Page 81 of The Attraction

“I just wanted to say thank you for the amazing and thoughtful birthday weekend. I have never had anything like that, and I will never forget what you did for me. I felt very special and that’s a first for me, so thank you again.” And doing something that is totally pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I take the step forward into his body and wrap my arms around him tightly, initiating the hug, which totally catches him off guard, I can tell.

“I want to give you the world,” he whispers because he isn’t game to say it out loud.

“I know,” I reply just as quietly into his chest where my face is buried.

We both stand there in silence for a few minutes just trying to gain our balance in the morning air, and just as I step away to tell him what is racing around my mind, every part of that balance is torn out from under me as he says these few small words.

“You are my little snuggle bug now, aren’t you.” He smiles at his next name on the list he has been playing, but he will never understand how that name just sealed our fate.

I asked for a sign, and the universe delivered.

To hear my father’s favorite pet name, the one he used to call me, for the first time in twenty years has smashed my heart into tiny pieces.

“Harper?” His voice is deeper, and the serious tone tells me he can see the fear on my face and has no idea what he said that has changed the moment we were having.

I back away from him, one step at a time, and he reaches out to stop me, but I can’t let him touch me. The moment his fingers grasp me, it’s like a burn that I remember. The way it was before he broke down my wall.

No, not again, I can’t do this again. I need to get out of here. I should have listened to my head last night. Logically I knew I could never love another man again, but my heart tricked me into believing it was possible. Well, that stupid heart is now smashed to a pulp just like last time. But I know the signs now, and the only way to stop this pain is to get as far away from it as I can.

I push his hand off me to ease the pain. “No, please don’t.” Holding back the tears, I see the confusion buried deep in the lines on his forehead, but his eyes tell me he knows what is happening. The love I saw last night has gone, and there is anger and pain.

“Harper, don’t do this.” He is trying not to yell, but the growl is enough to tell me how he feels.

“I can’t, I tried, I just can’t.” My feet are moving toward the door in a backwards shuffle until I almost trip and spin so I’m facing down the hallway, trying to get to the front door. The place I need to escape, to be free so I can breathe.

I hear his footsteps behind me the closer I get to the door, but I just wish he would yell at me. That, I know how to handle, but not this tender side of him that he has totally opened up to me since I’ve been here. That’s the man I can’t bear to hurt.

The instant I place my hand on the door handle, I know that no matter what I do from this moment going forward, it’s already too late, I’ve already hurt him.

Lifting my head and turning to look at him one last time, the first tear starts to fall.

“You promised me you wouldn’t run.” His heart is begging me to stay.

“You promised me you’d let me go,” is all I can reply.

“Only temporarily.” He throws my favorite words back at me, and it’s like a punch to the gut. Now I know how it made him feel when I said it to him, time and time again. “You’re mine, and nothing will ever change that.”

The pause has me turning the door handle and pulling the door, because the love pouring from his soul is stealing every bit of oxygen from around me. I have to go.

I can’t stay any longer.

“I needed you just as much as you needed me. That’s what love is, Harper, so I’ll be waiting here when you’re ready. When you remember that the pain of being together is better than the pain of being apart.” And for the first time ever, I see a lone tear fall down his cheek, and I can’t hold it together anymore.

Quickly stepping into the corridor, I close the door behind me with a bang, and the tears pour down my face like the dam has finally broken.

I press the button on the elevator like a demon, wanting the doors to open before he has a chance to chase me. But there is no sound of his front door opening as the elevator opens in front of me. And the moment I step in, I feel a presence that I’m not alone. One of our security team in his black suit steps in behind me, pressing the button to close the doors.

Not looking back toward me, he gives me the privacy to sob on my own. But just him being here, ready and waiting for me to leave this morning, has the words in my head repeating over and over again.

He knew I was leaving.

And I don’t know what hurts more. That I’m walking away from the one man I finally allowed myself to love, or that he is letting me go.

ChapterEighteen

FORREST

“Fuck!” I yell the moment I hear the elevator doors close, and the gut-wrenching noise of her sobbing disappears.

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