He’s hurt. I know he is.
And the space it leaves behind feels bigger than the car we’re sitting in.
Travis slows and pulls to the curb, stopping half a block short of the building. “Sir, we have an issue.”
I lift my head.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper.
The street is crawling with paparazzi. Cameras raised. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder. It looks like a premiere night at Mann’s Chinese Theatre.
“We need to go back to the house,” Harrison says automatically. “They don’t know where I live.”
Travis eases forward.
“No, you can’t.” Travis pulls back to the curb. I turn to Harrison. “If you turn around, they’ll follow. They always do.”
“They won’t,” Harrison says. “Drive, Travis.”
“Travis, stop.” I press my hand to Harrison’s leg, grounding myself as much as him. “You have no idea how bad this will get if you lead them straight to your home.”
He shakes his head. “They don’t know where I live.”
“They will,” I say quietly. “They always do.”
I hold his gaze, willing him to see past the instinct, past the need to protect me at all costs. “You’ve built a carefully protected world. The quiet. The routine. The safety you’ve given your kids.” My voice falters. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you. Or them.”
And suddenly, the choice in front of me feels brutally clear.
“Drop me at the front,” I insist.
Harrison blinks. “If you think I am letting you out of this car in front of that mob, you have lost your mind.”
“It’s a secured building,” I say, already reaching for my bag. “I’ll go in, grab my luggage, and come back out. They need to see that.” I swallow. And when they ask where I’m going, I’ll simply say the airport. That I’m going home.”
“Home?” His jaw locks. “I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow.”
God. The hurt in his voice makes this so much harder than it has to be.
“I’ll call Kali,” I insist, already texting on the new phone. “I’ll get on an earlier flight.”
He exhales hard, frustration scraping raw beneath the control. “So that’s it? You’re leaving?”
Can’t he see that I don’t want to?
“Your luxury Manhattan building is under siege, Harrison,” I say quietly. “I have to do this.”
“Pix,” he says, tight. “I know what I’m doing. You have to trust me.”
I want to. God, I want to fall into his arms and never come out.
But this isn’t my life. Not like this.
This is the glimpse of reality I needed. Not because we don’t love each other, but because loving him means asking him to live like this. Day after day. And I can’t do that to him.
And I will never do it to his beautiful kids.
“Then call all your security,” I tell him. “Have them meet me at the front. They can take it from there.”
