📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
How to Tame a Silver Fox – Episode 07
Harper tried to lose herself in the party, but Chris’s presence remained at the edge of her awareness. She had ordered him to stay away; naturally, the overprotective intruder appeared inside anyway. Conversations shifted as people noticed the broad-shouldered older man surveying the room.
“Whoa,” someone said above the music. “Who’s this buff grandpa?” The insult was followed by laughter, then a grudging admission from a girl nearby that he was hotter than Mike.
Chris ignored the attention. His eyes moved through the crowd, checking doors, faces, and every person who wandered too close to Harper. He looked less like a guest than security no one had hired.
At the entrance, Christina Fawkes paused beside Becca and surveyed the house with practiced contempt. “Remind me why we’re at a loser nobody’s house when I run Greek life,” she complained. She could have been on her yacht instead.
Becca supplied the only reason that mattered. Harper Reeves had a rich father, and a rich father meant expensive alcohol. They repeated the phrase with delighted greed before heading inside.
Harper spotted them and brightened. Christina and Becca occupied the social height she had never managed to reach. Their arrival felt like proof that the party might finally change the way people saw her.
“Hi—Christina Fawkes,” Harper stammered. “And Becca too? I can’t believe you guys actually came to my party.” Her excitement made Christina’s smile widen for all the wrong reasons.
“Duh. Wouldn’t miss it,” Christina replied. Her gaze had already found the bottles displayed nearby, including the Scotch Harper had bought with Chris’s reluctant help.
Harper welcomed them sincerely and invited them to help themselves. Christina thanked “Heather” without hesitation.
“It’s Harper,” she corrected, trying to make the mistake sound unimportant. She told them to enjoy the party and moved away before disappointment could show.
Behind her, Christina lifted a bottle of Macallan and told Becca it almost compensated for having to tolerate the dork hosting them. Harper did not hear. Chris did.
His expression cooled as he watched the two women treat Harper’s kindness as weakness. The instinct to interfere rose immediately, though Harper had made her wishes painfully clear.
Christina finally noticed him watching. The contempt left her face, replaced by bold interest. She abandoned the bottle and crossed the room as though any man she selected should be grateful.
“Where’s Harper?” Chris asked when she approached. He had no interest in the performance Christina offered him; he wanted to know why his best friend’s daughter was no longer in sight.
“Harper?” Christina laughed, dismissing the name with a flick of her hand. “Forget Harper.” She stepped closer, confident enough to mistake his stillness for invitation.
Around them, partygoers watched with fascinated envy. Christina Fawkes did not compete for attention, and she certainly did not expect to lose it to someone like Harper.
“Hang out with me,” she urged. Becca moved in beside her, turning the invitation into a united proposition.
Christina tilted her head toward a quieter part of the house. “I know somewhere we can talk.” Chris looked from her to Becca, already seeing the cruelty beneath their polished smiles—and the way Harper’s name had made it surface.
