Page 159 of One Wrong Move

And yet, I have. I’ve fallen right into it, because it had felt so easy, so right with him. Nate had paid for almost everything. I’d tried. He’d accepted on occasion, begrudgingly, but he’d paid for the Paris trip, and for the excursion up north, and the movie premiere, and… and… I let him. I’d gone along with all of it.

Because it felt different from Dean. It felt good.

But maybe, just when I started to figure things out for myself, I’d fallen back into the trap of letting someone else decide for me. And that’s one step away from living a life I don’t want. Again.

I hear Dean’s voice again. The thing he said, that fateful day, when he didn’t care about me overhearing him. That he didn’t think I was capable. It hurts to think that Nate might feel the same way. That he didn’t believe I could repay my debts.

I feel numb when I hear the noise coming from the kitchen. Nate walks out of the open French double doors. He’s got a bottle of wine in one hand and a smile on his face.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m later than I planned. A work meeting ran over. Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

I shake my head, my hands firmly clasped together on my lap. “That’s okay.”

Nate frowns. “Everything okay?”

“No. Not really.”

He sets the wine bottle down and comes to me. “You look… has something happened?”

“Yes. I have something to ask you.”

“All right.” His tone is cautious now, and concerned. He sits down on the lawn chair across from mine. “What is it?”

It’s hard to get the words out. I feel sad and mad at the same time, and the mix of emotions create a cloying tightness in my chest. “Did you pay off Dean to get him to leave me alone?”

A furrow appears between his brows. “I didn’t pay him off. I settled the debts, yes.”

I close my eyes. “Oh my God.”

“He was using them as an excuse to contact you,” Nate says. “It was manipulation, pure and simple, and I saw how it was affecting you. It wasn’t right.”

“Those were my debts to pay.” My eyes are starting to water, and I hate it, hate how I cry when I’m angry and embarrassed. “This is my life, Nate.”

“Harper? It was to help you. To ensure you didn’t have to speak to him again unless you wanted to. Don’t cry, please.”

“I can’t believe you did that. I never once asked you to do that for me.”

“You didn’t have to,” he says. The furrow is deeper than ever, his eyes locked on me. There’s pained confusion there. Like he truly doesn’t understand.

Because this is just what he does. He looks after the people he cares about. And it hurts, like a knife to my chest, that he did this because of how he feels… but the result is still the same.

“I wanted to settle those debts,” I say. “It was my way of finding peace with the past and standing up to Dean.”

“Dean doesn’t need the money,” Nate says fiercely. “It’s fucking ridiculous that you’re supposed to pay him for a wedding that never took place, a wedding—by the sounds of it—that he insisted on.”

“It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t need the money. It’s the principle.” I shake my head again, and a tear slides down my cheek. “This was my issue to handle, Nate. This is my life.”

“I couldn’t stand by and let you pay that asshole?—”

“Let me? Do you hear yourself?” I can’t believe he’s doubling down on it. Pressure creeps through my veins, like an itch I can’t scratch, and I need to move. I need to escape.

I rise out of my chair and head up the few steps into the kitchen.

Nate follows me. “Harper, it was to help you. He won’t bother you again.”

“Of course not. Just my conscience will.” I round the railing in the hallway and take the steps up to the second floor. To my room.

Only it’s not mine. It’s his, like everything else in this beautiful house. The house I’ve lived in rent-free for longer than our agreement from that bet. I went from being under Dean’s thumb to a couple weeks of glorious independence to landing right back in the same quicksand pit—moving into the house of another rich man.

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