Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Adrian’s POV

I closed the door to my room and didn’t turn on the light.

The hallway’s amber glow leaked through the gap beneath the door, a thin strip of yellow cutting across the dark floor. I leaned my back against the wood and closed my eyes.

And the image was there. Instant. Uninvited.

Harper in the doorway. Hair wet, water still dripping from the ends onto her shoulders. The robe loose, slipping slightly at the collar. A drop of water tracing the line of her collarbone and disappearing beneath the fabric.

She hadn’t noticed the way my throat had tightened, the way my eyes had locked for a half- second too long before I forced myself to look away. She’d just stood there-open, unguarded, completely unaware of what she looked like.

My body was heating up.

“Fuck,” I muttered to the dark room. “Are you crazy? She’s Wilsons.”

None of it worked. The image stayed.

I walked into the bathroom and turned the shower to cold.

The water hit me like a slap. Ice-cold, shocking, stealing the breath from my lungs. I braced my hands against the tiled wall, my head bowed, water hammering against the back of my neck and shoulders.

She is not someone you touch.

The words ran through my head like a mantra.

She’s here to destroy us. She’s a piece on the board. You don’t develop feelings for a piece on the board.

The cold bit through my skin. My shoulders rose and fell with each breath, the water running over me in sheets, and slowly, the heat in my chest began to dull.

I stood there until my fingers went numb.

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11:38

Chapter 62

When I stepped out, I dried off mechanically, pulled on clean clothes, and sat at my desk

Just then, my phone buzzed A message from the surveillance team monitoring the Wilson brothers

“Wilson family members visited Vancouver Trust Bank today. Opened their father’s safety deposit box. Subsequently visited a community credit union in East Vancouver and accessed an account holder’s information. The account belongs to a former night-shift maternity nurse at Vancouver General-resigned seven years ago. They now have her residential address.”

My thumb hovered over the screen.

I’d given Harper the nurse’s name this morning. Within hours, her brothers had moved They were faster than I’d calculated. More efficient. And now they had an address. Tomorrow, they’d be at

her door.

The response from my team came through a minute later:

“Should we dispatch to the nurse’s address? Or notify the old house?”

I sat in the dark study, the phone glowing in my hand. If I told my father this thing, I knew exactly what he would do. He’d send someone tonight. The nurse would have an accident-a gas leak, a break-in gone wrong, a sudden illness. By morning, the address would be empty. The trail would be dead. Harper would have nothing.

It was the safe move. The Westbrook move.

But then I saw her again. Standing in the doorway. Steam rising from her skin.

I saw her hands too-wrapping gauze around my arm, careful, precise, her eyelashes lowered in concentration. The knot she’d tied. Clean. Even. Better than anything I’d done for myself

“Maybe it’s because there’s no one else you can say it to.”

My thumb moved. “Stand down. No action at the address. Maintain observation only.”

I locked the screen and set the phone face-down on the desk. The room went dark again.

I told myself it was tactical. That keeping the nurse alive gave me more leverage. That a dead end would make Harper suspicious, and I needed her trust to keep her inside the manor. That this was strategy, not sentiment.

–

Harper’s POV

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11:38

Chapter 62

Breakfast was quiet

Adrian walked into the dining room at eight, carrying a cup of black coffee He sat in his usual seat, set the cup on the table, and picked up a piece of toast.

But his eyes were shadowed. Dark circles, slightly bloodshot. He looked like he didn’t slept

“You didn’t sleep well,” I said.

He took a sip of coffee. “Handled some things.”

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