19. Chapter 19 — Harper
One day to the roadshow.
I sit at my desk at eight-fifteen on a Thursday morning and the floor already has the feeling of something wound too tight. Everyone moving a little faster. Voices a little lower. The kind of quiet that isn't actually quiet at all.
Every document is done. Everything is clean. I finished the last of the prep materials two days ago, and there is nothing left for me to do except show up tomorrow and be the best version of myself, which right now feels like an enormous ask.
I slept four hours. I know I look like it. I've had two coffees, and I'm considering a third, and I have spent the last forty minutes staring at the Hartwell cross-reference on my screen without reading a single word of it.
Jonathan passes through the floor at eight-forty. He doesn't stop. He doesn't look in. He keeps moving down the hall with that forward momentum he carries. The one that says every minute of his day is already accounted for. I watch the doorway for a second after he's gone and think, okay. Okay.
I pick up my phone and call Sloane.
She picks up on the third ring.
"Tell me something that isn't about a billion-dollar acquisition," she says.
"You were out when I got home last night. I went to his apartment."
A pause. "Harper."
"I know."
"What happened?"
"We—" I stop. Press my hand over my eyes. The blinds are open and the morning light is falling in stripes across my desk and I am so tired of holding this carefully. "We slept together. And then afterward he told me his daughter needs stability. And I got dressed and left."
Sloane is quiet for a beat. "He said that. After."
"Yep."
"That's—"
"I know," I confess and drop my hand. "I'm not calling because I don't know what it is. I'm calling because I need someone to tell me I'm not crazy for still being here."
"You're not crazy." Her voice is warm and direct in equal measure. "But you're not going to like what I do have to say."
"Obviously."
"You keep leaving when he goes quiet. Gracefully, like it doesn't kill you every time, which is very impressive. But Harper, you have never once told him what you actually want. You've been waiting for him to figure it out and offer it to you."
I open my mouth. Close it.
"You went over there last night. And knowing you, you didn't say a word about how you actually feel."
"He said she needs stability. He basically said I'm not—"
"I heard you. And I think he's scared and handling it badly." A pause. "That doesn't mean you have to keep handling it perfectly. You're allowed to want something out loud, you know. You're allowed to make him uncomfortable with how much you want it."
She's right. I've been so careful. So steady. So relentlessly composed about the whole thing. The push-pull, Ms. Lane, the four words on Columbus Avenue, they have gotten me exactly nowhere.
"So what do I do," I say. Not really a question. More like thinking out loud.
"You show up tomorrow," Sloane says. "You do the work. And if he pulls back again, you don't just say okay and leave. For once in your life, you say how you actually feel."
"And if he still doesn't choose me?"
She doesn't hesitate. "Then you have your answer. And you're still standing. And you've still built everything you came here to build."
I look at my desk. The Hartwell cross-reference. The Marissa Chen meeting on my calendar. My name at the top of documents that have nothing to do with Jonathan Kingsley.
"They're worth it," I say. The work. The floor. All of it. "Even the parts that are hard."
"Yeah," Sloane says. "They are."
We talk for another few minutes. She tells me to eat something real. I promise. We hang up.
I set my phone down and sit in the quiet of the floor with the morning light coming through the windows. One day to the roadshow. Every document is ready. My name is on work that earned its place here.
I think about what Sloane said. About saying how I actually feel.
I think about tomorrow.
I think about the fact that Jonathan Kingsley has spent almost six weeks choosing me privately, and managing me publicly. I have been steady and graceful about it every single time, and I am done being steady and graceful about it.
Not today. Today the floor needs me to be professional and focused.
But tomorrow is the roadshow. And whatever happens after, I'm not walking away quietly again.
I open the Hartwell file. I get back to work.
Jonathan passes my door twice more before noon. The second time, he slows, just slightly, and I look up and meet his eyes and hold them for exactly one beat before I look back at my screen.
I don't smile. I don't look away first.
He keeps walking.
Good.