Chapter 37
Elena
“Did you leave him because of the contract?”
It hits like a slap. Not the volume — he doesn’t yell it. It’s the weight. It’s the audacity of the assumption, knocking the air from my lungs. My body goes still, not a stiffening, not a bracing. It’s as though something inside of me momentarily shuts off, stunned by the jagged question.
“What?” I breathe.
“Did you leave him,” he repeats, “because of the contract?”
I blink at him. That’s what he thinks. That’s what he’s built in his head, after everything.
But then the silence stretches, and I feel it, thread by thread, coming together. That’s the way it looks to him. The things I never said, the details he’d found, the texts, the name, the trip, the timing, the marriage license he no doubt found with Matthew’s help.
Shit.
“No,” I whisper, blinking hard. I push my hands into my hair, realizing just how bad this is. “No, that’s not it at all. That’s—fuck, Harry, you’ve got it all wrong.”
He exhales sharply, the sound bitter, like he doesn’t believe me. “Then explain it,” he growls. “Because from where I’m standing, it sure as hell looks like you bolted the second things got hard and ran straight into the arms of a man you were married to!”
“I wasn’t—” I swallow, cutting myself off, trying to arrange my thoughts before I speak.
I don’t want to mess this up any more than it already is.
“I wasn’t with him, not like that. Ross and I…
fuck, we’ve never been a thing. Ever. We were just friends.
Always. The marriage wasn’t real, Harry, I swear. ”
His arms are folded across his chest, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed.
He’s wearing his home clothes, the nice ones, the ones that look somewhat professional when he’s having meetings from his home office, the henley with a nice sweater over it and the slacks that are secretly elastic waist, his black wool coat on top.
But his hair is a mess, like he hasn’t stopped touching it for hours.
I can’t read him like this — and that terrifies me.
He hasn’t been unreadable for me in months, not since a few weeks after the wedding when I learned him by heart.
Even when he’s trying to mask something, there’s always a little bit hiding.
But right now, he could be about to kiss me or walk off the roof, and I’d see neither coming.
“I need to explain to me exactly what you mean in believable terms,” he says quietly. “Now.”
I exhale through my mouth, digging deep and trying to find the version of myself that doesn’t want to run from him. “Okay,” I say carefully, sniffling a little. “Okay, just… just listen.”
He doesn’t move. So I speak.
“Ross’s mom was dying,” I start. “Years ago. I was twenty, I think. Maybe nineteen. She lived upstate, and Ross had just joined the military a few months prior. They stationed him out in San Diego, and they were being awful about letting him switch back to New York to take care of her. He was freaking out, and I went on Google, and we were young and couldn’t think of anything else.
He had a few different ideas, but I told him it would look suspicious if he tried a bunch of shit first, so we just… did it.”
I take a shaky breath, the wind whipping around my face, and I already regret taking my hair down, but the cold is biting and I can’t feel my toes.
“I married him so he could transfer back. Military spousal placement, or something. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t anything, it was just paperwork and a favor.”
His expression doesn’t shift.
“We were married on paper only,” I explain.
“Nothing more. No rings, no real vows other than the same ones you and I did at the courthouse. No honeymoon. We didn’t live together, and I only saw him when I occasionally helped with his mom.
I didn’t tell anyone other than Sarah. We got divorced after his mom passed, and that was it, it was done. ”
He blinks at me, processing. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he says, his voice still too quiet. “If it was nothing.”
“I wanted to,” I croak, my voice breaking again. “But I couldn’t. At least not at first, I didn’t know you, and I didn’t know what the contract said about that on my end. I didn’t want it to invalidate everything, I didn’t want my parents to force Sarah into all of this instead—”
His jaw twitches. “You genuinely thought I’d call the contract into question?”
“I didn’t know you back then,” I say again. “You were rigid and cold, and I knew you cared at least enough to marry me, but I didn’t know what you were capable of doing if you thought I’d lied.”
“But you kept going, Elena. You knew who I was and still said nothing.”
I wipe at my cheeks, my breathing shaky.
“I know,” I rasp. “I know I should have said something. I should have trusted you to understand and believe me. But then there was the pregnancy, and George, and everything got so messy, and I kept telling myself that I’d bring it up when the time was right, but then the time never felt right. ”
A choked sob breaks free, and I try to stuff it down.
“The night we talked, when I found you in Geraldine’s room, I’d come to talk to you about it.
About everything. I wanted to talk about the Ross thing, the things I was worried about, and the…
the way I feel for you. I wanted to talk about it all.
But I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it when it could potentially hurt you, when you were already crying, when you’d laid yourself bare for me.
It felt wrong. I didn’t want to make that any harder for you. ”
He’s still watching me, his eyes boring holes into me, and it carves me open from the inside. I can’t tell if he believes me or if he’s trying to decide whether or not to.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice wobbling violently. “I’m so, so fucking sorry. I didn’t want to keep it from you, I really didn’t. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore once it had gone too far.”
Still, nothing. No response. Just his eyes.
I keep going, not knowing if I’m digging my own grave. “I’ve spent my whole life being moved around like a chess piece,” I rasp. “From my dad’s business strategies to George’s insanity to the contract. I’ve never had something that was just mine. Not until you, and her.”
He flinches.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever wanted for myself,” I add.
I take a wet, shuddering breath in. “Not because someone told me to, not because it made sense on paper, but because I—because being with you makes me feel like I’m not surviving anymore.
Even with the chaos of the last few months, you make me feel like I’m living, and you gave me her. ”
The wind whips again, cold and dry and biting across my cheeks. But I barely feel it over the thundering silence between us.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Just lets it hang.
“Please say something,” I choke.
“Do you love me?”
It’s so soft, so sudden, that I almost miss it. He hasn’t moved.
My lips part, my throat closing. His eyes are locked on mine, waiting, shockingly calm.
I nod, once. Then again. I force the word through my aching throat. “Yes.”
He’s on me before I can prepare for it.
He crosses the chasm between us, his hands coming up to cup my face, tilting my face up toward him as his mouth crashes down on mine with a ferocity that draws out another wet sob from my chest. It’s not gentle, it’s not delicate — it’s desperate and raw and real.
He kisses me like he needs this more than he’s needed anything in his life.
“I’m sorry,” I say against his lips, struggling to breathe through the kiss with my nose stuffed from the tears and my mouth occupied.
He pulls back enough to give me air, his thumbs stroking my cheeks, wiping the tears.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think about how it would look, I didn’t want to scare you—”
“Stop, Elena,” he murmurs. “Stop apologizing.”
“I ran away,” I croak. “I fucking ran—”
“Come here, darling.” He tucks me in against his chest, his hand moving to the back of my head, tangling in my hair. He presses a kiss to my temple, hard, lingering there as if he can imprint it into my skin. “You’re okay. We’re okay. I believe you.”
“I’m just sorry.” The words come out muffled against his coat.
“I am too,” he whispers. “I should have just talked to you the other morning. I shouldn’t have assumed the worst. I shouldn’t have gone through your phone in the first place. We both fucked up a little, yeah?”
I nod and press myself into him harder.
————
By the time we reach the front door of Ross’s apartment, I feel like I’ve shed something — anger, fear, the pit of dread I’ve been holding on to since I left Highcourt Hall.
It’s not gone completely, but it’s not swallowing me whole anymore.
Harry walks beside me, his hand resting at the small of my back, guiding without pushing me.
I don’t look at him. I’m too afraid that if I do, I’ll start crying again.
Ross opens the door at Harry’s casual knock, and his eyes shift between me and Harry, as if he’s trying to work out if our talk went sideways or if the red, puffy state of my eyes is a positive.
But the tension is gone, and the small, soft smile he gives me tells me that he can feel the lack of it hanging.
“Told you it’d be fine,” Ross says, reaching out and flicking me once in the middle of the forehead.
I shove his hand away, grumbling, and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “Yeah, yeah,” I grumble. “I just, uh, need to get my stuff.”
“No problem,” he says, taking a step back. “Come on in.”
I half expect Harry to hover at the door, but instead, he follows me inside, hanging near the sitting area as I grab my book and shoes. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he extends a hand to Ross, grasping him on the shoulder, and I still.
“Thank you,” Harry says, and I lose the air in my lungs. “For taking care of her the last few days.”
Ross blinks like he’s surprised, but he nods. “Of course. She’s basically family, always will be.”