Chapter Thirteen

Harper's POV:

"Harper?"

His hand landed on my shoulder and I flinched. The contact burned through my blouse like he'd pressed hot metal against my skin.

I couldn't look at him. Couldn't make my mouth work. The chandelier above us was spinning or maybe I was spinning and the carpet underneath my heels felt like it was tilting sideways.

"I thought this would make you happy." His voice cracked on the last word.

"What happened? Why are you just standing there?"

"I don't..." My throat closed around the words and I had to force them out one at a time. "I don't know how I feel about this, Hardin."

The confession spilled faster now and I couldn't stop it, couldn't control the way my voice was climbing higher and louder. "I wanted to get Meridian myself. Me. Not you swooping in like some hero who knows what's best for poor helpless Harper who can't fight her own battles."

"So what do you want me to say?" The bitter laugh that came out of me sounded like someone else. "Thank you Mr. Wolfe for winning the bid I was supposed to win? Thank you for proving I needed you to get what I wanted?"

My hands were shaking so I pressed them flat against my thighs but that made my legs shake instead and then my whole body was trembling and I couldn't make it stop. The walls were pressing in and my lungs forgot how to pull in air properly.

I should be dancing right now. Should be calling everyone I know to rub this in Connor's face because Meridian was his baby, his precious project he built with my ideas before throwing me out like trash, and now it was gone. Snatched away in less than twenty four hours.

But the victory tasted like ash in my mouth.

"Hey!" Hardin grabbed my arm and his fingers were too tight. "Harper, are you even listening to me?"

His voice came from somewhere far away like I was sinking underwater and he was shouting from the surface. My vision started doing this thing where the edges went fuzzy and dark and I blinked hard to clear it but it kept getting worse, kept pulling me down into something cold and empty.

The office disappeared.

I was running through darkness and my heels kept catching on nothing and behind me someone was laughing. That high pitched cruel laugh I heard in my nightmares.

"You're worthless!" Connor's voice bounced off invisible walls. "Nobody wants you, they just use you until they're done!"

I tried to run faster but my legs were moving through mud and when I looked back Jenny was there too, her face twisted with that same expression she had when I opened Connor's bedroom door and saw me standing there like an idiot. Both of them reaching for me with hands that wanted to drag me back into that apartment, back into that life where I was small and stupid and easy to break.

"Harper!"

Another voice cut through the screaming and Hardin was running toward me from the opposite direction with his hand stretched out like he could save me if I just grabbed on.

But I didn't want Connor's hands on me and I didn't want Hardin's either because letting him save me meant I needed saving and I was so tired of needing anyone for anything.

I tried to run sideways, tried to find my own path away from all of them, but Hardin was faster and his arms locked around me before I could escape and I couldn't breathe, couldn't move.

"You deserve the best." His mouth was right against my ear. "Let me give it to you."

"No." I shoved at his chest but my hands went right through him. "I need to do this alone, I need to prove I don't need you."

But he wouldn't let go and my father's face appeared in the darkness too, drunk and swaying, telling me I'd never be anything worth keeping.

"Harper? Can you hear me?"

Something soft patted my cheek and I tried to open my eyes but the pain in my skull was so intense I had to squeeze them shut again. Voices were talking somewhere above me. Hardin and someone I didn't recognize.

"What happened?" The stranger asked. "Her body was ice cold when I got here."

"I don't know." Hardin's voice was shaking and I'd never heard him sound like that before, never heard him sound scared. "We were just talking and then she was on the floor."

"She's stable now but you need to to bring her to the hospital. She needs tests."

I blocked out the rest because I didn't want to hear them discuss me like I was some broken thing that needed fixing. The images from before were already fading but I remembered enough. Connor and Jenny chasing me. My father's face. Hardin trying to save me even in my own head and I hated that, hated that even unconscious I couldn't stop depending on him.

Footsteps came closer and I knew I had to open my eyes, had to face this even though every part of me wanted to sink back into the darkness and never come out.

"Harper?" Hardin tried again, softer this time like I might shatter.

I forced my eyes open and the light stabbed straight through to the back of my skull but I kept them open anyway because I needed to prove I was fine.

"Oh thank God." Hardin grabbed the other man's arm. "Roman, she's awake."

Roman moved to my side and started doing something with a stethoscope but I couldn't focus on him because I was staring at Hardin. His face was gray and his eyes were red and looking at him made my chest hurt worse than the headache.

"She needs proper tests at the hospital." Roman packed his stethoscope back into his bag and stood up. "Bring her when she's strong enough to move."

"Thank you for coming so fast." Hardin walked with him toward the door. "I'll call you later, yeah?"

Roman squeezed his shoulder. "Take care of her."

The door clicked shut behind him and then we were alone.

The silence felt like it was crushing me.

Hardin dropped to his knees next to where I was lying on his office couch and his hands were shaking when he reached for mine.

"I'm sorry." The words tumbled out of him too fast. "I didn't think it would hurt you, I just wanted to help and I know that's not good enough but I would never try to take anything from you on purpose, I thought..."

I lifted my hand even though it weighed a thousand pounds and pressed my fingers against his mouth.

"Stop." My voice came out broken. "You shouldn't be the one apologizing."

He grabbed my hand and pulled it away from his face gently. "Don't say that. Just rest."

Tears were burning behind my eyes and I blinked hard to keep them back because I'd cried enough, broken down enough, and I needed to be strong even though I didn't know how to be strong anymore.

“Is he pretending?” The thought came without permission and I hated myself for it but I couldn't help wondering if this was another Connor situation, another man who seemed caring until he wasn't.

But the way Hardin was looking at me didn't feel like pretending.

Hours passed. The sun outside his windows turned orange then purple then black. He stayed next to me the entire time, ignoring his phone when it buzzed, waving away anyone who knocked on his door.

"We should go." He said it when the building had gone quiet around us. "I didn't want to take you to the hospital immediately because..." He paused. "I didn't want your team seeing you like this on your first day."

"I can't..." I started to sit up and the room tilted. "I can't go home with you, Hardin."

His face changed into something hard and angry and desperate all at once.

"Don't." His voice came out sharp and loud enough to make me flinch. 

"Don't you dare push me away right now."