Page 47 of The Destined SEAL
For a few moments I breathe and look at her. I feel better. Which makes me feel even worse. “You need to leave, Harper,” I admit. “Just go.”
Her whole body shifts, as if I stabbed her instead of speaking to her. Pain is etched into her facial features. She’s not allowed to feel an ounce of what I’m bearing. “I’m serious,” I whisper, gazing at the floor. “I can’t be around you right now.”
“Why?” she asks, striding forward and placing her hands on my arms. She grabs me firmly, grounding me to this moment. “Why?” Her eyes plead with me. She wants the truth.
I’m a glutton to give it. “The grief is killing me, dismembering my heart. The kicker?” I say, breathing several times to keep the tears at bay. “You’re the cure I need. But you’re out of my price range. Untouchable.”
She shakes her head. Harper was expecting that, and it’s comforting and infuriating at the same time. “I won’t leave you here by yourself. I don’t care what you see when you look at me. I’m not only the woman who loves you, I’m your best friend. The person who’d die to take an ounce of your pain away if I could. Don’t complicate this. I’m your friend first, Benny.”
I look at the ceiling because the tears came anyway. “What if relieving my pain means you leaving and never coming back?”
Going up on her tiptoes, she grabs my face to force my gaze to hers. Her eyes are glassy, but she’s holding it together. Because that’s what I need from her, and she knows it. “Then that’s your pain to bear because I’m not going anywhere this time. I should have stayed here all those years ago. By your side. I should have loved you through everything up until now, but I refuse to leave you during this. I’m going to love you through it. You will get through it.”
My eyes widen as my mind, a clusterfuck of dark as the devil thoughts, processes her words. Her light. Her life. “What I wouldn’t give to hear those words before. Love me from afarbecause that’s what I need. That’s what I want. Maybe forever. Definitely right now.”
Voice loud and overbearing, Harper winces away from me.
“That’s what you want?”
No.
“I have to tell you something.” Her eyelashes flutter closed, and little lines form in between her eyes. It’s anguish so great I’ve never seen her wear it before.
I stay silent and gesture with my hand for her to continue. She shifts around on her little black flip-flops, completely terrified by what she needs to say. “Did they tell you who was driving the other vehicle?” Harper asks, not meeting my eyes. In fact, she stares at the floor as she says it.
My stomach turns. Taking a step back, I sit on the bed. “No. You’re about to tell me, though.”
Harper meets my eyes, and her mouth forms a pout at the same time she finally frees her tears. It breaks the piece of my heart that wasn’t damaged. “Marcus’s brother,” she whispers. “It was Darren.”
Shaking my head, I try to remember what he looked like. I saw him only once, and he was piss drunk. I was so into Harper that night it’s hard for me to recall his face, let alone details about the man who stole Norah’s and Robin’s lives. I keep my eyes on hers because I’m trying to remember, but I can tell looking at me and not touching me is distressing her.
“This is my fault. All of it, Ben.”
“How?”
She steps toward me, but I halt her with a head shake. “If I had told you the moment I fell in love with you, none of this would have happened. The dominoes were set into motion because I followed my head instead of my heart. I should have stayed. I should have loved you. There would have been no Marcus or Darren. No moves from the East Coast. It would havebeen you and me. Just us. Nothing else. No one would have gotten hurt. It’s my fault Norah and your baby were killed, Ben.”
I’ve never seen Harper so upset. I recall the weeks after her aunt died, and she never showed this much emotion. If I weren’t so detached, I’d be scared.
I open my arms to the side, and she rushes to me, wrapping me in a wet, salty hug. Her whole body shakes, her apologies flowing as copiously as her tears. She’s barely breathing when she pulls away.
“Please forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself, but I need you to forgive me.”
I take a deep breath. It’s not because I need one, it’s because I want to inhale her into my system for the last time. She gave me exactly what I didn’t realize I needed.
Someone to blame.
“Yes. I need you to go, though. I can’t look at you. Stay away from me, Harper. I’m serious.”
Backing away from me, she watches me, her face in utter anguish. From head to toe, I let my gaze roam her body. Every perfect curve, mark, and subtle nuance that’s fully Harper Rosehall. I leave her neck for last. Pressing my lips into a smile that probably resembles a grimace, she turns, unable to stomach the rejection.
I watch her back disappear and listen for the front door to shut before I follow her. Everything in me wants to chase her. Tell her I want her, but my guilt would never allow me to have her. I watch her car leave through the front window.
“Burning it all to the ground?” Tahoe mumbles.
“And watching it incinerate,” I reply.
He rolls over, and his loud snore is audible moments later.
