Chapter 3
Did he live in this building too?
No. Probably not.
Rowan’s condo had been marketed as upper-midrange when it first opened, but the building was old now, and the amenities were a little dated. With Cillian’s current status, he could afford somewhere far better.
Their eyes met.
Cillian’s gaze skimmed over Harlow for only a second before moving away. It did not linger.
“Mommy, aren’t we getting in?” Calista looked up at her.
“We’re… getting in.”
Harlow led Calista into the elevator. The car was spacious, but she deliberately pushed Calista into the corner farthest from Cillian and used her own body to block her daughter’s face.
The elevator descended. The numbers changed one by one, every second stretching into a century.
Harlow hardly dared to breathe.
The ridiculous part was, Cillian did not even glance at Calista.
Of course he didn’t. He hated Harlow. Why would he pay attention to her child?
Harlow had just begun to relax when the rainbow bouncy ball in Calista’s hand slipped free and rolled straight to Cillian Emerson’s shoes.
“Mommy, my rainbow ball! My rainbow ball fell!”
Harlow stared.
Of course it did.
Calista’s little hand stretched through the gap in the human wall Harlow had constructed, trying to reach the ball, but she could not get close enough.
Cillian glanced down, bent, picked up the bouncy ball, and handed it back to Calista.
Harlow watched his large hand and Calista’s tiny hand touch.
Cold sweat prickled out of her skin.
Even their hands were shaped the same.
“Thank you,” Calista said, smiling sweetly at him.
Cillian nodded once with the blank expression of a malfunctioning robot.
Calista looked as if she wanted to say more. Harlow immediately covered her mouth with one hand.
At last, the elevator reached the first floor. The ding sounded like a choir of angels.
Cillian stood near the front, but he was going down to the garage, so he did not move. Harlow wrapped an arm around Calista, slipped past him sideways, and fled the elevator as if escaping a fire.
The doors closed again, and the elevator continued down.
Little Calista looked back, then asked softly, “Mommy, was the man in the elevator a bad guy?”
“Why would Calista ask that?”
“Because you kept blocking me from him. Your palm was sweating.”
Only then did Harlow realize her child had sensed her nervousness.
“No, baby. That man isn’t a bad guy. But he is a stranger. Mommy has told you we need to keep a safe distance from strangers, right?”
“Right. But if he’s just a normal stranger, why were you nervous?”
“Mommy was just… worried you’d be late. Hurry, hurry, hurry. If we keep talking, you’ll be late for kindergarten.”
Calista’s attention shifted at once.
“I don’t want to be late. I want my gold star!”
Cillian’s car pulled out of the underground garage. At the intersection, he saw Harlow and her daughter again.
One tall, one tiny, hand in hand, they hurried beneath the shadows of the plane trees. The little girl looked about five or six. Her hair was tied into two pigtails, and the small cherry hair ties on them glinted faintly in the morning light.
“Cillian Emerson, after we get married, let’s have a daughter, okay? I’ll braid her hair every day, and you’ll take her to kindergarten every day. I want her to grow up happy beside us.”
“Okay. It would be best if our daughter looked like you.”
“Daughters look like their dads.”
“That’s fine too.”
The memory opened like an old wooden chest pried apart, dust rising through a shaft of light.
But then what?
Then she had a daughter with someone else.
Harlow dropped Calista off at kindergarten. She stood at the door and watched her daughter walk into the classroom before turning to leave.
Across the road from the kindergarten, a Rolls-Royce Cullinan was parked by the curb.
At first, Harlow assumed it belonged to another parent and paid it no attention. But when she crossed the street, the black Cullinan moved like a silent beast, rolling through a puddle at the curb and stopping precisely beside her.
The window lowered slowly.
Cillian Emerson sat in the driver’s seat, his handsome profile cold in the dim light.
“Miss Gideon.” He raised his voice, dragging out the words with undisguised mockery.
Harlow’s guard snapped up. “Why are you here?”
“Passing by.”
If he was only passing by, Harlow had nothing to say.
She stepped forward to leave, but Cillian spoke again.
“Your daughter is beautiful.”
Harlow’s heart tightened.
Why would he say that out of nowhere?
Had he noticed something?
“My daughter gets her looks from me. Is there a problem with that?”
Cillian’s eyes deepened.
From her. Of course that was impossible to dispute.
Back then, all over Hartwell University, who hadn’t heard about the famous beauty of Miss Gideon?
Everyone who had seen Harlow said she had a kind of radiance that could not be ignored. Not the cold glow of moonlight, but the blazing sun at noon in midsummer. Bold, bright, impossible to look away from. When she smiled, her eyes curved into shining crescents, her dimples appearing faintly, lively and devastating all at once.
That Miss Gideon had been the dream girl of countless men.
“I only complimented your daughter,” Cillian said. “Why are you so nervous?”
“I’m not nervous. When have you ever seen me nervous?”
Harlow felt guilty enough to want to get out of his line of sight as quickly as possible.
Cillian saw her preparing to leave. His long arm slid out through the Cullinan’s open window and caught her firmly by the arm.
“Running again?” His slender fingers closed around her like iron. Through the thin fabric of her sleeve, Harlow could feel the strength in his knuckles and the heat of his palm. “Miss Gideon used to stick to me like glue. Now you run the second you see me?”
The Cullinan was too conspicuous. People nearby kept glancing over.
“Cillian Emerson, this is my daughter’s kindergarten.” Harlow kept her voice low and sharp. “What exactly are you trying to do, grabbing me at the gate like this?”
“Nothing.” Cillian’s hand suddenly tightened. “Just informing you that I don’t accept your apology from yesterday.”
Harlow was caught off guard. Her whole body slammed against the driver’s side door.
Cillian pressed a hand to the back of her neck and leaned slightly out the window, his mouth close to her ear.
“And another thing, Miss Gideon.” His voice dropped low. “You don’t get to decide when we’re even.”
The next second, he let go without warning.
The force holding Harlow vanished, and she fell hard onto the ground.
She was still sitting there, mortified, when the Cullinan’s engine gave a low growl and swept away, leaving her alone by the curb with a mouthful of dust.
Harlow stared after him.
“Cillian Emerson, you absolute asshole!”
Was he insane?
