Page 84 of One Wrong Move

“Why did you say that?”

“Mmm, it’s just an observation I’ve made,” she says, putting her water bottle back and stretches out again with a sigh. “You’re good at charming people, at giving them the version of yourself they want to see. I bet that’s good skill in negotiations and to persuade people at work, right?”

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Yes. It can be.”

“All I meant was, you don’t need to do that with me.” She shrugs, and I catch the movement out of the corner of my eye. “I like spending time with you even if we talk about heavy stuff. Or if we’re silent.”

I could brush this off with a joke. That’s my immediate impulse, but I swallow it down. Nod instead. “Noted,” I say. “You’re… I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone quite like you, Harp.”

“I’m sure you haven’t,” she says easily.

The words are spoken with so much confidence that it makes me laugh. She starts laughing, too. “I didn’t mean it like that!” she quickly protests.

“Sure you didn’t.”

“No, no really. More like you probably spend most of your time with people in your social circle, if that makes sense.”

“Not particularly.” I glance over at her again, and then back to the road. “I was arguing with my brother.”

“Ah, the one you were competitive with.”

“Yeah. We’re not seeing eye to eye about my dad. Or rather, what to do about him.”

She makes a small ooh sound. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. It’s par for the course these days.” I shake my head, my voice turning bitter. “My brother’s relationship with our dad was better than anyone else’s, but it’s been strained in the last few months. And Dad let things between him and my sister sour entirely. She married someone Dad doesn’t approve of, and he is stubborn enough to think he deserves an apology for that. So that leaves just me.”

“Is he very involved?” Harper asks carefully.

That makes me chuckle. “No, not in the way you mean. But he does love imparting his wisdom and advice.”

“Overbearing?”

“Somehow overbearing and distant,” I say. “A magical combination mastered by David Connovan alone.”

“He demands a lot of you and your siblings?”

“He demands everything,” I say evenly. “Only now we’re not so quick to yield to his commands. We are his children, after all, and he’s never listened to anyone in his life.”

She makes a thoughtful sound. “I suppose that’s why he’s been so successful in business, maybe? But it does sound like a tough way to live. And a very harsh way to raise children.”

I nod. Pass a tractor, zipping past it as fast as I can go on the gravel road. This was the last topic I thought we’d be discussing today. But with my eyes on the dusty road, words come easier than I could have predicted. “Now he’s giving me the berating he usually saved for Alec. Funny, I once envied my brother for getting all of Dad’s attention. Now I pity him, if it was always this intense.”

“Maybe,” Harper says, “he’s being pushy because you’re the only one of his children who is still speaking to him? Your dad may be clinging to you and hoping you’ll solve his problems with your siblings.”

I glance at her again. “Yes. That might be it. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that before.”

“I’m a genius sometimes.”

“And modest, too.”

“Mm-hmm. What’s the use in staying modest? Someone told me to ‘fake it till you make it’ or something like that.”

“Such a cliche statement. I hope you told him off.”

She laughs. “Tried to, but he dodged the bullet. He has a way of doing just that.”

After a curve, another stretch of open road unfurls ahead. It bisects the pastures and meadows dotted with spring flowers and gleaming that vibrant green color they only get mid-May. In the distance, a speck of gray is getting larger. We’re drawing close to the estate Harper wanted to visit.

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