“You don’t get to make that call,” Harry said, a worried look on his face. “I don’t want to have this fight, but I think you’re wrong. I think you’ve been wrong about this all along. You should have told Wes the minute you knew. You should have let him help you.”
“I should have married him.” The tears slipped from her eyes now. “That’s what you’re really saying. I should have accepted that I screwed up and I owed the rest of my life to a man I didn’t love. I know I don’t look like I have much of a life right now, but it’s mine. It’s my choice. I chose to have Luc. I chose not to put myself in a position where I had to marry someone I didn’t love, who I actively feared at the end of our relationship.”
“If Wes had lived, you would have had to deal with him. He would have come home and then what would you have done? You say you would have told him eventually, but it sounds like you would have punished him. Did he scare you so much you would have kept his son from him?”
She should have known he would never understand. “You don’t get to judge me. You don’t get to decide what my fear felt like.”
“You think I haven’t been afraid?”
“It’s a different kind of fear, and one you can’t understand.” She was suddenly weary. Harry wouldn’t understand what it meant to be a woman in the room with a man who could hurt her, and there was nothing she could do about it. He would never feel the dread, the smallness that came from someone he loved threatening him with real violence. There was really only one question she had for him now. “Are you going to go home and tell Celeste?”
That seemed to stump him. He stood there for a moment, hands on his hips. “I don’t think it’s my secret to tell. I think you should tell her.”
“I’ll give it some consideration.” She would need to prepare because she didn’t think he would stay silent forever. He would give her a little time to come around to his way of thinking, but if Harry truly believed there was an injustice he could fix, he would do it. He might warn her or he might not.
He sighed. “Come on. Let’s talk about this. You can’t think you’ll hide this forever.”
It was obvious she’d been doing what she always did. Procrastinating and praying things would simply work out. It was what she’d done her whole life. She’d floated through high school because she’d been pretty and charming, and floundered afterward because pretty and charming didn’t make a career. Now something good had fallen into her lap and she was letting the gorgeous man take over because it was easier than doing it herself.
“I think you should go.”
Harry’s brows rose in obvious surprise. “What? Hey, I know we’re having a disagreement, but that’s no reason to throw me out.”
“This isn’t a disagreement. This goes far beyond us arguing about where to eat for dinner.”
“Yes, it’s much more important. I’ll help you. We can go to my aunt together.”
There it was. He would insist. He would take over. He would make the decision for her. “No. You should go, and I would appreciate it if you would give me a few weeks before you tell her. I need to figure out how to pay for a lawyer. I need to prepare the rest of my family. Remy, Lisa, and my mom know, but Zep doesn’t. Neither do my friends.”
Harry seemed to understand things weren’t going the way he’d thought they would. “I told you I wouldn’t tell her.”
“And I don’t believe you. I think you’ll tell her when you realize I won’t.”
“Why would you want to keep your son from a loving grandparent?”
She huffed out a laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “Because at the time, I didn’t think they were all that loving. I made that decision when Ralph Beaumont was alive. I kept the secret because Luc is my son and I make the decisions concerning him. I know I’ll have to tell him one day and let him choose for himself, but that day is not today. I would like you to leave. I have to do some research because your aunt basically owns the only lawyer in town.”
“You don’t need a lawyer. You need to calm down,” he said in a beseeching tone.
The words did absolutely nothing to help his case. “Don’t you tell me to calm down. I am perfectly calm and I want you to leave.”
Harry went still. “I want to help you.”
She wanted that more than anything, but she couldn’t give in on this. “You can’t.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Is this really what you want? You are so scared of my aunt that you’ll throw away what we could have?”