This was such a beautiful way to close this arc.
I also understand why she held back on saying those words.
Harsen believes that he can't be loved by her, so he would distrust any confession at this point, even if that's exactly what he wants to hear. All he would hear would be "I'm saying this because these are the words you want to hear".
At the same time, she understands that he would interpret it that way, and that would be painful, because he would be dismissing/not accepting her feelings/assuming she's just saying it to get away from the problem.
The amount of communication that these two need to work on is astounding 😅