Chapter Eight
Chloe
I didn’t mean for the outburst to happen—didn’t mean to bare everything in front of half the population of a small coastal town. The story will no doubt make its way across Maine before sundown. But in the moment, I can’t find it in myself to care.
For weeks, I’ve held this in. The time at Elliott’s house was the happiest I’ve been in years, and even the pleasure of it was halved by the lie sitting underneath.
Now that everything’s out, I feel a weight leave my shoulders.
I could’ve chosen a better audience, but isn’t Mom always saying witnesses are the best thing to have on your side in court?
Well, I have thirty of them, and she can’t twist the truth.
Not with this many people present to hear the truth from my own mouth.
I watch the shock move through my mother’s eyes, a flick of hurt before her expression goes stony. “We’re not having this discussion here,” she says, grabbing her purse and nodding toward the door. “Let’s go!”
I shake my head.
I’m not leaving with them. I’m not going back to being threatened and maneuvered into a life I didn’t choose. Before Elliott, I was certain that I was the problem. It had to be. Everyone seemed to like Royce, and he had my parents’ affection more than I could ever claim.
But I did meet Elliott. And I spent days with him, and not for one second of those endless hours did I want to hide. Heck, I missed the man when he left for a few hours, longed for the moment I would hear his truck outside.
“I’m not leaving with you,” I say, standing my ground even as my heart hammers against my ribs. I don’t know what I’ll do or where I’ll go when they disown me, but I’ll figure something out. I hope.
“Chloe Arnold!”
“Mom.” I hold her gaze. “I mean it.”
The silence that follows is the kind that precedes a storm. Then Royce pushes back from his chair. “If you think I’m going to stand here while you humiliate me in front of—”
“Then sit down,” I say, and I’m surprised by how calm it comes out. “This isn’t about you.”
His eyes go cold. “You want to walk away from everything I’m offering you? Fine. But hear me clearly—I have connections in the art world, big ones. You leave with him, I’ll make sure you never sell a piece in this city or anywhere else. I’ll see to it personally.”
Someone in the room draws a sharp breath. A murmur ripples outward.
I feel Elliott go still beside me.
Royce steps forward and reaches for my arm—and that’s when Elliott moves. He catches Royce’s wrist before it connects, stopping him cold. The grip looks effortless. “Don’t,” is all he says.
Royce goes red. He yanks back, knocking into the table behind him, sending silverware skittering across the floor. He recovers badly, pointing a finger at Elliott. “Officers, you saw that. He just threatened me. I want him arrested—”
“I saw a man stop you from grabbing a woman who’d already told you no.
” A calm voice cuts through the noise. The police chief—the same one from yesterday—sets down his coffee cup and rises from his table near the window.
He’d been there the whole time. “And I heard the threat you just made. Would you like to repeat it, son?”
Royce’s mouth opens and closes.
“That’s what I thought.” The chief looks around the room, then back to our little cluster. “Miss Arnold, you’re an adult and free to go where you please. I’d suggest everyone here take a breath and remember where they are.”
Mom looks like she’s swallowed something sour. Dad has gone quiet, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read—not anger, exactly. Something more like the beginning of understanding.
I don’t wait for another opening. “I’m sorry,” I say to them, and I mean it, even now. “I’ll call you.”
Then I turn and walk out. I glance back one more time to find my parents staring after us, their expressions blank. Then I look away, following the man I love out the door.
***
We don’t talk on the drive to his house. The silence is taut, and I’m afraid to be the one to break it. I keep my hands in my lap and watch the road unspool ahead of us, the familiar coastline coming back into view.
The last twenty-four hours have been the worst of my life.
Nothing could have prepared me for what it felt like to have the best thing that ever happened to me yanked away.
I couldn’t sleep, could barely eat, and the questions from my parents didn’t help matters.
Their conversations over the last day were a variation of ruining Elliott’s reputation and business and planning for the wedding, almost as if no time had passed at all.
“I’m flying a designer in from France to work on your wedding dress.”
“That man is as good as gone. I’ll see to it that he lives to regret ever meeting you.”
“What do you think of this jeweler I hired to create the necklace for your wedding?”
“I hope you and Royce have children before he makes partner.”
I glance at Elliott’s profile as he takes the curve toward his house. Not once did my parents think to thank the man who fished me out of the ocean. Instead, they laid blame after blame on him even when I told them he’d done nothing wrong.
I am the one who fell into the ocean. I lied about my memories then proceeded to keep him in the dark. All this is my fault and yet, he remains the guilty party in their eyes.
His jaw is set, hands easy on the wheel. I can’t tell what he’s thinking and it’s making me anxious.
Does he hate me for it?
The question sits on my tongue, but I swallow it, afraid of the answer. Instead, I focus on the house I never thought I’d see again as it comes into view. Elliott parks in front of it but doesn’t move. Neither do I. We sit in silence for a long moment until it becomes unbearable.
“Did you look at it?” I blurt out, turning to face him.
“Look at what?”
“The painting I’ve been working on all week. It’s in the spare bedroom, covered in a tarp,” I say, my heart in my throat. “Did you look at it?”
“No.”
“Then, can I show it to you?” Am I allowed back in his house, is the real question, and I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until he nods.
I follow when he opens the door and then to the front door.
It’s not locked—as usual. It makes me smile when I realize that it hasn’t changed in the hours we’ve been apart.
I follow him inside, through the familiar hallway that smells like wood and salt and him, and into the spare room. It feels like coming home. Something in my chest unknots at the sight of the canvas on its standby the window, the sheet rippling softly in the breeze.
“Show me.”
I walk to the canvas and pull off the sheet.
He’s not the easiest man to read, but I note a flash of something—surprise, maybe more— as he takes it all in.
The painting is dark water at the center, and just visible beneath the surface, a girl.
Not drowned—nearly. The water closing over her, the light bending away.
And above the waterline, a boat, and a man on deck with his arms reaching down.
“I remember how afraid I was in the water,” I say quietly, tracing my finger along the edge of the canvas. “I thought I was going to die out there.” My fingers move to the figure in the boat. “And then you were there.”
Elliott remains still.
“I have been drowning for a long time, Elliott.”
“Christ, don’t,” he growls, rushing forward when my eyes fill up. “Don’t cry. I can’t fucking stand it when you cry.”
His arms come around me, and I find myself pulled flush against a solid chest. My hands circle his body, and I burrow into his arm, letting the tears I’ve held back for the past twenty-four hours fall. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“I understand why you did,” His voice is rough. “I don’t like it, but I understand it.” He presses his lips to my temple. I sigh when his arms tighten around me, and something I didn’t realize I was still bracing against finally releases.
After a moment, he says, “Your painting is magnificent, kitten. You don’t need that man or his connections. Though I’ll confess I’m tempted to buy every canvas and keep you entirely to myself.”
It feels good to laugh. The tension seems to have left him as well when he pulls back to look at me, his face full of tenderness as his thumbs brush the tears from my cheeks. “I love you, Chloe.”
My heart lurches. “You do?”
“Wasn’t it obvious when I stormed into that restaurant?” He leans down to brush his lips over my forehead, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth. “Your mother was right, you know. I was supposed to be taking care of you.”
“I seduced you!”
He pulls back to look at me, something warm moving through his eyes. “You tried,” he says, and there’s no doubt in it, no confusion, just the steady certainty of a man who knew exactly what was happening and made his choice anyway.
“I love you so much, Elliott. I loved you from the moment you pulled me out of the ocean.”
“Fuck baby,” he growls, pushing in to deepen the kiss.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, clawing at them as heat floods my belly.
Lust kindles between us, lips locked together in a fever need as hands move to strip each other of our clothes.
I rip at his overalls as his hand yanks my blouse off, sending buttons flying.
I gasp into the kiss when he presses me against the wall, his hands reaching under my skirt to yank down my panties.
“In me. Want you in me. Now,” I whine, shoving his overalls down and reaching between us to free his erection.
His mouth moves fervently over mine as he hooks my thigh over his, but I’m already moving, lining his cock up with my entrance.
“Fuck baby, I need you.”
“Me too. Now,” I pant, desperate. Aching. I thought I’d lost him, and I need to be reminded that I didn’t lose him. That this isn’t just in my head. “Please.”
“Fuck!” he curses softly, gliding his hard cock along my slit.
I whine, lifting my hands to claw at his shoulders, pleading for him to take me.
I cry out when he thrusts into me, filling me completely.
My head tilts back and thumps against the wall as pleasure floods through me.
I come, my walls clenching hard around him.
My body shudders in a pulsing throb as he starts to slowly thrust in and out of me.
“That was so fucking hot.”
“Yeah,” I pant, holding on to him as he begins to drive faster and harder into me, pressing me against the wall. Heat ignites again in me, burning twice as hard, leaving behind a trail of pleasure. “Elliott, harder.”
His hand digs into my thigh as his thrusts speed up, those dark eyes locked on mine as he takes me in the room where it all began.
Our eyes stay locked on each other, and I see it in his eyes when he’s at the edge.
But he holds back, and only when I orgasm again does he allow himself to fall.
I sob his name, burying my face in his neck as tremors roll through my body, brutal and violent.
“I love you, baby,” he grunts as he comes. We fall apart together, body and heart joined. Here, where we can always be just us without worrying about the rest of the world. I glance over his shoulder at the painting and see his arms stretched out to grab me. Always ready to save me.
I don’t have to be afraid of anything, not as long as the man on the boat loves me.