Page 89 of Wright Kind of Trouble

But I couldn’t seem to fake it. I couldn’t force the joy that radiated off him. There was no happy for me in this. Somehow, it had all gotten twisted until I wasn’t even sure this was what I wanted.

Chase’s smile slowly pulled down. “Harley?”

I burst into tears.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, sinking back onto the bed and pulling me into his arms. “What’s this?”

“I got in,” I said like the tragedy it was.

I bent forward at the waist and lay in his lap as deep, racking cries arrested my chest. I couldn’t see through the tears. Or breathe through the hiccupping sobs. Or feel anything as I hyperventilated. I hadn’t even known I had been holding all of this in until it erupted out of me like a volcano.

“Okay,” Chase said, holding me tight. “Okay. I don’t know why you’re crying. But it’s okay, baby girl. It’s okay.”

“I got in,” I repeated.

“That’s not cause for celebration?”

He pet my hair, brushing it gently out of my face. My mom used to do that same thing when I had a breakdown, growing up. It was therapeutic enough that my tears slowed, and I just lay in his lap, sniffling.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, swiping at my eyes.

“I don’t want you to apologize, Harley. I want to understand.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh, this was going to suck.

“Remember when we were in Seattle and my dad saw us together?”

He tensed at the words and was slow to say, “Yes.”

“Remember how I said that you didn’t have to worry about him telling anyone?”

He sighed heavily. “What happened?”

I sat up, scrubbing my face clean before meeting his eyes. “Well, I made a deal with him. He wouldn’t tell anyone, and…I’d let him pay for law school.”

“Okay,” he said.

“He said if I got into Harvard, I was going, and he’d pay.”

Chase clenched his jaw. “Why would you do that? You hate him.”

“At the time, it felt like the right thing to do. Like it was the only way to get him to back off. He’s conniving, and I thought that I could beat him at his own game.”

“But you didn’t,” he said, coming to his feet and pacing away from me. “You gave him exactly what he wanted. And for what?”

“For this,” I insisted.

“You did it without even telling me. Harley, you can’t make those decisions for us.”

“I had to.” He didn’t understand. He had a terrible father, but Owen Wright was his own breed of manipulative. He would have ruined everything. The one thing I wanted to keep all to myself. “I had to do it. And I’d do it again.”

“So that you’d end up here?” he asked in disbelief. “Crying in my arms because your father is forcing you to go to law school.” He fisted his hands. “I don’t want that, and I don’t want you to make decisions like that for us without talking to me.”

I jumped to my feet and splayed my hands before him. Anger welled up in me. Maybe this was the wrong decision, but I’d made it in good faith, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to do better.

“What would you have done differently?”

“I would have told your brothers before I let him get under your skin,” he growled.

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