She was pissed. Actually pissed probably didn't even cover how Donna was feeling. Harvey wasn't great at reading female emotions, but it didn't take a genius to figure when Donna Paulsen was in a bad mood. She had the tendency to let you know just how irritated she was. Usually it was in her tone of voice or when she verbally ripped your head off. That's when things got sticky. Harvey was usually amazing at getting himself out of sticky situations. It didn't really work when the person you were convincing didn't buy into any of your bullshit. Donna did not buy into the shit that Harvey was so famous for spewing. Her and Jessica were the only two women in existence who didn't buy his song and dance. They could always see what he really wanted. They knew what he was really capable of and it made them want more from him.

Visiting people at their residences wasn't Harvey's thing. It felt weird. Very personal. It was one thing if it was a party of some sort, but in a one on one setting it felt strange. Foreign. Harvey was never good with those feelings so he tended to just avoid the situations that brought them up. This meant appearing like a dick ninety percent of the time which wasn't that far off from how he really was. People had two options with Harvey Specter. There was no middle ground. Either you loved him or you hated his fucking guts and wished death on him. Usually he liked to believe they felt the first one. The other one just seemed mean.

He didn't even bother to change his clothes to come over here after work. He wanted her back in the office. He wanted her back in his life, but he'd be damned if she was going to hear those words come from his lips. Jessica commented on his behavior today. She mentioned a word that Harvey would rather pretend never left her lips. Soulmate. Those did not exist and if they did then they weren't apart of Harvey Specter's life. This was not a soulmate looking for his other half. This was a guy looking to get his friend and his assistant back.

"Open the door, Donna."

Donna didn't want to open the door. Donna had been made a fool of several days earlier and she was really in no kind of mood for Harvey's bullshit. Unless he was there to grovel and admit that he'd made not one, not two, but many mistakes, she was not going to listen.

The fact that he was there in a suit - the beautiful three-piece Armani that she loved - only pissed her off more. It meant that she didn't slam the door in his face, but turned to head back into the kitchen where she was making her dinner; chicken and salad, red wine and...

"What are you doing here, Harvey?"

Admitting he was wrong was not something that Harvey took lightly. He didn't just jump on those grenades. Some days the control was all that Harvey felt like he actually had. He needed to maintain and that meant he had made sacrifices along the way. It meant that some people didn't hear things that might ease tensions, but he was safe. He was safe from them manipulating him. Not that he assumed Donna would manipulate him, but he had seen good people do it. What would stop her if she got upset with him over something? What would keep her from taking the control and getting him to dance like a puppet? Probably nothing. It was human nature sometimes.

She left the door open, but her tone of voice didn't scream forgiveness. Nothing about her screamed that. Her stance and the way she looked at him. Even if Harvey dropped to his knees and groveled until sun rise it wouldn't fix things. It wasn't ever going to happen, but the option was still there. It lingered in the air. She just wouldn't be clued into this option. She could usually get things from him when she cried, but she didn't want anything right now. Except for him to apparently leave her alone. He wasn't about to give in on that one though.

"Third time's a charm." He stepped inside and shut her door behind him. His hands slid into the pockets of his slacks as he stood at the entrance of the kitchen. "Are you gonna ignore me forever?"

Oh, he was going to grovel if he wanted anything at all from her. The very idea that he thought she'd use anything against him was absurd. Donna was the one that had kept every secret that Harvey had ever had for the last ten years. It had been the two of them, together, against the world.

She'd followed him, she'd done his bidding, she'd been everything he'd ever needed for a decade and he'd let her go like she'd meant nothing to him. He'd let Jessica do his dirty work like she was some minor, first year associate that had no clue about his deepest, darkest secrets. Who hadn't been there for him when he'd raged, when he'd laughed, when he'd cried. She'd been the one who'd seen him through every major (and minor) point in his life and he'd thrown her away like she was nothing.

He'd grovel.

"I'm not ignoring you, I'm grilling my chicken so it doesn't burn." The tone was matter-of-fact, learned from years of dealing with Louis Litt; Harvey should recognize it. "If I was ignoring you, I wouldn't have answered the door."

Lifting her glass, she raised an eyebrow and stared at him. "You didn't answer my question. What are you doing here, Harvey?"

It didn't expect that to be her go to move, but years of dealing with shady people tended to make a man paranoid. When people came to the conclusion that you actually gave a damn about something then they used it to bend you. Maybe it wasn't intentional. Maybe it was nothing. It almost always happened though. He had seen good man go down because the people they were fighting against knew their weakness and knew how to exploit it. He wasn't saying that Donna was going to take him down, but what would happen down the road with them if someone else found out. They'd use it against Harvey without batting an eyelash. The world was filled with Travis Tanners. It was just a question of navigating them.

He was not going to be his father.

"Fair answer." Her question however was eating at him. She wanted him to break down and tell her why he was here. That would illicit emotions and right now he just didn't have the strength to handle them. He didn't want to handle them. He knew she had recognize how insanely horrible he was doing without her. The guy who sat her desk was efficient, but he wasn't Donna. He didn't listen to all his private calls and anticipate his moves. He didn't know what Harvey needed before Harvey even realized he needed it.

He shrugged his shoulders which was rare for him. Harvey knew every move he made. They were all calculated. He didn't feel like owning up to this one just yet. "Honestly, I didn't think you'd accept an offer to come to my place." He was just going to skirt around the actual legitimate reasons. This was much better for all parties involved.

It was a very good thing that Donna didn't know how little Harvey thought of her or just how deep his paranoia ran or she wouldn't have even opened the door. It was a simple fact that she'd gone down for trying to help him, for trying to keep him safe. Everything that she'd ever done had been for him; down to losing her relationships. There was a reason she was still single and--

She wasn't going to think about it.

"I know." She knew it was a fair answer before she gave it. She could be just as calculating with her every move, Harvey - where do you think she learned it? Or, maybe he learned it from her. The world may never know. And yet, as she stood there and watched him actually begin to fidget, she started to wonder if she might actually win the stalemate after all.

With a smirk, she took her wine glass to her couch and sat down on it, looking over at him with a shrug of a single shoulder. After taking another sip, she nodded. "You'd have been right. I know what happens in that condo, Harvey. I don't need to be there to imagine it first hand." A pause. "Answer the question or leave."

Now she was going to treat him like Louis.

"My sexual conduct isn't on trial here." What he did with women was always something that her and Jessica loved to lob right at him. Louis never seemed to find the balls to bring it up and Harvey chalked it up to the fact that he didn't want to give Harvey an opening. One that would focus on the fact that Louis was not married nor was he even close to having a relationship with anyone other than that stupid Dictaphone. The very same one that Harvey wanted to hurl at the wall and break into a million little pieces.

Harvey let out a heavy sigh and finally pulls his hands from his pockets. He approached her couch, but he kept his distance. He came around to stand on the other side of her coffee table. He wasn't going to risk sitting down. "Really? Is that how you're gonna play this?" Isn't this manipulating of some sort? Manipulating him into being honest with her? This was the very thing that made Harvey's hands get clammy.

"I wanted to see how you were doing. I was worried. Are you happy now?" That was part of the reason, but it would take her holding a gun to his head before he would tell her. There relationship was complex enough without piling that crap on.

"My living room couldn't hold the witnesses needed to put your sexual conduct on trial."

Lobbing it up and serving it at him hardcore. Even in the worst of moods, making Harvey feel like a slut was something that made Donna feel better about her life. It wasn't her that was in Harvey's pants, regardless of what Louis wanted to imply, so she could make all the off-color jokes she wanted to.

But when he said that he wanted to see how she was doing, that he was worried, all she could do was stare at him. Suddenly, it wasn't funny anymore. Suddenly, she was back in the middle of the mock-trial, listening to Louis badger her about her supposed love for Harvey Specter. "You came to see if I was okay after what Louis did or you came to see if there was an answer to the question Louis was asking?"

Her voice was steady, but low. She'd noticed he was keeping his distance; she knew it was for his safety more than anything else. Heaven forbid Harvey get close to anyone - physically or emotionally.

Harvey watched his father try to get closer and closer to his mother only to have her pulling away more and more. She used what he felt for her against him and it wasn't going to happen to him. He loved his mother and his father, but he was not going to end up like them. He was happy with his life. Even if he had issues looking at himself in the mirror some mornings. Zoe was right about one thing years ago. He may have lost his way, but he found a better one. He didn't need people to understand the way he lived his life.

He could take all the little quips about his sexual promiscuity. He wasn't the first guy in the history of America to sleep around. He certainly wasn't the last one. He had some rules though. Some guys didn't even have those. They thought every woman was fair game. Even Harvey had himself some standards, but some would argue that they weren't huge ones.

"Louis is an ass. What he did up there was way out of line. I told him to be Tanner, but I didn't think he'd be worse than Tanner." Tanner wasn't above that conduct though. Harvey knew that. He was still having a hard time separating the two after the mock-trial. "An answer is always appreciated though. To the question that is. Inquiring minds want to know."

Mainly Harvey.

"Louis was doing what he had to to save your ass, just like everyone else would, just like I did. Don't put this on Louis."

As much as she hated what it had done to her reputation, Donna understood where Louis was coming from. She understood that he was pressing where any good lawyer would; the places that hurt the most were the places that were the most vulnerable. If she could be used against Harvey (or vice versa), then those weaknesses were better exposed now. The fact that it stung like hell was no excuse to hate on Louis.

That Harvey then wanted to know how she felt was only icing on the cake and she lowered her head to glare at him. "You can't really expect me to answer that. Not after everything we've been through together. You know it's not that easy. It's not a simple yes or no question."

It was as close as she could get without answering the question directly. Let him suffer.