How to Tame a Silver Fox – Episode 68
Maria organized Chris’s farewell gathering at the renovated club, insisting that a man who once ruined Harper’s party deserved one held under her rules. The guest list was deliberately small.
Former employees filled the main floor alongside Mark, Cole, Christina, and the center volunteers. No one attended for free alcohol or social access.
Harper arrived late after packing her London shipment. Chris watched her cross the room with the same intensity he once tried to disguise behind the word kiddo.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I leave tomorrow. I’m maximizing available time.”
She wanted to joke, but the departure had become too real. Paris would begin with meetings from dawn until night, while her own London schedule started one week later.
They danced when the music slowed. Chris held her without scanning the room, trusting the security team and the people around them.
Harper asked whether he was afraid of distance. He could have offered easy reassurance, but their rules required honesty.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ll build a life that doesn’t need me.”
“I’m supposed to build that life.” She rested her hand against his chest. “Wanting you has to be different from needing rescue.”
Chris understood, though understanding did not remove fear. “Then I’m afraid you’ll stop wanting me.”
Harper admitted the same possibility existed for both of them. They could not make love honest by pretending change was impossible.
They agreed to one scheduled visit each month and no surprise inspections. Calls could be missed without becoming evidence of rejection.
“And if it stops working?” Chris asked.
“We say so before resentment says it for us.”
Mark watched from the bar, visibly uncomfortable with the intimacy but no longer interfering. When Chris approached later, Mark offered him the spare room in Paris that the company maintained for visiting executives.
“Harper gets her own key only if she asks,” he added.
Chris accepted the condition with a straight face. It was the closest Mark had come to acknowledging their future.
At midnight, the guests left and Harper remained with Chris on the empty dance floor. He kissed her slowly, without urgency pretending to be permanence.
When they separated, he said the words neither had used. “I love you, Harper.” She answered, “I love you too,” just as the lights dimmed on the life they had built in the same city.