Page 68 of Unleashed
"I know." Her voice is barely there.
"Then why? Why are you marrying another man, Harper? If you still love me, why would you do this to me? To make sure you never crumble and come back to me? Is that it?"
She opens her mouth. Closes it. And I watch something move behind her eyes, a war, fought in real time, between what she wants to say and what she's allowed to say. Between the truth and whatever cage she's locked it in.
"He's not—" She stops. Starts again. "It's not what you think it is, Ace. It's not love. It's not even close to love. It's—" She presses her hands against her temples. "Business. I can't explain it. Not yet. But I need you to believe me when I tell youthat everything I'm doing,everything, is to keep you safe. You, Hunter, Colten, Wyatt, and this ranch. I am standing between your family and something that could destroy all of it, and the only way I can do that is?—"
"By marrying him."
She nods. Her chin trembles. “Not marry. I’m just engaged. It’s all for show, for his benefit. In return, I get to be here. I get to tell the story how we want it to be told. Just like I did for Ashley’s murder. The Greeks. Your missing brother.”
My mind rattles. Does she know I killed him? Does she know who we really are?
"Why didn’t you just tell me? You know how a phone works, Harper.”
She shakes her head. The tears are falling again, silent now.
"Because this is my mess. I made a deal, and I have to honor it. I’m here for work, Ace. That’s all this is. I came here to see Hunter because I didn’t want you to have to worry about it. I don’t want to let anyone down."
"I'm a Sterling. I can help you, doesn’t matter what it is. Don’t protect me, Harper. That was never how this works. You come to me. I fix it. Simple. You know me better than that."
"I just need you to let me do my job." Her voice drops to nothing. "Please. I am begging you to trust me. I know I don't deserve it. I know I've given you every reason not to. But I am trying to protect you, the only way I know how, and it is destroying me. Please don’t make this any worse."
I look at her. Really look. She's not performing. She's not playing games. This is a woman who has taken every ounce of love she has for me and weaponized it against herself. She's using her own heart as a shield for mine, and it's shattering her from the inside out.
And she won't let me help. Because me helping means I'm involved. Quite clearly, that ship has sailed for us.
I stand. I need to move. I need distance. I need to not be sitting next to her while she falls apart and smells like coconut and looks at me the way she used to look at me before she left.
I walk to the edge of the ridge. The valley is dark below, just shapes and shadows and the distant lights of the ranch.
"Do you know what it's like?" I ask, my back to her. "Loving someone who won't let you? Every woman I look at, I see you. Every bed I sleep in is empty on the wrong side. I've got your name on my skin, Harper. A sun on my hip because you were my sunshine. I wear your hat every day. I still smell your perfume in places you haven't been in six years."
I turn around.
"And you're right here. Telling me you didn’t stop loving me. And it should be the best moment of my life. But instead, I'm watching you carry something that's breaking you in half, and you won't let me take any of the weight. You'd rather collapse than lean on me. And that—" My voice splinters. "That's what hurts the most. Not that you left. I can deal with that. I understand that. What I can’t take is that you still don't trust me enough to stay."
She stands. And she looks at me with an expression that guts me. It’s not defensive, not guarded. Just tired.Bone-deep, soul-deep tired.
The Harper I’m staring at right now is a shell of the girl who drove off to LA.
"I trust you more than anyone alive," she says. "But I also love you enough to know this isn’t going to work. That your life here, this land, your bull riding, that is you, Ace. I don’t fit into that. I made my choice back then, and now I have to deal with the consequences."
She's shaking. Her whole body is shaking. I couldn’t give a shit what happened in the past. I never stopped loving her, not for a single second.
None of this is making sense.
"What aren't you telling me?" I ask.
She flinches. Hard.
"Nothing. Just let me explain the rest when Hunter’s there. Okay?"
"Harper."
She can’t look at me. She presses both hands over her face, and her shoulders cave inward, and she cries the way people cry when they've been holding it together for so long that the collapse, when it comes, is total.
I close the distance between us. Stop with six inches between her body and mine. I want to hold her, tell her it’s all goin’ to be alright. But I can’t. Because I don’t know that it will be anymore.
