Chapter 42
CHLOE
I don’t know how much time has passed since the door closed behind Kade. The soft click as the lock fell into place was like a guillotine to my heart. He might as well have slammed the door.
With his words ringing in my ears, I fall to the floor, my legs giving out on me as tears stream down my cheeks. I’ve been in the same position, curled up with my legs against my chest as I’ve sobbed until my voice is hoarse.
It feels almost cruel that I found out that he loved me at the same time as he walked away. What’s worse is I have no idea how to fix it or if I even can. He looked so hurt and devastated. And I hate that he believes that posting that picture was something I did on purpose.
When my tears have dried up enough for me to see, I force myself to stand, walking into the room I’ve been using as a makeshift office. My laptop sits open on the small table in front of the window, my phone with its black screen next to it. I was editing pictures before he arrived.
I stare at the scene. It’s like the aftermath of a catastrophe. Everything is exactly how I left it, but nothing inside me will ever be the same.
A tear falls from the corner of my eye, and I swipe at it angrily.
I know he wouldn’t lie to me, and yet I still need to see it on my page with my own eyes, to see if he was telling the truth.
Crossing the room, I pick up my phone and open the app.
For a second, I hope he’s wrong. That the picture isn’t there and that none of what just happened is real.
Finding my profile, I scroll through the photos on the only post I’ve made since I arrived in Coldwater just over two weeks ago.
Sure enough, there he is in all his raw beauty.
It’s the picture from the first night he took me to watch him at the rodeo. I’d been looking at it before I uploaded the other shots. I don’t know how it got included. It was an honest mistake.
A sob is ripped from my lips, hovering in the air as it mocks me. I can’t stay here. Not when everything about this town reminds me of him. Not when there’s even a remote possibility that I’ll see him.
But where will I go?
I’ve given up my place in Seattle. I moved my life here and I’m expected to start a new job next week. Hell, my landlord is his cousin. I’m a fucking fool, and I need to figure out a plan.
With tears streaming down my face, blurring my vision, I move through the apartment and into my bedroom. I cross the room to the closet, yanking out my suitcase and setting it on the bed before I haphazardly throw clothes inside.
There’s only one person I can call right now. Only one person I want. I dial Rachel’s number. She doesn’t answer the first time, and when I get her voicemail, I hang up and call again.
“Hello.” Her voice is groggy with sleep when she picks it up.
“Rach,” I sob, my voice cracking as relief washes through me.
“One second.” The sound of rustling sheets fills the quiet, and I sit on the edge of my bed, swiping at my wet cheeks. “What’s happened? Is it Mom and Dad?”
I try and fail to put my chaotic thoughts into order. “I’m sorry. I know it must be late there for you. Or early. I don’t know.”
She’s still on her honeymoon and fourteen hours ahead of me. “Chloe, it doesn’t matter. What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth, searching for the right words. When they don’t come, I decide to start at the beginning. At this point, I don’t care if she tells my parents, I don’t plan on ever seeing them again anyway. “The guy I came to your wedding with wasn’t really my boyfriend.”
“And you’ve called me at four in the morning to tell me this? Why?” She smothers a yawn.
Wiping under my chin with the back of my hand, I blow out a shuddered breath. “Kade told me a secret. One that he’s kept from his family for a year. And I accidentally posted a picture, and they saw it.”
“Okay.” Rachel drags the word out like she’s not quite understanding where I’m going, and really I can’t blame her.
I’m all over the place, and a lot has happened in a really short time.
“I’m assuming this isn’t a sexual thing.
And I get that he’d be mad, but why are you so upset?
If he wasn’t your boyfriend, then just move on.
It’s not like you have to see him again. ”
“Rach,” I whisper. “I fell in love with him and I got offered the job at Hartlands’, so I moved to Coldwater.”
Rachel lets out a strangled laugh of surprise. “I’m sorry, what?”
Fiddling with the ball of material that I think is a skirt, I move up the bed and lean against the headrest. I’m tired of the secrets. Just look at all the damage they’ve caused for both me and Kade.
“I lost my job two weeks before your wedding. Glow laid me off, and I didn’t want to deal with Mom and Dad’s judgment, so I kept it to myself. Although I did tell them eventually, in anger, at the dinner they forced me to have with them.”
“That’s fair, but I’m struggling to see how all of this is connected, Chloe.”
Swallowing, I continue, “My boyfriend, Paul, who was supposed to be my plus-one, broke up with me, and on my first day in Coldwater, I asked Kade to be my date. He agreed, and when Mom and Dad assumed he was my boyfriend, neither of us corrected them. We just went along with it.”
I hiccup, closing my eyes as Rachel listens.
“I spent ten glorious days with him, getting to know him and this town. I started to fall in love, and when it was time to leave, I didn’t want to.
When Maddie offered me the job, I couldn’t say no and it felt like the stars were aligning.
So I went back to Seattle, packed up my things and moved into an apartment his cousin owns. But then it all went wrong.”
“I’m going to skip over the fact that you’ve lost your job, moved to a small town and fallen in love in a matter of weeks and ask you how it all went wrong?”
“I accidentally posted the picture of him riding at the rodeo, and he was so furious. His family doesn’t know that he rides and I told him I’d keep his secret because, well, who am I to judge?
” I lift a defeated shoulder and suck in a shaky breath.
“Rach, his uncle died riding in the rodeo, so this isn’t just a ‘oh this is a thing I like to do that if people found out it will be okay’ kind of thing.
This is a ‘I could be disowned’ kind of thing.
He thought I posted the picture on purpose because I’ve been telling him to come clean, but I would never do anything like that, Rach.
Like, yes, I think he should tell them, but I’d never force his hand, not when I’d hate it if someone did that to me. ”
“Oh, Chloe, I’m so sorry.” Sympathy fills her voice, and I sob gently, covering my mouth with my hand.
“He’s gone, Rach. He said he’s never going to talk to me again.
I haven’t got anywhere else I can go and I can’t stay here.
I’ve been so stupidly in love that I didn’t think to make contingencies in case it didn’t work out.
I uprooted my life, thinking everything was falling into place with the job and that I’d found the man I might marry.
How could I have been so reckless?” There’s a hopelessness in my tone; one I don’t know how to get rid of.
“You were brave. You took a risk, and nobody can take that from you. Given everything we went through as kids, with the pressure from Mom and Dad, you still did it. I’m proud of you for doing something for yourself, Chlo.
” I cover my mouth with my hand, my sob muffled as the line falls quiet.
“You can stay at our place until you figure out what to do. Book a flight, and I’ll text you the key code. ”
My voice sounds small when I ask, “Are you sure?”
Rachel doesn’t hesitate when she replies, “Yes. I’ve always got your back. If you’re sure that you won’t be able to work this out with him and you can delay your start date until you figure this out, then my home is there for you.”
I want to work this out, despite the hurtful things he said, but I don’t think Kade does.
Like he said, I broke his trust and blew up his life with one stupid mistake.
Maybe the space will be for the best, and if, in a few weeks, when things have calmed down, he is open to listening to me and accepting my apology, then we can go from there.
But for now, I simply reply, “I’m sure.”