Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
Harry
I stay behind, pretending to examine the monitors.
Poppy and Gigi linger at the far end of the hall, outside a surveillance room.
My fingers itch to pull her back inside.
There’s so much we haven’t said, and I wonder, with the weight of today, whether we’ll even get the chance to speak before we return to London tomorrow.
My gaze traces the lines of her face, and I feel Jack watching me. Gigi pauses at the doorway, glancing back. There’s something there – a question; longing, perhaps – but then she’s ushered away just as quickly.
Jack waits until their footsteps are gone before speaking.
“You planning to tell me what the fuck’s going on, or am I supposed to guess?”
I drop my head between my shoulders and exhale. I turn to find him leaning against the wall, arms folded, expression casual. He’s got that smug grin that always made me want to punch him, back when we were just boys. Like this is just another joke between old friends.
Old friends. Right.
“You used to be my favourite person,” he says after my lengthy silence. “Until I remembered I have a sister.”
I let out a low laugh. “You don’t get to pull the big brother act. Not after vanishing off the face of the earth.”
He smiles. “Fair.”
“It’s not fucking fair,” I snap. “I watched you die.”
My mind flashes back to that night. The pop of gunfire. Jack’s body hitting the ground. He was dying in my arms. I watched the life drain out of him, for fuck’s sake. And yet he’s here, alive and breathing, acting as if it was all a minor inconvenience.
He tilts his head, studying me.
“And Gigi?” I ask, voice quieter. “Besides the grief, do you have any idea what she’s been through?”
His eyes flicker, and that’s all the confirmation I need. The bastard knew, and he did nothing. He might’ve aided her in retrieving her sanity, but what would’ve happened if I hadn’t stepped in? I feel sick as I think about it – Gigi being sold like a commodity to Richard’s trafficking ring.
I grab Jack by the collar, shoving him back against a shelf. Books tumble to the floor with a thud. A flurry of activity appears in the doorway almost instantly.
I peer over, then I do a double-take. Three men built like soldiers, armed with guns, draw their weapons. Jesus fucking Christ.
Jack’s eyes don’t stray from mine. “You can leave.”
The guards hesitate.
“It’s all right,” he tells them. “Go.”
Their footsteps fade down the hall before disappearing completely.
“She could have been assaulted,” I spit.
“But she wasn’t.” His expression hardens. “I couldn’t storm into Richard’s auction like some white knight after everything I’ve built here. I picked my visits specifically. G wouldn’t know I was alive until the time was right.”
I want to vomit, to scream, to wrap my hands round his throat and squeeze until he understands the depths of his betrayal.
“She’s just a name on a list of so many other women we have to find.” His voice drops low. “She had to fight her own battles.”
I stare at him, disbelief and rage warring inside. I release him with a shove, stepping back as the weight of his words sinks in. He waits before straightening his jacket, and I run an irritated hand through the front of my hair.
“You think I enjoyed it, watching from the sidelines while my family fell apart?”
“Fell apart?” I laugh. “That’s putting it fucking lightly, since Gigi had no family to protect her.”
“Luckily, you had each other for that.”
I tear my head away, feeling my face heat up, a mix of fury and embarrassment flooding through me. I watch him in my peripheral where he stands a few steps away. We used to stand like this after a multimillion-pound heist, the world in our hands. Before he disappeared.
Jack goes quiet. “No matter your grudge towards me or my family, just speak with her, Harry.” He looks at me then. “She’s just a girl, standing in front of her brother’s best friend, wanting him to love her.”
My brow creases. “Did you just quote Notting Hill?”
He sighs. “I really fucking miss London.”
I step into the penthouse and throw my jacket over the back of the sofa. Floor-to-ceiling windows give way to polished black floors, a sleek, modern kitchen, and minimalist furniture.
Chatter drifts in from the balcony, the glass doors slightly ajar. Poppy is perched on the edge of a seat, a blanket wrapped round her hunched shoulders. A faint glow emits from the seat beside her as I open the glass doors. She lifts her head at my approach.
The blanket falls from her shoulders as she stands. “I’ll let you both speak.”
I smile at her in thanks.
She steps inside, closing the balcony doors. The wind pulls at Gigi’s hair, loose strands brushing her face.
“Rough day, huh?”
She draws in a breath. “Tell me about it.”
The heel of her foot is propped on the edge of the chair, thigh tucked tight to her chest, the other resting casually underneath her.
Her chin is pressed against her kneecap, and there’s movement to her shoulders.
As I get closer, she draws her head back, giving way to a lit cigarette between her fingertips.
She hands the packet out to me in her opposing hand. I pocket it in my jeans, a smile in my voice.
“Smoking’s bad for you.”
She laughs on an inhale. “Hypocrite much?”
Gigi rests her cheek against her shoulder as I sit beside her. I rest my forearms on my thighs, my gaze drifting to the Paris skyline, the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the distance.
I turn back to find her gaze still lingering. Some might say it means nothing, but I know it means something. She turns away, dismissing any wandering thought with the shake of her head.
I’d do anything to know what she was thinking.
Was she thinking about us?
Was she thinking anything at all?
Or worse … was she thinking about him?
I want to shake her and beg, “Just let me in, baby.”
She didn’t tell me she was hallucinating Jack.
There are a lot of things she’s not telling me.
But there are rare moments – moments like this – where her character is stripped back, and she’s present.
It’s the closest thing I have to seeing her heart.
A heart that once made space for us but is littered with so much heartbreak and grief I’m not sure I brush the surface.
I clear my throat. “Can I ask you something?”
Her shoulders stiffen on her next inhale.
“Why did you scream Jamie’s name last night?”
She flinches slightly.
“You don’t think I see it? You think I wouldn’t burn the whole world to the ground if you needed me to?”
She shakes her head, lips pressed tight.
“Is it him?” I ask. “Did Jamie do something? Is he—?”
“No,” she says too quickly. Then, quieter, “It’s not that.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
I open my mouth to speak.
“Please,” she cuts in, her voice cracking. “Don’t make this harder.”
She stubs the remainder of the cigarette in the ashtray then slips her leg out from underneath her, bringing both knees to her chest. Her eyes focus on a piece of loose wicker on the chair.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she says finally.
“Maybe not … but let me try.”
She turns towards the skyline through the darkness.
“I’m here. You can talk to me or not, but I am here.”
I’d protect her from anything – she only has to ask. Perhaps that’s pushing too far, since she’s engaged to another man. I force myself to swallow the disgusting thought.
She knows I’d help, and she knows I’d stay. That’s what scares her the most, I fear. I was destined to fall for the seventeen-year-old girl at my best friend’s house, yet she’s right here, and I’m further away than ever before.
Her voice is so gentle I wonder whether she even intends for me to hear. “You can’t fix me.”
“I can try.”
Our eyes meet, and she passes an unsteady breath through her lips.
“You’re unbelievable,” she says, catching her breath.
My mouth twitches. “You love me really.”
The words come quickly, like a reflex, and I almost take them back. I watch her carefully as her eyes cloud with something deeper than tears. Possibly too heavy for either of us to understand. They glisten, outshining the stars above us.
“I love you, Harry,” she breathes so quietly I barely hear it. “I love you so much it hurts.”
I feel the words in my spine, in my ribs, in my fucking bones. I lean closer, but she draws back slightly, as if my love will burn her if I get too close. The reaction hits me hard.
“It means nothing, clearly.”
“It means everything,” she says, her voice breaking. Then she pauses and whispers, “I’m marrying Jamie.”
I thought I’d prepared for this. I thought I’d braced for it. But hearing it – really hearing it – and spoken so blatantly, as if I haven’t already tortured myself over the idea – still feels disgustingly wrong.
I shake my head. “You can’t mean that.”
Her eyes are shining wet, and she doesn’t answer. I stare at her, every inch of me screaming to pull her into my arms; to take her away from whatever this is.
She turns her body towards me, pressing her bare feet to the tiled floor of the balcony and taking my hands into hers. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“I need you to hate me, Harry.” A devastating smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “I see the way you look at me … the glimmer of hope in your eye that you can save me.” She looks at me fully. “Hate me before I break you.”
I scoff. “You have no one to prove anything to.”
“This isn’t for anyone – this is for me.” Her voice catches, and she closes then reopens her mouth before she’s able to compose herself. “I chose this. And I can’t expect you to understand. You don’t know. You don’t—”
“Then tell me!”
“I CAN’T!”
I turn my head away, my teeth piercing my bottom lip. Her breathing is heavy, with a slight shake, drawing my head back to her slowly.
“I need you to let me go.” Tears tremble in her eyelids as her gaze meets mine.
“In the thousand lives we said we’ve lived, I’d like to think I gave you everything.
Maybe we loved so strongly this is just the universe catching up.
Be with someone else, Harry. Find someone good.
Live the life that you deserve. God, just live. ”
“What if I don't want to live without you?”
She sighs, ducking her head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“What does that even mean?” I growl. “You are hurting me. You tell me you love me, and then you tell me you’re going back to him! You can’t fucking do that – not to me.”
She turns away fully, and I see her jaw trembling. “I love you,” she repeats. “And that’s why this has to end.”
“Just leave him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it?”
The words sit heavy in the air. She presses her hands to the sides of the chair, knuckles pale.
“Marry me.”
Her face blanches.
“Marry me instead,” I say. “If a wedding’s what you want, or a ring, I’ll give it to you. Christ, I’ll give you anything, just as long as you stay. Fuck what Jack said – we’ll find another way.”
Her lip quivers, her silence scaring me far more than anything she’s admitted tonight. My heart beats so profoundly my hands shake.
“Do you love him more?” The words are painful. “Is that what this is all about?”
I have loved you for nine years, I want to tell her, but I don’t. Not when her silence is petrifying.
She’s going back to him.
I thought for a moment she might have been screaming at him, but Christ, it was clearly for him. My chest grows heavy, and I pinch my temple, concealing my eyes with colourless hands.
“Tell me,” I say.
For a few seconds, nothing. Not a shift of movement or any adjustment of her chair. I lower my hand, clasping my jaw.
She lifts her chin, tears shimmering in her eyes. With a sad smile, she says in a way I don’t understand, “I’m still marrying him.”
So this is it. After all we’ve been through, she’s choosing someone else.
I grip my jaw so hard I fear if I tighten the grip much harder the bone will snap.
“I see.” I nod slowly. “Then so be it, if that’s what you want. I’ll hate you, as promised. Anything for you, princess.”