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I skimmed over the website, and spent extra time looking over the gallery of before and after pictures. She was good at her job. I would give her that much credit.
“You’re also good at other things too, apparently,” I muttered, then went back to the email.
There were other documents such as her driver’s license which contained her address. There was also a bank statement, and knowing it would prove a better glimpse into her financial accounts, I locked in on her savings. There wasn’t a lot there, at least not from what I had thought would be there, especially considering what my father had told me a few weeks before his death.
“I’m helping Harper recover her inheritance.” I’d zoned out at the mention of her name, and now I wished I hadn’t.
There was a small, but sizable deposit made around the time of my parents’ death, although I knew there was no connection. If that was her inheritance, it was much smaller than I would’ve thought considering how wealthy her parents were. Her father, like mine, were Titans, and I’d never met one not worth millions, if not billions. Hell, I was one myself, even though I hadn’t fulfilled my dream of playing ball professionally like Noah Capshaw had.
I also noticed the withdrawal which was the exact amount she had bid on me, and I narrowed my eyes at her wasting so much of her money for nothing. I definitely needed to make sure she got that twenty-five grand back.
I moved from the savings to her checking and noticed a few pending transactions. I saw the Uber transaction dated for the day she’d left my penthouse. At least, she hadn’t left my place and hooked up with some other man. Now, I just needed to see where he’d taken her.
I pulled back up her credit report, and when skimming over the few credit cards she had, I noticed that she tended to spend mainly off of two of them because they were the only ones with any kind of revolving balance. I hit reply on Clay’s email and asked him to check out those two accounts. I wanted access to them, then I could see if either card was the one she’d used to book the hotel.
“Mr. Blake, Philando’s coach is on the line. Do you want me to have him leave a message,” my secretary asked as she poked her head through my open door.
“No, put him through.” I closed my email and picked up the phone.
HARPER
I’d spent the rest of the weekend, and several days into the following week, emailing Jackson back and forth. He had friends in low places, and as the name ‘Blue’ kept repeating itself in my head, I knew it had something to do with Franklin and Ashley Blake’s deaths. It had to.
The paper trail my friend had been able to uncover was more than coincidental. George was far too arrogant to be this worried about nothing. His over-confidence had led to carelessness, and it was something Gabriel’s father had found out before he was murdered.
The newspaper articles continued to call the private plane crash an accident due to mechanical failure. I had no proof, not that anyone would believe me if I had, but I knew the vessel had been tampered with, just as I knew my childhood love was in grave danger.
“Did you talk to Gabriel?” Jackson asked.
Hell, I’d done a lot more with him than that. I’d had the best sex I’d ever had in my life, even if he turned out to be an asshole in the end. He honestly thought I was into that type of shit, and seeing as I came for him anyway, maybe I was. I took a deep breath and forced those thoughts away before answering.
“I’ve tried to tell him, but things between us are...” I paused as I tried to find the right word. Was it bad? Hostile? Volatile? I finally expelled another breath. “It’s complicated. I told him multiple times, but he brushed my concerns off.”
“I mean, what did he think you came all the way to Chicago for? Doesn’t he...” This time, Jackson paused, then cursed. “Fuck, Harper. You didn’t.”
I had. Despite my intentions, I flew to Chicago during a blizzard and had sex with the man who should’ve been mine. He wasn’t the one who got away seeing as I pushed him to do so, but he was the one I loved, and always would.
My friend knew it too because we talked a few times about him, especially in recent months when he questioned why I was so invested in this mission of futility.
“It just happened, but it won’t again. I’m pretty sure he’s throwing a party now that I’m gone.”
“If that’s the case, he’s a bigger fool than I already believe him to be. If you act with him the way you look when talking about him, anyone outside of Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles would be able to see how bad you have it for him.”
In the beginning, I would blurt out Gabriel’s name when drinking with friends, mainly him because most others seemed to come and go. I never truly fit in when I moved to Portland.
The inner city was no place for a girl they dubbed the Windy City Barbie. I was a spoiled, little rich girl from a private school. I was ridiculed, bullied, and more during that last year and a half. I had no junior or senior proms to attends, or graduation parties to celebrate. I went to school, work, then tried to keep myself off of Jayson’s radar.
I still remember the day I’d told George about his son. My uncle had blown up at me and told me to never speak to him about it again.
“You can’t throw accusations like that around or else someone might believe them.”
“They’re true,” I’d told him. “Please, you have to make him stop or else, I’ll have—”
He’d struck me in that moment, and I wasn’t sure whether my silence and submission had been because of shock or fear, but I knew then that no one would ever believe me. I just focused on counting down the days until I could leave. Once I graduated, I got a few grants and student loans, then moved away to college. Once on campus, I’d cut off my family.
It wasn’t until I started investigating my inheritance that I reached back out to George. Jayson, I still hadn’t contacted, and I never would. Last I heard, he’d been arrested a few times on petty theft charges, and a domestic assault that landed him a few days in jail before his father bailed him out. I didn’t like to concern myself with him, so I kept my distance. I put all thoughts of him back out of my head and not having caught what Jackson was saying, I interrupted him mid-sentence.
“I’m sorry. Will you repeat that?”
