I
Donna tries to sleep.
It really shouldn't be that hard considering all the wine she drank and how long it's been since she's had a decent night's rest, but in her hazy half-drunk state all she seems to do is toss and turn, seeking a peace that's beginning to feel impossibly out of reach.
Her mind keeps pulling her back to the bullpen, forcing her to re-witness her life story told for callous entertainment. She sees it over and over again, obsessively almost. The associates with their sympathetic eyes. Mike and Rachel holding hands as if her matrimonial wounds might infect them. Harvey pinning her against him as she withers and flails, on the verge of a mental breakdown, his arms wound so tightly around her it felt as if he was all that was holding her together.
Donna closes her eyes and for a brief moment she swears she can still feel his fingers, his hands, his mouth. Did that actually happen? Amongst all of the day's occurrences, her moment with Harvey on the rooftop seems the most unreal – a paradisiacal mirage floating in her ever-expanding desert of chaos. It's more likely she's reached such a state of exhaustion and despair she imagined the whole thing.
Does that mean she imagined their moment in the break room too? Or the way he kissed her Friday night? With so much passion only years of longing could account for the way his lips felt against hers. They've always been a quiet fire, a slow burn, sizzling with silent conversations that slink passed, unspoken, yet somehow surrendered in soft smiles and fleeting glances. They are meant to be nothing more than stolen, millisecond dalliances, and now here he is saying too much and acting on impulse, hurdling them toward something Donna's pretty certain she'll never be ready for.
And obviously Harvey isn't ready for it either, because his words are as hollow as ever. You're not and never will be alone, he said, and yet here she is, alone.
She's not surprised. But rather than be bitter and unreasonable about it, she makes excuses for him: the firms on the brink of collapse; her case is escalating in severity; he has no time for the 'comfort thing.' All facts, but they don't quite hold weight she wants them to. It's a song replayed too many times. Over and over and over and over until it hurts your head. The soundtrack of her life. Harvey and the excuses she makes for him.
Well. Maybe she's a little bitter.
Rolling over, Donna kicks the bed sheets off, exposing her naked body to the hot and muggy air. She lifts her heavy eyelids and watches the ceiling fan spin. It clicks and creaks as it rotates – a bad bearing Jonathan would have fixed a long time ago.
She pictures her ex-husband with his too-long hair and pretty gray eyes, standing as he was this morning inside Mike's office, excruciatingly unaffected by her. She doesn't know what compelled her to hug him. But with his arms wrapped lightly around her torso she was overcome with the same sensation she has when visiting her childhood home – strangely contradictory in the way it was both comfortable and confining.
He asked why she left the way she did. It surprised her, because Jonathan has never been the type to bring up long dead subjects. Still, he deserved closure, and because she's a coward she couldn't give it to him. She doesn't think she'll ever be brave enough for the kind of courage it would take to tell him why.
She wishes she could say the answer is complicated, but it isn't. In order to save herself, she had to sacrifice him. Their marriage was a sinking ship and she abandoned it, selfishly leaving him to drown in the wreckage. And he's right, she fought like hell for Alice, but she was too tired, too beaten down, too lost to fight for whatever was left of them to salvage.
Jonathan did nothing wrong, and even if he had, he didn't deserve to be walked out on. He was a good man, a good husband, an okay father. And if she's honest with herself she still loves him and misses him like crazy — she mourns him like she does Alice, irrevocably — but that doesn't change what happened between them.
Donna runs a hand through her hair and sighs. The threads of her mind continue to tangle and twist, pulling her one way and then the other. From one man's arms to the other's. It's countless hours of tug-of-war and her head aches from the mental rope burn. She doesn't know how to let go.
Eventually she gives up on sleep. Out of wine, she slips on a black front-zip cocktail dress and leaves her apartment complex, braving the evening city crowds. Her intention is to make a quick trip to the grocery store, grab a bottle of Chardonnay, and lock herself back inside her bedroom, but the low purr of Midtown is surprisingly serene. She passes up the market and continues down 9th Avenue. It's still hot out, but she keeps to the shady side of the street, weaving her way through pedestrians.
She walks until the sun sets behind the skyline, then further, until her feet ache and her legs nearly give out from under her. She pushes herself all the way to Baxter Street and crosses into Columbus Park, stopping to stand and stare at the still condemned pavilion where she sat with Billy all those years ago.
She finds it strange that this is where it all began, this semblance of a new life. It feels like an eternity has passed since that night, and yet she can still recall, with painful vividness, how broken she had been. Parts of that darker version of herself rise up inside of her. Days where she couldn't feel anything but her own self-loathing, months living with a pain that doesn't dull and the all-encompassing, hateful comprehension of everything she had lost.
Over the past few years she's thought of herself as mostly whole, but standing here, reliving that moment, she realizes this is not at all true. She's been living like a guest inside of herself. Tip-toeing around the walls of a damaged heart, careful not to wake up her sorrows. She hasn't faced her pain; she's only avoided it. It's a festering wound that is beyond her skillset to doctor, so she simply wraps a cheap bandage around it and pretends it isn't there.
Despite protests from her high-heeled feet, Donna continues to walk. She makes it to the end of the street, stopping in front of the bar where she met Harvey. She goes inside. It's dim and dark and she has to blink to orient herself. At the bar, Jay is already mixing her a French 75, and though she'd prefer a neat whiskey, she doesn't correct him.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you," Jay says, pressing a lemon wedge on the brim of Donna's glass as he hands it to her. "I figured you corporate secretaries were too high-class for my shoddy dive bar."
"A dive bar with East River prices." Donna points down at the drink menu in front of her. "I can get a Manhattan for half that in the Financial District."
"Bullshit." He snatches the menu up and grins at her. "Where's your other half?"
"Probably hitting his own bar cart right about now. He breaks out in a sweat if he doesn't get a drink before seven these days."
"Bar cart?" Jay laughs. "So the rumors are true. The son-of-a-bitch finally got his name on the wall."
Donna smiles softly, feeling a sudden swell of pride. "He's managing partner now."
Jay nods. "Good for him. It's not often people get what they strive for out of life."
Donna sips her drink, thinking about the painful truth in his words. She used to have goals as ambitious as Harvey's. She was going to be an actress and part-time pianist, star in Cabaret on Broadway and play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto 2 at the Cathedral of St. John's. Then, Alice came into the world and she stopped wanting everything. All that really mattered was health, family and happiness. But even that was striving for too much.
Jay — bless him — grabs a bottle of Cognac from the bar rack and tops her up. "You wanna talk about it?" he asks.
"Talk about what?"
"What's got you all wadded up."
"Haven't you seen the news?"
"Jesus. Don't tell me Harvey hired another fraud."
Donna idly swirls her cocktail glass, considering this. Not only is she not accredited by the National Legal Secretaries Association, but she doesn't even have a typing certificate.
"Well," she says wearily, "if you want to get technical."
II
Jonathan sits inside his office at Duke-Sanger, sullenly flipping through his sixty-five page indictment.
Not that it will change anything. There's little that can be done in terms of arguing his innocence. He's guilty and the world knows it. The best attorneys in town have quoted him 25 years if he's lucky, and frankly good fortune isn't something he's ever been particularly blessed with.
"You look tired."
He glances up. Melanie is leaning against the doorway, arms folded across her chest. With her platinum hair, ivory dress and sardonic smile she looks every inch the bitch she's reputed to be. She nods at the indictment. "I'm surprised the DoJ hasn't run out of crimes to charge you with."
Jonathan shifts his stare back to his paperwork. "What do you want, Mel?"
"To talk to you, obviously." She pushes off the door frame and strolls closer. "I suppose you've heard I'm giving testimony."
"I have," he says. "And I'm not surprised. You've always been a backstabbing opportunist."
"Sad." She comes around his desk and perches at the edge beside him. "Pages and pages of sacrifices you made for a woman who left you staring you straight in the face and I'm the backstabbing opportunist."
Anger hits Jonathan hard. As always, there's nothing quite like the feeling of being abandoned and having someone point it out. He sits back in his chair, giving Melanie an unimpressed once-over. "I didn't say you exclusively held the title."
Melanie narrows her eyes. "And what about you? Running to Donna the moment I decide to make a move. I thought we had a strategy."
"Pinning everything on her wasn't part of it."
"Someone has to take the fall."
"Not her."
"Then who?" She cocks an eyebrow. "You? Because it sure as hell isn't going to be me. If you back my testimony—"
"I won't betray her."
"God, you're pathetic." She is more aghast than irritated. "What do you think Donna's going to say when I go to her with same offer? That she loves you and would never hurt you to save herself?" She smiles humorlessly and shakes her head. "Even if she does miraculously put you first, we both know Harvey Specter will convince her otherwise."
She makes a valid point. Donna's dynamic with Harvey is dangerous. The Donna he used to know was fiercely independent, but this new Donna is sheepish and hesitant – she has felt the backfire of too many tough decisions gone badly and no longer wants the casualties on her hands. She'll let Harvey calls the shots, and if Melanie were to give the little prick the option, he would delightfully sell his soul to the devil to send Jonathan to the gallows.
Melanie must sense a hint of submission in Jonathan's silence because her expression grows disgustingly smug. "Face it," she says. "You need me."
It really is a gray area. Does he choose self-preservation? Or being loyal to the woman he vowed to honor and protect for all of his days? He doesn't know. But one thing is clear.
"I need nobody."
III
It's late. Donna sits alone at the bar, nursing her fourth tumbler of Cognac. Something inside of her tells her to stop, that chasing a stupor isn't going to solve anything, that what she's doing is self-destructive.
She keeps drinking anyway, because, really, who can be a mature, rational, healthy adult with an exposé on Dateline?
The eleven o'clock news plays on mute behind the bar. The closed caption reads: major developments in the investigation of the Duke-Sanger Illegal Arms Scandal. Beside the newscaster is a clip of Jonathan walking out of the New York Supreme Court. He looks calm and in control – bored even – as if he believes the deputy attorney general can't touch him.
Donna knows better. His walk out of the court house isn't a walk of confidence, but one of resignation. He's going to prison, and it's mostly her fault.
How selfish can you be that you won't even acknowledge my loss?
The clip changes. Up pops a picture of Donna and Jonathan at a charity gala. It is probably the only picture in existence where Jonathan is smiling and Donna isn't. She even has a slight scowl on her face, making her look the epitome of a villain – the woman behind the chairman; a real life Cersei Lannister. Her name headlines the news feed in bold, followed by the leading question: could Martell's ex-wife be the mastermind behind the Duke-Sanger scandal?
Donna feels sick. Really sick. She staggers away from the bar, ignoring questions from Jay, and stumbles into the single-occupant bathroom. She drops down on her knees and, with the height of class, crawls to the toilet. What comes out of her can't be less than a liter of alcohol. She doesn't know how she's still alive, but she thinks bar-cart-smashing Harvey would be impressed.
Expended, she slumps back against the bathroom wall. The room goes a little fuzzy around the edges, tunnels, kind of spins. She squeezes her eyes shut, realizing, suddenly, that she has no idea what she's doing, or why she's here, or how it all got this bad.
The hollowness of exhaustion stretches over her. All the emotions she's fought to suppress since being subpoenaed sneak passed her crumbling resolve, magnified beyond comprehension. Everything she's done, everything she is, everything she's lost and ruined crashes in on her. Her past, her present, her future. The people she failed. Alice, Jonathan, her parents, Harvey.
She's afraid of what's to come. Not of the possibility of prison, but of being seen by the world for who she is. She tries to think up a way to fix it, but knows she's straw-clutching. Broadcasted all over headline news – her life is too screwed up to fix. She can't escape behind the mask of Donna, secretary extraordinaire anymore. She can't run. God…she can't run. This is her dead-end.
She spirals into a full-blown panic. She's losing it. Losing herself –
No.
No, not losing. This is a resurrection. The pieces of herself she hid away and neglected have broken out of their confines and are out for vengeance. A tyrannous civil war wages through her blood stream. This is who you are. Accept it. It pulses through her so loud and so insistent her vessels feel near the brink of bursting from the volume.
Until – quite abruptly – the bathroom door swings opens. Donna blinks through tears, momentarily confused by the presence standing before her.
The facial hair throws her off. She's not used to it, but – god, he looks good with a beard. All rugged and untamed, contrasted by his sharp black suit. And did he actually kick the door in? So dramatic (albeit recklessly unnecessary – surely Jay has a key?). Wait. Wasn't she upset about something?
That's the beauty of being drunk out of your mind – your focus is exceptionally singular.
Harvey helps her off the floor – lifts her, really, because in her woozy unbalanced state she's pretty much dead weight – and pulls her into a tight embrace. She relaxes into him, hiding her face in the hot crevasse at the side of his neck. He smells woodsy, almost like fresh cedar but more exotic. There's a hint of tang. She thinks of bergamot and sandalwood. It's nice…but what's nicer are his fingers sliding through her hair, rubbing gently at her scalp.
He's been talking, but she hasn't been concentrating on the words, just the way he sounds. Calm and solid. She closes her eyes and tries to focus.
"— shouldn't have sent you home alone."
"S'okay," she mumbles. She's somehow lost control of her hands. Bizarrely they've unbuttoned his suit jacket and are now running wild down his chest. The touch is probably pushing the bounds of inappropriate. Isn't touching him always inappropriate? She's not doing it on purpose, but it's happening and she doesn't know how to stop it.
"I'm sorry, Donna."
She hums in reply, because all the words knocking around in her head have nothing to do with forgiveness. The hands slide lower, caressing the firm muscles of his abdomen through the cotton of his shirt. She feels his pulse quicken at the base of his neck and turns, letting her bottom lip graze against the thrum. His chest freezes midrise. Her hands inch lower, deciding his shirt would be better off. She needs it off. She takes him by the belt, and –
He pulls back, still holding her by the shoulders, and looks into her eyes. "How much have you had to drink?"
She has to think about this. Four, wasn't it? Who knows. Math is hard. "Not enough," she concludes.
"You do realize I'm holding you up."
"So?" She frowns. "Maybe I just wanna be held."
Harvey chuckles at this, his smile chasing the worry out of his expression. It's nice. To see him smile. Like the world hasn't all gone to shit. "You know, if you keep giving away all your stage secrets I'm going to stop falling for the crocodile tears."
Donna gives him a woozy smirk. "Didn't you just kick the door in?"
"You calling me a sucker?"
"No. I'm calling you chival – chivalr—"
"Come on, you can do it."
"Chivalrous," she says triumphantly.
Harvey grins. So handsome. Donna's fingers twitch at her sides, desperate to touch him again, but – smart man – he still has her pinned. She shuts her eyes and lets her head loll back against the wall. His hold on her lightens and the sound of the facet running breaks the growing silence.
"Harvey."
A warm cloth presses at her temple. "Yeah?"
"What am I gonna do?"
He doesn't reply straight away, too preoccupied with dabbing the sweat off her brow. "You're going to go home and get some rest."
"That's not going to fix anything."
"Neither is getting shit-faced at a dive bar."
Her head snaps forward, throwing him glare. The world goes blurry for a second. "I'm not proud of myself."
"I didn't mean it as a reprimand."
"Hard to tell with that tone."
He sighs. "Look. You wanna sit in this bathroom and cry all night? Fine. I'll sit down and cry with you. But you have to talk to me. You have to tell me what you need. Because I can't help you if you keep shutting me out."
Donna stares at him, hating herself. He doesn't deserve the burden of housing her pain, but being this close to him only makes her longing multiply tenfold. She says, "I just need you." And then her brain catches up to her mouth and she freezes, because no matter how drunk she is, this might be a step too far.
Harvey nods, looking almost relieved. "You have me," he says. "I'm not going anywhere."
She bites her lip, trying to fight off a grin, but she can't hide her blush, the eagerness, that damn glow. It's such a minor thing to say, but she feels so much satisfaction hearing it. "Okay," she says, forcing herself to be cool. "Take me home."
And, lo and behold, he hesitates. His face falls, weighted by something that looks a whole hell of a lot like regret. "Donna…"
Hot tears build at the back of her eyes. She shoves him away, staggering and clutching at the wall to keep her balance. "God, you're so full of shit."
"Donna, listen –"
"Spare me the bullshit, Harvey."
He steps forward, extending his hand to help her keep upright. She bats it away.
"Will you stop? You can't just touch me whenever you feel like it."
He glares at her. "I don't touch you a fraction of how often I feel like it, and if you'd stop cutting me off I could finish telling you that your mom's here."
Donna licks her lips. Only fraction? Obviously he…
Wait.
"Did you say my mom's here?" She blinks at him. "Like here in New York?"
"Like here. At the bar."
Her stomach lurches. She shakes her head. "No."
"She was at the office when Jay called. I didn't know what to do. I panicked."
"Harvey." The world spins. She grips the sink, dizzy.
"She doesn't seem upset."
"She's always upset."
"It'll be fine."
"Are you kidding? I'm practically America's Most Wanted right now. What the hell am I going to say to her? Hi Mom – I always wanted my name in lights, now there it is, on every fucking channel." Her stomach spasms. She leans over the sink, holding down a reflexive heave. Harvey pulls her hair back and runs a smoothing hand over her back.
"It'll be fine," he repeats. There is a pitch of authority in his voice. He thinks she's being overdramatic.
But he doesn't get it. Her mother would sell her soul to save face. Having a criminal for a daughter will be such a smudge on her pride. She can't bear to see her disappointment.
"I can't face her," she whispers sadly.
Harvey's face softens. He lets her hair loose, his hand lingering to brush a stray tear from her cheek. She hadn't realized she'd been crying. "Okay," he says. "I'll sort it out."
IV
When Harvey returns from the bathroom, he finds Donna's mother sitting at the bar, sipping a cocktail and watching the news overhead. "I wanna blame him," she says, glaring at Jonathan's face on the screen. "He knew better, but the stupid boy could never figure out how to say no to her."
"They were backed into a corner." Harvey doesn't know whether he's defending Donna or Jonathan, but he knows their decisions weren't made lightly. Irrationally, maybe, but who can be rational with a dying child?
Mrs. Donovan's bright eyes slide over him, probably thinking he's just as stupid. Maybe he is.
"So," she says. "How is she?"
"Drunk."
"That's what I thought. Here, I got you these." She tosses something underhand at him. It pelts him on the chest and falls on the counter. A bag of pub mix. Starved, he takes a generous handful and leans next to her against the bar.
"I'm surprised you didn't waltz in after me."
"You told me not to. And you seemed to have it handled. Kicking the door in like that." She smiles fondly at him. "I'm sure she loved it, the drama queen. Gimme a pretzel."
He holds his hand out and lets her pick through the snack mix. He says, "She's not herself."
"Alcohol will do that to you."
"It's not just the alcohol." He wants to tell her about the roof. How Donna had run to the very edge and stared down. He keeps telling himself she just needed air, but there was something in her eyes that scared the shit out of him. "I'm worried about her."
Donna's mother sighs, letting the weary look of age wash over her. "I'm worried about her too. But if you ask me, she hasn't been herself for a very long time."
"Since Alice?" Harvey guesses.
"She finally told you, did she?" She studies Harvey with a strange interest, as if seeing him for the first time. ". "It's terrible," she says, "to have lost so much. It's unfair and heartbreaking. But what Donna doesn't realize is that it's okay to keep living. What she's doing here – working these crazy hours, staying single, avoiding family and old friends –it's a refusal to move forward. She plays it safe. She chooses nothing. She stays the same." Mrs. Donovan stands, pulls a twenty out of her wallet and set it on the counter next to her empty drink. "Tell her I love her, okay?"
Harvey straightens. "You're leaving?"
"I know when I'm being avoided."
Oddly, he doesn't want her to go. With Donna acting so very un-Donna, she is the closest thing he has to a moral compass. He can't do this alone – he needs to be led.
"Relax, Harvey," she says. A mind reader. Of course it's genetic. "I have a room at the Sheraton. If she truly goes pedal to the metal on this binger, call me. Otherwise I'll deal my discipline tomorrow. There's no point in a good scolding if it goes unremembered." She takes him by the arm and with a gentle, soothing squeeze, she adds, already turning to leave, "Try to keep it together. She needs to know she can rely on you."
He watches her back until she is out of sight.
V
Harvey knows Donna is sobering up by the amount of distance she puts between them.
She sits on the far side of the cab and pretends to sleep the whole way back to her apartment. When they get to 34th, she walks ahead of him into the building, and doesn't say a word in the elevator. It's a tense, uncomfortable silence they've never had before.
Harvey watches her discretely in the elevator mirror. She's looking down, eyes distant, lost in thought. He tries to recall the happy, confident woman of the past thirteen years and can't; this is another person.
Weird, how much you can miss someone when they're standing right next to you.
She unlocks the door, letting them into the hall foyer. She doesn't bother turning on the lights, and Harvey is left maneuvering clumsily through foreign space, his palm feeling the walls, a blind man, fumbling for anything to guide him.
There is the sound of keys hitting a hard surface, then, "I'm going to take a shower."
He finds a dial switch and presses it in. The living room illuminates with a soft glow. Donna has already disappeared down the hall, a door clicking shut at her back. It feels to Harvey that there is some unarticulated dispute between them, but, as usual, he's oblivious to what it is.
He hangs his suit jacket over a dining chair and pulls his tie loose. He paces the kitchen, examining her things, but not really seeing them, annoyed by his own nervous energy.
It used to be so easy, the two them. Being with Donna was like breathing, effortless; he never really had to think about it. She was defined in his head, collegially off limits (by her decree and his silent relief) and maybe they flirted on occasion, but there were lines, blurred, but distinct enough to keep them from tripping too hard when they crossed them.
Now their blurred lines have become more like trip wire, a mine field of thirteen years' worth of shit kicked under the rug. He feels an explosion coming, rumbling like an earthquake through his bones; they are two tectonic plates, scraping against each other, trying to come together but somehow causing nothing but destruction in the process.
"Are you hungry?"
Harvey blinks and looks up. Donna is standing in front of him, tying off her white silk bathrobe. There is something about seeing her just out of the shower that swallows his heartbeat: bare faced, wet hair, glowing skin. She looks almost celestial.
He clears his throat. "Sorry?"
"Are you hungry?" she repeats. "I have some left over Chinese in the fridge."
"Oh. No. I…I'm alright."
Silence. Donna leans against the kitchen counter, twisting her wet hair to the side. Harvey stares at her, trying to gauge her mood. Not as tense as earlier, but still not entirely herself. It's almost like a piece of her has gone missing.
"How are you feeling?" he asks.
"Tired," she says and sighs, glancing up at him. The soft kitchen light makes her eyes glitter, two dark black pools that show nothing below the surface. She really is beautiful. "Just tired."
"Come on," he says. "Let's get you to bed."
He extends his hand to her. She stares at it, uncertain. He feels like she's a wild animal he's trying to coax out of the bushes. He wonders if she's afraid of how he feels. Or maybe she's afraid of how she feels – does she even feel anything? He thinks he should be patient and wait, hand outstretched, letting her come as close as she dares on her own terms. But Harvey's never been a very patient man, and one of them has to take the damn initiative.
He tugs her into his arms. She folds sadly around him, her face pressed into his shoulder. Close as they are, he still feels a disconnection, like there a forbidden denseness in her, a wall impossible to scale. He says, "C'mon, I'll swaddle you like a baby and recite Shakespeare."
"Verbatim?" she murmurs.
"How else?"
She pulls back from his shoulder, gauging his sincerity. "I'm going to need something other than the balcony scene, Romeo."
Ah. There she is.
He grins, and then, in a deep, refined voice: "If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine –"
"Ooookay," she cuts off, suddenly uncomfortable, "you've made your point."
"The gentle sin is this: –"
"Harvey."
He steps closer, touching her hair with his free hand, watching a deep blush rise against her cheeks. "My lips, –"
"Oh god."
"Two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."
Her lips rise into a smile. It's his smile, soft and coy. He wants to guard it. Protect it from all that threatens to weigh it down.
"If you're trying to put me to sleep," she says, "that's not the way to do it." Her low, slightly husky voice sends a chill up his spine, makes him a little hard.
"I'm just trying to get you into bed," he says.
She quirks an eyebrow. "Then you better swaddle me good."
"And why is that?"
"You're a smart man, Harvey." She steps out of his arms, her fingertips sliding lazily down his chest as she goes. "I'm sure you can figure it out."
He wants to kiss her. Needs to. It's an aching hunger, almost manic, this craving to feel her lips. He finds himself unintentionally leaning in, practically begging her to close the gap.
She gets nervous again. He can tell by the way she's studying him – skeptical, skittish. She steps further away, just out of his reach. And –
Fuck. Her robe. It's dropped to the side, exposing neck, collarbone, and some of what's beneath. He sees the pale pink of her nipple, can tell it's hard. The arousal that hits him is so sudden and intense he feels like he might blackout from the blood rush. And because he's a massive pervert, he doesn't say anything, he just gapes. Like he's never seen a breast in his life. Like he's a virgin, instead of a man well into his middle ages. He's certainly never been this desperately hard, not even as a teenager. God knows how long it's been since he's had one out. It feels like years. He's pulled taunt, near breaking.
He has to get out of here.
"Donna." He forces himself to look up.
She notices something. She narrows her eyes a little. Why does he have to be so damn obvious?
"Listen. Maybe this isn't a good idea, you know, after Fri –"
"Okay."
She doesn't look angry, or annoyed, or anything he might have expected. He can't read the look on her face, but if he had to guess, he'd call it indifference.
"Okay," he repeats. He leaves his coat, and heads straight for the door.
"You're not going to kiss me before you leave this time?" she says suddenly.
Harvey's hand freezes halfway to the door handle. He turns around slowly.
Her coal-black eyes bore down on him, challenging almost. He thinks the shear heat of her gaze might evaporate him.
"If I kiss you," he says, "I'm not leaving."
She looks him up and down, lingering insufferably long at crotch-level, before finally meeting his gaze. "I don't believe that," she concludes.
So fucking smug.
He glares at her. These past few days he's let himself be vulnerable in a way he never has before. He's laid himself bare, rolled over, belly up. How dare she act like he's the one turning his back when she so blatantly pushes him away?
Something inside him snaps. He crosses the room in two quick strides. Donna steps back, eyes wide with surprise, bumping against the console table, until she is back against the wall, pinned. "Yes, you do," he says. She is so close he can feel the heat of her body, smell the scent of her shampoo, feel the rise and fall of her chest. His body trembles with the sudden adrenaline, his heartbeat violent. "That's why you pulled away when I kissed you, isn't it? You can't keep playing it safe if I'm all in."
She narrows her eyes, and in an effort to regain control, leans closer, her face less than an inch from his. "You should go."
"Love me how, Donna?"
"Wha—"
"Love me how?" he demands.
She searches his eyes, appalled that he would throw her own words at her. "How am I supposed to answer that?"
"With the truth."
"And then what? You take me into your arms? Piece my world back together? I can't be fixed, Harvey."
This throws him. "Why the hell would I want to fix you?" he asks. "You're sad, not broken."
"You only think that because you don't see me. You see your secretary, a woman that's always been able to give you everything you need. But outside the firm…" she lets the thought dangle. "I don't think you realize it, because you've never committed long enough, but when you enter into a relationship with someone, you take on the weight of that other person's life. I lost my daughter. I left my husband. Let that sink in."
He won't let it sink in. He can't. To win this fight he has to keep his momentum. He takes a step back, pretending to consider her words. "So you want me to back off?"
"I want you to be realistic," she says, her voice taking on a disarming softness. "If we went for it, we'd lose it. And I think it's only as hard as it is because we never tried, but the moment that we do, this will be gone."
"This is bullshit." He slams his palm against the wall beside her. "Fuck this. It isn't good enough for me. Not anymore."
"Harvey." She grips his shoulder with a trembling hand. He must seem manic to her – a wild animal the magnificent Donna is unequipped to tame. The thought makes him feel deliciously powerful. "Just stop. Okay? You're tired —"
"God, yes. " He pulls back, running his own tremulous hand runs a hand over his face. "Yes, Donna. I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling sad, mad and heartbroken over a relationship I don't even have."
"I can't give you what you need."
"How about you stop caring about what I need. Because I got what I need, right here. And I'm not going to lose another decade or another year. Not another minute of you. Not if I don't have to."
She shakes her head; she won't hear it. She shuts her eyes as if to make him disappear.
But he won't back down. He can't do it anymore; this day-in-day-out routine of hiding from how he feels, avoiding the truth, bottling his emotions.
A mad impulse takes hold. He takes her by the waist and pulls her closer. His hands, set free, move up her body, needing to feel all of her. More, more, more. He can't stop. He just can't stop. He's never felt so frustrated, so helpless, so desperate. He can't get close enough.
A whimper escapes from the back of her throat. She turns away, clinging to her guard, but her hands are sliding down his chest with the same frantic urgency. They stop at his belt, excruciatingly close to the aching bulge in his trousers. He can't suppress his groan. God, please.
"You want more," he whispers in her ear. "I know you want more."