Addicted Page 5

  This time, I won’t hurt you. This time I’ll put you first no matter what. This time I’ll take care of you the way I promised to all those weeks ago.

  You are the bravest woman I know, and though you’ll argue with me about that statement (you always do), I assure you that I mean every word of it. I love you, Chloe, so much more than I ever thought it was possible to love anyone.

  I’m not asking for forgiveness and I’m not asking for you to simply move past the pain and rage inside of you. I’m asking only that you give me a chance—to love you, to take care of you, to help you through whatever comes next.

  I love you, Chloe, and I’ll be here whenever you’re ready to talk.

  Please let me love you again.

  Ethan

  I read the letter several times, Ethan’s words breaking over me like an early morning thunderstorm breaks across the dawn. I’m not sure what to feel about what he has to say, any more than I know what to feel about him. Sure, it’s a sweet letter, but it doesn’t tell me anything more than I knew already.

  He lied to me. He’s sorry. He promises not to do it again.

  But does it matter? His lies, his apology? Does any of it matter at all when the past stretches between us like a nightmare? Like a bloody battlefield that I can’t escape from? Like a specter I’m terrified will haunt me for the rest of my life?

  I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now, except that if I don’t leave right now, I’ll be late for work.

  Carefully, very carefully, I fold Ethan’s letter and slip it back into the envelope. I put the envelope in the inside pocket of my briefcase. And then, after taking several deep, steadying breaths, I put the car in gear—it goes smoothly, without its usual hesitation—and pull out of the parking space.

  As I turn onto Prospect Street, I pretend my stomach doesn’t hurt. I pretend I’m not terrified of what comes next. I pretend, just for a little while, that everything is okay even though I know that nothing will ever be okay again.

  Chapter Five

  I’m a mess by the time I get to work, totally unsure of what I expect to happen next.

  Is Ethan going to be waiting in the parking lot for me?

  Are my personal items going to be boxed up and sitting on my desk?

  Is everyone going to be staring at me knowingly as I walk to my cubicle?

  Maybe all of the above?

  It turns out that none of those things actually happen, though. In fact, nothing out of the ordinary happens at all. I park in the same spot I’ve always parked in. Walk the same scenic path to the building that houses Frost Industries’ legal department. Dodge the same snide comments from Rick, the second-year intern who has made my life hell since my second day on the job, when I was assigned to the big case that he thought he deserved to cover.

  Logically, I know that it makes sense that nothing has changed. After all, it’s not like Ethan would broadcast to the entire company what happened at his house yesterday. But at the same time, it seems unreal. Inside me, everything feels different—I feel different—so I can’t wrap my head around the fact that the cataclysmic events of this weekend, events that nearly broke me, have changed nothing else in my life at all. It’s not like I expected the earth to rotate off its axis or anything, but still. Something should feel different, something should be different—besides my relationship with Ethan. How, after everything that happened between us, can my role at Frost Industries be exactly the same as it was when I left the office late Friday afternoon?

  But it is, it seems. Exactly the same.

  Same desk, same case folders on my desk, same to-do list tacked to the wall of my cubicle. As I settle into my desk and boot up my laptop, I try to take comfort in that fact.

  It almost works.

  It probably would work, in fact, if I didn’t spend the whole day looking over my shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for Ethan to seek me out or call me or send a message for me to report to his office.

  But, except for the letter I found in my car this morning, there’s nothing from him at all. At least, not through any of the normal work channels. And since I’m still too chicken to turn my phone on and see if he called back or texted after Tori told him off last night, email and interoffice messaging is all I have to go on.

  It’s a bad day for so many reasons, and I’m nowhere near as productive as I normally am. I still get work done on the Trifecta merger—the takeover bid that Ethan had me assigned to when I first started at Frost Industries, before I had a clue that there was going to be something personal between us—but it’s not as much as I need to get done. Especially considering the fact that I took yesterday off.

  I stay late to compensate, determined to clear my in-box and make headway on the final case research the attorneys need to blend Trifecta’s intellectual property with Frost Industries’. The office quiets down at five and by seven-thirty I’m all alone. Which should be exactly the impetus I need to get things finished, but without the buzz of my co-workers, all I can think of is Ethan and the disaster everything has become.

  I love him, I really do, but that isn’t enough. Not with Brandon in the picture. Not with Brandon smirking at me, his too-perfect face twisted—

  I shut my thoughts off before they can lead me even farther down the twisted rabbit hole I’ve so abruptly found myself residing in. I focus on the case in front of me, focus on the sound of the air conditioner kicking in, focus on anything and everything but the things I need to be focusing on. The truths I need to be facing.

  My stomach starts growling around eight o’clock, reminding me that I haven’t eaten anything all day. Hours ago, I’d thought about going down to the cafeteria to grab some lunch, but in the end had opted to stay at my desk since I wasn’t hungry. And because I didn’t want to face anyone else. Even now, with my stomach literally begging for food and most of the workforce already gone for the day, the idea of walking into that cafeteria where I first met Ethan and actually trying to eat something nauseates me.

  Finally I decide to hell with it. No matter how long I sit here, I’m not going to get any more work done. After a long day of trying not to think about Ethan, my brain is completely fried.

  With a sigh, I shut down my laptop and then take a minute to gather my things. As I pull my purse out of my desk drawer, I think about reaching inside it. About pulling my phone out and turning it on. About checking to see if there are any messages from Ethan.

  I resist the urge, though. Partly because I don’t want to be disappointed if he didn’t call and partly because I don’t want to freak out if he did. Sometimes, it really is better not to know. Besides, if he truly wanted to talk to me today, he would have found a way. It’s not like he doesn’t know exactly where I work …

  Except now that I’ve given myself permission to think about him, to wonder, my stupid phone is practically burning a hole in my purse. No one would know if I checked, I tell myself as I gather up my briefcase and the sweater I grabbed this morning to combat the early morning chill that comes with working near the ocean. No one would care.

  Except me. I would know. I would care. And pining over him, wondering and worrying over when I’m going to hear from him, will only make this whole situation worse. And make me crazier than I already am.

  Leaving my phone exactly where it is, at the very bottom of my purse, I head out to the parking lot, calling a quick good-bye to Jorge, the security guard currently manning the small reception area in this building.

  He jumps up from behind his desk. “Ms. Girard, wait. Let me walk you to your car.”

  I guess the fact that Ethan and I are no longer together really is still under wraps. Not that Jorge isn’t a nice guy, he is, but I haven’t seen him offering to walk any of the other female interns—or employees, for that matter—out to their cars.

  “Thanks, Jorge, but I’ve got it. It’s still light out.”

  “It’s not a problem,” he tells me with a polite grin as he holds the front door open
for me. “Things are quiet around here tonight.”

  I want to argue with him, but I can tell by the determination in his eyes that nothing I say is going to make a difference. I give in gracefully because he’s just doing his job and partly because a girl never can be too careful and my history makes me jumpier than most.

  It’s a short walk, only takes a few minutes at the most, but I’m struck dumb almost as soon as we come around the curve that leads to the parking lot. Because, there, leaning against my car—ankles crossed and muscular arms folded across his chest—is Ethan.

  I stop dead when I see him, just freeze completely as my body suddenly forgets how to walk. How to breathe.

  Jorge shoots me a curious look, but Ethan chooses that moment to push away from the car and prowl toward us. With his tanned skin, too long, dark hair, and predatory grace, he looks more like a sleek jungle cat than a man.

  “Thanks, Jorge,” he calls to the security guard. “I’ve got it from here.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Frost.” Jorge all but salutes before turning toward me. “Have a good night, Ms. Girard.”

  Somehow I manage to unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth long enough to mutter, “You, too.”

  And then he’s gone, walking back along the path to the building and I’m left alone with Ethan, whose mood I can’t begin to gauge. He seems calm enough, but there’s a fierceness in his eyes—a determination—that makes me wary even as it gets my heart beating triple time. His black eye and bruised jaw only reinforce the danger rolling off him in waves.

  “I called you,” he says as he stops right in front of me. He’s not crowding me, not really, but he isn’t giving me any wiggle room, either. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his long, lean body, more than close enough for me to breathe in the dark, musky scent of him with each inhalation that I take. “You didn’t answer.”

  “My phone was off.” It doesn’t occur to me to lie as I force the words out of my too-tight throat. I know I sound stilted and awkward, but it’s the best I can manage at this point. “I haven’t checked my messages.”

  He nods, his cerulean eyes blazing so brightly that I can’t help feeling the burn of them on my skin. In my blood.

  I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t, and long moments pass while the two of us just stand there staring at each other. When I can’t take it anymore, when the tension between us threatens to snap like a rubber band stretched too far, I square my shoulders. Start breathing through my mouth. Pretend that being this close to him isn’t painful and arousing and terrifying all at the same time.

  “Thank you for getting my car fixed.”

  He nods, his face pained, but he still doesn’t say anything, which only makes my anxiety worse.

  “Look, I need to go,” I tell him. “It’s been a long day and I’m hungry and exhausted—”

  “Let me take you to dinner.”

  “No.” The word is ripped from me before I even know I’m going to say it. No softness to cushion the blow, no polite excuses. Just the loud, irrevocable negative that can’t be mistaken for anything but the denial it is.

  “Let me take you home, then. We can stop and get takeout—”

  “No!” Again the denial is instinctive.

  “Chloe, please—”

  He reaches for me and I flinch back instinctively. He freezes, arms outstretched and face tormented. I know I’ve hurt him and I want to apologize, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. Not this time.

  “Okay,” he says, dropping his hands to his sides. “We’ll talk here, then.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Ethan.”

  “There’s everything to talk about! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Brandon. I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m sorry that he hurt you. I’m sorry, Chloe. About everything. I’m just so goddamned sorry.”

  “I know,” I say, because I do. I was there two nights ago when he tried to end it between us and I was there yesterday morning when he nearly tore Brandon to shreds. “I’m not angry at you.”

  “You should be. God knows I’m furious at myself.”

  “You shouldn’t be. None of this is your fault.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do mean it. Absolutely.”

  And I do. I’ve had over thirty-six hours to think about things, to try to figure out how it’s even possible that the only man I’ve ever trusted, the only man I’ve ever opened up to, is actually the brother of the man who nearly destroyed me all those years ago. I don’t have an answer as to how it happened, as to how fate could be so cruel. But I do know that it’s no one’s fault. That there were no warning signs or coincidences that Ethan and I turned a blind eye to.

  In an effort to shed every trace of my old identity, I legally changed my last name as soon as I turned eighteen. There was no way for Ethan to know who I was when he first met me, any more than there was a way for me to know who he was. Brandon is his half-brother on his mother’s side. They might share the same colored eyes, but they don’t share much more than that. They definitely don’t share a last name.

  Should he have told me about Brandon as soon as he found out? Absolutely.

  Should he have slept with me two nights ago, knowing that our pasts were forever intertwined in the worst possible way? Absolutely not.

  But he did try to break up with me when I went to see him that night. He did try to end it as painlessly as possible. I’m the one who went off the rails, the one who lost it because I couldn’t understand how the man I loved could have done such an abrupt about-face.

  No, this mess we are in is no more Ethan’s fault than mine. He didn’t rape me and he didn’t try to cover it up afterward. Holding him responsible for that would make me no better than all those people who blamed me for speaking up about what Brandon did to me.

  “Jesus, Chloe, how do you even exist?”

  I go for humor, but it falls flat. “Just unlucky, I guess.”

  “No.” He reaches for me then, and this time I don’t have the strength to push him away, not even when he lowers his head and rests his forehead against my own. “There’s nothing unlucky about you.”

  I’m the one who laughs then, a harsh sound that comes from deep inside me. That’s much more of a sob than it is an expression of amusement.

  “Let me take you home,” he whispers, his breath hot against my cheek. “I’ll run you a bath, cook you dinner. Then we can talk—”

  “I already told you.” From somewhere I find the strength to push him away. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “We have everything to talk about.” His fingers tighten on my arms, not enough to cause pain but definitely enough for me to sense his desperation. The same desperation that I spent most of yesterday trying to come to terms with myself.

  “No. We really don’t.” From somewhere I find the strength to step back, to shake him off. “It’s never going to work between us. It can’t. We’re over before we ever really had a chance to begin.”

  “Don’t say that, Chloe. It isn’t true. I won’t let it be true.”

  “Even your formidable will can’t change what is, Ethan. No matter how much you want to.”

  “That’s bullshit!” The words explode from him, loud and harsh and vicious in their intensity.

  “It isn’t.”

  “It is!” He grabs me again, pulls me close, and though there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to melt against him, I can’t. Because he feels different now that I know. We feel different and I’m smart enough to figure out that I’m never going to get past that.

  “I know that you still love me. I can see it in your face. I can hear it in the way your breathing stutters when I touch you.” He brings a hand between us, rests it on my chest. “I can feel it in the way your heart is beating way too fast, even now. I won’t let you walk away from that.”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “Damn it, Chloe, ple
ase. I love you.” He presses hot kisses to my forehead, my eyes, my jaw. “I love you so much. I’ll fix this. I swear, I’ll fix it. Just give me a chance. I’ll find a way—”

  “There is no way to fix this, Ethan!” I bring my hands up and shove at his chest, hard. This time, he stumbles back, though I know it’s more from the emotional impact of the blow than it is from the blow itself. “There is no way to rewrite the past.

  “I told you when we met that I was broken. I told you that you weren’t going to be able to fix me.”

  “You’re not broken, baby. You’re not.” There are tears in his eyes, tears in his too-thick voice, and it hurts. Oh God, it hurts so badly to see him like this. To know that I’ve caused it, that I’ve reduced this strong, beautiful man to this when all he’s ever been is kind to me. It’s a blade deep inside me, an open, aching wound that can’t close because the knife keeps twisting, twisting, twisting.

  “I am.”

  “You’re not. Maybe you were, but you aren’t anymore. I wish you could see yourself the way that I see you. You’re strong, baby, so strong that some days it’s all I can do to believe that you’re mine. That I’m the one who gets to touch and kiss and hold you.”

  He shakes his head, the look on his face saying that even now he can’t believe his luck. I know the look, because I wore the same one every day we were together when I thought about the fact that this as-gorgeous-on-the-inside-as-he-is-on-the-outside man was really mine.

  “How you could have gone through everything you have and come out the other side this beautiful, brilliant woman …” He shakes his head. “It overwhelms me. You’re so smart and so talented and so sure of what you want, sure of how you’re going to get it. Don’t you see, sweetheart? That’s about as unbroken as you can get.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes! You are. I wish you could see yourself the way that I see you. Wish that you could understand. I’m in awe of you, Chloe. You’ve been to hell and back and you’re still here, still fighting to make a life for yourself. Still fighting to make the world a better place. None of that has anything to do with me. That’s all you, baby. It’s you, not me. You’ve healed yourself. Don’t let my bastard of a brother change that. Don’t let him ruin what you’ve built. Don’t let him ruin us.”