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“Oh my goodness, what a surprise! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you,” she says excitedly.
I smile. “Far too long for my liking. I came by to talk with Harlow and drop off the last of my manuscript.”
“I’m sure she’ll be excited to see you. We’ve been waiting on your manuscript for a few days now. I’ll take you to her office.”
Kristen leads me through the building until we come up to an office with Harlow’s name on the door. She knocks a few times, and when Harlow tells us to come in, Kristen opens the door and we step inside. Harlow’s at her computer desk with papers spread out across her desk. She looks beautiful, her hair tied up in a messy ponytail and a pencil between her teeth. When we meet eyes, her smile falters.
“Guess who came to see you,” Kristen smiles.
“Liam,” Harlow says. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I’ll leave you two to it.” Kristen pats me on the back, then excuses herself. She closes the door on the way out. For a moment, neither of us say anything to each other. All I can do is stare in awe. It’s only been about a month since we’ve talked in person, but I already miss everything about her. The way her voice rises at the end of sentences, making them sound like questions. Her soft smile when she’s grown embarrassed. Even the wrinkle in her forehead she gets when she’s confused or frustrated.
That wrinkle makes an appearance now. “What are you doing here, Liam?”
Lamely, I say, “I came to give you these.” I reach into my bag and pull out the stack of papers, handing them over. Harlow takes them and flips through each, puzzled.
“You couldn’t just send them to me like you did with the other chapters?” When I don’t say anything, Harlow sighs and places the paper down on the desk. “What is this about, Liam? I thought we talked about this.”
“We didn’t,” I say. “You told me things were over, and then gave me a bunch of bullshit about why we had to stop seeing each other. That’s not talking about anything.”
“So you decided—”
“Yes, I decided to fly to New York so that I could hand those over and talk to you about us. No more avoiding this, Harlow. We’re both adults, and we need to start talking like it.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I did talk about it.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, you sat on my bed and gave me a bunch of excuses about why you didn’t think we’d work out. But you and I both know that’s not why you turned me away and started pulling back. There was something else that night that bothered you, and you never told me what it was. You never opened up the way you pretended you did.”
Harlow’s glare is withering, but I stand my ground. She taps the pen against the table for a moment, then says, “I need you to leave, Liam.”
“No.”
“Liam—”
“No,” I say, my voice rising a little. I regain control quickly. “I’m not leaving until you stop lying to me about why you won’t let yourself fall for me. Why you cut me off like we never had anything special.”
She looks away, her chest rising and falling faster and faster.
“Tell me, Harlow,” I demand. “All I want is for you to be honest with me. I don't give a fuck whether it hurts or makes me upset, I want you to stop lying to the both of us and give me the real reason why you did this!”
“Because,” she exclaims, standing up in her seat. “Because… Because I was scared that you’d cheat on me like you did the woman you wrote about in your book.” Her eyes water as she speaks, and for a moment I’m too distracted by that to acknowledge the kick to my gut.
When I finally start to feel the surprise, I blink. “That’s what this is about?”
“Yes! You said all your books were based off your dating life, and both Max and Grace have significant others they step out on. I wouldn’t let myself be like either of them. I wouldn’t fall for someone who wouldn’t respect me. That’s why I had to pull away. It wasn’t just that we could get in trouble. It was that you could hurt me unlike anyone else has, and I refused to put myself through that with someone I shouldn’t have even been intimate with in the first place.”
Her voice is strangled, and when she stops talking, she turns around, her shoulders shaking. Any anger I’m feeling is immediately gone, replaced with the need to comfort her. I take a step forward and put my arm around her, but Harlow shrugs it off, stepping back.
“Harlow,” I say quietly.
“I’m sorry, I just—I need a second.”
While she collects herself, I stare at the floor. This is a nightmare. She doesn't even know the half of the situation. I can't help but blame myself for not thinking about this. Of course, any woman would feel apprehensive dating someone like me. Not only out of fear she might end up in a book of mine, but fear that she couldn't trust me given the material I wrote about. How could I have been such an utter idiot to miss this?
Harlow sniffs hard and collects herself. When she turns around, her eyes are red. Rather than saying anything, she opens her drawer and pulls out an envelope. Without a word, she hands it over to me.
“What’s this?” I remove the letter from inside and quickly scan over it. Handwritten, it warns her about keeping secrets from her boss. “’I know about you and Liam. Call it off or else’? Who sent this?”
