Page 132 of A Home for Harmony

Harmony nodded. “I know that.”

“And now you need to decide if you can forgive Micah like I did Tucker. I took that step and you should too. You’ll feel better taking control rather than waiting for him.”

“I thought of that too,” she said. “But he’s working and I don’t want to have that conversation there.”

Erica picked her phone up and handed it over. “Text him you want to talk later. Make him sweat it out.”

She was just about to when her computer started to ding. “Who is that?”

“It’s Danielle,” she said. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“Are you sure that’s smart?”

“I have to.”

“I’m going to sit over here out of the way,” Erica said.

“Danielle,” Harmony said when she hit the button. She wasn’t going to smile or be happy. But she had to admit her heart knocked in her chest a bit at the sight of Danielle.

It looked as if a hurricane of emotions had swept through the room and left her battered, broken, and crying on the floor.

Danielle’s eyes and cheeks were swollen and red, her hair was a stringy mess sticking up in places and there were tears running down her face.

The fact Danielle was talking to her face to face showed enough strength that convinced Harmony to take the call.

“I’m so sorry,” Danielle said. “I never meant for you to feel any of that. I swear to it.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I wanted you to be my friend. You were so nice to me when no one else was and I thought you wanted the same. I know you’re busy or you were in New York too. I had so much fun when we hung out together, but you never wanted to with just the two of us.”

“Danielle, I have always tried hard to separate work and my personal life. It’s been important for me to do that. Lizzie was a mentor to me and that is why we stayed friends, but it wasn’t anything personal against you. I treated you the same as I did everyone else.”

Danielle sniffled. “I didn’t see it that way. When I was with you and Lizzie, others would come to me to find out what we did or talked about. I never told them anything. I swear. I kept it all a secret like you do.”

But she’d never shared anything either. “Why did you do it anonymously? Can you answer me that?”

Danielle picked up a tissue and blew her nose. “You never replied or responded to me when I made comments. It hurt because I thought we were friends. I created other accounts to see if you’d reply to them. But you didn’t.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell me these things?”

Danielle shrugged. “You’d think I was a loser like everyone else does. I just wanted to be your friend. I started to think maybe you moved when no one had seen you around lately. I accessed your forwarding address and was caught.”

Her jaw dropped. “Did you get fired?”

Danielle nodded. “I was forced to resign. I didn’t tell anyone your address or that you moved, I swear. I only used it to send the flowers for your birthday. To thank you for everything. Since we’ve been communicating, it’s been the highlight of my days.”

Her shoulders dropped. She heard Erica moving around and wanted to turn her head to look at her sister, but didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Danielle. What you did was wrong. It was upsetting and it frightened me at times. Think about what you did to me and how you’d feel if it was done to you.”

“But I don’t have any friends like you. I would have loved it and replied to everyone.”

She sighed. There was no getting through to Danielle. “I’m sorry. I am. I appreciate you being so upfront and apologizing so that I’m not concerned it’s another person. We can’t be friends after this.”

“Do you mean we would have been if I didn’t do it and got to know you by being your client?”

There were fresh tears cascading down Danielle’s face.