How to Tame a Silver Fox – Episode 13
“I said stop.” Chris’s command echoed through the ruined living room, and Harper’s anger finally burned hotter than her humiliation. The scattered cups, wet floor, and abandoned bottles were all evidence of a disaster he believed he had solved. To Harper, they looked like pieces of a life he had barged into without permission.
She pressed the diary against her chest. “No, you stop.” Her voice shook, but she refused to lower it. “You don’t get to walk into my house, decide who I can talk to, and then silence me because you think you know better.”
Chris’s expression tightened. “I know better than to let people who enjoy hurting you stay under your roof.” He gestured toward the door Christina and Becca had fled through. “You shouldn’t have to beg people like that to like you.”
“I wasn’t begging.” The denial came too quickly. Harper remembered Christina calling her Heather, remembered waiting outside her own bedroom, and hated that Chris had witnessed how desperately she wanted to belong.
He softened his voice, which somehow made everything worse. “You opened your home to them. They used you.” Chris reached toward the diary, perhaps intending to take away the object that had caused so much damage, but Harper stepped back.
“Don’t.” Her grip tightened. These pages contained years of thoughts she had never trusted to another person. Christina had violated them for entertainment, and Harper would not let Chris handle them merely because his intentions were kinder.
Chris lowered his hand. “Fine. But you’re not going to campus alone tomorrow.” Bryan’s threat had already convinced him that tonight was more than a humiliating party. Now half the school knew where Harper lived and how easily she could be cornered.
“There it is again.” Harper gave a bitter laugh. “You pretend to listen, and then you issue another order.” She walked toward the stairs, leaving damp footprints across the hardwood.
“Harper.” Chris followed her to the first step. “This isn’t about controlling you.”
She turned on him. “You moved into my house without asking me. What would you call that?” For once, he had no immediate answer.
The silence should have felt like victory. Instead, Harper saw fatigue beneath his anger and a thin cut near his knuckles from forcing open the door. He had broken in because he heard her screaming. That fact complicated every accusation she wanted to make.
Chris glanced at his injured hand as if it belonged to someone else. “Call it keeping a promise.” His loyalty to Mark sounded absolute, but Harper heard something strained beneath it.
“Then you can keep your promise from the guest room,” she said. “Stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my social life, and stop calling me kid.” If he insisted on living there, he would do it under rules she set.
His gaze lifted to hers. “You think rules will make this safe?”
“No. I think rules will remind you that I’m an adult.” Harper climbed another step. “And tomorrow, I’m going to school by myself.”
Chris looked ready to argue, but his phone vibrated. Mark’s name appeared on the screen. Harper watched his entire demeanor turn guarded before he answered.
“She’s safe,” Chris said without greeting. He listened, then glanced toward Harper. “No, she doesn’t know.”
Harper stopped halfway upstairs. Chris turned away and lowered his voice, but it was too late. Whatever her father had hidden from her was important enough to bring Chris into her home—and she had just learned that Bryan might not be the only reason he was there.
