Chapter 20-Pushing Away
Richard was waiting in the lobby. Charlotte and me in the conference room—her with perfect posture, me with my spine exactly two inches from the chair back, hands folded under the table—watching James Morrison's lawyer deliver the news.
Whitmore & Locke was being replaced as counsel effective immediately.
The Bar complaint necessitated distance. Surely I understood.
Charlotte shifted beside me. Started to speak—probably to argue, to push back, to handle this the way a senior partner should.
I cut her off.
Three years of work. My name on every brief, every motion, every argument that had kept Morrison out of litigation for the better part of a decade.
I let the smile bloom—the one I learned to perfect in law school, wide enough to seem warm but not desperate, steady enough to project competence. "Of course. I'll have all files transferred by the end of business today."
The smile stayed in place while Charlotte sat beside me, quiet enough to feel like a warning. While every instinct in me screamed to argue, to fight back, to refuse to let this happen.
My cheeks ached from holding the smile. Old habits. The cage I'd decided wasn't a cage after all — just the only door I knew how to open. But the performance didn't crack.
Morrison's lawyer nodded without meeting my eyes. Without looking at Charlotte either. Like I was already the lesson everyone was supposed to learn from, and Charlotte was just another casualty of standing by me.
I didn't move for a moment.
Then I stood. Smoothed my skirt. Walked to the elevator with my head high and my hands level.
Richard was on his feet the minute I exited the elevator.
I didn't look at him.
"Let's go."
The drive back was silent.
Richard didn't ask. Didn't push. His hands remained steady on the wheel. His breathing was level. The same calm patience that had gotten under my skin since he moved in—watching me without forcing, waiting without demanding.
I watched the city blur past my window. Counted streetlights just to give myself something to focus on besides him. Besides the steady, impossible awareness of him in the driver's seat.
I'd spent these mornings letting him make me feel safe. Letting him investigate threats and make coffee and stand between me and whatever was coming.
Just like my father did.
Just like Grant claimed he was doing.
Just like Rowan swore he was doing.
The thought hit hard enough to make my stomach turn.
No.
Not like them.
They'd called it protection while taking choices away from me.
Richard handed them back.
I knew the difference.
I just didn't know if knowing was enough.
We pulled into my building's garage. He parked. Cut the engine.
Neither of us spoke.
"Blaire—"
"I need you to leave."
The words came out clean. Controlled. Like I was dismissing a junior associate instead of the man I woke up beside that morning.
Richard went still.
"What?"
I kept my eyes forward. Hands folded in my lap. "The ten days are over. The threat was Crowe. We know who it is now. Charlotte's handling the legal side. There's no reason for you to stay."
"I can't do this," I said finally. My fingers pressed against the inside of my wrist, grounding myself in the sharp, steady beat of my pulse. "I can't tell anymore. The difference between people protecting me, controlling me, and me.”
I forced myself to look at him.
"Three weeks. My father knew about Crowe for three weeks and decided to handle it for me. Hired security. Made calls. Had me followed. And I had no idea until Charlotte told me yesterday."
My voice stayed controlled. Like I was delivering a closing argument instead of ending whatever this was between us.
"You spent those same three weeks following me. Tracking me. Identifying threats I didn't know existed. Moving into my apartment. Making decisions about my safety without asking."
"Blaire—" His hand moved toward me, then stopped.
"And I can't—" My breath caught. My fingers tightened on my wrist. "I don't know the difference anymore."
Richard didn't answer right away. I heard my own breathing in the silence, unsteady.
"Your father made choices for you," he said finally. "Without telling you. Without asking. I've been making choices with you. Showing you the threats. Asking what you want to do. Letting you decide."
I turned toward him, the movement sharp. "You moved into my apartment without asking?—"
"After you agreed to ten days." His voice stayed quiet, hands still on the wheel. "After you chose to let me stay. After every chance you had to tell me to leave—and you didn't."
The words settled in my chest because he was right, even if part of me wanted him not to be.
"Blaire." Something shifted in his expression. Not the controlled neutral I was used to. Something deliberate. Like a decision being made.
"It wasn't just three weeks."
I looked at him.
"I've been watching out for you for years. Long before the sedan.
Long before Crowe."
He held my gaze.
"You didn't know. I never told you because I didn't want you to feel like I was taking something from you."
The muscle in his jaw shifted.
"But don't stand there and tell me I'm the same as them because I kept one thing from you."
The silence in the car was deafening.
"How long?” I said.
"Since the Hendricks trial."
I turned back toward the windshield. My pulse was loud in my ears.
Years. Not weeks. Not the investigation. Years.
The rational part of me—the part that had been arguing with me since the garage ramp—understood, with sudden, exhausting clarity, that this changed everything and nothing at all.
Because Richard watching over me for years was not the same as my father managing me. I knew that. The distinction was real. He had never used what he knew to take choices away from me. He had used it to be there when I needed him.
And I still couldn't let him stay.
"I know you're not my father," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"I know the difference. I do." My fingers pressed harder against my pulse point.
"But I can't trust my own judgment right now.
About any of it. About who's safe. About what's real.
" My throat tightened. "And until I can—I can't keep letting you stay in my life. "
He didn't argue. That, somehow, was the worst part.
"So you're pushing me away."
It wasn't a question.
"I need to get my things."
We didn't speak in the elevator. Didn't speak as I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Richard followed me in. Went straight to the bedroom while I stayed by the door.
The apartment was quiet except for the sound of him packing. Drawers opening. The zip of his bag. Footsteps moving through my apartment with the kind of familiarity that had crept up on me before I realized it felt natural.
He came back with his bag over his shoulder. Started gathering the rest. Phone charger from the outlet by the couch. Laptop from the coffee table.
I watched him move through my apartment. Years, I kept thinking. Not weeks. Years of knowing my window and my rhythms and my habits, and he had never once used any of it against me.
He turned to face me. His expression was controlled, but his jaw was set in the way it got when he was forcing himself to hold still.
"I meant what I said this morning. I will always want you. Even when you're scared. Even when you push me away. Even when you can't want me back."
My throat tightened.
I was in love with him. The knowledge had been there for days, maybe longer—settled somewhere under the fear, quiet and completely certain. I had been so focused on not saying it that I hadn't let myself feel it.
And now he was standing in my doorway with his bag on his shoulder, and I still couldn't make myself say it, because saying it would mean asking him to stay, and I couldn't ask him to stay, not when I didn't trust myself to be what he deserved right now.
"Richard—" I reached toward him, then dropped my hand.
"But I can't make you choose me. That has to be your decision." He shifted his bag on his shoulder. Paused at the door.
Looked at me one more time.
"I'll be here when you're ready."
Like it was a choice I got to make. Like he was giving me the space to make it.
I couldn't make myself respond.
And Richard left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I stood there for I don't know how long.
Then I locked the door.
Checked it once.
Twice.
Three times.
These mornings with Richard had started to make me forget.
Minutes without him reminded me exactly who I became when I was alone.
I went to my desk and threw myself into the Bar response because, as long as I kept moving, I didn't have to think about what I'd just done.
Morrison case gone. Richard gone.
Everything back where it belonged.
So why did it feel like I had just destroyed something I couldn't fix?
I worked until midnight. Then one AM. Then two.
My eyes stung from staring at the screen. Tension knotted across my shoulders.
The apartment was silent except for my typing and the steady hum of the refrigerator—sounds that used to make me feel focused instead of hollow.
Before Richard, I never realized there was a difference.
Every so often, I got up and checked the lock again, my fingers unsteady against the deadbolt.
At 3:17 AM, I finally closed the laptop.
Walked to the bedroom. The empty space in my closet where his clothes had been felt bigger than it should. Collapsed onto the bed without bothering to change out of my work clothes because there was no one there to see me like that anyway.
The sheets still smelled like Richard.
I turned my face into the pillow and cried.