Page 76 of All the Right Words
‘I explained what happened,’ Gina said irritably.
Harper shook her head and said quietly. ‘No. You really didn’t.’
The elevator stopped at the ground floor, and the doors slid open. It was Gina’s chance to flee and never look back. Only, she couldn’t seem to make her feet move. She stood there so long that the doors shut again.
‘You didn’t get out,’ Harper noted.
‘No.’ Gina took a deep breath and turned to face Harper in the small space. ‘Because I think I have to do something that I don’t want to do. But you deserve it. The truth.’
Harper’s dark eyes looked nervous as she turned to Gina. But she nodded. ‘OK. I’m listening.’
Gina hadn’t known she was going to do this. Had been positive shewasn’tgoing to. But she had to. Standing in this small space with Harper, the wall she had built so high and wide was crumbling.
‘As I said, this started because she asked. Begged, actually. I don’t know why I went along with it. I guess I just felt sorry for her. It was little things at first. A message on flowers, help with a text. Then I was listening in on your first date, and every time she tried to fuck it up, I pushed her in the right direction. I wasn’t trying to feed her words at first. But that did end up happening. But she was still struggling, so I just… Took over. Talked to you over text.’
Harper frowned. ‘I know that stuff.’
Gina’s heart was racing as she said, ‘But what you don’t know is that as it went on, I wasn’t talking for her anymore.’ She licked her lips nervously. ‘It wasme. I was being real. In a fake way.’ Harper’s reaction was hard to read, but it didn’t matter. Gina had started, and she had to finish. ‘I know that doesn’t make any sense but the more time we spent together, the more I wanted to say that stuff for myself. But Olivia liked you. She had dibs.’
‘Dibs?’ Harper repeated.
‘You know what I mean. You were dating her. You weren’t dating me.’
Harper’s eyes flashed surprise. ‘Is that what you would have wan-’
The doors pinged open. A man in a wrinkled suit looked in. ‘You getting out?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Harper said and hit the button for the top floor. The guy’s surprised face disappeared, and Gina was alone with Harper again as the elevator went back up.
‘I don’t understand this,’ Harper breathed. ‘But what I really can’t understand is… You’re thelastperson I can imagine doing something this dishonest. You’re always so direct. It’s what I’ve always liked about you.’
Gina was far too terrified to accept the compliment. This whole thing was overwhelming. She didn’t know how she was still talking. ‘I shocked myself,’ she admitted. ‘But the more I think about it, the only thing that makes any sense to me is that I did this because, on some level, it was the only way to do what I wanted to do. Be with you. But by the time I’d started to see that, I was so deep in this mess that I didn’t know how to get out of it.’ Gina took a deep breath and let out the most authentic truth. ‘But you need to understand that every word I passed through her was mine. They were allmywords. And theywere for you.’ Gina stopped there, breathless. She waited for Harper’s reaction.
Harper was blazing angry. ‘I want you to know that all this was so,sofucked up,’ she yelled at Gina.
Gina nodded, more scared than ever. She’d never seen Harper look so enraged. ‘I know, Harper. I do. I’m completely asham-’
She never got to the end of that sentence because Harper was kissing her ferociously.
Forty-Two
OfcourseHarper was angry. She was fury itself. Because she knew now that she’d been fooled, which meant she was a fool. Olivia and Gina had done that to her. Made her a class A dipshit. And Harper felt quite sincerely that there were very few things worse to be than that.
She’d been expecting confirmation of her stupidity when she’d walked into that conference room. She had not been expecting to learn that it wasn’t as simple as a scam. Though itwasthat, certainly. But Olivia was the only scammer. She had been using her assistant to deal with every part of dating she couldn’t be bothered to handle herself. It was an inconceivable abuse of her position.
But Gina? That was a little more complicated. The fact that they had kissed had somehow not tipped Harper off to the possibility there could have been some feelings mixed in with all this.
But Gina was telling her that’s what had happened. Gina had feelings for her. Harper had never thought that was a possibility. Probably because of Gina’s general attitude. But now she knew that every time she’d felt a connection with ‘Olivia’, she was connecting to Gina. Gina, who Harper’s body had been pulling her toward. She’d been the one all along.
Harper was happy, and she was angry and confused. She wanted to throttle Gina, and she wanted to kiss the hell out of her. In the end, the last instinct won out. Once she threw her lips on Gina, the complicated feelings faded out. Because Harper had Gina pinned against a wall, ripping open her already broken shirt, going at each other wildly. What the hell was this magic Gina had? Every time they kissed, Harper felt like she wanted to throw the woman down and get naked on the spot.
There were two reasons that didn’t happen. One, they were in an elevator with a hygienically questionably floor. The second reason was that the elevator doors opened, and Olivia yelled, ‘What the actual fuck!?’
Harper and Gina jumped out of the embrace and turned to her. ‘Olivia-’ Gina began, looking ashamed.
‘Oh my god, of coursethiswould happen! Of fuckingcourse!’ Olivia bellowed. Harper stepped out of the elevator, followed by Gina, pulling her shirt back together. Heads poked out of every office. Brenda appeared from the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea. People from the art department, accounting, editors, a janitor, they’d all assembled for the latest spectacle. It was probably a coincidence, but Vincent was eating a bag of popcorn.
‘I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU’VE DONE THIS TO ME!’ Olivia yelled at Gina.
