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Shock radiates through me. He’s lost his father and the fact that he hated him only makes this more confusing to him, painful in ways that torment and cut. And perhaps more devastating. He’s lost the final link to his mother. I close the space between us and wrap my arms around him, holding him, but he doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t move, but I can feel his body humming. I can feel the savant in him, battling to take control and if that part of him wins, I know the numbers will cripple him. And I know this is the part of him that he dreaded me ever seeing.
Chapter one hundred twenty
Harper
Lies.
We can hide from the truth, but we can’t hide from death. It finds us all, often sooner than we expect. Eric’s father’s death has shaken him. I know this. He still hasn’t moved, hasn’t touched me. “Touch me,” I order, tilting my chin up to look at him. “Let me help.”
“I’m fine,” he says, his eyes steely, the lines of his face all dark shadows and torment.
I reject this answer. I reject his withdrawal, his refusal to let me inside the pain I know that he feels. “You’re not fine and you’re not alone. You don’t do this alone. You don’t feel this without me. I’m here. I’m with you. I’m—”
His hands come down on my shoulders, his forehead settling against mine. “I’m okay.”
“No.” My hands press to his face. “You’re not okay, but you’re not alone either.” He needs to hear that again. I feel it. I know it. I press on his chest, inch back to let him see the truth in my eyes, to let him feel my presence. “I understand every conflicted feeling you have right now. I understand that you need to melt down and you can do that with me. You don’t have to hold back. You don’t have to fear how I’ll react. I love you so much, Eric.”
“I love you, too, so fucking much.” He tilts my gaze to his. “I fell in love with you the moment I met you. You’re why I’m still standing right now.”
Tears pool in my eyes and his mouth closes down on mine, his tongue stroking deep, his kiss hungry, edgy, desperate, but whenI would sink into him, when I would pull him deeper into our connection, the doorbell rings. “That’s Savage,” he breathes out, tearing his mouth from mine, the torment of that effort radiating through him into me. “He’s taking you to see your mother. You need to tell her about my father. I told the detective you’d handle it.”
“No.” I wrap my arms around him again. “No. I can’t leave you. Not now. Not yet. You didn’t even want to touch me seconds ago. You’re still trying to get a handle on this. You’re not okay.”
“I’m fine. I promise.”
He keeps saying that for a reason. He’s not fine at all. “Eric,” I whisper.
He inhales and walks me backward, pressing me to the vanity, his hands on either side of me. “She’s your mother, Harper. She needs you.”
“Does she? I’m not sure I know her anymore. Maybe this is what she wants.”
“Assume it’s not.”
“What if it is?”
“You’ll know. You’ll feel it when you tell her, which is why you need to tell her before someone else does. As cold as this sounds, if there was ever a time that your mother would tell you everything she knows, it’s after she finds out my father is dead. But the whole idea here is to make sure no one else ends up dead.”
“You’re right. You’re right. I have to go see her. I have to go now, I just—”
He kisses me, long fingers splayed tenderly on my jaw. “I promise you, I’m okay.”
“Your body is vibrating,” I argue, “I can almost see it. I can feel it.”
“It’s something that happens when the numbers are flying at me too fast.”
“I’ve never seen this before. It scares me.”
He gives my cheek a quick brush of fingers. “The numbers in my head will keep me sane until you can save me later when we’re alone.” He pushes off the counter and laces the fingers of one of his hands with mine, setting us in motion.
I snatch my purse as we walk, following him willingly, but my eyes pinch and burn. I didn’t like his father, and neither did Eric. But he was stillhis father. He’s also dead now. That’s hard toprocess. That’s hard to get my mind and emotions around, but I have to be strong for Eric.
We start down the stairs and my mind is on my mother. Oh how a week changes things, even a few days. There was a time when I would have been crushed for my mother, fearful for her even, but now I don’t feel those things, and that’s painful in an entirely different way. I’ve lost her and it happened a long time ago. I just wasn’t willing to admit it.
Eric releases me by the couch and heads toward the door. I hug myself and watch as he opens the door and Savage enters the apartment. Savage who is bigger today than normal, which is a silly statement. He’s not bigger. He just feels really big and broad and towering, perhaps because all of this feels big right now.
He gives Eric a once over. “You okay?”
“I hated him,” Eric replies, almost as if he’s reminding himself of this fact, using that detail to shove aside grief.
