Chapter 1
A smile could do a lot of things, like calm heart rates from a shock of excitement or fear. It could also charm or mesmerize. It could unnerve or send a warning. It could disarm and put at ease.
It all depended on the delivery.
My smiles tended to disarm the people around me and put them at ease. I considered it an art, seeing how I’d spent years perfecting my smile for that exact purpose. And right then, that smile was on blast.
I just had to keep holding it.
However, this time it was more for my sake than anyone else’s.
“Tell me everything,” Ada demanded once she was settled at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee. The sweet, old woman’s attention was on her great-niece—my housemate—and her brand new, absolutely stunning, engagement ring.
I sank to my own seat and listened with rapt attention as Lainey recounted how her now fiancé—who was as terrifying as he was gorgeous—had proposed a couple nights before. Not that I hadn’t already heard the details. I had. Three times.
And I was genuinely thrilled for Lainey. Beyond, actually.
She and Asher were perfect for each other. They complimented each other the way couples should. Each gently pushing the other to be better—to be who they truly were—all while bringing what the other lacked to the relationship.
They were beautiful together.
But that didn’t stop the little sliver of jealousy from working its way into my chest. It didn’t quiet the voice in the back of my head, reminding me that everyone around me was getting married, and I was still just...here. Then again, my status as a single, twenty-eight-year-old woman was entirely my fault.
Worry and a sense of responsibility had kept me from straying far from my parents until that responsibility had also sent me away to college. But, as with growing up, I’d chosen quiet nights in my dorm with a book over going out or making friends. Once I’d graduated and settled into my career as an elementary school teacher, not much had changed. If I wasn’t at work, I was home reading or rewatching my favorite movies and shows.
Other than of the fictional variety, there hadn’t been men to meet...until Owen Vance.
And even though it could be argued that I’d been too na?ve to see every one of his red flags until I was too far gone, I liked to think that wasn’t it. On paper? Sure. But until you met him, you couldn’t understand his ability to manipulate people and draw them in with a smile or a look. To be in Owen Vance’s presence was to be seen —to be loved .
Unfortunately for me, all the other oblivious women he was seeing agreed with me. As did his wife—whom he was one thousand percent still married to and not at all divorced from like I’d been told.
So, there I was: Owen-less, jobless—since Owen had black-listed me from other districts, and I’d needed to get away from him for my mental and emotional well-being—single, and excitedly gushing over my roommate’s perfect proposal.
Ada made a scoffing sound that somehow sounded like adoration as she let a hand slap onto the table. “Who knew that grump could be sweet?”
“Right?” I asked, my gaze landing on Lainey as she attempted to hide her blush behind the almost one-year-old in her lap. The almost one-year-old who’d inadvertently brought the couple together when Asher had gained custody of his niece and found himself in desperate need of a nanny. Cue Lainey, thanks to Ada’s meddling.
I wasn’t going to say romances like that only happened in books...but they only happened in books.
It’s fine; I was fine . I wasn’t at all jealous or having a silent pity party for one over my self-sabotaging, hermit-y ways.
Reaching for my phone when it vibrated on the table, I flipped it over and felt my perfectly crafted smile drop as soon as I registered the words on the lock screen.
Unknown
The world Chlo. Say the word and it’s yours. Say the word and I’m yours. Fully. Completely.
I stared at the screen of my phone long after it darkened again. My heart was hammering so forcefully that it seemed to be spreading the warning chill Owen always triggered through my body instead of leaving it to cling to my spine.
It’d been months since I’d heard from him.
He’d continued dropping into my class until the school year ended and had even shown up at my house multiple times in the tiny, adorable town of Huntley, Texas until I’d finally threatened him with a restraining order. It’d been the only thing I could think of to get him to stop tormenting me and my shattered heart that wanted to fall all over itself whenever he was near. But the last I’d heard from Owen had been a call just after school let out—just after I’d quit . I’d blocked him afterward so I could finish moving on from him.
Yet there he somehow was, trying to draw me back in.
“Everything okay, Chloe?”
A little jolt went through me at Lainey’s concern, my phone slipping from my fingers and into my lap. Totally casual. Not at all suspicious.
“What?” I asked, the breathlessness of my voice betraying me, as if I’d just been caught doing something I shouldn’t.
Lainey studied me before her stare pointedly shifted to where my phone was hidden by the table. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” I said brightly, my smile effortlessly slipping back into place. With a careless shrug, I lied, “Potential job fell through, but I’ll find something.”
Lainey’s concern morphed to worry as she reached across the table for me. “Chloe...”
I waved her off. “It’s okay, really. It wasn’t the one I wanted.” Even if I wasn’t actually talking about a job, that was the closest to the truth as I could give her.
As much of a hold as Owen could have over me, I wouldn’t be so easily manipulated again. I couldn’t when I now knew what kind of man he really was. I couldn’t when I was now intimately familiar with that cautionary feeling of dread whenever I so much as thought of him.
“What’s all this nonsense about potential jobs?” Ada chimed in, twisting a little in her chair to look at me fully. “Didn’t Asher call you?”
My eyebrows lifted as I glanced between Ada and Lainey before finally settling on the older woman. A hesitant laugh left me because there was no reason for Lainey’s fiancé to call me. I wasn’t sure he even had my number.
Everyone might know everyone in Huntley, but Asher had only lived here for a few months, which meant I only knew him as Lainey’s boyfriend. Well...fiancé.
“I saw him for a whole second when he was dropping his niece off this morning, but no...” I drew out the last word, making it sound like a question.
“Oh no,” Lainey mumbled as if she’d just realized where this was about to go.
But before I could ask what oh no meant, Ada said, “Y’all know this girl is old and tired and in desperate need of retirement.”
“Aunt Ada,” Lainey began in warning, but Ada continued over her as if Lainey hadn’t spoken.
“We’ve talked about the best way to search for my replacement, but he and I both agreed we think you’d be perfect for the job.”
“Really?” I asked excitedly, only for that excitement to dim when Lainey said, “No.”
“No?” I asked, quickly looking between the two again.
“Aunt Ada, you can’t,” Lainey chastised as she set the little girl on the floor to unsteadily toddle away. “You hired me to nanny without Asher’s knowledge. He’ll flip if you forcefully hire someone again.”
Ada scoffed and placed a heavily ringed hand on her chest in offense. “That you just assume I would do such a thing...”
Lainey gave her a pointed look.
“That was a one-time, emergency situation, my Ray of Sunshine,” Ada told her affectionately. “But Asher and I have been talking about this for months.”
Lainey’s head was shaking, her expression a mix of adoration and frustration as she studied her great-aunt. With a quick exhale, Lainey’s attention shifted to me. “I think it would be great if you worked for Asher, I really do, but talk to him about it when he comes to pick up Kaia tonight because this has disaster written all over it.”
“Does it?” Ada challenged.
At that, a hard laugh left Lainey. “Aunt Ada, I went through this. I’ve witnessed his frustration when you go over him.”
“And look how well that worked out,” Ada said smugly. “But, unfortunately for all of us, this isn’t one of those situations.”
“‘Unfortunately?’” Lainey asked suspiciously. When Ada hummed in question, Lainey prompted, “You said ‘ un fortunately for all of us.’”
Ada gestured between Lainey and me. “Well, I had a fantastic ulterior motive for hiring you behind Asher’s back—bringing the two of you together. I wouldn’t have any of those with Chloe, now, would I? And before you go on wounding this old woman’s heart even more with your doubt, maybe just be thankful I’m here to inform our sweet Chloe since I’m supposed to start training her tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I echoed, my smile impossibly wide at the possibility of this.
I loved being a teacher, but I’d made my peace with leaving teaching long before the last school year had ended. Well, at least until Owen Vance was no longer working in a nearby school district. But in the last six months, every application had gone unanswered, or I’d been rejected for being overqualified, or not qualified enough.
I hadn’t even been able to get a job at our local coffee shop.
To put it mildly, I was desperate. My savings was getting dangerously low, and I was racking up debt that I could no longer pay off every month. So, whether Ada was about to do what Lainey was worrying over or not, I was in. I needed this.
“Yes, ma’am. Tomorrow,” Ada responded with an encouraging smile. “Sorry for the late notice, but we can’t fully blame Asher.”
“At all,” Lainey cut in. “We can’t blame him at all .” She shot me a pleading look. “I’m telling you, he doesn’t know about this.”
Ada waved a hand at Lainey, her many bracelets jingling as they clashed together. “ Or your new fiancé’s mind was so preoccupied with a certain life-altering question and the back-to-back security details they had this weekend, that he forgot to call our sweet Chloe.”
Lainey drew in a long breath and let it out just as slowly, her expression equal parts amusement and worry as she lifted Kaia onto her lap when the little girl came back over.
As if sensing what Lainey was about to say when her lips parted, Ada all-too-casually spoke over her. “Ask Asher if you want; let him feel awful for forgetting. Makes no difference to me.”
Lainey’s eyes rolled, but she just shook her head at Ada’s clear attempt at dissuading her. “I know what you’re doing,” she said on a sigh. “But I also know Asher won’t let you retire unless you force it. So...I guess I’ll just see how this plays out.” With a concerned look my way, she added, “As long as you’re prepared. When Asher finds out, it isn’t gonna go well.”
“It’s gonna be great because he already knows,” Ada countered.
“If you say so,” Lainey mumbled, her tone not at all matching the exaggeratedly happy look she was giving Kaia. “Either way, I think it’ll be great if you work there, Chloe.”
“I seriously can’t wait,” I said as excitement and hope wound through me. I didn’t even know what the job was—I only knew that Ada had been working for Asher for six or seven years. But that didn’t matter, I would figure it out easily enough.
What did matter was getting a job, having a steady income again, and forgetting about the text still waiting for me.