Chapter 17 #2
“What?” His voice is deceptively mild. “I was talking about my neck. What were you thinking about, Olivia?”
“You’re—” I can’t even finish the sentence. My face is on fire.
“You’re blushing.” He looks delighted. “Do you want to bite me there?”
“I—You—” Words. Where are the words?
“Should I be worried you’ll bite?” His thumb brushes along my jaw, tipping my face up. “Or do you only bite when you’re trying to be bad?”
“I’m never bad,” I manage.
His laugh is low and knowing. “Really?”
“You’re a terrible influence.”
“And you love it.” He leans in, his lips brushing mine. “Answer the question, Olivia. If I let you put your pretty little mouth there, will you bite?”
My brain is completely offline. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” His mouth curves against mine. “I think if you tried that, you’d get spanked again. And judging by how much you liked it last time...”
I recall exactly how sore my ass feels right now, and I grin. “I’ll risk it.”
Then I kiss him on the nose and duck under his arms before he can catch me, snatching my shirt off the desk. “Come on, Mr. Castellano. We have a Christmas Eve lunch to get to.”
Behind me, I hear him laugh, low and rich. “You’re going to pay for that later.”
“Promises, promises.”
* * *
The sleek black SUV Alexander rented in Asheville yesterday after we left the motel pulls into Mom and Dad's driveway, and I'm already unbuckling my seatbelt when I see him.
Chase.
Standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. The Christmas lights strung along the porch eaves cast colored shadows across his face, making him look like a sad ghost haunting the scene of his own bad decisions.
My stomach doesn’t drop. My heart doesn’t race. I just feel... tired.
“Is that...” Alexander’s voice goes flat, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
“Yeah.”
He cuts the engine, and the sudden silence feels heavy.
Through the front windows, I can see movement.
Mom bustling around the kitchen, probably putting finishing touches on lunch.
Dad’s laugh carries faintly through the glass.
The house looks warm and inviting, all golden light and holiday cheer, and I want to be in there, not out here dealing with this.
Alexander’s jaw tightens as he watches Chase shift his weight from foot to foot. “Want me to handle it?”
The protective edge in his voice sends warmth through my chest. “No. I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure?” His gray eyes find mine, searching. “Because I’m more than happy to...”
I lean over and kiss him. It’s meant to be quick, reassuring, but his hand comes up to cup my jaw and deepens it slightly, his thumb brushing my cheek. When we pull apart, my lips are tingling, and Chase is staring at us with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Go inside,” I tell Alexander softly. “I’ll be right there.”
His eyes flick to Chase, then back to me. “If he...”
“I’ll be fine. Promise.” I squeeze his hand. “Go. Your mom’s probably already wondering where we are.”
He doesn’t look happy about it, but he nods. Before he gets out, he leans over and presses another kiss to my temple, slow and deliberate, his hand sliding to the back of my neck. When he pulls away, his eyes hold mine for a long moment.
“Shout if you need me.”
“I won’t need to.”
He climbs out, and I watch him walk toward the house, his shoulders straight, his movements controlled. At the door, he pauses and glances back at me. I give him a small wave, and then he disappears inside.
The door closes behind him, and I’m alone with the ghost on the sidewalk.
I take a breath, then another, and get out of the car. The cold hits me immediately, sharp and biting, and I shiver.
Chase straightens when he sees me, taking a hesitant step forward.
“Olivia.”
“Chase.” I don’t move closer. The distance between us, maybe ten feet, feels exactly right. “What are you doing here?”
He shifts his weight again, and for the first time, I notice how rough he looks. Dark circles under his eyes. His hair uncombed. The flannel shirt he’s wearing is wrinkled, like he pulled it straight from the laundry basket.
“Can we talk?” His voice is quieter than I’ve ever heard it. “Please?”
I glance at the house. Through the window, I can see Alexander standing in the living room talking to his dad. His mom appears beside them, gesturing animatedly about something. The scene looks so warm, so right, and I want to be in there with them.
But Chase is looking at me with something close to desperation, and despite everything, we were friends once. A lifetime ago.
“Sure,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “But we’ll talk here. In front of the house.”
His face falls, but he nods. “Okay. Yeah. That’s... okay.”
He takes another step forward, close enough now I can see the way his hands are shaking in his pockets. The Christmas lights reflect in his eyes, red and green and gold, and he looks lost.
“I broke up with Amber,” he says abruptly. The words hang in the cold air between us. I should be surprised. Maybe even a little vindicated. But all I feel is a distant sense of inevitability, like watching a movie where you already know the ending.
“Okay,” I say evenly.
“That’s it? Just ‘okay’?” His laugh is bitter, self-deprecating. “I thought... I don’t know what I thought.”
“What do you want me to say, Chase?”
He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up at odd angles. “I made a mistake, Liv. A huge one. I never should have...” His voice cracks. “I never should have cheated. Never should have let you go.”
The old nickname hits differently now. It used to make me feel cherished, like I was his and he was mine. Now it just sounds wrong, like he’s reaching for something that doesn’t exist anymore.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “You shouldn’t have cheated.”
His eyes snap to mine, hopeful.
“I spent ten years with you, Chase.” My voice is steady now, matter-of-fact. “Ten years. If you wanted to move on, if you were unhappy, you should have given me the courtesy of ending things properly.”
“I know...”
“I’m not finished.” The words come out sharper than I intend, but I don’t soften them.
“We were childhood friends. Best friends before we were anything else. I would have preferred to keep you in my life as a friend, even after we ended. I would have preferred to remember our time together without it being tainted by betrayal.”
His face crumples. “Olivia...”
“But you took that away when you chose to cheat on me.” I take a breath, and it comes out steadier than I expected. “You took away any possibility of us being friends when you sent that voicemail to Amber, mocking me. Humiliating me.”
“I didn’t mean...” He stops, swallows. “I was being cruel. I know that. There’s no excuse for it.”
“No,” I agree. “There isn’t. You don’t get to be cruel and expect forgiveness.”
Chase takes a step forward, and instinctively, I take one back. He freezes, his hand half-raised like he was going to reach for me.
“We can still fix this,” he says desperately. “I’ll change. I’ll...”
“No.” The word drops between us like a stone.
“No?” He stares at me like I’ve spoken a foreign language.
“I don’t take back cheaters, Chase. And even if I did...” I glance toward the house, where I can see Alexander’s silhouette in the window. “I’m with Alexander now.”
His face twists with something ugly. Anger, jealousy, hurt all mixed together. “You can’t actually love him. You barely know him.”
The laugh that escapes me is genuine, almost pitying. “I know him better than you think. And yes, I love him.”
“Amber just wanted me because you had me,” he blurts out, the words tumbling over each other in his rush to get them out. “That’s all it was. She didn’t actually want me, she just wanted to beat you.”
I nod slowly. “I know.”
“You... You know?”
“Of course I know. Anyone with eyes could see that, Chase. Amber’s spent her entire life trying to compete with me over things I don’t even care about.”
He’s staring at me. “Then why didn’t you say something?”
“Why would I? You cheated on me with her. What you two did or didn’t have was no longer my problem.”
“I didn’t realize it until...” He swallows hard. “I was supposed to propose to her. Had everything planned. But after Alexander proposed to you, she suddenly wanted to change everything. Make it grander, more expensive than yours. Nothing I had planned was good enough anymore.”
Despite myself, I wince. That sounds exactly like Amber.
“That’s when I realized,” Chase continues, his voice breaking. “She never wanted me. She just wanted to win. She wanted to rub it in your face.”
“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment, and I mean it. Not sorry that we broke up. I’m grateful for that every single day. But sorry that he’s hurting. Sorry that he’s finally seeing what everyone else saw months ago.
“Don’t.” He shakes his head violently. “Don’t apologize to me. I’m the one who...” His voice cracks again. “Can’t we at least be friends?”
The question hangs in the air, and I almost—almost—feel bad for what I’m about to say.
“Not only did you cheat on me,” I say quietly, “you tried to humiliate me by sending that voicemail to Amber. You mocked me to the woman you were cheating on me with. You made a joke out of our entire relationship, and you did it deliberately. You chose to be cruel.”
His face goes pale. “I...”
“Any hope for a friendship flew out the window the moment you did that.” I take another step back, and this time my hand finds the car door, grounding me. “I wish you well, Chase. I really do. But we’re nothing more than acquaintances now.”
“Olivia, please...”
“I need to go inside.” I glance toward the house again, and my chest tightens with something warm and bright. “Alexander’s waiting for me.”
“You really think he’s better than me?” The question comes out bitter, defensive. “He’s just some rich guy who...”