Chapter 26
Chloe
Chapter Twenty-Six
Roxanne skips across the terrace and rushes over to the balcony to gaze at the wonderful scenery around us. She’s fascinated with Cillian’s home.
We’ve been so busy that this is the first chance she’s had to come by and see the place. From the moment we stepped out of my car—which I now have—she’s been like a kid in a supersized toy store at Christmas.
Roxanne has always wanted to know someone with a house in the Hamptons, and now she does.
After the magical trip to Saint Tropez, Cillian and I have been back in New York for the last two weeks.
I’ve been adjusting to married life with him, taking care of Mom, and setting up my school.
It’s been great, all of it, but each day reminds me that I have one day less with him.
Even now as I stand in our home I’m doing the math and the countdown. That little nagging voice in my head is whispering that this will only be our home for the next five months and two weeks. Then it goes back to being just his.
Easy, Chloe. Remember you weren’t going to think like that anymore.
Those thoughts are never too far away from my mind but I should at least try to keep up appearances for Roxanne. I don’t want to spoil her visit.
I was the lovestruck girl who told her cousin she was more than fine with her six-month marriage arrangement. I think I even used those words—more than fine.
“Oh my God, we should have a fundraiser and invite all your neighbors.” She flicks her hair over her shoulders as the wind picks it up.
I laugh. “A fundraiser for what, Roxanne?”
“I don’t know. These rich people here are always arranging some sort of social gathering.” She twirls with the wind so her dress floats around her legs. “We’d have to think of something new and original that hasn’t been done before, like maybe save the trout or the bees.”
“Trout or bees? You are crazy.”
“But it’s original. I swear there aren’t enough save the trout or bees charities.”
“Maybe not, but we aren’t doing that.”
“I’ll find a way. Maybe Lord Astor will offer me his assistance.” She burst out laughing and I roll my eyes at her. “He looks like a man who would save the trout with me.”
“I’m pretty sure Lord Astor would assist you with or without charity attached to the offer.” My new neighbor is definitely giving off Hugh Hefner vibes. He’s about eighty-six and I’ve seen him with women in their twenties riding around in his convertible.
Earlier, when we got here, his eyes lit up when he saw us. He came over to introduce himself and flirted the whole time.
“I think you’re right. Did you see his face when the wind lifted my skirt.”
“Yes. You may as well have been naked.”
We both laugh harder.
Roxanne straightens and dabs tears from the corners of her eyes. “How long has it been since we laughed like this?”
“Years. I think it was one summer camp or something.”
“Yeah.” She nods with reflection. “That last one, when the squirrel fell in the pie the chef was preparing and shit in it.”
“Yeah. That’s the one.” I giggle. “Good times, right?”
“The best. But it looks like those days are back. Just in a different way.”
“They are. They’ll get even better when Mom is home.”
“Absolutely.”
We’re happier because Mom will be discharged next Friday. We just saw her and she looked like the person she was years ago. When Dr. Chase said she could go home next week, I swear Mom looked even younger for hearing the news.
When we take her back to her house, it will be the first time that I will have seen her there in over three years. It will be emotional for me to remember that last horrible argument we had but I’m glad I get to make new memories.
“Chloe, when she gets out, please don’t spend all the time around the house with her. We can take turns. Your mother will understand. She’s already told me to make sure you and Cillian get quality time together.”
“You know what I’m like when it comes to Mom.”
“That’s exactly why I’m saying this. Chloe, you just got married. You have your own dance school in the works but, more importantly, you have to spend some time with your man. Look at you. After two weeks you’re still glowing.” She looks me over. “That’s not just the Saint Tropez sun, Mrs. O’Ridian.”
I feel like I shouldn’t get used to that name. “No… it’s not just the sun.”
“I’m glad you can admit that.”
“I can, but I’m not so sure I should be holding on to things like that when I won’t have them in my life past a certain date.”
Roxanne’s shoulders slump. “Oh, Chloe. You’re not okay, are you?”
“I’m fine. I shouldn’t have said that.” I shake my head and lean against the railing, allowing the gentle breeze to lift my hair.
Roxanne slides up to me and leans into my shoulder briefly. “Talk to me. I want to say that you just came back from this gorgeous honeymoon with your gorgeous husband and you should be happier, but I know you aren’t.”
“I’m trying, but… he’s perfect. How am I supposed to do better than him? Or better yet, how the hell do I forget him?” The first time I thought that was after I gave Cillian the eighteen and a half minutes I owed him.
We’re so far away from that time now and with deeper problems.
“You want to stay together?”
“Not if he doesn’t, but of course I want to stay together.”
“And you want to stay married?”
I bow my head, wondering if I’m being silly. “Is it crazy that I want to?”
“No way. I think it would be crazy if you didn’t.”
“Then what’s wrong with me? Or us? I don’t see anything wrong with us that would stop us from staying together.”
She gives me a tenderhearted stare. “Have you spoken to him about this?”
“No. I don’t think I should. I know him. If he wanted to talk about it he would have done so already. We still haven’t even spoken about how we’re supposed to end.”
“You know what? Forget that. This is bothering you. If I were you I’d still find some way of talking to him.”
“I don’t want to spoil what we have going. We didn’t really have any rules going into this, so I have to play everything by ear.”
“Then play this by ear. If you can understand him better, you’ll know where you stand. He seems to adore you. No one can tell me he doesn’t. If things are so good between you two and he hasn’t even given you details about how you’re supposed to end, there will be some reason for it. Something other than business.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yeah. Guys can be dicks sometimes and come up with all kinds of shit to make excuses, but this doesn’t feel like that. I think he values you more than a six-month fling.”
“I don’t know. When Cillian is in business mode he’s different, and I’m no exception.”
“Find a way.” She takes both my hands. “As for now, I want to make cocktails. I think you need one, too.”
“I drank way too much on my honeymoon.”
“Yes, but that was two weeks ago and you weren’t with me. Come, let’s go raid Cillian’s drinks cupboard. I spotted Caribbean rum.”
Before I can even wonder about how she managed to see that when it’s supposed to be locked up, she whisks me away.
At least she distracts me for a few hours. When she leaves my thoughts attack me again.
Cillian comes home a little while after and the moment he kisses me, I get sucked into that bubble where it’s just him and me and time has frozen.
Asking about a future I’m not supposed to have questions about doesn’t feel appropriate.
The same thing happens the next few nights and before I know it another week has passed. I try to shove my concerns to the back of my mind but I feel even more worked up than ever.
Being with him is like fanning the flames of a fire. They only grow stronger and stronger, and even when that fire burns down to nothing, leaving ashes, one kiss from him awakens the fire like a rising phoenix.
Now it’s Monday again. At least I was able to keep myself busy at my school.
After I went to see Mom I spent the day there with the design team I hired. I’m having the mirrors fitted this week. The rest of the month will be spent laying the flooring. I’m hoping to have the school ready to launch by September.
I have a great day watching my dream unfold but my spirits deflate when I arrive home and get a message from Cillian letting me know he’ll be working late.
I don’t think the work has to do with the bank. It’s nearly ten so it must be the other kind of business, which makes me worry because I know nothing about what’s going on. That’s a whole other matter I hate.
The fact that there are always guards around me, at the restaurant and stationed outside my mother’s hospital room, puts my senses on high alert.
At least they keep enough distance to allow me my privacy, and when I’m home they stay outside guarding the doors—back and front.
I decide to wait downstairs and watch TV so I don’t fall asleep and can hear him coming home. But ten o’clock comes, then that turns into eleven. And suddenly it’s midnight.
There’s no sign of him.
I keep checking my phone, but there are no messages. All kinds of things are going through my mind, but I don’t call or message just in case I do something wrong. Like in the movies when someone is hiding, and a phone call comes through letting the bad guys know where you are.
Half an hour later I decide to head upstairs. I’m on my way to our bedroom when I notice his office door is ajar.
I’ve never been in his office before. I never thought to go inside. Cillian has never said I couldn’t go in there, but I figured it would be off limits.
I’m guessing that the door was left open because Trish, our maid was here earlier before I got back.
I walk up to the door to close it and the leathery scent of furniture polish hits me along with an idea.
Why don’t I go in?
This room may hold some of the secret parts of Cillian that I don’t know. I doubt there will be anything wildly obvious lying around for me to see if the door is open, but it could be a start.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for.
What if it’s something to do with Seamus? He was never too approving of me. Suppose he got Cillian to agree to just being with me for six months?
The thought angers me, and I go in.
The automatic lights come on and I look around me. Everything is in place and there isn’t anything suspicious.
Dad used to say that sometimes when things look extra clean that is suspicious enough. It’s a way of hiding things in plain sight.
But how do I know what’s being hidden?
I walk around the desk and pull out the drawers. They all hold stationery and uninteresting things like extra paper for the printer.
On my left is a shelf of books and on my right a sofa area where I imagine Cillian meeting with clients he can’t be seen with in the outside world.
My imagination is running wild here. But this is what happens when you don’t know anything. You end up making your own assumptions and drawing your own conclusions from the air.
I move to the bookshelf when I notice one very old book placed the wrong way. In this entire office that’s the only thing that looks out of place.
I place my hand on the spine to pick it up but to my surprise, when I do, the whole wall with the shelf slides open. It’s like I’ve been placed in a spy movie.
A small room greets me that looks more like a stationery closet, but there is a row of guns on one wall and old boxes line the other side of the room.
I can tell the maid doesn’t come in here but I’m sure she must know about this place.
I walk into the room, hoping that door doesn’t close on me and trap me inside.
I don’t know which would be worse, the being trapped part or Cillian finding me locked in here.
This is obviously somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I feel like I’m intruding. Because I am. Yet I keep going. Curiosity takes me to the first box on my right labeled stuff from the past.
Would I find what I’m looking for in there?
Maybe this is a case of ‘if you see it, you’ll know it’.
I open the box and the first thing I find is a photo album. It looks old and when I open it, the pictures inside are indeed very old. The first couple of pages are Cillian and Olivia with a couple who must be their parents. Cillian looks exactly like his father and Olivia like their mother. They’re like clones of their parents.
I find some goofy pictures of Cillian with Dante and Virgo. It’s weird seeing them like this. Young and free and with fewer tattoos. In some of the pictures Virgo and Dante are so young they don’t have any at all.
I find myself smiling. It’s nice seeing a different side to Cillian’s life. A part of him he hasn’t shared. Other than telling me his parents died, he doesn’t talk about them at all. If I hadn’t met Olivia and Seamus I would think he had no family.
I reach the end of the album which has a nice picture of Cillian and his mom standing together at his high school graduation.
The remaining things in the box look like old documents from school and college, so I decide to put the album away. But just as I set it down another picture falls out from inside the plastic covering.
This one is of Cillian and his ex. The dead twin of the woman I saw months ago in his office.
In the picture Cillian has his arm around her and she’s smiling while she leans into him. You can tell they're a couple. It’s the way they look. And the way Cillian is looking at her.
His ex is pretty.
She’s identical to the girl I saw months ago but this girl doesn’t look like she has an evil bone in her body. Not like her sister. It might not be fair to say that since I didn’t speak to her. I also don’t know her, but she didn’t know me either yet she looked at me like I was filth.
I try to peek under the plastic cover to check if there are any more pictures but I don’t find any.
“There aren’t any more. That’s the only one,” Cillian says, cutting into the silence.
I jump at the sound of his voice and gaze at him, bewildered and embarrassed that he caught me.
Oh no.
Damn it. I shouldn’t have come in here.
The expression on his face starts off unreadable, but it morphs into a hardness I’ve never seen before when he walks in and comes up to me.
“I’m so sorry.” I slip the picture back into the plastic sleeve and set the album back in the box properly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I gave the rest of the pictures to her family. People always say you should keep one,” he explains, not acknowledging my apology.
“It’s for memories.”
“Yeah. I suppose so. Whether good or bad.” He stares at me for a long moment and I think he’s going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He looks away from the box like he’s dismissing it. “I need a shower, then we should get some sleep.”
“Sure. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just had a long day. Come on.”
He slips his arm around me and guides me to leave, but I feel like he’s ushering me away from the box.
I realize then that I did find what I was looking for.
The picture told me everything, and he did the rest with what he didn’t say.
It’s not Seamus or even the whole marriage arrangement itself. It’s him.
Cillian can’t be with me because I’m not the one.
He already met the one for him, and she’s not here anymore.
That’s why I’ll just be the temporary wife.
And I think I just spoiled it by crossing a line I shouldn’t have crossed.
People say ignorance is bliss. They’re right. I was better off not knowing the truth.