Chapter 41
HARRISON
The sharp buzz of my phone cut through the dark, yanking me out of the best sleep I’d had in weeks. I fumbled for it on the nightstand, my heart suddenly pounding at the sight of her name on the screen.
“Aurelia?” My voice was rough with sleep, but I still glanced at her side of the bed, not really sure why she wasn’t there anymore. “Where are you?”
“Harrison—” Her voice broke, the sound of her crying filtering into my consciousness and hitting me like a fist to the chest. “We need to call it off. The wedding. I can’t do it.”
That sobered me instantly. Jolted into awareness, I sat bolt upright in bed, the sheets tangled around my waist. “What? No. Wait, what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer right away, sobbing over the line as if she was crying too hard to speak. Instantly, something in me snapped into overdrive. I jumped out of bed, pulling on jeans and the first shirt I touched, my phone wedged between my shoulder and ear.
“Tell me where you are,” I demanded, already searching for my keys even as I stumbled around, trying to get my foot into a sneaker without even stopping to put on socks. “Did something happen? Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt,” she whispered shakily between sobs, like even just saying the words hurt her. “Not physically, anyway.”
“Then what is it? Talk to me.”
Outside of the muffled sound of her crying, silence stretched between us and I felt like my heart might actually break in two if she didn’t answer. Finally, words came out of her, but they were soft and miserable. “I’m at my parents’ house.”
I didn’t hesitate or ask why. I didn’t stop to think, even if I was confused as fuck about why I’d fallen asleep next to her, both of us blissed out, naked as the day we’d been born, and now, a few hours later, she was gone and calling off the wedding.
Instead, I was already out the door, heading for my car.
“It’s almost midnight,” I said, starting the engine with adrenaline surging through me. “I shouldn’t hit any traffic, but I’m coming to you. Don’t move. Don’t go anywhere. Just stay right there, Aurelia.”
I tore into the street, tires screeching against the wet pavement. Every beat of my heart chanted the same desperate mantra. Don’t let this be the end. Don’t let her mean it.
When I pulled up in front of her parents’ place, my pulse was hammering in my ears. Lights glowed from inside, but there was a weirdly ominous aura about the place. Maybe it was just because I knew what had drawn me here.
I didn’t even knock when I reached their front door. I just shoved it open and burst in like a man possessed. Aurelia sat on the couch in the formal lounge right off the front door, her hands twisting in her lap and eyes red and wet.
She looked up at me like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to throw herself into my arms or run the other way.
My chest constricted at the sight of her, my entire being doused in confusion and disbelief.
A small part of me was also definitely wondering if I’d really woken up at all or if this was just a nightmare.
“What happened?” I demanded as I strode toward her, my voice low and much too steady for the way my chest was burning.
Before she could answer me, Regina swept into the room like she’d been waiting to make her grand entrance. Her graying hair was perfect despite the hour, her smile attempting to hide the venom hidden under every inch of her apparent composure.
“She happened,” Aurelia finally whispered, fresh tears welling on her eyelids. “I’m so sorry, Harrison.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic, darling.” Regina’s chin lifted, her features aloof despite the poisonous glimmer in her eyes when she glanced at me. “I simply told her the truth.”
“Yeah, what truth is that?” I spat at her, not even trying to hide the burning rage sweeping through me right now. This woman was awful.
She held my gaze, pretending that she hadn’t flinched as soon as I’d spoken, but she had. I’d seen it. “That if she insists on going through with this ridiculous marriage, she will no longer be my daughter. The choice is simple. It’s you or her family.”
The words landed as hard as an unexpected gut punch by a professional fighter, but anger cut through the shock. “Why? Why would you do that to her? Why would make her choose?”
Regina’s icy gaze snapped to me again, her voice sharp with decades of bitterness. “Because your mother ruined my life. She spread the most vile, untrue rumors about me in high school. She said that I stole her boyfriend. She painted me as some kind of low-class homewrecker. A cheap whore.”
Her eyes took on a faraway quality, like she was getting lost in the memories. “Things were never the same for me after that. Do you have any idea what she did to my reputation?”
I blinked, trying to reconcile the venom in her voice with the woman standing in front of me. “You’re doing this because you’re still holding a grudge from something that happened in high school?”
Aurelia stood, trembling like a leaf as she brought her gaze to mine. “We know that it happened, Harrison. CC told us so herself.”
“Yeah, but—”
Regina’s head snapped toward me, her eyes blazing. “Of course you’d take her side! I’ve been treated like the villain for the last thirty years because of your mother and I will not allow my daughter to join her family.”
The room went dead silent, Aurelia caught between us, her shoulders shaking like she was holding herself together only by sheer force of will. As I stared back at her mother, I realized that she didn’t just dislike me. She hated everything my family was or ever would be.
For as long as she was in the room, I wasn’t going to get any answers. Aurelia and I weren’t going to be able to talk—calmly and reasonably—to discuss our next move, so I raised my hands with my palms turned out, forcing calm into my voice even though my pulse was ready to break through my skin.
“Enough. This has gone far enough.” I looked at Regina, refusing to let her intimidate me. “You don’t have to like me. You don’t have to like my family, but I will not let you bulldoze her like this. Back off.”
For a moment, I thought she’d double down, but then Regina’s smile faltered, her gaze flicking to Aurelia. She let out a long-suffering sigh, clearly skilled at playing the victim.
“I only want what’s best for you,” she said stiffly, her voice straining. “I’m sorry, darling. I cannot condone this marriage and I won’t stand idly by and watch it happen. I won’t let CC steal you from me.”
Aurelia nodded, but she didn’t answer. Her eyes were too shiny, her jaw set too tight, and I could see immediately that Regina’s words had landed exactly where she’d aimed. Right in the center of Aurelia’s heart.
I still wasn’t about to just roll over and play dead, though. Her mother was manipulating the shit out of her and I wouldn’t stand for it.
When I finally got her out of that house and into my car, Aurelia turned toward me. “I feel like I’m putting you in an impossible position. Your mother isn’t exactly my biggest fan either, and now mine is threatening to cut me off. What if this—what if they—are what drives us apart someday?”
I gripped the wheel, torn between slamming my foot on the gas and pulling her into my arms. I looked at her, sitting there with fear and uncertainty clouding those sharp, brilliant eyes.
“If that’s what you’re afraid of, then why are you letting it drive us apart now?”
Her lips parted and she was still trembling, but she didn’t say anything at first. I reached across the console to take her hand, hoping that she would allow my touch to comfort her. She let me wrap my fingers around hers, but she hadn’t answered me.
Her mouth opened and closed a few times, like the words were right there but she couldn’t make herself say them. It was then that I realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as just talking some sense into her.
Clearly, whatever Regina had said before I’d even woken up had done a number on Aurelia. Feeling like my chest was cracked open from the inside out, I nodded slowly.
“We’re supposed to get married in two days, Aurelia.” My voice came out harsh, scraped raw by the emotions ripping through me. I swallowed hard. “I’ll be there, waiting for you. Just like we planned. If you change your mind.”
She flinched and I almost couldn’t stand it, but I pressed on because she needed to hear this. “I know what it feels like to be the baby. To be overlooked, to be brushed aside like you’re just… an extra. I’ve been there.”
My throat tightened, but I held her gaze, refusing to let her look away. “But I see you, Aurelia. I’ve always seen you. That’s all that should matter, isn’t it?”