Page 67
Victoria takes a step back, as if the distance could save her from the impending collision.
“Harper…”
The woman storms into the apartment like a five-foot-seven hurricane, slamming the door behind her.
“Can you tell me why the hell you did that?”
Victoria locks the door again.
“I needed to think with a clear head.”
“You could’ve thought with that damn phone turned on!” Harper explodes, waving her arms in the air. “You could’ve answered just one of my twenty calls! Just one!”
“I didn’t want to talk to you until I knew exactly what I was going to do!” Victoria defends herself.
Harper whips around to face her.
“So what are you going to do, Victoria? Tell me. What are you going to do?”
Victoria falls silent, searching for a reasonable explanation. Harper stares at her for two agonizing seconds until her eyes drift toward the sofa and the coffee table.
All of Harper’s seething fury evaporates in an instant. Instead, pallor washes over her face. That heart-wrenching, all-too-familiar fear surfaces—the same fear Victoria remembers from the night she said goodbye to her forever.
“No…” Harper murmurs, shaking her head. “Tell me it’s not true.”
Harper walks over to the table, picks up the contract with trembling fingers, and reads the printed header. Then she discovers the plane ticket.
“No, no, no…” she repeats, and the paper begins to tremble in her hands.
“Harper, please, just listen to me for a second.”
“Listen to you?” Harper holds up the ticket as if it were incriminating evidence. “Were you just going to leave again without a word?”
Victoria tries to close the distance to touch her, but Harper pulls away immediately.
“I haven’t signed anything yet,” Victoria argues, pointing to the pages on the table.
“I didn’t ask if you’d put your damn signature on it!” Harper reproaches her, her voice breaking. “I asked if you’re leaving!”
“I was planning to accept,” Victoria admits a few seconds later.
Harper closes her eyes. The reaction is small, but devastating. A simple closing of her eyelids that conceals infinite agony. Victoria steps forward again, unable to bear the distance.
“Let me explain, Harper. Let me tell you why…”
“Sure!” Harper interrupts, bursting into a laugh that’s anything but funny. “Of course. Explain to me why the hell you have another contract to go to the other side of the world sitting right here on the table, just like the last time you left me high and dry for Paris. Explain to me why the hell I’m reenacting the same damn scene, only with different costumes.”
“This has nothing to do with that!”
“Oh, really? And how is it different, if I may ask?”
“This time I’m not choosing my career over you!”
Victoria clenches her fists at her sides, struggling not to lose her cool.
“I did it for you!” she blurts out, laying the truth bare.
Harper freezes. The words hit her as if she’d just been slapped.
