AN: Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well. I want to you thank everyone who has left me a review last week. It's always nice to hear back from my readers.
A giant thank you goes to my betas BellaDonna and Yvonne. Bella was a very patient midwife as I birthed this unplanned chapter. It's a shorty this week. Only two more chapters after this.
Lies and Miscommunications
After the successful wrap-up of a strenuous case, Louis in his capacity as managing partner had invited the senior partners to join him at a bar nearby the office.
Donna was going to be late, because she wanted to finalize some paperwork for the case which she didn't want to leave for the next day. She left the office at almost eight o'clock. When she was about to round the corner to the bar, her phone beeped.
Rachel.
Is it true that you're sleeping with Harvey?
Her heart started beating wildly against her ribcage. If Rachel knew, it could only mean one thing: Harvey told Mike.
Donna didn't want to reply to Rachel's text. She'd much rather talk to or FaceTime her in order to explain everything. But that would have to wait.
Why on earth did Harvey tell Mike? Now she had to explain to her best friend why she had to find out from Mike about her and Harvey. When had he told him? Their thirty days were almost up and Donna had no clue since when Mike knew. Anger rose in her stomach. She had to talk to Harvey.
Entering the bar, Donna was greeted by Louis who was waiting for his piƱa colada.
"Hey Donna, I'm so glad you came. Paperwork all done?" he asked with his typical toothy grin.
"All done," she replied curtly.
"Say no more. You deserve a giant beverage of your choice. The others are in the back," the managing partner told her while motioning across the bar.
"Great," Donna forced a smile and turned to leave.
"Donna?"
"Yeah?" she replied while turning back to Louis.
"I meant to say this a couple of days ago, but with my new position and Sheila's pregnancy I was preoccupied."
"What is it?"
"I know it hit you hard to lose Rachel to this joke of a Starbucks town and to the lesser of the US coasts, but you seem happier lately. You got that glow back."
Donna didn't know what to say. Leave it to Louis to always completely misread any situation. Was she happier? Yes and no. Yes, because she had been spending her nights with the man she was ready to admit to be in love with. But at the same time, it was all fake. Things would get real if she owned up to her feelings and faced his reaction. At the same time, a situation like that was something she, deep down, was not ready to face.
Their arrangement was the result of a stupid wager following a dumb bet, and if she could, she probably would take it all back and just ask him out on a normal date. She didn't know if it was unfair, but she had secretly hoped that Harvey would have said something by now. Donna could not have been the only one who had noticed a shift over the course of the four weeks. Since she had put herself out there in the first place, the ball was in his court.
Harvey was a man who never made a secret of what he really wanted. Donna reasoned that by not ever expressing that he wanted more with her, he did not want her.
They never talked about what the wager had done with them. Donna didn't dare ask about their facade of domesticity, partly because Harvey wasn't someone who seemed in touch with his feelings a lot of the time, and partly because she didn't want to rock the boat.
If she was honest with herself, his reaction to the phone call with Lily a couple nights ago still baffled her. And a not so tiny part of her felt rejected by him. Again. Which had happened each and every time she had put herself out there before.
It had happened after the Liberty Rail disaster as well as after she had kissed him six months ago. He rejected her. In return, this made her extremely careful about expressing her feelings and needs now, especially since the thirty nights had been her idea and she wasn't keen on roping him into any more things that weren't his idea.
Donna gave Louis a tight-lipped smile and went to search for Harvey. She found Samantha at a bar table in the corner of the room, watching Alex and Harvey play pool.
"Hi." Donna greeted Samantha and went to stand next to her.
"You're late," the blonde remarked.
"Paperwork."
"You need a drink."
"Many."
"Good." Samantha nodded and signaled for their waiter.
Five minutes later, Donna had downed her Manhattan and ordered a second. She was eyeing Harvey, hoping she could just ask him outside for a moment. She needed to talk to him about Mike and Rachel and what on earth he had possibly been thinking telling Mike. That man couldn't keep a secret if one paid him millions.
Her initial anger about being put in an awkward situation with Rachel turned into bewilderment. Why would Harvey tell Mike about their bet? Donna was so confused. The Gordian knot of emotions was weighing heavy in her stomach. If Harvey told Mike, it meant that he possibly asked for advice. Donna's worst fear was that it maybe was advice on how to let her down easy after their final night because she had gotten too clingy for Harvey.
But each little memory of her and Harvey that popped into her head at that moment was related to him accepting her into his life during their arrangement. Yet she was overcome with fear that he would reject her. Harvey's patterns from the past made her careful and scared her.
She took a breath to steady herself.
Her co-workers were scattered about the place. Maybe no one would notice if they stepped out for a minute. A new cocktail was put in front of her. Perhaps she should have eaten something before coming to the bar.
Harvey sank the black ball and grinned triumphantly in Alex's direction.
"Three out of five?" his friend and co-worker offered.
"Nope," Harvey grinned and let the P pop. "You had your shot. Two out of three games is enough. Let the others have a chance at the pool table."
Putting his cue to the side, Harvey noticed Donna standing next to Samantha. He had been wondering where she was. His eyes had roamed the bar multiple times over the last half hour or so. Unwillingly, his mind had wandered to their previous night.
The night before, Donna had showed up in a pink coat, flirtatiously whispering in his ear I've always wanted to do this, giving him the fastest boner in his recent history with that line, because not only was she undoing her coat and revealing the lacy hint of nothing underneath, but also because her confession read to him like she hadn't done that before. Ever. With anyone else. And being used by Donna to turn one of her sexual fantasies into reality made his heart beat faster and his palms sweaty.
"Do what?" he had nonchalantly replied to her the night before.
She had taken a step back in his entryway, letting her coat pool at her feet, and spreading her legs so he could see her panties were crotchless.
His own gasp at the view still ringing in his ear, Harvey was willing his brain back to the present. He went over to talk to her just as Samantha nodded to Alex to signal he could take it up with her.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"Didn't know you were still coming."
"I wanted to finish the paperwork," she said as she drank from her second Manhattan.
She sounded annoyed to him. "Everything OK?"
"Can we talk?" Donna asked.
"Sure."
"Outside?"
He nodded and followed her.
Once they were outside, Donna didn't hesitate to confront him.
"When did you tell Mike about the wager?"
Harvey all but stopped breathing. Shit! Lying or concealing the truth wouldn't help him one bit in that situation, so he opted for the truth.
"Two weeks ago."
"Interesting. Because I recall you not taking it so well when I talked to your mother a couple of days ago. And I never told her we're sleeping together," Donna shouted.
"That was different."
"How?" Donna asked in bewilderment.
"You know Mike. And to be fair, the rules said no one in the office could find out. Mike is not working here anymore," he reasoned. After a moment, he added, "Donna, what's really the problem here?"
She swallowed. "I didn't tell Rachel."
"Oh."
"And now she knows, too. What were you thinking telling Mike?"
Harvey stared into her eyes. Should he come clean? He couldn't possibly tell her he had asked Mike for relationship advice. If one could call it that. How would it make him look if he admitted he had asked Mike how to tell her about his feelings for her? Crossing that particular threshold scared him. Always had. A threshold as high as the Empire State Building. That was how massive his feelings for her were.
"He called me to catch up and I knew you were on your way over to my place. I let it slip that you were coming over, so he kept asking questions and I told him," Harvey said. And then counted four lies in his statement.
"That's it?"
"Yes," he lied again.
"So you didn't tell him anything else?"
"What is there to tell?" he said for damage control. If he told her everything he talked about with Mike, she might get even angrier.
Everything, Donna thought. How could he downplay what they had like that? She wanted to scream. And cry.
"Nothing," Donna said eventually, sounding deflated.
They just stood on the sidewalk, looking at each other, neither knowing what to say.
Harvey felt a distance between them like he hadn't in a long time.
"I think I want to spend the night at my place," she announced.
His face fell. "Are you sure? We could just watch TV. Or sleep."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm good company tonight."
"OK. Good night," he conceded.
Donna nodded and walked past him, trying not to cry in front of him.
Harvey was left alone on the pavement, kicking himself. What was wrong with him that he couldn't tell her how he felt? She had given him an opening and he didn't take it. Granted, confessing his feelings on a busy sidewalk on a Friday night wasn't exactly what he had pictured, but ultimately, that didn't matter. At least to him it didn't.
He watched her retreating form, feeling angry at himself for again having chickened out.
This had happened on the worst possible day. Tomorrow was their last night and this was not how he wanted to leave things off before going into that final night.
He had fucked it up.
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