He's a cynic. She's a romantic. One deal, one wedding, and one gigantic secret stand between them.
**
Harper Lane wants to believe in true love. After her parents split, she began photographing evidence of it. Couples holding hands. Valentine's Day...
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Harper was lost.
In the geographical sense. The "I-don't-recognize-these-buildings" sense. Although, Harper reflected, if she spent much more time on this doorstep overthinking her trip to England, she might be figuratively lost, too.
She knocked on the door again, hopping from foot-to-foot. London was freezing for May, and her airplane outfit — leggings, a hoodie, and a pair of Birkenstocks — wasn't helping matters. She needed a scarf. Or a hot cup of tea.
Or for her damn stepbrother to open the door.
Harper knocked again. Where the hell was Griffin? He'd known that she was flying out today. She could take a cab to their parents' place, of course, but the wedding was in less than two weeks, and Harper had already seen enough fabric samples and floral bouquets over Zoom to last a lifetime.
She took out her phone.
I'm outside, she typed. I think.
No response.
Harper opened Google Maps. No, she was definitely here; the blue dot was outside a house in Clapham. Not because Griffin couldn't afford Chelsea — she'd seen her stepbrother happily fork out three hundred quid for champagne and oysters — but because he didn't care. Griffin would happily live in a red telephone box, so long as he had his toolkit and access to military-grade steel.
She knocked again.
No answer.
"Griffin?" Harper raised her voice. "Griffin, are you in there?"
She glanced at her phone. Still no text. Maybe he'd popped to the shops? She raised her fist to the door. Or maybe he'd stayed up all night and was sleeping in. That sounded like Griffin. He always—
There was a large boom.
Harper flinched. Good lord. Was he moving furniture? A moment later, the door flew open; Griffin appeared on the threshold, red hair rumpled, smelling vaguely of sulfur and pine soap. He was also, Harper noted with amusement, covered in soot.
"Harper!" Griffin beamed. "You're here just in time."
She let him hug her. "In time for what?"
"You'll see."
Griffin motioned for her to come in. Harper reached back for her suitcase, but Griffin was already cradling it like a child, looking unbothered by the six pairs of heels that she'd crammed inside. But that was typical Griffin, Harper thought; Diana had raised him to never let a woman open a door, carry a suitcase, or top up her own wine.
"I can carry that, you know," Harper told him. "If you need a break."
Griffin waved her off. "It's good for me." He adjusted the suitcase. "Have to get the cardio in somehow, don't I?"
