Page 53 of After the Fall

“Maybe you could make an exception for me,” I whispered, smiling sadly.

He leaned over, touching his forehead to mine. His hands reached across my lap, until our hands were interlaced. I knew I would miss the feeling of my tiny hand nestled in his, and regret washed over me. But I needed to start trusting myself. This was the right decision; the only decision.

“How am I supposed to live without you, now that I’ve found you?” His voice trembled.

My voice caught in my throat. “I don’t know. But we owe it to ourselves to try.”

TWENTY-SIX

WYATT

The gatesto the mansion groaned open and I waved at the guard as we entered the property.

Harper’s hands were clasped in her lap and she stared out the window. Rain had started to fall, streaking across the slanted window of the Lamborghini.

“Your friends are due to arrive soon for the meeting. What do you want to tell them?” I pushed the button for the door and the patter of rain disappeared as we entered the echoey garage. With the engine off and the car in park, the silence was, as they say, deafening.

Harper bit her lower lip. She was quiet, something I wasn’t used to. It was a little disarming. I couldn’t believe that everything had fallen apart so quickly.

Could I make her stay? I had tried to stop her from making the decision to end things, and as much as I wanted to scoop her up from the passenger seat of the car and carry her inside, hoping that she’d change her mind, I also knew my soulmate. She was bullheaded and she had made up her mind.

But, if she was going to leave me, was she even my soulmate? Could I have been wrong about the whole thing? One thing wasfor sure – if we broke up, she would be a lot safer out in the world without a connection to me and my world.

“You’re going to need to meet with Savannah and Connor, regardless of our relationship status.” Her voice was cold, resolute. She opened the car door before I could run around to help her out of the low car.

“Harper,” I whispered, reaching for her hands.

Instead of taking mine, she turned and slammed the car door, harder than I thought possible. “Sorry.” She turned. “I didn’t mean to close it so hard.”

“I don’t care about the damn car.” I grabbed her arm.

She stopped and turned, her eyes shimmering. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You’re a sasquatch. You’re not my soulmate, or fated mate, or whatever bullshit you call it.”

She was hurt, and her arm radiated heat into my hand. Her heart was beating hard and fast. It pounded against her chest so hard I could hear it. The whoosh of the blood in her veins pulsed under my palm each time it pumped. “Your heart, Harper.”

“Oh, stop it.” She ripped her arm from my hand and rubbed where it had turned red from my grip.

“No. It’s beating irregularly.” I rested my hand on her chest, and surprisingly, she let me. But under my palm her heart thumped in its regular rhythm. Maybe I was mistaken, but it had sounded like it was doing a double beat or something weird.

“My heart is fine, Wyatt.” Her voice trembled and cracked. She looked to the floor where the rainwater had started to pool around our feet, then returned her gaze to mine. Her face was turning the same color as the cherry red Lamborghini. “It’s just fucking broken.”

She stepped around me, weaving around the cars in the garage. “I’m going to pack my things to stay at Savannah and Connor’s. I’ll be safe enough there, so you can tell yourhenchmen to back off. You don’t have any right to keep me here against my will.”

I moved to follow her, but she was right. I stopped, the slam of the garage door echoing through the bays, leaving me alone with the cars.

“Did that just happen?” I whispered to myself. More than ever, I wished that Jax was here. He would talk some sense into me. He could get me through this.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the number for his satellite phone, but it immediately disconnected. “Jax, where are you?” I slid the phone into my pocket.

Instead of following Harper into the house, I opened the door to the Bronco and sat in the driver’s seat, running my hands over the steering wheel. I would give Harper some time. I turned the key so I could listen to the radio. I had an hour or so before the meeting with the wolves and the South Americans.

Maybe Harper was right. My life had been much easier before she’d come into it. I turned the dial and tried to find a station that wasn’t staticky. Country music filled the cab of the Bronco and I rested my head against the seat, listening to humans sing about pickup trucks, red dresses, and back roads. What had happened to our simple life on the island?

“Boss.” My eyes snapped open as Tank knocked on the window. “You’re not going to off yourself in here are you?” His grin was crooked. He was making a joke, but it wasn’t funny.

Instead of making an excuse, I cranked down the window. “Harper’s gone.”

“I know.” He crossed his arms. “That’s why I came to find you.”

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