This Was Meant To Be

Quickly, he found a flask of brandy and urged Leigh to take a sip. She looked like she desperately needed it.

She shock of the liquid, smooth though it was, burning down her throat made Leigh come back to herself, almost all the way.

She looked at Harrison, her expression horrified.

“Harrison, everything’s going wrong!”

His hand was on hers again, and she drew the strength that he offered. She could draw on him, she realized – she could lean on him.

Somehow, inside herself, she had realized that even before she had acknowledged that in her mind.

Had she always known? Perhaps she had.

It all came pouring out of her, with quite a few tears, and a lot of sniffling.

Finally, Harrison pulled her into his arms and soothed her with soft kisses, stroking her hair. When she finally calmed down, she, to her mortification, hiccuped.

“Sorry,” she muttered, pulling away.

But he didn’t let her go.

“No, don’t pull away from me again, Leigh. Why didn’t you tell me all of this before? Didn’t it occur to you that I could help you?”

Leigh took a moment before she shook her head.

“I should have.”

“Well, you have now, and I can help you. I don’t know if you forgot this, but I do have quite a bit of influence in all kinds of communities, including yours. I’ve never offered to do this before because I know you’re proud. I know you want to accomplish everything you want on your own, and I do respect that, Leigh. But right now, let me help you. I can.”

Leigh looked at him, and she was ashamed to realize that she was desperate, and panicked, enough to accept help from anybody.

But from Harrison, it wasn’t something she had to be ashamed of, realized Leigh. She never had to be ashamed of anything with him.

He would help her.

She nodded, slowly.

“All right, now tell me everything, from beginning till the end, and I’ll find a way to get to the bottom of this. Because Leigh, I seem to have more faith in you than you do. No matter how distracted or distraught you were, you would never have been that careless. I am so sure of that. So this is either somebody else’s mistake, or it’s sabotage. Whether the sabotage is of you or the case, or your firm itself, we’ll have to see. Leigh, this is not your fault. I refuse to even entertain the possibility that it might be. No, don’t tell me that this was so long ago now that you’re not sure. I know you’re sure that you’d never screw up like this. Everybody makes mistakes, but this goes against everything you are.”

Leigh almost felt ashamed of herself after that little speech from Harrison.

Now that the shock seemed to be wearing off, she could see where he was coming from. He was right – there was no way she would make such a huge mistake.

Especially not in such a way that she even had no memory of it.

But something was definitely wrong, and she didn’t have the resources to get to the bottom of it.

So she would do something she couldn’t remember ever having done before – she would trust somebody else to do something for her, when it mattered so much, when everything seemed to depend on it. Her future and her career depended on it.

Could she trust him, with everything she had worked for?

“Trust me, Leigh. I will never let you lose everything. I’d never let that happen. No matter what, I promise you, I will get to the bottom of this. And I will keep you in the loop, every single step of the way. Let me help you, Leigh.”

Leigh melted against him as she took a deep breath and made that choice, to trust him, more than she had ever trusted anybody ever before.

And she admitted something she had rarely admitted before, to anybody, too.

“I trust you. And I need you. I need your help, and I need you.”

Harrison’s arms tightened around her, and she knew that he’d realized how much she had just given him.

“It won’t take too long. I’ve got a few strings I can tug. We’ll have our answers, Leigh. You won’t pay the price for this. We’ll find out who does.”

Leigh sighed.

“I know. But now… I don’t know where I stand. I just feel like I’m buried.”

“Never,” promised Harrison, and Leigh realized, to her shock, that she believed him.

She couldn’t remember when she had started depending on him, but it didn’t feel strange. If anything, it felt right.

Maybe she could live with this. Maybe she could deal with this, after all.

Harrison got to work as soon as he had Leigh tucked in. He knew it was hard on her. He also knew what it meant when she finally fell asleep in his arms.

She was comfortable with him.

He did feel a bit silly that he had assumed she’d been pulling away from him. He should’ve trusted her.

Well, it wasn’t a mistake he would make again.

Harrison made calls, and he made more calls. He got Anna on the job, impressing upon her that this was extremely important.

He had the lines out. Somebody would soon bite.

Harrison had found out that if you could navigate high school, everything else was a piece of cake. The rich and the connected always wanted more, and that was greed that he could manipulate.

Since he was richer than most of them, they disliked him. But they still simpered and fawned over him.

So finding out the truth shouldn’t be difficult.

Leigh had given him enough hints to know where he should start digging, and he knew he wouldn’t let her down. That was simply not an option.

When Leigh woke up, Harrison was standing at the window.

She was at his place, she realized. She didn’t often come to him. They usually went back to her place.

But she had needed a break from all things familiar. She was glad he had recognized that.

But there was also a part of her that wondered how much of herself she could keep, now. If he turned around…

She had hardly finished the thought when he did turn around.

She smiled at him, but it was a tremulous smile.

“Thank you,” she told him, feeling unaccountably shy.

He shook his head.

“Don’t be. I promised to solve this problem for you, and I will. But after that… After that, what do you want, Leigh?”

Leigh looked at him, refusing to think about what he had asked her. She didn’t want to make decisions now. He couldn’t ask her to make decisions now.

But he came close to her, sitting down beside her on the big, luxurious bed. Suddenly, Leigh realized that he had been giving up so many of his luxuries to spend time with her.

He could’ve expected her to come to him. That would’ve been the logical thing to do.

But he never had. He had always known that she needed to make her home her own again, before she came over to his place, which had always been his.

Had they always had so many barriers between them?

Maybe they had and it had never mattered.

“I don’t know,” she said, but she knew she was lying.

She did know.

She was falling for him. Deeply, irrevocably, she was falling for Harrison.

But she wanted to be free, not tied to anybody or anything.

That’s what she wanted, she told herself again, but she didn’t convince even herself.

“I do know what I want, Leigh. I want you. I want you to trust me, and accept that I’ll always be there for you. No matter what, I’ll always be there for you. I need you to know that I love you, in so many ways. That will never change. You will always be more important to me than you know, Leigh.”

Leigh looked at him, and finally, she smiled.

He hadn’t asked anything of her – except herself.

And Leigh had figured something out.

She wanted to give him all of herself.

So she offered him all of what she was, and invited him to take.