She slid the phone over the counter, screen facing up, carefully letting go so he wouldn't see her hand shaking. Harvey turned his face away from the device, Jen Riggs message sending their night down the drain. So much for being so careful with the tea cups.
Donna took a breath and walked closer, getting in his line of vision again, knowing this way it would be harder for him to avoid her. She didn't need to ask him anything before he tried to move on.
"Donna, I'm exhausted, can we…"
"We're doing this now, Harvey," she spoke firmly. "In fact, we should have done this earlier, but I got carried away."
He began with a loud exhale as if trying to prepare for the inevitable. "Look, it's not what you're thinking," he tried, and Donna just grew more irritated at the scripted sentences he chose to say.
"Thing is, Harvey, I've known you for far too long to know it is probably worse than what I'm thinking."
He chuckled, surprised at how quickly things were escalating.
She had never wanted to be more wrong in 13 years. Donna wasn't a lawyer, but if there was one thing she knew, it was how to interrogate Harvey Specter.
"How?" She began with one syllable, but it carried so much anxiety she wasn't even sure she said it out loud.
"I played him like he played me, simple as that," arrogance spilling through his teeth.
But nothing about this was simple. She swallowed dryly and waited until he looked at her again to say "except he played me," eyebrows raised to reinforce her point.
That didn't please him, because it was obviously not the way he approached the problem since it exploded in their lives weeks ago.
"And if you don't know how that makes me feel by now, Donna, that's on you," the aggressiveness in his tone carried how much he hated when she doubted her importance to him, doubted how connected their lives were, and hated that she couldn't see he would do anything for her.
"Harvey."
The way she said it made him wince.
"Can't you just trust me? " he whispered in exasperation, arms falling to his sides in little hope she would stop.
"I did trust you, til Jen Riggs popped up on your screen," she shoved the phone closer to him. "What happened, Harvey?"
"I'm leaving, Donna. Go get some sleep, maybe you'll wake up tomorrow and actually thank me."
He didn't exactly want to recall the entire fight with Riggs, the exhaustion of the night catching up to him, making his eyes burn and his body ache for a bed.
She waited until he picked up his tie, trying to see if he'd start talking.
"Sometimes good guys gotta do bad things to make the bad guys pay, right?" she quoted one of his favorite movies once she didn't hear him say anything, a clear bait, and he would have seen it had he not been so broken.
He nodded, but as he opened his mouth to confirm her clever choice of words, she cut him off.
"Wrong, Harvey," she said quickly, her nose flaring. "The ends don't always justify the means and the fact that you're stalling right now, actually stalling since the dinner party, makes me think you did something shady."
Jesus Christ, she's not letting up, he thought.
"The end", he emphasized, "was to avoid your image being ruined to the entire goddamn country."
It felt wrong when he said it, so he avoided her gaze.
"At what cost, Harvey?" Now she was asking in a different way, sometimes it worked with him, and it couldn't be more direct. It was the one answer she did not necessarily want to know, but simply had to ask.
"Here's what I'll say, Donna: He's not going to come back from this," he answered vaguely.
"Why…not?" she said it slowly, and he finally gave in.
"Because if he tries anything against you ever again, his daughter will know who he is," he added in defeat, breathing for what he had to reveal next. Harvey never underestimated Donna, fully aware of her ability to finding the truth of the matter. "Why would she believe you, Harvey?" he could already hear the disapproval on her tone.
"Because she trusts me, Donna. Because I did what I had to do to convince her of how...special she was."
It didn't matter how many times he had rehearsed this, the minute the words were out of his mouth, he felt out of line. Regardless of her criticism, independently of her approval, he knew he had gone too far, he had sunk deeper than his own ethics would have allowed. Except this was all for Donna.
"What you had to do?" Donna quoted him in defiance.
He was sure he had imagined this exact conversation, but what he hadn't figured out was how he'd feel obliged to comply just because of the effect she had on him, because she would be relentless in knowing the truth. It was like he was under oath, watching his confession seal their destiny. Yet lying to her was not an option. It simply wasn't. Hell, he'd commit perjury in a courthouse before he would lie here.
His stomach turned inside out with the anticipation of her reaction, his knees feeling weak. Last time he pursued a difficult confrontation like this he watched his father's face fall apart as his mother confirmed her affair, his whole life changing in an instant.
His shoulders dropped, knowing it'd be all over for them the minute he opened his mouth. If he wanted any chance of Donna ever looking at him again, he would have to say it, he would have to come clean, it would be worse for them if she were left wondering.
And Donna didn't wonder, she already knew his fear was more telling of the nature of the deal than any word out of his lips.
"It was just drinks, alright? Drinks and a promise, this isn't so bad, as far as I'm concerned."
"Don't equivocate,Harvey, you're better than that."
For the first time tonight she felt like backing off, too afraid of what she was going to listen to. It got harder to look at his face. "Tell me," she commanded with a soft, hoarse voice.
"I didn't sleep with her if that's what you're thinking."
Her patience was wearing thin.
"How noble of you!" she added, sarcastically. "And not to worry, you'll know what I'm thinking once you tell me the goddamn truth!"
"It is the truth! I met his daughter at Harvard, took her out, promised her…"
"Promised her what?" her rispid tone interrupted him.
"Promised her that the interest she took in me would is reciprocal, that it would take her far in our firm," he mumbled, fingers combing through his hair as he walked to face the window.
"Excuse me?" it was all she managed to say, but he ignored it. Now that he had started the story, he was going to finish it.
"Then I took a selfie, kept texting her the whole trip to his office, and once I saw him, I used it as leverage. She thinks she's getting an internship next to me, and he's got a little more than a broken arm to worry about."
Feeling the air thickening in her throat, Donna gasped in disbelief. She took a few steps back, not knowing where to go or who to turn to. Her emotions were finally too much, and now the tears were flooding her eyes.
She covered her face with her hands and sunked on the couch, and as she wiped the tears, she saw him pacing back and forth.
That wasn't all. She could see it.
She didn't have to ask.
"I kissed her, that's it. It meant nothing, I shouldn't have to tell you that," he continued, but took a step back considering how angry she already was. "Look, Donna, I know how this makes you feel…"
Whether it was all men, or Harvey specifically, she wasn't sure, but she certainly knew that hearing people say they knew what she was thinking or how she felt was an aggravation itself.
" You do NOT know how I feel," she turned to face him, and the tears wetting her eyes broke him. "I can't believe you, of all people, chose to go down this route!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" he questioned, in denial about where she was taking this.
"You know exactly what it's like to be pinned against a parent, and to lose trust on that parent, Harvey!"
Donna chose to remind him, not because she thought he forgot, but because she knew it would affect him. She knew it would pain his heart to face that reality, and the anger that was running through her blood kept her from thinking straight. She felt the threat looming again, afraid that all it took was for Riggs to not care about how his daughter felt, to not care about his family, to simply decide to go ahead with his plan anyway.
He flinched, locking his jaw.
"And now you kiss, what, 18 year olds?! Jesus Christ, Harvey! I'm supposed to believe you didn't sleep with her? Because now I'm not so sure if this isn't something you'd do as well," she paused for air, and momentum, "to, how should I put it? increase your leverage?"
He knew better than to respond to that.
"And now what, you give her an internship and I have to deal with you working with the daughter of the man who…" she stopped herself, twenty years later and it was still difficult to say the words. "Not to mention the fact that he could simply not care about his family? And the fact that she's clearly attracted to you and you're attracted to her?"
Now she was just spitting fire, irrationally letting out all the anger, fear and even jealousy that she no longer had room inside.
"Hold up!" he interrupted, picking up on the multitude of layers of her rant. "Are you afraid it's not going to work, or are you mad this is the route I took? You hate me for saving you or you hate me for possibly not saving you? Which one is it, Donna? Or are you just jealous?"
"Ha! I'm not jealous, Harvey, I've spent 13 years watching women parade in and out of your life, why would this bother me now?"
This is exactly the kind of thing someone really jealous would say, but Donna pushed that thought away, trying to focus on the facts. "What if he doesn't care, huh? What if he pulls a Hardman and tells his daughter everything, did you think of that? Where does that leave me?"
Her nose flared at his inability to foresee all the consequences of his actions.
But deep down she knew that wasn't his job. It was hers. When Harvey went all in, she followed, through the fear and through the pain, nothing stopped Harvey Specter. He took the confident steps she never took.
As angry as she was, she knew that, knew that none of these questions were rhetorical. Donna might have been acting furious, but her entire demeanor showed a frail and overwhelmed victim instead.
It was fragility, not only anger. It was fear of failure, not just disappointment.
For years Harvey had thought of Donna and himself as opposites, heard people joke that opposites attract. That is not what they were.
Nothing, not a damn thing in the world bothered him more than Donna losing faith in him, because she was an extension of him, the heart he was usually unable to reach. If Donna didn't believe in him, he didn't believe in himself. So when her accusations showed her fear dominating everything the last thirteen years built, he realized he was the risk taker and the courage she was too uptight to be, especially if the point was to save herself.
Harvey saw right through the trauma of the assault, right through the years of looming threat and fear and her inability to trust and believe. Something he really understood, being caught up in the middle of it all, desperately needing help but not being able to hold on to the hope help can bring. Love fades amid fear, guilt and rage.
Before being her friend, her lover or whatever he was, Harvey was the best closer in the city for a reason, and he would never risk her life unless he knew exactly where he was stepping. He looked down to regain control of his own emotions, giving the argument a necessary pause before he reassured her.
"He's not coming back from this, whether we give her an internship or not," he calmly began explaining, closing the button of his shirt. " I alerted Sean Cahill of the merger attempt, and he caught on to what was behind it. Walking into that place, I could clearly see the awful management through the years, which makes sense given Sean told me his minority board members were about to vote him out. They've poured money to keep that casino afloat, and are tired of Riggs' inability to make it work. Which is why he wanted a merger in the first place, as a squeeze out, to be bought by a larger casino conglomerate and not need the investment from those who can vote him out." He slid his right foot in his shoe, then the left.
Donna swallowed the lump on her throat, being able to breathe a little deeper, a little slower.
"I was stalling, I have been avoiding this for the whole day, not only because I don't like how things went down, Donna, but mostly because I knew I would lose you once you knew," he looked away, and filled his chest with air. " So say what you want to me, hate me all you need, but believe me, Donna, I am not losing this fight with Riggs. I did what I had to do and I'd do it all over again if it means to see you free. If it means to see you sleeping soundly without being afraid. I told you it's over, so have some faith in me for the last time. I may never have you in my life again, and while that'll tear through all my hopes and dreams with you, you will never hear from Riggs again, because it's…over."
Harvey exhaled the pain of the broken promise of a future, took one last look at her and left the apartment.
