Chapter Four #3
A white-hot, protective fury ignited in Harper's chest, burning away the remnants of her fear. He didn't get to do this. He didn't get to break Aurelia in one lifetime and play the devoted savior in the next.
Aurelia was deeply engrossed in her drawing, her headphones slipped over her ears, oblivious to the silent drama unfolding across the room.
Harper set her coffee down. She stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from her cheap sweater, and walked purposefully across the thick carpet.
Cameron saw her coming. His eyes shifted from Aurelia to Harper, and the raw devotion vanished, replaced instantly by an agonizing guilt. He straightened up, bracing himself for the impact as the girl who shared his blood marched toward him.
Harper didn't stop until she was mere inches from him, invading his personal space with a fearlessness that only came from having nothing left to lose.
"Step into the hall," Harper ordered, her voice a vibrating hiss, barely audible over the ambient noise of the lounge.
Cameron didn't argue. He turned and walked through the glass doors leading to the deserted elevator vestibule, Harper following closely behind. The moment the doors sealed shut behind them, cutting them off from Aurelia's view, the air between them became weaponized.
"Harper," Cameron began, his voice rough, cracking slightly under the weight of the name. It was the first time he had ever addressed his sister directly, armed with the knowledge of who she truly was to him. "I know what you're doing. I know why you tried to run."
"Shut your mouth," Harper snapped, her eyes blazing with an unrestrained hatred that made Cameron flinch physically. "You don't get to say my name like that. You don't get to look at her like that."
"Harper, please, just listen to me—"
"I listened to you for five years!" Harper interrupted, her voice echoing off the marble walls of the vestibule.
"I listened to you talk down to her. I watched you ignore her tears.
I watched you treat her like she was the dirt on the bottom of your immaculate shoes!
You locked her in your massive, lonely house and you let your mother and your precious Elena tear her to shreds. You broke her!"
Cameron squeezed his eyes shut, a jagged breath tearing through his chest. Every word was a blade, and he offered his throat to all of them.
"I know," he choked out, the billionaire reduced to a broken man.
"God, Harper, I know. I was blind. I was arrogant, and I was so fiercely protective of the wrong people that I destroyed the only woman who ever actually cared for me.
I remember the crash. I remember the morgue.
It haunts every second of my existence."
He opened his eyes, pleading with the fierce, protective girl in front of him.
"But this is our second chance. We have the memories.
Julian, Sebastian, and I... we know the truth now.
We know the truth now. We know you were always innocent.
And I swear to you, on my life, I will never let anyone hurt either of you again.
I will spend the rest of my days making it right. "
Harper stared at him, her chest heaving, immune to the tears shining in the eyes of the most powerful man in the city.
"You can choke on your regret for all I care," Harper said, her voice dropping to a cold, venomous whisper.
"You don't get a second chance with her or me.
Your guilt doesn't buy you a clean slate, Cameron.
I don't care how many buildings you own, or how many storms you manipulate to keep us trapped here. "
"Harper, she is my wife—"
"She is a girl sketching by a window!" Harper fired back, stepping even closer, forcing Cameron to look down into her blazing eyes.
"She doesn't know you. She doesn't love you.
The woman who loved you died bleeding on a highway because of your family.
The Aurelia in that room is innocent, and I am going to keep her that way. "
Cameron’s jaw clenched, a desperate panic rising in his chest. "I cannot walk away from her, Harper. Do not ask me to do that. I will give you anything. I will sign the entire conglomerate over to you. I will exile Mother and Elena today. But I will not leave Aurelia."
Harper tilted her chin up, her expression hardening into an impenetrable mask of iron. She was no longer the frightened girl waking up from a nightmare. She was a soldier standing between the monster and her family.
"Watch me make you," Harper promised. "The minute this storm clears, we are gone.
And if you try to follow us, if you or Julian or Sebastian try to use your money to trap her again, I will tell her exactly who you are, and what you did.
I will make sure she looks at you with the disgust you deserve. "
Harper didn't wait for a response. She turned on her heel, pushing through the glass doors and walking back into the lounge, leaving the head of the Langsford empire standing alone in the silent hallway, drowning in the inescapable wreckage of his own making.