Thank goodness this day is over.
My days usually consisted of staring at the wall and wishing the glass behind me wasn’t unbreakable. I was so bad at making decisions that I had given up long ago. I pushed the responsibilities that I wasn’t required to handle off to other people. They were better at it, anyway. I did try in the beginning. I read books, including the one my father wrote in his prime. The secret wasn’t in the pages. It was inside a brilliant mind I didn’t inherit. I walked into my apartment, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. I pulled out my keys, found the one that would open my door, and when I lifted my head, they practically fell out of my hand.
“Harmony?” My heart raced in my chest. “What?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me inside? I’ve been waiting out here for hours.” She smiled and turned her head slightly.
“Of course!” I nodded quickly and rushed to my door. “What are you doing in New York?”
“I thought I’d drop in and see what you’ve been up to.” She stepped into my apartment and I closed the door.
“You came all the way from Illinois just to say hello? I’m pretty sure we’re still friends on social media.” I twisted my face into one of confusion.
“No.” She took a seat on the couch and looked over at me. “Someone recently told me that honesty is the best policy, so I’m just going to level with you. You’re caught up in a twisted game but you’re going to win it. You won’t be taking your life on my watch.”
What the fuck?
13
Harmony
The man that I saw no longer resembled Connor Vale. He wore his skin like a vagabond that had found a discarded coat on the sidewalk. The shimmer in his eyes was burned out. The smile had been gone so long I didn’t even see the creases that used to linger on the edge of his lips. He was truly defeated, broken, and destroyed. He didn’t have a shell to crack. His shell was already long gone. There was no point in lying to him. Even if I did manage to pull him back from the edge for a couple of days, the man I saw in front of me wasn’t going to stop falling until his feet landed firmly in hell. That might not even be enough ground for him to stand on. Angelina was right to send me to him, and I wasn’t losing him without a fight.
“What do you mean by that? Taking my life? Twisted game?” His face reflected absolute dismay coupled with bewilderment.
“Come sit down. Grab a drink if you have something handy. We’ve got a lot to talk about.” I patted the couch next to me.
“Okay.” He stared at me for a moment and then walked to the kitchen and poured two glasses of vodka.
Connor sat down and I told him everything. I told him about Nate, Angelina, and I even revealed my dark side, including my session with Devlin. I left out the stuff that didn’t matter, but I didn’t hold back with him. I told him that his name came up when Angelina was building a profile for me, and she had been watching him since she discovered he was going to take his own life. Connor’s emotions shifted from confused, to concerned, to downright horrified. I understood them all. They had been present in me when I learned what was going on. When I brought my story to a close, Connor stared at me for a moment and then he simply broke down in tears.
“I can’t believe I walked away from someone like you—for all of this fucking misery.” He squeezed his face together as he spoke to try and block out the tears.
It was Connor’s turn to talk. I listened to his story, from the moment he found out about his brother’s death, to the dismay he had found when he landed at the head of his family’s board room. He didn’t deserve that kind of stress. He had a pure heart and a poet’s soul. He didn’t want the power or the prestige that normally came with such a position. The trust his father set up was there to protect the family, but it had trapped Connor instead. He finished his vodka and went for another before he was finally done explaining the difficulties he had dealt with since the abrupt end of our second date.
“You see yourself as a failure, but when I hear that story, all I see is a man that is trying desperately to keep it all together. I see a man willing to sacrifice his own life because he doesn’t want all of those employees to lose their livelihood. There has to be another way. There has to be a loophole in your father’s trust.” I moved closer and took his hand.
“I’ve tried. I’ve had lawyers look at it—the best that money can buy. It’s an impossible situation.” He exhaled sharply.
“You don’t have any other family that could step in and do it? Uncles? Cousins? Anyone?” I tried to wrack my brain for a solution.
“No, my father’s trust is very specific. His heir has to sit at the table. He was worried about corporate takeovers when he set that up. There was a lot of it going around with various investment firms. They would buy stock or get a foothold in the company, oust the CEO, and then turn the company into nothing more than an extension of their brand—it happened with several of our competitors. The bigger firms play dirty. They always have.” Connor shook his head and sighed.
“I promise that I’m not leaving until we find a solution.” I squeezed his hand harder. “But until then, I want to see a smile on that face.”
I took his glass and put it beside mine on the table. He stared at me with curiosity as I shifted my leg across his lap and straddled him. Our dates had never ended with more than a kiss. That was going to change. I might not have the answers he sought, but I could give him something that would make him forget about his struggles for a little while. I was not going to leave his side until everything was fixed. I liked Nate—I really did. My time with Devlin had been amazing and an eye-opening experience. I had to let my heart guide me, though, just like Angelina said. Connor needed more than a friend. He needed someone to look at him like the man he was beneath that broken shell.
“What are you doing?” His eyes met mine and I saw flickering confusion.
“I want you.” I leaned forward and kissed his neck. “I want you to make love to me.?
?
“God, do you know how many times I fantasized about you?” He leaned back and gasped as my lips moved down his neck. “I wondered where we would have been had our second date not ended so abruptly.”
“Right here, right now.” I kissed him a little harder. “I would be in your arms and you would be about to take me to the bedroom.”
“Do you think our relationship would have made it that far?” He gasped again.