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“What did you say?”
“Eleanor is going to go all out with the restructuring,” Victoria explains, her pulse racing. “She’s already won over half the old fogies on the board. If we insist on running for co-directors together, she’s going to unleash a dirty war that you don’t deserve. A war that’s going to ruin your reputation and cost you the Editor-in-Chief position you’ve been working your ass off for all these years.”
“And your brilliant solution is to leave? To hop on a plane and disappear as if the last few weeks hadn’t meant a thing?”
“My solution is to get out of the way so you can achieve your dream!” Victoria bursts out, feeling her eyes sting. “So no one has to choose between the two of us!”
Harper shakes her head, laughing in genuine disbelief.
“You can’t be serious, Victoria. Tell me this is a bad joke. Don’t you realize they’re already choosing for us?”
“That’s not true!”
“Of course it is!” Harper insists, glaring at her fiercely. “You’ve decided that my ambition comes before us. You’ve decided that the only way to look out for me is to vanish off the map.”
Victoria tries to keep her composure, but her hands begin to shake.
“Eleanor made it very clear to me that she’d rather burn the company down than give up an inch of control.”
“Eleanor doesn’t own the company!” Harper retorts. “The board of directors answers to the bottom line. And the numbers in our proposal are unbeatable!”
“She has enough influence to turn this into a living hell, Harper. To make the price of winning too destructive.”
“Well, let’s fight this together, damn it!” Harper shouts, slamming the contract down on the table. The pages fly everywhere. “Let’s fight! Just like we should have from the very beginning!”
“What if we lose?” Victoria asks.
“Well, if we lose, we both lose!” Harper declares. “Is it that hard for you to get that through your head? I can handle losing a job. I can tell this magazine to go to hell if it comes to that! But what I won’t tolerate under any circumstances is losing you again.”
Victoria is speechless, and Harper takes the folded plane ticket between her fingers.
“When were you planning on telling me you were going to accept?” Harper asks. “Before or after you got on that plane?”
“That’s not fair, Harper!”
“Unfair?” Harper looks at her, pain reflected in her eyes. “I’ve spent the whole damn morning looking for the woman I’m in love with. And when I finally find her, I discover you already have the ticket on the table. Don’t talk to me about fairness. Don’t even think about it.”
Harper drops her arms, exhausted. Then she shakes her head as she laughs, letting the paper fall to the floor.
“Look. I don’t want you to offer me anything, Victoria,” Harper murmurs, and her voice sounds so fragile that tears well up in Victoria’s eyes. “I don’t want heroic sacrifices. I don’t want you to protect me by disappearing from my life. I want you to let me decide for myself, too.”
Silence takes over the room once more.
“Please…” Harper pleads, looking at the floor. “I’m asking you for the sake of whatever you love most in this world. Don’t ever leave again. Not one more time.”
“Harper… I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Victoria whispers, taking a cautious step toward her. “I wanted to spare you from something worse.”
“Well, stop trying to protect me at my expense,” Harper says, wiping a tear with the sleeve of her coat. “Stop making unilateral decisions. I just need a partner who trusts me.”
Victoria looks down at the pages of the contract scattered on the floor. There it is. The same mistake she made in the past by masking her fears. Believing she can control people’s destinies so she doesn’t have to face the possibility that everything might go wrong.
And so, without hesitation, she walks over to Harper and pulls her into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, kissing her forehead. “I’m so, so sorry. I really am.”
Harper lets out a sigh as Victoria rests her chin on Harper’s head, feeling her love for this woman continue to grow inside her.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Victoria explains.
