Chloé (Confessions #9)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Sometimes the most uptight assholes

teach you the biggest lesson of all.

Thanks, Mrs. Fisk.

~ Chloé

“SO… ARE YOU nervous?”

Chloé’s hand hovered over the hangers in her closet as she glanced back at Shayla, who sat in the middle of her bedroom floor with packing boxes all around her.

Today was moving day. It’d been a little over a month since she’d gotten back from her whirlwind trip to Paris with Ethan and Zayne, and she still couldn’t believe this was happening. The disaster that was her room, however, told her it most definitely was.

There were piles of clothes on her bed, shoeboxes stacked high against the wall, storage bins with sample perfumes and dress jewelry, and books organized into a keep-and-donate box.

It was amazing how much a person could accumulate in nineteen years, and this was only her bedroom. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what a headache moving an entire house would be.

“Nervous? Why would I be nervous?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ’cause you’re moving out of the only home you’ve ever known and into an apartment with your boyfriends . Not to mention, said apartment is above their sex club?”

Chloé flashed a shameless smile in her cousin’s direction. “And that’s supposed to make me nervous?”

“Riiight. I forgot about you and… Le Bureau .”

Chloé’s eyes darted in the direction of her bedroom door, which was completely ridiculous, since they were the only two in the house. But the idea that her fathers might accidentally overhear she’d visited The Office in Paris still gave her heart palpitations.

Shayla laughed. “Relax, would you? No one else is home.”

“As far as you know. Papa said he’d be back soon, and—”

“You don’t want him to know your two doms tied you up and—”

“ Shay! ”

“Okay, okay. But I have to admit, I’m a little jealous. You’re one lucky bitch.”

“I know.”

Shayla balled up the dress she was folding and threw it at her, and Chloé laughed and turned back to pull several blouses off their hangers.

Somewhere over the last few months, she’d not only managed to fall in love with one man, but two, and in a wonderful twist of fate, they’d fallen right back.

Ethan and Zayne were like a force of nature. They’d stormed into her life and swept her off her feet. But as she stood there now folding her clothes, a slight, niggling doubt entered her mind.

Maybe Shayla was right. What would happen after they moved in together?

Her grin fell, and her stomach knotted, as she turned back to her cousin.

“Do you think I should be nervous?”

Shayla looked up from what she was doing. “Where’d that come from?”

Seriously, where had that come from? But as Chloé moved over to the bed to sit, she realized her hands were now balled into the soft material she held.

“Chloé?” Shayla got to her feet and moved over to the mattress beside her. “Hey? I was just kidding…”

Chloé worried her lower lip.

“I know, I just—I…” She turned to look at her cousin. “What if they don’t like living with me? What if they decide it was better when I wasn’t there?”

“What?” Shayla shook her head and scooted in closer, reaching out to cover her hand. “They’re not going to decide that. Those two men are crazy about you. Trust me, I’ve seen the way they look at you.”

“But they’ve only ever lived with each other.”

“Which should tell you how much they want you.” Shayla shrugged.

“Plus, who’s to say you won’t like living with them ?

And not just sleeping in their bed every night.

I mean, really living with them. You’ll not only learn their good habits but also the bad.

You’ll also have to share a bathroom with two men. Yikes.”

Chloé immediately went to refute Shayla’s points but stopped.

She’d been so caught up in her excitement she hadn’t really thought about all of that.

She’d grown up in a house full of men, so this seemed like a pretty easy adjustment.

But Shayla was right—they were all about to undergo an extensive learning period.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Shayla patted her hands, and Chloé glared at her.

“Really? After all of that, you end with ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine’?”

“I’m sure it will be. You’re a lucky bitch. That’s not going to change because you’re mixing your dirty underwear together.”

Chloé’s eyes widened, and Shayla burst out laughing.

“I’m just messing with you.” She flopped back on the bed and gripped her stomach in a fit of hilarity. “You should see your face right now.”

Chloé shoved her in the leg. “Shut up.”

“I mean…” Shayla laughed some more. “You didn’t think it’d be all naked, sexy times, did you?”

Well, yeah, that was what she’d been imagining. Sure, it wasn’t logical or realistic, but—

“Oh, you did? That’s sweet.”

Chloé whirled on her cousin. “Seriously, if you don’t stop talking, I will kill you.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” Shayla sat up and held her palms up in surrender. “I’m sure it will all be fine.”

“Yeah, so you said.” Chloé shoved the blouse in Shayla’s hand and marched back over to the closet. “But suddenly I’m not finding you all that reassuring. Maybe we should just stick to packing.”

“Packing aaaand…” A flirty, upbeat song filled the air, and Shayla cranked it high. “Singing badly .”

Now she was talking.

Chloé began to sway her hips to the beat and sing along with her favorite new song, as she picked out the clothes to keep and the ones not to.

She hoped Ethan and Zayne had enough room in their closet because, well, she had a lot of clothes.

In fact, that was the majority of what she was bringing with her.

But what did they expect? She was a girly girl, and with a dad whose nickname was Princesse , could anyone blame her?

Chloé finished with the closet and moved onto the bureau, and two drawers in… “Oh my God.”

“What?” Shayla lowered the volume of the music as Chloé pulled out her t-shirts and tossed them in a pile on the bed. “Uh, you’re not going through those?”

Chloé smoothed her fingers over the bottom of the drawer and to the corner, where she hooked her finger in, and pop .

The base of the drawer came up. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, okay, you said that part. What is it?” Shayla got to her feet and moved over to where Chloé was pulling the base of the drawer free, and between it and the actual bottom of the frame was a ratty pink journal.

“It’s my diary.” Chloé grabbed it out and lovingly ran her fingers over the lock. “I hid this here years ago.”

“As in how many years?”

“Umm…” Chloé clutched it to her chest, thinking back. “Maybe four or five?”

“Wow.” Shayla plucked it from her hands and turned away from her.

“Hey, give that back.”

“Uh uh…” Shayla moved back to the bed and plopped down on it. “You got the key for this thing?”

“Considering I just remembered where it was, I’m thinking no?”

“Huh.” Shayla brought the book up and inspected the gold locking mechanism, then raised her eyes to Chloé’s. “I need a butter knife.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Chloé rolled her eyes but then headed out of her room with Shayla hot on her heels.

“So what were you writing about four years ago that had you stashing your most private thoughts in a secret hiding space?”

“I can’t even remember. Nothing that exciting, I’m sure.”

“Well, definitely not as exciting as the secrets you’ve been keeping lately, but still.”

Chloé eyed Shayla across the kitchen counter and pulled open the drawer.

“I don’t have any secrets anymore, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, I still can’t believe Ethan blurted out that they own a sex club at the dinner table. I would’ve loved to have been there for that one.”

“Trust me.” Chloé handed over the knife. “Be happy you weren’t.”

Shayla grinned then went to work on the little lock, and a couple seconds later it snapped open.

“Ta-da!”

Chloé frowned. “That wasn’t very secure.”

“It’s for a child, not state secrets. Now, let’s see what you wrote in here.” Shayla flipped open the diary, but before she could start to read, Chloé snatched it out of her hands.

She flicked through the pages, spotting her cursive handwriting and doodles in the column, and when the book stopped on one well-worn entry that had an ugly cross through it, Chloé remembered exactly why she’d hidden her book.

She slammed the diary shut and held it to her chest, and Shayla walked around the counter and reached for her arm.

“Hey. You okay?”

Chloé blinked and looked her cousin in the eye, all of the feelings her fifteen-year-old self had felt writing that journal entry flooding in. Then she plastered on her best smile and tried to deflect. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Shayla gently reached for the diary. “I don’t think so.”

Chloé didn’t bother trying to take it from her this time as she opened the diary to the page Chloé had just been looking at.

Shayla’s eyes moved over the entry that had been written in an angry, frantic scrawl, and as a frown pulled at her brow, Chloé turned away.

God, it had been so long since she’d hidden that book and those feelings away that she’d all but forgotten about it. But to find it here and now? Today of all days…

“Chloé?” Shayla’s voice was soft, and when she touched Chloé’s shoulder, she pulled her back from her thoughts. “You know none of this is true, right?”

She turned to face Shayla, who reached out to push a stray curl behind her ear.

“Whoever this teacher was—”

“Mrs. Fisk.”

“Mrs. Fisk. She was an uptight, horrible human, okay? To say that to a fifteen-year-old? That’s despicable.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Shayla slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in tight. “Do you know anyone who loves each other as much as your fathers love one another?”