Now was his chance. There was no delaying what needed to be done.
Simon pushed open the door, stepping into the room. Harriet was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked up as he entered, her expression guarded.
“Did I wake you?” he started, sheepishly rubbing the side of his arm.
“No. I have been awake for some time,” came the reply.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Not at all,” Harriet admitted. “In fact, I barely got any sleep.”
“That makes two of us,” Simon sighed.
Harriet moved to the corner of her bed, and patted it for Simon to take a seat there.
“Simon,” she started in a soft voice. “Are you here to say goodbye?”
The words cut through him like a knife, and for a moment, Simon couldn’t find his voice. But then he noticed the way she was looking at him, her eyes flickering over his disheveled appearance, his rumpled clothes, the weariness etched into his features.
“You definitely need a change of outfit before you go,” she admitted her tone shifting from wary to concerned. “You are wearing the same clothes as the night before.”
“Harriet,” he began, his voice low and steady, “I need you to listen to me.”
It was now or never.
“You said you wanted to have a say in what happens between us, so now it’s your time to make your own choices.”
Harriet’s eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of confusion crossing her features. “What are you talking about, Simon?”
He hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he admitted, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve been a fool, Harriet. A fool for doubting what I feel for you, for being too scared to admit the truth — to you, and to myself.”
Harriet watched him, her heart pounding in her chest as she listened to his confession. She had never seen him like this before — so raw, so vulnerable. It was as if the walls he had built around himself were finally crumbling, revealing the man beneath.
“I’m scared, Harriet,” Simon continued. “I’m scared of hurting you, of becoming the man my father was. He never cared about my mother’s feelings, never cared about how much pain he caused her. And I did the same thing to you when I left. I didn’t want to, but I was so afraid… afraid that I would ruin everything, that I would destroy what we had before it even began.”
Harriet’s heart ached at the pain in his voice, at the depth of the fear that had driven him to push her away.
She had known that Simon struggled with his father’s legacy, but hearing him speak the words aloud, seeing the torment in his eyes, made her realize just how deeply those fears ran.
Simon took another step closer, his gaze locked on hers. “I love you, Harriet,” he said, his voice quiet but intense. “I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. But I’m not perfect. I’m going to make mistakes — hell, I’ve already made so many. But I don’t want to make the mistake of leaving you again. I want to stay.
“I want to build a life with you, to have a family with you. But only if that’s what you want. If you tell me to go, I will. I’ll leave, and I’ll never bother you again. But if you tell me to stay, you need to know that I’ll do my best, but I’m going to mess up. I can’t promise I won’t. But I can promise that I’ll love you every single day.”
Harriet was having trouble processing what he had just said to her.
She stared at him, her mind racing, her emotions swirling in a whirlwind of confusion, anger, and something else — something she had been trying to suppress for so long.
She felt a flicker of irritation at the idea that he thought she couldn’t handle this, that she would just accept whatever scraps of affection he decided to give her.
After what felt like an eternity, she finally spoke, her voice sharp with irritation. “Do I look like a pushover to you, Simon?”
Simon blinked in surprise, momentarily taken aback by her tone.
“No,” he said slowly.
“Do I look like someone who can’t stand her ground?” she continued, her voice rising slightly as she glared at him.
Simon’s confusion deepened, but he shook his head. “No, of course not.”
