Chapter 2Claimed By My Savior Roommate

The more I compromised, the more I felt like a fool.

Standing in the center of my apartment, everywhere I looked, I saw traces of Tyler. Worse, the intrusive thoughts began to spiral: What if, while I was traveling for work, he brought other women back here? Into this bed?

I physically recoiled from the mattress. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Ugh! I was so angry. I shouldn't have just kicked him out; I should have cursed him to hell and back and slapped that smug look off his face!

And so, at two in the morning, I found myself rage-cleaning. I was crying, violently scrubbing the counters, and tossing all my bedsheets into the washing machine on the hottest cycle.

Work had been practically stagnant lately. Life was already hard enough. Why the hell was I volunteering to suffer over love?

"Smart women don't catch feelings, they catch flights. Single, thriving, and building an empire!"

Chanting this newly adopted life motto, I threw a couple of clean sweatshirts over my bare mattress and finally cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, I was violently jolted awake by a FaceTime call from my best friend.

I had texted her in the middle of the night to tell her I got cheated on. The second she woke up at ten a.m. and saw the message, she called. That’s the thing about true best friends; they show up when your world falls apart.

"Hey," I croaked, my eyes swollen to the size of golf balls. Even through the blur, I could see Blair looking at her screen like she’d just seen a ghost.

"Holy shit! Harper, did you get jumped?"

"Shut up. I'm mourning the death of my love life, do you mind?"

She scoffed. "No, you're looking at this all wrong. Ending a toxic relationship is a cause for celebration! I told you from day one that Tyler was a walking red flag..."

She caught the bleak look on my face and quickly pivoted. "Okay, fine, fine, we can mourn. But I'm taking you to a much better place to do it!"

An hour later, standing on the edge of a literal cliff with the wind violently whipping my hair across my face, I realized I didn't know my best friend at all.

When she said she was taking me out for a "plunge," I assumed she meant that new subterranean speakeasy downtown. Bars. Cocktails. Dim lighting. Because of this assumption, I had spent an hour doing a full beat of makeup and poured myself into a custom-designed, emerald-green silk playsuit. It hugged every curve, the deep v-neck toeing the line between elegant and dangerous.

Instead, Blair drove us two hours upstate to a gorge. To go bungee jumping.

Cocktails and cliffs. Vastly different dress codes.

Blair spent a solid minute looking me up and down. "Well. Thank God you wore shorts."

I knew what she meant—you can't exactly strap into a harness in a miniskirt—but a few guys in the line next to us still let out low, sleazy chuckles.

Instinctively, I whipped my head around to glare at whichever creep was laughing, but my eyes instantly locked onto someone else.

He was taller than the rest of the guys in line. The kind of tall that commands a room without trying. He was wearing casual clothes, but as a designer, I understood the architecture of fabric; from the way his shirt draped across his shoulders and chest, I could tell he was built like a god. He had the natural, effortless proportions of a runway model, possessing more raw magnetism than any professional I’d ever dressed.

It's an occupational hazard. When I see a perfect canvas, I stare.

Sensing my eyes on him, he looked right back at me.

Suddenly, the tips of his ears twitched—the smallest, most imperceptible movement, like a golden retriever spotting its owner.

The tiny detail delighted me. The corner of my mouth hooked up into a brazen smirk.

He immediately brought a large, long-fingered hand up to cover his right ear, ducking his head slightly as a dark, dusty pink began to spread across his cheekbones.

Blair aggressively elbowed my ribs, grinning like a menace. "Oh, he's a ten. Let me wingman this for you."

Her eyes were practically stripping the poor guy naked. I quickly grabbed her arm and dragged her forward before she could embarrass me further.

Unfortunately, the universe has a sick sense of humor. We had paid for a tandem jump because Blair claimed she was too scared to go alone. But the second we stepped onto the metal grating of the platform and she looked down into the gaping chasm below, she dug her heels in. She refused to jump.

Almost everyone else was paired up. If I didn't find a partner, I’d have to take off the harness and do the walk of shame back to the car.

The instructor asked the crowd three times if anyone wanted to tandem jump with me. I saw a few of the sleazy guys eyeing me, thankfully held back by their glaring girlfriends.

Just as I accepted that I had driven two hours upstate for nothing, the gorgeous guy stepped out of the crowd.

"I'll jump with her."

His voice was a deep, gravelly timbre that went straight to my knees.

"Step closer to him!" the instructor barked.

"Hold on tight!"