“I didn’t tell him everything,” I say. “I kept the key parts of the formula a secret, because I knew that it was valuable. I dreamed that it might change the world. And there was always something about Thomas that was off. I had a feeling that I couldn’t quite trust him.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Harper says. “I had the pleasure of meeting him, remember?”

  “Right. So you know. But he was my roommate, and he could see how excited I was about my product. He ask me if he could help in any way.”

  I sigh. This is one of the parts of my past that I’m most ashamed of. Harper is watching me carefully, waiting for more. Though I don’t want to admit to my fault, I continue.

  “At first, I didn’t take him seriously. But then, he told me that he had some capital to put toward product testing, and he said that he had experience recruiting investors. That was exactly what I needed: money to get the idea that was in my head out into the real world. I was desperate. So, finally, after months of listening to Thomas’s reasoning, I agreed to his proposal. I said that we could be business partners.”

  “Partners? I thought you founded Rayne or Shine on your own?” Harper asks.

  “I did. Listen… Right away, I regretted partnering with Thomas. He was controlling and manipulative. He was going to put up fifty thousand in capital, and he promised that he could raise another fifty grand through investors. He held that over my head and used it as a way to get me to agree to doing things his way. It worked in the beginning. I wanted that money very badly—I thought it was the only way I was going to get a company off of the ground.”

  I can’t believe, as I say the words out loud, how naive I was. I clear my throat before continuing.

  “One day, I came home to our dorm room and listened to him talking to an investor on the phone. Thomas didn’t know I was listening. He was lying—saying that other investors had put in ten times what they’d really committed.” I shake my head, remembering how it felt to overhear Thomas saying these things.

  “I was appalled. What he was doing was completely unethical, and I didn’t want any part of it. I stormed in and told him that it was over. I said that I wouldn’t be his business partner, and that I would be finding a new place to live for the rest of the term as well. And…that was that. I knew it was a cold thing to do, but that’s business, right? My purpose wasn’t to be friends with Thomas, it was to start a company that could make a difference in the world.”

  “But that wasn’t the end of it, right?” Harper asks.

  “I wish the story ended there.” I sigh. “Without Thomas’s backing, it took me two years to raise enough capital to test my idea, but it paid off. The formula I’d come up with worked almost perfectly, and with a few tweaks, I had a product that would revolutionize the steel industry. I worked hard, got married, and my wife and I had Charlie. It wasn’t until I made my first billion that Thomas surfaced again.”

  “Why?” Harper asks. Her eyes are so wide and beautiful. She steps closer to me, and finally drops herself onto the bar stool at my side. I place my head in my hands as I recall the nightmare that unfolded when Thomas returned into my life.

  “He wanted money, why else? He started calling my house.”

  I recall the way it felt to pick up the phone and know Thomas was on the other end. Sometimes he would call and not say a word, just to make sure I knew that he was still around. Other times, he would speak without stopping—slurred, drunken words about how I betrayed him and stole his success out from under his nose.

  “He demanded that I pay him half of all that I’d earned.” I recall. “He said that if I wouldn’t pay him directly, he’d find another way to get his hands on the money. He started to threaten me with blackmail, extortion, anything at all to make me cave in to his demands.”

  “What did you do?”

  I shake my head, wishing that I could go back in time and change what I’d done. The knot of guilt in my stomach is throbbing. I feel nauseous. “I was stubborn. I’d worked hard for the life that I had, and I refused to bend to his crooked desires.”

  “That’s…good, right?” Harper asks. “It was your idea. He didn’t deserve the money.”

  “He didn’t stop there. His behavior became even more bizarre.” My voice is deadpan. I’m trying not to think about Thomas’s drunken phone calls and the way he told me that if I didn’t pay up, he would end my life.

  The thing is, I didn’t think that Thomas would actually hurt me. I thought he was psychotic and immoral, but I also thought that he was a coward—talking a big game, but unable and unwilling to follow through with his threats.

  “Did you call the cops?” Harper asks. As she says this, she again looks at her phone, which I’ve placed on the countertop in front of us.

  “Yes. I told them what was happening.” I feel sick as I remember how casual I’d acted about it all, often reporting Thomas’s threats hours or days after they occurred, as if it was an afterthought.

  That is, until it wasn’t an afterthought at all.

  It was an afternoon in September when the cops called me, informing me that my wife had been in a car accident. She’d been on her way to my office to meet me for lunch. She’d taken my Porsche so that she could get it detailed for me as a surprise.

  The brakes had been tampered with, and she didn’t have a chance as the Porsche carried her through a four-way intersection, straight into the oncoming grill of an eighteen-wheeler.

  When I crumpled to my knees on the phone, listening to the police officer speak, Thomas Greening wasn’t an afterthought.

  He had my full attention.

  I’m zoning out now, too caught up in my mind to speak aloud. My thoughts are interrupted when Harper rests a hand on my forearm.

  “Jason,” she says, prompting me back into the present moment.

  “I told you my wife died in a car accident,” I say. “What I didn’t tell you is that she was in my car, and someone had cut the brakes.”

  “Greening.”

  I nod. “He was never convicted, due to lack of evidence, but who else would it be? One week he’s calling me, deranged and violent, and the next week my brake lines are severed and my wife dies.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Harper whispers.

  I stand up off of the seat. I can’t accept her sympathy—her kindness. I don’t deserve it.

  “Yes, it is.” My words sound sharper than I intended, and I instantly feel bad for snapping. “I’m sorry,” I say, pacing away from her. “But yes, Harper, I do feel responsible. If it wasn’t for me, my wife would still be…” I choke on the sentence.

  Harper is silent.

  I look at her. “He disappeared for a while after that. It was like he got what he wanted. Like in some sick way, we were even. As long as I had to live without love in my life, Thomas seemed satisfied. But as soon as you and I started to get closer, he came around again. It’s as if…”

  “He doesn’t want you to be happy,” Harper says, finishing my sentence.

  “Misery loves company. And Thomas is definitely a miserable man.”

  “Do I make you happy?” Harper asks.

  “Unbelievably so.”

  She looks at me, and her big, doe-like eyes draw me in. I feel myself inching dangerously closer, but then I realize what’s happening. I pull away, and Harper frowns.

  “Is that why you’ve been so distant? I thought you were avoiding me…or that you didn’t want me.”

  It hurts me that she thought this. It hurts me that she doubted my attraction to her, desire for her, need for her, so deeply. Yes, I’ve been pushing her away. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want her.

  “I want you, Harper. How could I not? But more than that, I want you to be safe. I can’t allow myself to be responsible for more—”

  “Jason, you didn’t kill your wife.”

  Her words hit me in the gut. I’ve never spoken to anyone so openly about my wife’s murder. For years, I’ve been trying to put it behind me. Having Harper speak about it feels like she’s dragging her fingers through an open wound.

  I can’t help it. My defenses are back up. “No. I didn’t.” I say coldly. How can I make her understand? “Thomas Greening did. And now, Harper, he wants to kill you.”

  Chapter 24

  Harper

  I’m too shocked to speak.

  It’s true. If Greening cut the brakes on Jason’s car, he’s capable of real violence. He isn’t just full of hot air—he’s acted before, and he could act again.

  He—or someone he hired—did break into my apartment, after all. What would have happened if I’d been there?

  I can’t look at Jason.

  His cold tone doesn’t surprise me. It’s a part of a pattern that I know well by now. We take one step forwards, and then two steps back. After a kiss, he avoids me; after we sleep together, he shuts me out. Now, after opening up at last, he has his walls back up.

  As I let the cold reality that my life is in danger seep through me, I start to think that maybe he’s doing the right thing.

  Maybe Jason has been right to push me away as he has. Maybe—I feel myself deflate, just at the thought of it—we’d be better off apart.

  I shouldn’t be here. I’m putting all of us in danger: myself, Jason, and Charlie.

  If the police couldn’t do anything five years ago, what makes me think they could help us now? If they couldn’t put Greening in jail then—after he committed a murder, for goodness’ sake—why would they be able to put him in jail five years later, for much lesser crimes?

  And would that even solve the problem? Eventually, he’d get out, and resurface again.

  I can’t put the three of us in danger.

  No. It would be better if I just left.

  I stand up. Everything feels surreal: the cold granite counter as I press my hands into it, the ache of my neck and back muscles due to such constant tension over the past few days.

  I can’t do this.

  “Jason, I have to quit, don’t I?” I can barely believe that I’ve said the words myself. My voice sounds distant, as though I’m miles away and the sound is coming from another person.

  He won’t look at me. “I think it would be best,” he says, without hesitation. The immediacy of his answer confirms my suspicions; he’s been thinking this for a while now too.

  It breaks my heart.

  I can’t imagine my life without Jason and Charlie. I feel a teardrop fall from the corner of my eye and run down my cheek. I grab my purse and wipe away more tears as they follow the first. I have nothing else to say to Jason. I need to be alone.

  I rush from the kitchen, away from him—and my feelings for him—and make my way almost blindly back to the guest room. Tears fill my eyes; my surroundings are a multicolored blur.

  I cry softly as I pack my bag.

  This was all too good to be true. I’m back to being unemployed, homeless, and alone. Worst of all, now I know what it was like to have the opposite: a job I loved, the apartment of my dreams, and a man in my life who I was head over heels…in love with. The thought comes to me automatically, in a rush of emotion. It’s true. I was falling in love with him.

  I have the jeans that I was wearing yesterday balled up in one hand, and I’m about to stuff them into the suitcase. But the realization that what I felt for Jason was genuine love makes me stop. I let my arm fall to my side. The crumpled jeans unravel on the floor.

  I put my head into my hands, and I sob.

  It takes me a full hour to get all of the crying out of my system. The only reason I stop is because my eyelids become so raw and puffy and my throat is so sore that I physically can’t keep it up. But inside, my heart is still weeping.

  I’m broken.

  I’ve never felt this defeated before. Not even when I lost my first job last winter. At least then I had a few more months of work left to keep me focused.

  Now, I truly feel like I have nothing.

  Nothing.

  I can’t stay here. Not even tonight. And there’s no way I’m going back to the apartment building. I pick up my phone, and start searching for trains headed to Boston. I can call my parents at least, and they’re sure to let me stay in my old bedroom.

  My mother even told me this, before I moved to New York.

  “Harper, you know this room is always here for you, in case things don’t work out in New York,” she said pointedly, as if she knew this job wouldn’t last.

  I can’t blame her. She was right, after all.

  I can’t find a train that will fulfill my needs; most of the direct options to Boston will be leaving early tomorrow morning. The same goes for shuttles. Finally, I bite my lip and start searching flights. I find one that will depart at nine p.m.

  Great. If I can get there by eight, I’ll be all set. That gives me time to say goodbye and get a cab into the city.

  Goodbye. I’m going to have to tell Charlie that I’m leaving. I promised him.

  I find him in the gym, on his own.

  After getting his attention, I bring him over to a bench along the sidelines. I sit down, and he follows my lead. He looks so small in this big gym. He’s changed into a baggy T-shirt that makes his shoulders look incredibly narrow and frail.

  I’m trying to keep myself together. The only reason I’m forcing this talk with him is that I don’t want him to feel abandoned by me. I want to make this whole experience less traumatic for him, and I won’t help my cause by blubbering as I explain myself.

  “I have to tell you something,” I sign. “I’m not going to be your tutor anymore. It’s not because of anything you did; I had more fun teaching you than I’ve ever had. But some things have been happening, outside of our classroom, which means it’s best for me to leave.”

  “I don’t want you to leave, Harper,” he signs.

  “I know, buddy. It’s hard for me too. But I think it’s the best thing right now. And guess what? We can still use video chat or emails. I’m still your friend, Charlie.”

  “But not my tutor?” he says, frowning. “Will you still come over when I have a new tutor?” he asks.

  “No, probably not. I’m moving back to Boston tonight.”

  It’s so hard to say this. My heart is spitting in half. But I have to put a good face on it. I have to try, at least. For Charlie.

  I smile. “Maybe your new tutor won’t make you do math flashcards, ever again,” I sign, teasing him.

  He smiles a little.

  “How is basketball going?” I ask. “Making any baskets?”

  Now he lights up even more. Kids are resilient—more resilient than adults, when you give them a chance. “Yes!” he signs. “Want to play Horse with me?”

  I can’t say no. I have a bit of time before I need to leave, and I don’t know if I can face Jason right now. So I agree, and Charlie and I take turns shooting baskets for a while, until I miss my last shot and am out of the game.

  When we part, he squeezes me hard.

  “I’m glad you’re my friend, Harper,” he says.

  I almost burst into tears, but somehow I manage to hold them back.

  “I’m glad we’re friends, too,” I say.

  I leave him in the gym, and as I’m walking down the hall back to the guest room, it all hits me again. There’s no one in the expansive hallway, so I lean back against the wall and let myself cry. It seems that my body can once again manufacture tears. All that I was holding back, for Charlie’s sake, comes flowing out of me.

  I’m a complete mess by the time I need to leave the mansion and catch a cab.

  When I see Jason in the entryway, I’m not surprised when he asks, “Are you sure you want to do this, tonight, Harper? You look…tired.”

  I know how I look and I know that his comment is coming from a place of concern.

  “Yes,” I say. “I need to get to my parents’ house. I think that will be the best place for me to be.” Because I have nowhere else to go.

  As if he’s read my mind, he says, “You can stay here, you know. When you said you were quitting, I didn’t know you planned on leaving tonight.”

  “I have to,” I say. My phone starts to ring, and I see that it’s the cab I’ve called. The driver is letting me know that he is waiting outside. “That’s my ride,” I say.

  “Are you sure, Harper?” Jason asks again.

  I nod. If I try to speak again, I’ll burst out into tears. It was hard enough to say goodbye to Charlie, but saying goodbye to Jason feels a hundred times worse.

  “Goodbye, Harper,” he says softly.

  He does not walk toward me. I wondered if he might try to hug me, or even kiss me, as we parted. But I’m glad that he’s not making a move. If we’re going to cut things off between us, it’s best to do it all at once. Maybe it will hurt less.

  My voice is a tight whisper, barely audible. “Bye,” I squeak out, before rushing to the door as a fresh stream of tears I didn’t know I had in me comes cascading down my cheeks.

  Chapter 25

  Harper

  John F. Kennedy Airport is crowded despite the late hour. My cab ride took twice as long as I’d expected due to traffic, so I’m feeling rushed as I search for my airline’s check-in kiosks. I pull my luggage, craning around the people in front of me as I attempt to read the many signs that line up along the massive entryway.

  Once I spot my airline’s logo, I break into a jog. The automated check-in is pretty speedy, and before long, I have my boarding pass in hand and I’m heading toward the sign for security. Spotting the crowd of people waiting between roped off barriers, my heart sinks. It’s a long line. This is going to take forever.

  I swing my purse around to my front and begin shuffling through it, looking for my phone so that I can check the time. Am I going to make this flight?

  Before I can get my phone out, I hear a voice very near me. “Hello, Harper.”

  I freeze.

  It’s a voice a recognize. I’ve heard it before.

  My blood runs cold. Slowly, I look up.