Chapter Nineteen
Chloe stared up at the ceiling, sandwiched between the greatest high she’d ever experienced—and dread that multiplied by the second. It scaled the walls of her insides like the kind of black mold that couldn’t be wiped out without total demolishment. She didn’t quite have an explanation for the sense of impending doom yet, only that a turning point was coming... and no one was there to give her directions anymore.
For once, the man she depended on for directions was lost.
More lost than Chloe.
Looking across the pillow into his smiling face, one couldn’t tell. He was wreathed in his usual confidence. His hand stroked her face like an artist framing a landscape—one he found breathtaking and worthy of staring at for decades. He was the picture of masculine beauty, casual in his nudity. Not in a rush to go anywhere. Content to hold her after the most incredible rounds of sex she could have imagined. Their physical chemistry was the final shred of proof they were made for each other, as far as Chloe was concerned. She’d never felt free to be so uninhibited before. So positive she could only do right in the arms of another person.
This man was her soulmate, through and through. But the dread only ran amuck now, spreading to her limbs, scraping the walls of her heart.
You want that contract, that captain spot more than anything.
Wrong. I want you more.
If getting it means staying away from me, that’s what you have to do.
Absolutely not.
A sharp twist started in her throat and rose higher, causing pain behind her eyes. “Sig—”
“Hey, sorry. I was distracted earlier by... you.” That roguish grin on his mouth only grew. How could his face appear so content when they had monumental decisions in front of them? Didn’t he sense what was on the horizon? “I’m always distracted by you, Chlo.”
Her fingers curled into the pillow. “Same,” she whispered.
Affection warmed his features. “But I should have asked...” He tucked hair behind her ear, his amusement dimming slowly. “How did you find out about the article? Did someone send it to you?”
Chloe kept her expression mild. Why she chose this exact moment to start lying to her best friend? She couldn’t say. Only that there was an instinct inside of her—one she didn’t have before moving to Boston and living on her own—and it was informing her that Sig would not react well to finding out their relationship had caused Grace to excuse her as a mentee. He’d raise hell. And he’d take it upon himself to fix the issue...
But she needed to fix her own problem this time.
She’d been dropped by Grace because of her own decisions. She’d allowed her relationship with Sig to become something indefinable and vague and questionable, at least to the outside world. Not to mention, she’d blabbed to the reporter. Now? Handing off the situation to someone else wasn’t an option. Sig had his own mess to deal with—she’d handle her own side of it like a big girl.
“Tallulah sent it to me,” Chloe said, tuning out the memory of the conversation she’d had with Grace. Refusing to let the truth show on her face. “I think she has a Google alert for anything Bearcats-related. I don’t even know how to set one of those.”
“Me either,” he murmured, his expression turning serious. “I have to tell you something, Chlo.” He opened his mouth, snapped it shut. “Damn, I know it must seem like I’ve been keeping a lot of important shit from you, but I swear... I was planning on telling you this when the time was right. Or if I managed to find a solution.”
“A solution to what?” she managed, her throat thick. What was this?
“Us. A way for... us.”
Afraid to hear the explanation, afraid not to hear it, too, she wet her lips. “Tell me.”
Sig wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her closer, both of them sighing over the soft collision of bare muscle and flesh, the new lack of barriers between them. “Feels so good to hold you.”
“I can’t believe we made it so long without this,” she said honestly, nuzzling his jaw.
He kissed her forehead hard. Lingered there. “I haven’t really talked a lot about how I grew up. Haven’t really talked about it with anyone. But, uh,...” He shifted against her. “Like I told you before, Harvey left us when I was young. After that, my mom... she wanted nothing to do with her family. The way she explained it to me, they didn’t approve of Harvey. Thought he was after my mother’s wealth. Called him a grifter—and they were right. Hell, he did exactly what her family said he would. Took off with my mother’s money and never looked back. After that, my mother’s pride wouldn’t let her take another cent from her parents and we ended up struggling. Bad. My whole childhood.”
This must be what love truly felt like.
Feeling a burning ache in her chest for everything Sig had experienced in the past.
Pain and frustration and sympathy and helplessness.
A fierce desire to go back and take his place.
“But he’s changed since then, right?” Chloe asked. “Is that why you got back in touch with him?”
“That’s the thing, Chloe, I don’t know if he’s changed. He was married to two other women after my mother and he climbed higher on the social ladder with each relationship. That’s how it looks from the outside, I’ve just never been able to... be objective. I can’t tell if I’m seeing the real Harvey or if I’m looking through the lens my mother created. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Alarm prickled in her scalp, fingertips. “Should I be worried about my mother?”
He tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. “Your mother knows I’m suspicious of Harvey, Chlo. She knows what those suspicions are, too. I never would have let her fly blind.”
She took that in, let it settle. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His throat worked with a swallow. “I was embarrassed. And that’s a new feeling for me. I taught myself how to overcome shame out of necessity a long time ago, but suddenly... there you were and...” He traced her jawline with his thumb. “I was suddenly a lot more aware that I didn’t have the kind of background I’d need to marry you. Or the kind of money. I guess I didn’t want to draw attention to that.”
“So... the same reason you didn’t tell me about selling the memorabilia?”
“Yeah.” He nodded for a moment, then rolled Chloe over onto her back, burying his face in her neck. Rubbing it there in such a raw and loving way, she could only anchor her fingers in his hair and survive it. “I just wanted to be good for you. I just wanted to give you everything.”
At the cost of everything he wants.
No.
No.
She loved him too much for that.
“Did you tell my mother about Harvey’s past hoping she would call off the wedding?”
“She overheard me making some accusations. They weren’t enough.” His body was fully on top of hers now, her thighs snuggling around his hips, their bodies shifting and conforming, shifting and conforming, two beings enjoying the various ways they could mold together. Luxuriating in what they’d denied themselves for so long. “I hired a private investigator,” he said against her ear, catching her breath in her throat. “He hasn’t had any luck yet. But if there is something my father did that might mean calling off this marriage, I’m going to find it, okay?”
A beat passed.
Two.
Sig seemed to be waiting, bracing for her reaction to the news.
But somehow, the revelation that Sig had hired someone to investigate Harvey didn’t come as a total shock. Did it surprise her? Yes. Of course, it did. But somewhere deep down, she’d known Sig was working on the problem. Trying to find a way for them to be together. She’d known it in her bones. Still, despite her strained and complicated relationship with Sofia... did she want to ruin her mother’s happiness? Did Sig want to do that to his father?
No.
Sig wouldn’t be able to go through with hurting Harvey and Sofia. That wasn’t an act of the man she’d fallen madly in love with. And she wouldn’t be able to do it, either. Which only left one option—walk away from his skyrocketing career. Leave her own aspirations behind. In other words, there was no good outcome if they stayed together. Didn’t he see that? Any which way they sliced it, someone lost. “What if the private investigator finds... nothing?”
“I don’t know.” Slowly, he pinned her wrists above her head, his breathing pattern beginning to change, along with hers, his sex swelling against her inner thigh. “But I do know there is nothing that could keep me away from you.”
Chloe’s growing appetite for Sig battled with that nagging dread, which was transforming from a mere feeling to something concrete. A clear picture that she could see and read and predict. Conversely, Sig wasn’t thinking clearly. She’d known that from the time she’d arrived at the hotel. As usual, he was considering her first. Them first. He’d implied he would give up playing hockey for the Bearcats because of her. Because of their relationship.
Never.
She would never let him give up his dream.
Would never let him do something so destructive.
With a walnut-sized object stuck behind her windpipe, she lifted her hips for him, their groans filling the room as he fit himself home inside her and started to rock.
“Tell me about Sweden again,” she whispered, blinking back the tears in her eyes. Tears that turned to a warm glaze when the headboard started to thump against the wall once more. “Are you shirtless and chopping firewood in our yard?”
His chuckle turned into a groan. “Who am I to deny you that view?” He leaned down and lapped at her nipples, one by one, his eyes pitch-black as he sucked. Watching her. “There’s a frozen pond in back. Where I’m teaching our kids to skate.”
His mouth roamed back up her body and over her lips, seducing any thoughts straight out of her head, except for the ones that concerned him and the fantasy world he spun with his words. “Kids,” she breathed. “You want kids.”
He tilted his head, regarding her with an overwhelming amount of love. Adoration. “I want to watch you be a mother.”
His weight bore down harder, more insistently, something a little animalistic and wicked flickering in his expression a split second before he flipped Chloe face down and pumped into her from behind, leaving her screaming into the pillow, nails clawing at the sheets.
“I want to make you one, too,” he rasped in her ear, his calloused thumbs digging into her hips. “Keep this ass up like a good girl and let me practice.”
T HE FOLLOWING MORNING, Chloe cried the whole way to Grace’s penthouse.
Pierre sensed something was wrong, keeping his sleepy head in her lap in the back of the Uber. Wordlessly, the driver passed her back a box of tissues over his shoulder, which made her cry all the harder. Okay. She’d give herself until the end of the ride. Then it would be time to suck it up and be a grown-up.
Nothing could keep images of last night and this morning from bombarding her brain, but she could control how she reacted to them. At least, on the outside. When she thought of Sig lifting Pierre onto the foot of the bed last night and covering him with a spare blanket, before flipping on the Home Shopping Network so she could fall asleep to her preferred soundtrack, she wouldn’t sob and break down and faint dead away on the street.
She’d keep moving.
When she thought of the way Sig had kissed her so passionately when he left for the airport, making promises to call her as soon as he landed, she wouldn’t unleash an unholy scream over the twist of guilt in her stomach. She would keep breathing. Keep living, even if her heart was in jagged, petrified pieces all over the floor.
“Are you okay back there?” asked the driver hesitantly, clearly hoping she wouldn’t respond. Or that she would say fine and leave it at that.
Well, too bad.
She was cutting off the love of her life to keep them both from losing everything.
“No, I’m not okay.” Moisture tracked down her cheeks and she mopped them up with a Kleenex. “This is my first time being the strong one.”
“Ohhh. I see.”
“So far, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t know if I’m going to be very good at it.”
The driver seemed on the verge of answering, but Chloe’s phone rang. Thinking it was Sig, her pulse skipped approximately eight beats. Was this going to be the first time she didn’t answer one of his calls? But no. It wasn’t Sig.
Sofia was calling.
“Hello, Mother,” she answered, holding on tighter to Pierre.
“Chloe. You don’t sound well. Has Boston finally gotten the better of you?”
Chloe dropped her head back against the seat. She wanted to say no. Wanted to lie and say things were better than ever, but she didn’t have the energy to lie. “Maybe so.”
“Aw, my poor dear. I hate to hear that.”
“No, you don’t,” Chloe blurted. And it felt fantastic. Because unlike the evening she’d stood up to her mother at the dinner table, she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t feel guilty for calling out her mother’s passive aggression, either. In fact, she felt capable of letting those words hang between them without qualifying or backpedaling. “You don’t hate to hear I’m having a bad time. You’ve wanted me to fail in Boston since the beginning.”
“Oh, Chloe,” scoffed her mother. “That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. Own it. Just own it. Stop pretending to support my independence. You want me to depend on you. That’s how it has always been.”
Ice cubes clinked into a glass. “You were never this negative in the past. It’s that man having this effect on you, Chloe.”
It took the world’s greatest effort to keep her voice even. “Don’t talk about Sig like that.” She thought of him packing memorabilia in his apartment and her throat grew crowded. “You have no idea what he’s done, what he’s sacrificed so I can learn to be on my own.”
Several ticks passed. “Careful, Chloe. You’re letting your feelings for him show.”
Chloe’s skin turned into a layer of ice. Sofia knew. Her mother knew she was in love with Sig. For how long? How could she know and not say anything?
“Come home now, Chloe, and we’ll forget any of it ever happened. Preferably before any more articles find their way online, hmm?”
A part of Chloe really wanted to run home in that moment. Despite her mother’s toxicity. Despite the resolutions she’d made this morning. She wanted to go back to Darien, put her blinders back on, and pretend she’d been studying in France for six months, instead of dwelling three hours south. But her new backbone wouldn’t let her do it, nor would the heart that had grown ten sizes thanks to the love Sig had filled it with. “I’m never coming home, Mother. Not now. Not ever. I’d rather struggle with my own decisions than have someone else make them for me. Goodbye.”
A FEW MINUTES later, Chloe stood in front of a very taken aback doorman who appeared more inclined to call the police than buzz Grace’s intercom. And rightly so, because she couldn’t imagine how she must look. Tearstained and exhausted and heartsick. A wreck with a bulldog.
“Is Ms. Shen expecting you?”
“Not exactly, but if you could just ring her and give her my name—”
The doorman cut her off by shaking his head. “She has asked me not to disturb her with any guests, because she’s rehearsing.”
“I respect that. I do.”
“Have you tried calling her?” He mimicked a phone call.
Chloe had considered that. However, the last time she’d spoken to Grace, her mentor had hung up on her, so she’d figured an in-person approach was the best bet.
“I need to speak with her face-to-face.” Her voice was beginning to split, the feeling of Sig’s arms and the sound of his even breathing, layered beneath an announcer’s voice selling silk makeup bags was playing on a loop in her head, choking her up. “It’s complicated.”
Sympathy rolled across his face. “Do you... maybe need a drink of water?”
“Do I look that bad?”
“Yes.”
The culmination of emotion wrought by the last few hours resulted in Chloe grabbing the poor man’s arm. What did she have to lose? “Please, I’ve just sent the love of my life off to the airport with no idea that I’m breaking things off. For his own good and mine, but I feel like a ghost, you know?” The inhale that followed felt like torture. “And I just need a break. A tiny break. Please. ”
The doorman hedged.
She could already hear him letting her down gently.
Thankfully, the elevator doors chose that moment to open and reveal Grace in a matching purple yoga outfit, a Stanley cup, and sunglasses that looked more like goggles.
She stopped short upon seeing Chloe. “Oh fuck. Seriously? I have the worst timing.” Her head dropped back on her shoulders. “You better not be here to return the dog.”
“What? No. I love him.”
“Well. Your taste in men is highly questionable. We’ve established that.”
A defensive shriek built in Chloe’s chest, but she kept it at bay, because losing her cool wouldn’t serve anyone. Not her and not Sig. “Can we talk privately?”
“Why? I’m not changing my mind.”
Chloe wasn’t sure how much more dread she could handle in a single day. “That thing you read about...” She glanced at the doorman with a swallow, grateful when he took a hint and whistled his way out onto the sidewalk. “I’m not going to lie, there was something there, but it’s over now. It’s over. Okay?” Oh God. Saying those words out loud made her legs want to collapse. “Our parents are getting married in two months. Technically, we haven’t done anything wrong, but like I said... it’s over. And you know what? I love him. I love him and I’m giving him up so he can have hockey. So I can have the harp. And if you think I was good before, just wait until you hear me with a broken heart, okay? Because I’m going to fucking shred and you’re not going to get any credit when I waltz into that symphony and take your spot. That’s what I’ll do. Because people are going to pay money to see a child prodigy. That was always going to be true. But I want to be extraordinary. I better be fucking extraordinary if I’m giving him up for this. Are you going to help me get there or not? Because I’ll play until my fingers bleed. I’ll play until they are numb. Don’t drop me, Grace. I’m here to work.”
A stony—but perhaps, reluctantly impressed—Grace regarded her for several moments. “This thing between you and him is really over?”
Don’t hesitate. Just get it out. “Yes.”
Chloe pretended not to see the layer of sympathy flit across Grace’s face, because she couldn’t handle sympathy just then or she might wallow in self-pity forever. “Fine. I was looking for a reason to skip yoga, anyway.” She sniffed, looking Chloe up and down. “I guess torturing you could pass for cardio.”
Hope ballooned in Chloe’s chest. “Definitely.”
“Let’s go. I guess the beast can come, too,” Grace said, backing into the elevator and smacking her hand on the side of the metal door to keep it open while Chloe rushed forward with grateful tears in her eyes. “Don’t expect me to console you.”
“I won’t.”
“He’s shit hot, I get it. But...”—she made a slashing motion—“there will be others.”
There wouldn’t. There would be no others like Sig. Not in a billion, trillion years.
But Chloe just smiled and nodded, beginning her life of keeping it to herself.
And hoping it wouldn’t kill her.