Page 53 of Crossing the Line
"Where is the place, then?" Harper interrupted, moving around the desk until she was standing beside Carmen's chair. "Because apparently your bed isn't the place, and the rooftop isn't the place, and anywhere we might actually exist as more than supervisor and intern isn't the place."
Carmen stood abruptly, putting the chair between them, but Harper could see the way her hands trembled slightly. "You knew the complications when we started this."
"I knew there would be professional boundaries to navigate," Harper said, her voice gaining strength. "I didn't know you'd use them as an excuse to pretend we don't exist."
"I'm not pretending?—"
"You called me Ms. Langston in front of Dr. Hassan today." The words came out sharper than Harper intended. "Like I'm any other intern instead of the woman you held all night. Like what we shared meant nothing."
Carmen's composure cracked slightly, something raw and vulnerable flashing in her dark eyes. "It means everything. That's the problem."
"No," Harper said, stepping closer until Carmen had to tilt her head up to meet her gaze. "The problem is that you're soterrified of anyone finding out that you're willing to sacrifice what we have to protect what other people think."
"My career?—"
"Our careers," Harper corrected. "This affects me too, Carmen. But I'm not the one acting like loving you is something to be ashamed of."
Carmen's face went pale. "I'm not ashamed?—"
"Then why do I feel invisible every time we're around other people?" Harper's voice broke slightly, months of frustration bleeding through. "Why do I have to pretend that the most important thing in my life doesn't exist?"
Carmen stared at her for a long moment, and Harper could see the war playing out in her expression as love wrestled with self-preservation. When Carmen spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Because loving you terrifies me more than anything I've ever felt."
The confession hung between them like a bridge Harper was afraid to cross. Carmen had said it—not just want, not just attraction, but love. Real, terrifying, life-changing love.
"It terrifies me too," Harper admitted, her anger dissolving into something rawer. "But I'd rather be terrified with you than safe without you."
Carmen's mask finally crumbled completely, and Harper saw everything she'd been hiding—the longing, the fear, the desperate need for connection that Carmen had been trying to control out of existence.
"Harper," Carmen breathed, and hearing her name in that broken, vulnerable voice made Harper's chest ache with recognition.
Harper closed the distance between them in one step, her hand coming up to cup Carmen's face. "I love you too," she whispered against Carmen's lips. "And I'm tired of hiding it."
When their lips met, it was nothing like their careful encounters in safe spaces. This was desperate and hungry, months of suppressed emotion pouring out in a kiss that tasted like relief and rebellion and the kind of love that changed everything.
Carmen's hands fisted in Harper's hair, pulling her closer, and Harper pressed her back against the office wall with a soft thud that should have reminded them where they were. Instead, Harper's hand slipped beneath Carmen's blouse, fingertips finding warm skin and the rapid flutter of her pulse.
Carmen gasped against Harper's mouth, her head falling back against the wall as Harper's lips found the sensitive spot below her ear. "We shouldn't," Carmen whispered, even as her hands tugged Harper's shirt free from her scrubs. "Not here, not?—"
"I don't care," Harper said fiercely, her hand splaying across Carmen's ribs, feeling her breathing quicken. "I'm done pretending I don't want you. I'm done hiding how much I love you."
Carmen's response was lost as the office door opened without warning.
Time stopped.
Harper's hand was still splayed across Carmen's ribs, Carmen's fingers still tangled in Harper's hair, and their bodies pressed against the office wall in desperate passion that left no room for innocent interpretation. Through the rushing blood in her ears, Harper heard the soft intake of breath that could only belong to one person.
Her mother stood frozen in the doorway, her hand still gripping the door handle, her face cycling through emotions too quickly for Harper to track. Shock. Confusion. Recognition. And then something that looked like the world ending.
Harper jerked away from Carmen as if she'd been burned, her hand flying to her mouth where Carmen's lipstick was probably smeared across her lips. Carmen had gone rigid against the wall, her dark eyes wide with the kind of panic Harper had never seen before—not during the most complex cardiac procedures, not during trauma cases where lives hung in the balance.
The silence stretched between the three of them like a fault line before an earthquake.
"Mom," Harper whispered, the word scraping her throat raw.
Natalie's gaze moved slowly from Harper's disheveled appearance to Carmen's flushed face, to the space between them that still hummed with interrupted intimacy. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet Harper had to strain to hear it.
