Chapter 20
Tyler walked to the bathroom on legs that didn’t belong to him, loaded with emotions he felt in his whole chest. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d had sex with a person more than once, and even then, those encounters had maxed out at three or less, all of them steeped in heartache (not his) and regret (mostly his).
But Tyler had never, ever felt how he had tonight—hell, how he had for the past couple of weeks, maybe even months since he’d first kissed Chloe.
No matter how hard he tried to fight or forget his attraction to her, she was there, fierce and beautiful and bright as a beacon.
Every feeling he’d stuffed down, the passion and the want and the bottomless intensity with which he felt both, kept building, stronger and hotter in his chest.
Which was crazy. Impossible. Dangerous as fuck. But even crazier? Tyler didn’t want to stuff any of it down. He didn’t want to blank it out, and he didn’t want to run.
He just wanted Chloe. Again, and again and again.
Even though it was the sort of dangerous that could ruin them both.
Returning down the hallway, Tyler let his eyes adjust to the dark. Chloe had wrapped herself in the blanket she always kept draped over a nearby chair, and after he reclaimed his boxer briefs from the floor and slid them back on, she opened the edges of the soft fleece in a silent invitation.
Of course, he didn’t resist, and Christ, he was in so much trouble. What’s more, the second Chloe’s warm, sweet skin met his, he felt so good with her in his arms, he didn’t care.
“Hey,” she murmured, her voice lazy and thick, like honey.
Tyler lay back on the couch, tucking her in at his side and kissing the top of her head. “Hey.”
Time passed in a measure of breaths and heartbeats, until finally, she broke the spell.
“Look, I’m not very good at doing anything with my feelings other than airing them out, and the last time I didn’t, you and I didn’t talk for months.
I can’t let that happen again”—this, she punctuated with a press of her fingers over his chest—“so, here goes. I’m not sure what’s happening between us, but I am sure that it feels too good to stop.
I like this, maybe more than I should, and I think you feel the same way.
So, I guess I’m just kind of hoping you’ll save me from myself over here and tell me what you’re thinking so I can stop vomiting my feelings all over you. Please.”
Of all the words Chloe had said, it was the please that broke him. “I like this, too. Definitely more than I should. But it’s not that easy.”
He could feel her thoughts spinning in the silence, but Christ, he was still utterly unprepared for what she said next.
“When I told you I’m here with you, I didn’t just mean that in a naked kind of way.
Well, not entirely in a naked kind of way.
The naked way was really hot…” She exhaled, undoing him in one sweet breath.
“Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is, in a not-naked and also not-cheesy kind of way, I really am right here with you.
I’ve got your back, Tyler. Even if whatever you’re feeling is complicated. ”
It might have been her fingers, still steady over his heart, as if she were guarding it.
It might have been the safety of the darkness, wrapping them together in a cocoon where nothing else existed.
Or it might have been Chloe herself, as strong and vital as a secondary heartbeat, pulsing in his blood and drawing them together.
But something made Tyler open his mouth and start to talk.
“My father was—is, if he’s still alive—a shit of a human being,” he said, and Chloe stilled against him in surprise.
“You don’t know if he’s alive?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Tyler said, because it was the truth. “Even if he’s still breathing, he’s dead to me.”
The words were harsh, Tyler knew, and anyone else would’ve recoiled, or at the very least, given up a hefty WTF. But Chloe simply waited, giving him the room to keep talking.
And so, he did.
“My mother was nineteen when she met my father, Martin. She was living in Dahlonega, Missouri, where she was born and raised. It’s as small as it sounds,” he confirmed, “about four thousand people in the whole town. Martin was older. Twenty-six. Charming and worldly and smart. He was from St. Louis, passing through Dahlonega on his way home from a trip to Chicago.”
The irony of the word—home—tasted rotten on Tyler’s tongue, but he bit it back. “He’d been acting as a talent scout back then, and my mother snuck out of her job at the local diner to respond to a casting call he was holding in the next county.”
Chloe was brimming with questions—he could practically feel them buzzing under her skin—but she settled on, “I didn’t know your mom wanted to be an actress.”
He nodded. His mother had told him the story much later, of course, once he’d been old enough to understand. She’d meant the answers to be some sort of closure, Tyler was sure. But they’d only made him hate Martin more.
“Martin picked her right out of the crowd. He told her she had true talent, and that if she came with him to St. Louis, he could get her a big break. She’d be a star.
But her father was a preacher, and her parents were beyond strict.
Of course, they forbid the whole thing. They told her that if she ran off with an older man to chase some crazy Hollywood pipe dream, she’d be dead to them, and if she left, to never come back. ”
“Whoa. That’s a hell of an ultimatum,” Chloe said, and Tyler huffed out a joyless laugh in agreement.
“Apparently, it was on brand.” He couldn’t say for sure, since he’d never met his grandparents, but from what his mother had told him and the fact that they’d never answered any of her calls, not even when everything hit the fan, her recounting of the story tracked.
“Acting, leaving their small town, and with Martin, no less. The impropriety of it all was totally scandalous to them. But my mother’s mind was made up.
To be honest, she was so captivated by it all that I don’t think she even thought twice. ”
Chloe paused, then went for the obvious. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess your mother ran off with him for more than just an acting career?” she asked, and Tyler didn’t even bother trying to cage his disdain.
“Yep. She was completely gone for him. She said they were soulmates, and that nothing, not even her parents, could keep them apart. He took her to St. Louis, and they were married within six months. I was born just shy of a year after that.”
“Okay, wow,” Chloe murmured. “That is kind of a whirlwind. She was, what? Twenty-one when you were born?”
Tyler’s heart let out a dull ache beneath Chloe’s fingers.
“Three months shy of twenty-two. Of course, she didn’t have time for an acting career with a new baby, especially since Martin traveled so much for work, but he promised she still had plenty of time.
She’d get her break just like he’d promised because she was a star.
His star. She never questioned it, and for six years, she loved him with her whole heart and soul, truly believing he loved her right back and everything was perfect. ”
“Except it wasn’t,” Chloe whispered, no trace of a question.
Tyler answered with equal certainty. “He wasn’t.”
His mother had only told him the long version of this story once, when he’d been sixteen and looking for answers, but Christ, he would never forget the heart-crushing details.
How, in hindsight, there had been things that had never sat quite right with her.
Niggling sensations she couldn’t explain.
Signs she’d dismissed, too infatuated with Martin to believe he’d be anything but faithful.
Honest. Good. And then, he’d reappear from wherever he’d been, flush with charisma and cash, sweeping her right back off her feet, and her doubts would disappear like a puff of smoke, the cycle restarted.
“One night, there was a knock on our door,” Tyler said, his heart beginning to stutter in his chest. The memory was decades old and should be faded with time, but instead, it was seared into his brain as if it had happened an hour ago.
“Two investigators from the St. Louis FBI’s fraud division were looking for my mother. And for me.”
Chloe pulled back in obvious confusion. “For you? Why? Weren’t you just a little boy?”
“I was five. Almost six.” The words lodged in Tyler’s throat, as old and painful as rusty razor blades. “But they were looking for me because Martin had used my identity to run three separate investment scams in the state of Missouri.”
“Oh, my God.” Chloe’s gasp heated his neck, her lashes fluttering against his skin as her eyes flew wide. But her hand was a strong, solid weight on his sternum, and it anchored him, even as his words sliced him to the bone.
“Martin was a con man, with six different aliases across four states, not to mention dozens of online personas. When the Feds came knocking on our door, he’d racked up a hundred and twelve thousand dollars in debt between my mother’s and my names and linked our identities to more than ten different fraudulent schemes and scams. Of course, he’d made it look like she’d been involved in the whole thing. She was nearly arrested that night.”
Chloe stiffened, her indignation palpable even in the darkened room. “What? That’s crazy! Your mother would never scam anyone out of so much as a stick of gum. She’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.”
“That still didn’t stop the FBI from believing she was a grifter, too,” he said. “The investigation took months, with federal agents and attorneys and local law enforcement putting our lives through a shredder.”
“Tyler,” Chloe said, her voice knotted with emotion. “I don’t even know what to say. I can’t imagine how frightening and confusing that must have been.”