Page 34 of Crossing the Line (Phoenix Ridge Medical #6)

"Our careers," Harper corrected. "This affects me too, Carmen. But I'm not the one acting like loving you is something to be ashamed of."

Carmen's face went pale. "I'm not ashamed?—"

"Then why do I feel invisible every time we're around other people?" Harper's voice broke slightly, months of frustration bleeding through. "Why do I have to pretend that the most important thing in my life doesn't exist?"

Carmen stared at her for a long moment, and Harper could see the war playing out in her expression as love wrestled with self-preservation. When Carmen spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Because loving you terrifies me more than anything I've ever felt."

The confession hung between them like a bridge Harper was afraid to cross. Carmen had said it—not just want, not just attraction, but love. Real, terrifying, life-changing love.

"It terrifies me too," Harper admitted, her anger dissolving into something rawer. "But I'd rather be terrified with you than safe without you."

Carmen's mask finally crumbled completely, and Harper saw everything she'd been hiding—the longing, the fear, the desperate need for connection that Carmen had been trying to control out of existence.

"Harper," Carmen breathed, and hearing her name in that broken, vulnerable voice made Harper's chest ache with recognition.

Harper closed the distance between them in one step, her hand coming up to cup Carmen's face. "I love you too," she whispered against Carmen's lips. "And I'm tired of hiding it."

When their lips met, it was nothing like their careful encounters in safe spaces. This was desperate and hungry, months of suppressed emotion pouring out in a kiss that tasted like relief and rebellion and the kind of love that changed everything.

Carmen's hands fisted in Harper's hair, pulling her closer, and Harper pressed her back against the office wall with a soft thud that should have reminded them where they were. Instead, Harper's hand slipped beneath Carmen's blouse, fingertips finding warm skin and the rapid flutter of her pulse.

Carmen gasped against Harper's mouth, her head falling back against the wall as Harper's lips found the sensitive spot below her ear. "We shouldn't," Carmen whispered, even as her hands tugged Harper's shirt free from her scrubs. "Not here, not?—"

"I don't care," Harper said fiercely, her hand splaying across Carmen's ribs, feeling her breathing quicken. "I'm done pretending I don't want you. I'm done hiding how much I love you."

Carmen's response was lost as the office door opened without warning.

Time stopped.

Harper's hand was still splayed across Carmen's ribs, Carmen's fingers still tangled in Harper's hair, and their bodies pressed against the office wall in desperate passion that left no room for innocent interpretation.

Through the rushing blood in her ears, Harper heard the soft intake of breath that could only belong to one person.

Her mother stood frozen in the doorway, her hand still gripping the door handle, her face cycling through emotions too quickly for Harper to track. Shock. Confusion. Recognition. And then something that looked like the world ending.

Harper jerked away from Carmen as if she'd been burned, her hand flying to her mouth where Carmen's lipstick was probably smeared across her lips.

Carmen had gone rigid against the wall, her dark eyes wide with the kind of panic Harper had never seen before—not during the most complex cardiac procedures, not during trauma cases where lives hung in the balance.

The silence stretched between the three of them like a fault line before an earthquake.

"Mom," Harper whispered, the word scraping her throat raw.

Natalie's gaze moved slowly from Harper's disheveled appearance to Carmen's flushed face, to the space between them that still hummed with interrupted intimacy. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet Harper had to strain to hear it.

"This morning." Natalie's words came out measured, controlled, the tone she used when delivering devastating diagnoses to patients. "This morning you were telling me about someone you're seeing. Someone who makes you glow."

Harper's chest constricted until breathing felt like drowning. "Mom, I can explain?—"

"Her name is Carmen." Natalie's eyes never left Harper's face, but her words felt like gut punches. "Isn't it? The woman you've been seeing. The one you said was brilliant and passionate about medicine. The one you said had been hurt before."

Each word fell into the office like stones into still water, creating ripples that would change everything. Harper watched her mother's face as understanding crystallized into something approaching betrayal.

"How long?" Natalie whispered, her professional composure beginning to crack around the edges.

Harper's mouth opened, but no sound came out. How could she explain that it had been weeks of careful secrecy? That she'd been lying by omission every time they'd had lunch, every conversation about work, every question about her personal life?

"How long, Harper?" Natalie's voice carried the authority of someone accustomed to getting answers, even when those answers might destroy her.

"Since my first week," Harper managed, the confession feeling like pulling glass from her throat.

The admission hit Natalie like a tidal wave. Harper watched her mother's face go pale and saw the moment when parental concern transformed into professional outrage.

"Since your first week." Natalie repeated the words slowly, as if testing their weight. "You've been lying to me for weeks. Both of you."