Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,317

be a single friendly face rooting for them or trying to help them make a good life together.

Harper looked up and saw Robert watching her, his face almost sympathetic. She took in a deep breath and wiped at the tears streaming down her face.

“I’ll do it,” she whispered brokenly. “I’ll go. But I need to leave now.”

She needed to leave before Ethan woke up. Before he could talk her into staying, because she had no doubt he would. She would only have the willpower to do this once, and looking into his kind eyes would strip her of the ability to do what was right and necessary.

Robert Wentworth was cruel, but he was honest—unlike her own father. And the elder Wentworth’s counsel had been brutal, like being mugged and stabbed and left for dead. But it was better to have faced the truth now then to have dragged things out and dealt with a thousand such beatings by the media and tabloids day in and day out—to see Ethan’s life and happiness snuffed out.

To see their relationship crushed under the weight of all of this outside hatred and fear that would be heaped on them from every direction.

No, she decided, sniffling. It was better to do it now and make it a clean break.

Robert seemed to have accepted her at face value. “I’ll have a driver bring a car around and he will take you wherever you need,” he told her.

She nodded before the sob building in her chest could erupt. It took her ten minutes to sneak back to Ethan’s room and pull on some clothes. She grabbed her purse and stood next to the bed, letting the tears fall freely.

She didn’t need to memorize the lines of his face or the curve of his lips. They were burned into her heart. He shifted but didn’t wake up.

She had to go now before she didn’t have the courage. She wouldn’t ruin his life. He deserved everything.

Goodbye.

Outside the car waited for her and the driver opened the door as she walked closer. She couldn’t look at the man, wouldn’t see him anyway with the tears filling her eyes, spilling down over her cheeks.

Just as she lifted her foot to climb in, a voice broke the stillness of the morning.

“Harper?”

She didn’t have the strength not to turn. Not to take one last look at the man who owned her heart. He stood in the open door, lounge pants hanging low on his waist, his chest bare. Even with the confusion on his face, he was the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.

“I have to go,” she stammered. Her heart beat at her ribs, her feet frozen.

“What the fuck is going on?” He hadn’t moved, only stared at her until his father moved behind him; put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

She met Robert’s eyes and he gave her a slight nod. She inhaled a deep breath and broke her gaze away from Ethan. He was fierce and beautiful and he wanted to protect her, but at what cost to him? Her heart ached.

“It’s for the best,” she said. “This was never going to work, not really.”

Something crossed his face and she watched his throat as he swallowed. “What about the baby?”

“This is over,” she said, waving her hand between them. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”

There were so many more words stuck in her throat but she had to get away before they spilled free and made it impossible for her to walk away. If she told him that she’d fallen in love with him, it would only hurt that much more when he was forced to walk away from her.

And he would eventually walk away, because them being together was never going to happen. Not when they’ve been on opposite sides since before they even met. It had to be now and it had to be her so that she could retain a semblance of dignity. Her father had stripped everything from her, but it wasn’t until Robert Wentworth had spelled it out in black and white that she realized how much her father’s actions had hurt her own future. Her own happiness.

Expecting Ethan to overlook it was bad enough, but dragging an innocent child into all this? What kind of mother would do that? Harper’s mind drifted to her own mother. The way she expected Harper to play her part; expected her to be used as a smokescreen. That was the kind of person who would do that.

She wasn’t