Chapter 11
A startled sound of surprise left me as I staggered back a couple steps before regaining my balance. “I’m so sorry,” fell from my lips before my mouth popped open and eyes widened when I looked up and found myself trapped in narrowed, copper eyes. “ Oh .”
“Oh,” Adam echoed as he started toward me, reaching one of his tattooed hands out and pressing it to my stomach to lead me backward.
My next breath rushed from my lungs at the unexpected touch. “What are you doing?”
“We’re gonna talk,” he informed me as he continued leading me down the hall.
“Talk?”
“That’s right, Bubbles.”
I was so dizzy from the fact that this man was willingly standing so close to me and touching me, that it took me a few seconds to remember the way he’d been so obviously flirting with Wren not long before. The way he’d been looking at her—wildly differently than he was looking at me now.
And he wanted to talk .
The last and only time Adam Thatcher wanted to talk to me, he’d questioned me about Owen...who’d just messaged me.
“About what?” I asked as he led me into a room, stopping only to shut the door behind us.
Funny how I hardly knew this man, how he looked at me and spoke to me like he hated me, and yet I still wasn’t afraid to be in a room alone with him. If I wasn’t terrified about what his next answer would be, some part of me would be thrilled by this.
Between Adam and Owen, I was becoming a little concerned over my taste in men.
“I saw you,” he began as he let his hand fall away from me and backed up until he was standing in the middle of the room, far from the door. As if he was silently letting me know he wouldn’t stop me from leaving, even though he wanted this conversation to happen. “I saw your reaction when you saw whatever was on your phone—the way you completely changed, and all your fake joy died out in an instant.”
“Fake?” I said, laughing over the choked-out word, even though he was so right. “What do you—is that what bothers you so much about me? That I’m happy ?”
“What was on your phone, Bubbles?” he asked instead of responding to me, understanding weaving into the words when he continued. “Because the look on your face was dangerously close to the look on your face when I asked about Owen Vance yesterday.”
I wanted to ask why he’d been watching me at all, even though my gaze had continuously pulled to him throughout the time we’d been Asher’s. But at that exact moment, my phone vibrated in my pocket, stopping anything I might’ve said and stilling me for a second too long.
And from the way Adam’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed, he noticed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I finally managed to say, the words not nearly confident enough. Clearing my throat, I forced all thoughts of my phone from my mind and added, “And I have no idea what you think you saw, but maybe my ‘joy died out,’ as you say, because I was concentrating on something other than the people around me.”
He studied me for a long while before mumbling, “You really are good at lying.”
My head snapped back at the accusation.
It was the second time Adam had called me out for something no one else had ever caught onto. Then again, no one else had ever thought my joy , as he referred to it, was anything less than genuine. And those lies and that joy had always been a way to keep the focus on others and off me.
But it was drawing Adam’s focus to me, and not for any of the reasons I might want.
“Adam—”
“You saw what the claims were against Owen Vance,” he said over me, his voice low and pleading. “You heard me say we have nothing to go on. If you know anything about him, I need you to tell me.”
My chest rose and dipped with my too-fast breaths as I watched him. “What makes you so sure whatever was on my phone had to do with Owen Vance?”
“Told you I saw you,” he said knowingly. “The only difference in your expression between yesterday and today was the lack of tears. Everything else was identical.”
Embarrassment flared, making my cheeks heat, but I just shook my head as I thought of denials and excuses to get out of this.
“Chloe, please ,” he nearly begged as he took a step toward me, one of his hands outstretched before he lifted it to agitatedly scuff it over his face.
I simply stood there, trying to get my pulse to settle into a normal rhythm after he’d said my name. It was only the second time he’d said it instead of calling me new girl or Bubbles , and just like yesterday, my heart had painfully skipped as wings had taken flight in my stomach.
Such an irrational reaction, I knew.
Once I got home, I was going on a high fantasy binge—anything to get me far away from romance and ridiculous thoughts of a man who couldn’t stand me.
“I heard what you said yesterday,” he went on. “You think what you know will only make you look like a bad person, but we need something , and you had an extremely telling reaction to Vance.” When my mouth parted to argue, he added, “What if what you know is the only way we can stop this guy from assaulting and harassing women?”
He’d said something similar yesterday, and it hadn’t been enough to break me then because I knew how women responded to Owen Vance. They practically fell at his feet as if he was a god. But Adam’s words had stayed with me all night because what if there were other women—women who didn’t ? Women who tried getting distance, and he wouldn’t let them?
Women like me.
Not that he’d assaulted or harassed me.
Still, I hadn’t been able to get space from him without leaving the career I loved, and he still wasn’t letting me go. His blocked messages, surprise visits, and that fake officer were proof.
Well, maybe not the latter. I had literally no proof that man was connected to Owen. It’d just been the only reason my brain had been willing to accept.
The indecisive silence between us stretched so long that Adam started pleading with me again just as I said, “I’m not sure how I can help you because I don’t think he sexually assaults or harasses women. He doesn’t have to. Women line up just for the chance he’ll look at them. To be chosen by Owen Vance is to win some unspoken lottery.” A bitter-sounding laugh left me as shamed tears burned at my eyes and tightened my throat. “I would know.”
One of Adam’s eyebrows ticked up, the only movement betraying his stony expression. “You’re with Vance?”
I struggled to swallow around the knot in my throat as my head shook. “But I was for over a year, until...” A strangled sob escaped me before I managed to cover my mouth with trembling hands. “I didn’t know, I swear.”
“Know what?” he asked.
I didn’t want to give voice to words that had already been said so many times before...to Owen. But bearing my greatest shame to anyone else, especially the man watching me? I would’ve rather faced my greatest fears. “That he was married,” I finally admitted.
A condescending sound tore from Adam that had me feeling about two inches tall. Worse, it made me feel like I was nothing . “Right,” he muttered as he glanced to the side, head shaking.
“I didn’t .”
“And how exactly did you miss that for over a year, Bubbles?” he shot back as those judgmental eyes snapped to me.
“You don’t know what he’s like,” I cried out, then clenched my hands into tight fists as I struggled to control and calm myself.
“Apparently, he’s good enough to ignore a ring.”
I flinched as if Adam had slapped me. “There wasn’t a ring,” I informed him as that shame burned deeper. “There were no hints that he was married. He was with me nearly every night. I only?—”
“What, in your bed only?” Adam taunted. “Or did he take you to cheap motels too?”
My head snapped back at the blow, but I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure I could with the way it felt like I couldn’t breathe around my humiliation and Adam’s judgment.
With a muted cry, I turned and staggered toward the door as heavy tears fell. But when I managed to open the door, my shoulders only sagged when I saw the man standing on the opposite side.
Legs spread wide and arms folded over his chest. Brow furrowed and looking terrifying in a way Adam’s anger couldn’t touch.
His dark eyes searched my face for only a moment before darting deeper into the room and narrowing on Adam. “Go with Gray, Chloe,” Asher softly seethed, shifting to the side only enough for me to slip through.
When I did, I turned and found Hudson Gray waiting just a few feet away; identical stance as Asher as he stood in the middle of the hallway, blocking my escape. His expression was uncharacteristically blank, even though he offered me a worried smile.
“I’m going home,” I told him, and hated how my voice shook from the tears I couldn’t seem to stop.
Hudson gave a subtle nod. “I’ll take you.”
My head shook wildly as I desperately tried to plaster a smile on my face—I didn’t care that he was currently witnessing my tears. “I drove; I’m fine. I’ll see you Monday.”
But he didn’t move, and when I tried stepping around him, he gently touched my wrist and waited until I was looking at him. “I need any and all information you have on Owen Vance.” When a desperate, strangled noise sounded in my throat, he added, “I’ll let you say what Thatch wouldn’t and won’t hold a word of it against you.”
A scoff that was equal parts bitterness and embarrassment bled from me because I’d heard similar words from Adam, and they’d clearly meant nothing.
“None of us will—Thatch never should’ve,” Hudson whispered as he leaned closer, trying to catch my eye. “Considering the guy is nowhere near a saint, I dunno why he did.”
I struggled to find my composure, all while Adam’s words and the feel of his judgment replayed over and over again, until it turned into a weight, dragging me down. “I just wanna forget.”
“I get it,” Hudson said in understanding. “But from what we heard, you know more about this guy than we’re able to find from any of our searches, or even sending someone undercover. So, let me take you home. You can tell me everything you know in one conversation, and then we’ll be done with it.”
I wavered for far too long before asking, “ Done , done?”
“Promise, Nerd,” he vowed.
Contemplating Hudson’s offer, I glanced back at the closed door of the room I’d just left. Now that nearly half of Shadow Industries was aware I was connected to Owen, I knew they’d only keep asking until they got what they wanted. And to be honest, if I was going to have to tell someone, I’d rather it be anyone other than the man who tormented nearly every waking thought and already hated me enough as it was.
“Let’s go,” I agreed, then let Hudson lead me out of the house and to my car once we’d grabbed our things.
As soon as we got in, I looked at where I held my phone in my shaking hands, at where Owen’s messages from this week were already on the screen, including the one he’d sent minutes before, repeating that he loved me. Handing my phone to Hudson, I burst into tears and began confessing everything.