Page 249 of The Rebel Billionaire

She sucks in a shuddering breath. “You don’t know me,” she says, and I can sense her pulling away. “You know sensible Brooke, not rebellious Harper.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She shakes her head, another tear escaping. This is not the woman who has stood toe to toe with me over the past few months and turned my life upside down. I move my head until she meets my gaze again.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re not the woman I have come to know and love?” I ask.

She lets out a sob, and I cradle her face in both my hands as she bites her lip.

“Please don’t,” she whimpers. “You love Brooke,” she says, her face crumbling, as if saying those words causes her physical pain.

I move, dropping to my knees in front of her.

“Are you telling me you aren’t Brooke? That you haven’t worked for me for the past nine months, slept next to me for four of those?”

A wrinkle forms between her brows.

“I’m Harper, not Brooke. Brooke was a figment of someone’s imagination, a made-up persona,” she says, her eyes radiating loss.

I incline my head and smile.

“Can I tell you what I think?” I say, smoothing her hair back from her face, and tucking it behind her ear. “I think Brooke is Harper Frazer without the chains of her position. Everyone has two personas, and some have even more. Brooke is you, and you are Brooke. Harper is also you. She’s been raised to follow the rules and behave in a certain way.”

Harper lets out a bleak, sharp laugh.

“I’m not sure about the rule following. There’s a reason my sister calls me Rebel.”

“I know. I’ve seen the photographs.” I chuckle, running the back of a finger down her cheek. “The makeup and hair were quite a statement.”

She groans and buries her head in her hands.

I lift her chin, adding pressure until her gaze returns to mine.

“Tell me Brooke isn’t Harper, and if that’s what you want, I’ll leave,” I say, the words turning my stomach as I speak them aloud.

“But you don’t know Harper? You don’t know the real me.”

I sit back. “Can I ask you a question?”

She nods, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“If I went out there and spoke to your brothers, Kat, your mum and told them about Brooke… the Brooke I got to know and love. The woman who everyone in the office admires and respects, who loves Night at the Museum and old musicals, drinks far more coffee than is good for her⁠—”

“That’s a family trait, and I’m not the only one who does,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“Point taken. We are a bad combination. But what I’m asking is, would they recognise her?”

“I—”

I take her hand and give it a squeeze, interlocking our fingers. “Let me ask you this. The Alex Bianchi you saw in Italy, at Christmas surrounded by family and friends, the man you have spent time with, would you agree he is a very different man from Alessandro Bianchi, the CEO of St Clair, the man you worked with every day?”

She moves my hand to her lips and places a kiss against my palm, making my throat thicken.

“What I’m saying is, I’m the same person. I just have a different persona depending on the role I’m in.”

“But I was Brooke, not Harper. My CV was a lie. Everything about me was a lie.”

I laugh.