Chapter 23
“ T his is still a case,” I reminded her. “I need to read them to know what he’s saying.”
“Then read them,” she murmured as if she wasn’t sure why I hadn’t already, then set my hoodie beside her to pick up her book again.
“I can’t get into your phone.” At the hint of surprise that betrayed her otherwise neutral expression, I reminded her, “You only gave the code to Gray.”
She whispered something that sounded like an apology when she had nothing to apologize for, then carelessly recalled the number for me to enter.
And that trust, her willingness to let me go through her phone all while she sat across from me, floored me. It wasn’t something I’d registered when Gray had first produced her phone last weekend, but it was blatant then.
I didn’t know many people who would voluntarily hand over their phones and let someone, who wasn’t their significant other, search it. But Chloe had gone above that and let Gray take it for an entire weekend.
If I wasn’t so sure this was Chloe’s only source of contacting people, I might’ve worried she had another primary phone somewhere else. As it was, her lack of fear that we would find anything she didn’t want us to see had my previous suspicions crumbling to dust.
She was hiding something; I was still sure of that. But my certainty that she was a threat had already been shaky before today, and with that one act, it was gone.
I tapped into the messages and forced my jaw to unclench when I saw a few were waiting to be read from the same unknown number. Before I allowed myself to dive into those, I read the other messages waiting for her and said, “Lainey said hi .”
Chloe’s head snapped back a second before her eyes lifted from the page she was reading. “No, she didn’t.”
One of my eyebrows lifted just slightly at the sure way she spoke. “How would you know?”
“Lainey never texts me to say hi ,” she said confidently, then lifted a brow of her own as she closed her book, using one of her fingers to mark her place.
Whether or not that was true, I wasn’t about to tell Chloe what Lainey had actually said.
I shrugged and glanced back at the screen, my brow furrowing as I read through the messages again.
Lainey Pearson
Well, this sure isn’t Aruba, and Asher won’t tell me where you are, but I have a feeling you aren’t anywhere tropical. Bummer...maybe?
At first, I was surprised he didn’t send you with the Deadly Duo, but I think I love this so much more for you. I mean, you’re stuck somewhere with a funny, “outlandishly gorgeous” man whose job is to protect you. That’s the main plot of at least twenty books you’ve told me about since I moved in.
Go live your real-life novel.
My attention drifted back to Chloe as I asked, “Who are the ‘Deadly Duo?’”
Chloe’s eyes widened and mouth popped open into a perfect O before she reached out her free hand. “Give me my phone.”
“I don’t think I will,” I told her, already taking a step back as she carelessly tossed her book aside and started shifting, preparing to get off the bed.
“Adam Thatcher, give me my phone.”
“Should I be worried?” I asked, a slight tease to my voice. “Is this duo better than me?”
“Probably in every way,” she said in the most obvious lie as she quickly untangled herself from the sheet and blankets.
“What is it about them that you’re worried I’ll see?”
A huff punched from her lungs, but she just slanted her head like she knew better than to answer that as she hurried off the bed and over to me. Already reaching for the phone and stumbling slightly before she righted herself, which was wild considering this was the first time I’d seen her without heels on.
“Bubbles,” I said, the smile in my voice clear when she made it to where I stood, “just how short are you?”
She glared up at me, the knot of hair bouncing and making her look so adorable. “Phone,” she demanded, shoving her hand closer to me as if I hadn’t already seen it.
“It’s just the first time I’ve seen you without those heels you’re always wearing,” I told her, my smile widening. “And you’re still short with those on.”
“Five-one is not that short. Not all of us can be freakishly tall,” she shot back as she gave me an impatient look that did nothing to hide the worry in her eyes. But this worry didn’t set off alarms or raise red flags for me.
The blush that had immediately rushed to her cheeks when I’d first mentioned Deadly Duo had told me all I needed to know. I’d stumbled onto a carryover of a girl talk . I had sisters. I knew girl talk was like the equivalent of a diary entry.
“You think I’m freakishly tall?” I countered as I lifted the phone, taunting her by pretending to look at the screen again. “Rush has two inches on me.”
“That’s—”
“Do you think I’m ‘outlandishly gorgeous?’ Or just Lainey?” I asked, then glanced at Chloe’s horrified face, my smile widening. “Think Briggs might murder me if he finds out his fiancée finds me attractive. But it was in quotes, so...”
“What did she say?” Chloe demanded, even though she sounded terrified to find out. I handed the phone over to her as if that’d been my intention all along, a huff of a laugh leaving me when she snatched it from my hand.
Her mortification grew and her cheeks darkened as she quickly scanned the texts before responding.
“Don’t tell her where we are.”
Chloe’s fingers stilled and stayed hovering over the screen for a moment before she looked at me. “Why? You told me where she is.”
“Phones can easily be taken over, and your messages can be read.” I nodded to the phone resting in her hands. “What she said is dangerous enough because it implies you’re with me.”
She nodded, then resumed typing, slower than before.
My gaze drifted back to her face. Taking the time to study how beautiful she looked in that moment. Not that she wore much makeup anyway, but there was something about her then, makeup free and ready for bed, that about did me in.
The exact opposite of everything I usually went for, and everything I wanted in her.
I tried to shut down the train of thought as soon as it appeared, but I was still studying her and counting the freckles splashed across her cheeks when her face paled and the light in her eyes dimmed.
An air of uncertainty and shame pulsed from her as she stood there, staring just past her phone at the floor, her arms covered in chills that hadn’t been there just before.
“You cold?” I asked and watched as she slowly pulled herself out of wherever she’d just been, blinking slowly before more rapidly as she glanced up at me.
“What?”
I looked pointedly at her arms, then placed a hand on her waist and gently pushed her to the side so I could grab my discarded hoodie. Once I had it in my grasp, I held it out for her to take and tried to figure out how to ease into this conversation.
But I wasn’t sure there was any easing into a conversation about an ex who had lied and gaslighted as badly as Vance had. And Chloe’s reaction was undoubtedly about Vance. That mixture of uncertainty and shame was becoming as recognizable as her mask.
“Did you read the messages from him?”
Her eyebrows lifted before she raised her head to look at me. “They are from him?” she confirmed, then quickly added, “The others?” When I nodded, she glanced at the phone before looking away. “I didn’t. But it was easy enough to assume.” She drew in a breath and started to speak again before releasing it on a rush and holding the phone out to me.
She didn’t look back at me as she climbed into the bed and sat up against the headboard. Hoodie still folded in her arms. Book still forgotten beside her as she stared ahead.
I watched her for a while longer before tapping out of the thread with Lainey and going into the one with Owen Vance’s blocked number.
Unknown
Where are you?
Don’t be like this Chlo. I know you’re reading these. Just tell me where you went.
I wasn’t ready to get married before. I wasn’t ready to start a family when you wanted. I’m sorry. Don’t shut me out because it took me a little longer to get to the same place.
A life together. A family. The entire world Chlo...it’s yours. Just come back.
I wasn’t sure how it was possible to hate someone more than I’d already hated Owen Vance. But I was shaking with a lethal combination of rage, fear, and jealousy as I read the new messages over and over again.
Finally tearing my stare from the screen, I swiped out of the messages and locked it as my gaze sought out Chloe again—still in the same position from before.
“Do you still love him?” The question left me before I could begin to filter myself, but then it was out and filling the room with the storm of emotions I couldn’t seem to control.
Chloe just gave a sad laugh before her hazel eyes shifted my way. “It’s complicated.”
I wasn’t used to this. I’d never let myself get close enough to care about a woman, let alone get deep enough that it felt like I couldn’t breathe—felt like my chest was wrenching open—all because she might be in love with someone else.
I hated it.
“Nothing complicated about it,” I told her. “Yes or no.”
“It is complicated,” she said adamantly. “Because no , I don’t love Owen anymore. Just being near him makes me feel cold in a way that is truly sickening. And before you ask, that’s something I’ve felt from the first time I met him. But it’s complicated because Owen Vance has this charisma that is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. And when he puts his entire focus on you, he can make you forget that sickening chill. He can make you think you want to be in love with him, even if you know he’s a terrible person.”
I tipped my chin at her. “Then what’s this? What’s this hesitation that bursts from you whenever he’s brought up, like you have one foot back in a relationship with him?”
“I don’t,” she said unwaveringly.
“You sure?”
“Why would it matter to you even if I did?” she shot back.
“Because he manipulated you,” I seethed. “He twisted every one of your thoughts until he had you right where he wanted you, getting exactly what he wanted from you.”
That humiliation was quick to follow, and my heart lurched when her eyes turned glassy. But she quickly looked away, blinking away the moisture.
“Chloe . . .”
“Is that what you see when you look at me?” A humorless laugh pushed past her full lips as her pained stare drifted back to me. “A stupid girl, hopelessly in love with the man who manipulated her?”
“Never said that.”
“But it’s what you think?” she asked, her voice dipping and breaking as she spoke.
“I’ve never thought that,” I told her honestly. “I think he’s good at what he does, and he set his sights on you.”
Her head bobbed as her gaze fell to where she was once again clinging to my hoodie. “And I fell for it,” left her on a chastened breath.
“We haven’t found a woman who hasn’t fallen for it.”
At the dejected sound that left her, I almost told her that, from everything we’d gathered, she’d been different for Vance. I would’ve told her anything if it helped her understand she had nothing to be ashamed of. Thankfully, I managed to filter myself that time.
But just as I swallowed the information, she asked, “What can’t I know?” as if knowing where my thoughts had gone.
My head slanted in question even though I worried I already knew what she was asking.
“Yesterday,” she prompted. “The meeting I overheard part of. You were the one who said I would fall for Owen’s lies and into something more dangerous if I knew. So, what can’t I know?”
When I just stared at her, she asked, “You can ask questions, but I can’t?”
“There’s a reason you aren’t supposed to know.”
“If it has to do with me, I deserve to know,” she claimed, but the words were soft with exhaustion. Almost as if she already knew I wouldn’t answer. Probably because I didn’t want to.
But I agreed with her.
Just because I didn’t want her to know didn’t mean she didn’t deserve to.
“If Vance was standing in front of you right now, asking you to give him another chance, would you?” I asked instead.
“No,” she said, the word leaving her like just the thought sickened her.
My head bobbed for a while before I asked, “If you found out his marriage was a marriage on paper only, that he’d only mostly flirted with all those other women, and you were his only real relationship in the past year, would your answer change?”
Hazel eyes widened with surprise and something else I couldn’t quite catch before she gently shook her head. “No.”
“You don’t seem sure.”
“I am sure,” she maintained. “But this is him . This is what he does. He says things that make you want to believe him.”
“But this is actually true,” I reluctantly told her.