to throw around, he can’t be any good. What if he’s a gangster or something?”
“Damien, my dearest and oldest friend,” I said, hands firm on his shoulders, “he’s not a gangster, or a mafioso, or a made man or any of the nonsense you’re imagining. He’s a good guy. Ipromise. I know him, okay?”
“Know him? The only guy with that kind of money you know is…”
I watched the expression on his face change as the penny dropped. Damien sighed, crossing his arms as he leaned back like a man who just lost a bet.
“Ambrose? Yourboss, Ambrose?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, voice low but steady. “Ambrose.”
He blinked a few times in rapid succession like I’d just told him I was dating an actual mafia don.
“Aren’t you… worried? I mean, yourboss? That’s a whole different kind of complication, Harp.”
I shrugged, pushing the bacon around the pool of syrup on my plate. “Complicated, sure. But sometimes good things are complicated, right? And honestly, why does complicated need to mean ‘bad.’ Chad wasn’t complicated and look how that turned out. Chad was supposed to be the straight and narrow package—complicationsnotincluded.”
Damien snorted. “Since when did you become so corporate, looking for all these loopholes?”
“Since I met someone complicated andfun.” I shot him a look that was equal parts challenge and confession.
He nodded slowly, eyes narrowing but softer now. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’s he like?”
I smiled, the kind that starts in my toes and spills out through my eyes. “He’s… not what I expected. Not flashy or arrogant. And when we are together his attention is so singularly focussed on me, it’s like I am the only thing that matters.”
Damien grinned, his canines bared, shaking his head. “Sounds like you’re in deep, Harp.”
I laughed, pouring myself a cup of coffee. “Maybe.”
“So how does it work with you guys working together and everything? Have you done it on his desk?”
