Chapter 32
Cillian
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jessica strikes again. This time, she hit way below the belt, then rounded off her attack with an arrow to the heart.
When Seamus reported back that he’d spoken to the Gallaghers and removed them from the roll of investors, I expected backlash from them and Jessica.
The Gallaghers came to their senses and tried to reason with Seamus because they didn’t think I’d react the way I did. Jessica, on the other hand, is a different breed of balls and wretchedness. She saw Chloe and me sitting here and decided to serve up the best recipe to fuck with me.
When I look back at my wife and see the troubled look on her face, I know the message Jessica delivered was definitely received.
She stirred the shit in all the right ways so it would hit the fan and cover me.
Chloe is watching Jessica make her exit. Feeling my eyes on her, she switches her gaze slowly to me, and the pain in her eyes hits hard. I hate that it is there because of me.
I feel worse when she reaches for her little purse and slips it over her shoulder.
“I think… I’m going to stay at my mom’s place for a while.” She stares at the table as she speaks then lifts her eyes to meet mine.
“What? Chloe, why would you do that?”
She pulls in a little breath and looks like she’s trying to keep herself composed. “Let’s not get into that. Especially here.”
She glances at the people at the nearby table who are looking our way. I didn’t even notice we had an audience. And I don’t care.
“Chloe. We need to talk.”
“No.” She gets up and walks past me, following the trail Jessica left.
I follow her and wait until we reach the foyer before I grab her arm and pull her back to me. The only people out here are the concierge at the door and my guards Liam and Ben, but they’re out of earshot.
“Cillian, let me go.” She tries to wrench her arm free of my grasp, but I tighten my grip. “I don’t want to talk here. Or at all.”
“Just come home with me.”
“No. I want to go to my mom’s. I’ll take a taxi.”
“Like fuck. I’m not allowing you to take a taxi. Come home with me.”
“I don’t want to.” Her tone rises, her eyes blaze, and her face hardens. It’s the first time I’ve ever truly seen her angry.
“Jessica said some hurtful things.”
“But she was right. Everything she said was right. She doesn’t need to know about our arrangement to be right. She figured it out, and the stupid thing about it is I shouldn’t even be angry or disappointed. I knew what I was getting into.”
That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t feel either of those two emotions. Both are valid and completely understandable.
“Chloe, I don’t want you to be upset.”
“But I am, and that’s why I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t force you to feel something you don’t feel.”
“You know I love you.” I can’t begin to describe how hard it is for me to say those words. I said them the other day because they were screaming in my soul to come out.
“Stop. Don’t say that to me. You love me, but you’ll still let me go.”
“Chloe, it’s better for you if you’re not with me. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. Look what’s going on now. We can hardly go anywhere without guards accompanying us. I don’t want you to live like that.”
Her breath catches and she looks more upset than she did moments ago. “You always knew who you were going to be. That you’d take over from your father. You told me you always knew. Yet you planned for forever with your ex. You would have always known what kind of life you’d lead, but you weren’t going to cut her loose.”
Her words slice through me. “Things changed.”
“When she died. They changed when she died because it was her you wanted to spend forever with. Not me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. And that’s okay. It’s fine. I would never want you to have to compare who you loved more, or whatever people do when they start over. But I don’t want to be around at the end of our arrangement to say goodbye to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t need to live with you. I don’t even need to be with you. I agreed to marry you, and I did. You don’t need me for anything else.”
“Chloe—”
“No, Cillian. Don’t. Just don’t. I don’t want to hear any more. Unless you can tell me you want forever with me, let me go.”
The words are on the tip of my tongue to speak. They’re right there, but as I stare at her, I imagine her dead and covered in blood with a message left on her body for me from some fucker like Lance.
It could still happen. It’s not like I have a handle on the situation with Lance, but I thought because she’s with me most of the time and heavily guarded, I could keep her safe. But now she wants to leave me.
She wants to go, and I can’t even lie to her to make her stay with me. She doesn’t deserve lies. The woman before me deserves to live her life in happiness. Especially after what her ex put her through.
“You deserve better. You deserve to be with someone safer than me.”
With tears in her eyes, she turns and walks away. This time, I don’t follow, but I motion to Liam to go with her.
She might fight with him and still try to take a taxi, but he’ll make sure she gets back safely in his car, or he’ll have me to deal with.
I watch them both go through the door, and even after they’re gone, I stay where I am.
Like the defeated conqueror, I think of what I lost. Chloe was everything to me.
People say that if you love someone, you have to know when to let them go, but they never tell you all the fucked up parts of such a choice.
The part where you feel like hell after.
The part where you feel like the world just ended.
The part where you feel like you know there will never be anyone else for you like the person you lost.
If this was the right thing to do, why does it feel so fucking wrong?
I didn’t go to sleep last night. When I Ieft the restaurant, I picked up where I left off with my investigation on Lance. Then I did every- and anything to keep myself from thinking about Chloe.
I figured that if I can get down to the bottom of the situation faster, it will put her and her family out of danger quicker.
I worked through the night going over everything I had with a fine-toothed comb.
I’ve had the feeling that I’ve been missing something since I recognized Lance’s voice on the surveillance recording.
By morning, all I had was just more knowledge of what I already had. Nothing new, just a few more ideas that were worth checking out.
Everyone we know in the Creed and our allies has been under investigation, but I sent my men to check out some other people I’d done business with in the last few months. People who might have known Harlan.
After that, I drove to Chloe’s studio, but I entered the building opposite hers like I did months before and waited for her to arrive.
She dances with emotion, so it figures that she’d be here today even though I deeply upset her. I’m not surprised when her car pulls up at eight a.m. and she walks into the studio.
I’m like the opera’s phantom, watching her in anticipation of her show. She’s wearing full black today, as if she’s in mourning. The only color on her is her little pink ballet shoes and the satin ribbons wrapped around her ankles.
Minutes later, my lass is dancing. Dancing like I’ve never seen her dance before.
Her heart is in every movement, and she’s possibly overexerting herself to hone her previous skills. The skills she talks about when she used to tell me how good she was.
I get to see what better looks like for her, and even then, I know this isn’t her entire energy. She’s just doing what her body wants her to do. I imagine that the music she’s playing is Bach. Something like his Allemande piece with all the emotion and angst pouring through each note.
Chloe gives it her all, but there are points where she takes breaks and holds her leg. It’s clear she’s in pain, but still, she keeps going.
I want to march over there and tell her to stop. Or better yet, go over there and make everything better, but for the first time in my life, I’m conflicted as fuck.
I don’t know right from wrong, and everything I do feels like the wrong choice. Even loving her. Loving her feels selfish. So is being here.
But I can’t stop myself from doing either.
She dances for hours, finishing at midday. Then she heads to the restaurant.
When I can’t see her, I get my men to check in with me to let me know how she is. At least I can rely on them. If I didn’t, I’d go insane.
My last stop for the day is her mother’s house. I park up in the spot I used before when I used to watch her.
Chloe reaches home at eight and goes to the living room to speak to her mother. She stays with her for a little while before she goes upstairs.
She heads to the bathroom and returns minutes later dressed for bed.
I watch her sit on the bed and take her phone from her purse. I’ve sent her no end of messages and called, but she hasn’t responded. When she sets her phone to the side, I know I’m not going to hear from her tonight again.
I wonder if I ever will. I can’t blame her for protecting her heart. It’s the right thing to do. Once again, it’s not her who has the problem. It’s me.
She turns out the light and I can’t see her anymore.
My overprotective side makes me stay there for another half an hour until I watch Liam arrive to relieve Gavin of his duty.
Of all my men, I trust Liam the most because I grew up with him, and his family has always guarded mine. If anything were to happen, he’d act exactly the way I would and do the things I would do to protect Chloe and her mom.
With that reasoning, I head home to my empty house. Except when I reach it, I realize I’m not alone when Seamus walks out of the kitchen holding a bottle of our favorite red wine and two long-stemmed glasses.
He gives me a warm, understanding smile. “Thought you could do with some of this.”
“You’re not wrong.” I walk in and sulk down on the sofa, my eyes meeting a fashion magazine Chloe was reading days before.
The house feels so different without her. As if even the very walls grieve her absence. She was my angel. She brought life, light, and love into my darkness. Now she’s gone.
Seamus joins me and follows my gaze.
“What happened?” He returns his focus to me with concern in his pale eyes. “The men tell me that Chloe is staying with her mam. I hope her mother is doing okay.”
“She is. That’s not why she’s there.”
“So, it’s the other thing, then.”
I look at him. “Yeah.” I don’t need to ask him to clarify what he means. We both know what that thing is.
He opens the wine, pours me a glass, and hands it to me. “Did you guys argue?”
I take a huge gulp of the wine and another before I answer. “Yes, the other night at the restaurant. We ran into Jessica, who thought she’d do me the honors of telling my wife I used to plan for the future and talk about kids with Erika. The fucked-up thing is I can’t even be too mad with Jessica, because this is all my fault.”
“What exactly is your fault?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved with Chloe.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No. And I’d do it again.”
A small smile tips his lips. “Then it was never the wrong thing to do.”
“Uncle. You wanted me to pick one of the girls we interviewed, or even Jessica.”
“But you didn’t because you didn’t love them. I was upset for a while, until you brought Chloe to dinner that Sunday and introduced her to us. That’s when I figured you out. I realized you didn’t just get some girl off the street to help you with your plans. You truly loved her.”
“Yes. I still do.”
“At first glance, you look like a man who hasn’t been in a serious relationship since the death of his ex because he can’t move on.”
“It’s not that.”
“Oh, I know. That guy isn’t you. That guy is me. But I don’t think of my girl as my ex. She’s still my wife. You don’t love someone for over forty-five years and become exes.” He gives me a sad smile. “What you are is the guy who’s shit scared of losing more people he loves to things he can’t control. Like death”
Typical Seamus to figure me out. He sees all, and nothing gets by him. “Can you blame me?”
“Not a damn bit. When you lost Erika, it crushed you. But your parents deaths broke you. While Olivia was missing and you didn’t know what happened, I saw the way you held on to hope that they were all still alive. But the moment it was confirmed that your parents weren’t, you changed. Part of you died, too.”
I nod slowly. “I’m glad you understand me.”
“I do, but I’m still going to tell you that you can’t allow that type of fear to rule you.”
I drink the rest of the wine and set the glass down. “Uncle, I’m the head of our clan in the Irish mafia. You can’t tell me that danger won’t follow me. I’m a dangerous man, and even if I don’t hurt her, my enemies will. You can’t tell me she’s always going to be safe.”
“No, I can’t tell you that, me lad. Neither can I tell you that we don’t live dangerous lives. But danger can come in any shape or form. Any of us could walk outside tomorrow, and it would be our last for whatever reason. It could be by a bullet or a bus. Wouldn’t you rather love her while life has given you the chance to be with her?”
“I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”
“Yes. It actually is that simple. It’s even simpler for you because being with Chloe was never about gaining your position. You just wanted an excuse to be with her. If you’d gotten married to anyone else, you couldn’t have been with her.”
“Seamus…”
“Please just listen to me. I was thankful every day for your aunt Georgie. There were several times in our marriage when we nearly lost each other, but I would never trade the time I had with her for anything. I was with her because I couldn’t let her go. Even now, I can’t let her go from my heart. So, ask yourself this… can you truly let Chloe go? Even after the time is up and the dust has settled, will you be able to turn your back and walk away?”
I stare at him, feeling like I just got blasted with a dose of the truth.
That question is a no-brainer for a guy who continued to stalk the girl he knew he shouldn’t be with and found a way to marry her.
I can’t walk away.
I dip my head for a moment, and when I look back at Seamus, I sigh. “I can’t do it. I can’t walk away from her.”
“Then there’s your answer, lad. So, don’t make the mistake of letting go of love. Love is a gift men like us receive. Never turn your back on it. Love your wife and protect her like you always have. Allow life to do the rest. I want you to look back in forty-five years' time and think of the good life you had with your Chloe.”
He smiles at me with enthusiasm, and I return it.
“Thank you.”
“I’m your advisor. This is what I’m here for.” He stands and rests a hand on my shoulder.
I’m going to get Chloe back. And I don’t just want forever with her.
I want everything. I want eternity and whatever I can get my hands on for as long as time lasts.