Fool Me Once

by Williams, Nicole

  It was the classic conundrum of not being able to live with someone, but being unable to live without them at the same time.

  I was almost to the back deck of the little cabin I was staying in outside of Reykjavik when I noticed a figure pacing across the deck. She was bundled up like she was about to set out on an Arctic expedition, donning her signature color.

  “What are you doing here?” I called.

  Dani jumped as though I’d scared her out of her eight-hundred-fill down parka.

  “I thought you were supposed to be in Bora Bora,” I continued, joining her on the deck.

  “I was in Bora Bora, trying to relax, but I couldn’t. So now I’m here, freezing my eyelashes off, waiting to become dinner for a pack of wolves.” Dani scanned the snowy landscape, eyes wide and teeth chattering.

  “There are no wolves around here. And if there were, you’re more like a snack than a meal.” I shot her a wry smile as I unlocked the door. “You want to come inside and warm up? I’m guessing you didn’t come all this way for the snow and night sky.”

  Dani rubbed her arms. “I like sand, sunny skies, and warmth. Emphasis on the warmth.”

  I smiled as I swung the door open for her. I was used to harsh winters and bitter cold, so this didn’t bother me one bit, but Dani had been born and raised and still resided in Southern California, where winter was the season in which one put on a sweater because temperatures dared approach the fifty-degree mark.

  “Why are you here?” I asked again, kicking the snow off of my boots before coming inside the cabin.

  She didn’t peel off any of her layers, or even remove her hood, as she inspected the rustic cabin. “It’s not obvious?”

  I moved toward the kitchen to boil a kettle of water for some tea, hoping that having something to focus on would ease the sting this conversation was bound to create. “He sent you.”

  “No, of course he didn’t send me.” Dani huffed, still rubbing at her arms. “But I am here for him.”

  “Chase doesn’t know you’re here?” Saying his name made my stomach twinge.

  “He wouldn’t have let me come if he did.”

  When I held up a couple of tea options, Dani pointed at the herbal selection. After situating the teabags in their mugs, I went to the hearth to place a few more logs on the fire.

  Dani remained quiet, which I wasn’t used to. When and if she had something to say before, she’d come right out and said it, no filter, no hesitation. It was both what I admired and disliked about her.

  Stoking the coals with a poker, I broke the silence. “You came a really long way to say whatever you came here for. So what was so important you left sun, sand, and warmth for pretty much the total opposite?”

  Settling onto the edge of the sofa in front of the fireplace, Dani slid off her hood. She had on a thick wool hat beneath it though, and what looked to be earmuffs below that. I threw another log on the fire.

  “There was a reason I didn’t like you,” she said, looking me straight in the eyes.

  “Because I breathed?”

  Her hand thrust in my direction. “Because I knew this would happen.”

  My forehead creased as I glanced around. “That I’d wind up in Iceland?”

  Dani looked like she was trying really hard not to roll her eyes. “That you’d hurt him.”

  My instinct was to argue that she had it wrong, that it was the other way around, but I knew the truth. I had hurt him, and in so doing, I’d hurt myself.

  The teakettle whistled, forcing some kind of response from me. “He asked me to marry him in front of a stadium of fans when our whole arrangement was fake.” I wove past her on my way to the kitchen.

  I heard her twist in her seat thanks to the layers of outerwear she was donning. “Nothing about that six months was fake. Other than the arrangement.” Dani’s voice was as calm as I’d ever heard it. “Go figure. The fake arrangement ended up being fake.”

  I had to peel off my jacket before I poured the water. This place was fast becoming a sauna, more from the words coming from the petite woman wearing her weight in winter gear than from the roaring fire. “You never liked me, so I’m trying to figure out why you’re here talking like you’re trying to convince me to get back together with him.”

  “I might not have liked you because of what I was afraid would happen, and I might not like you very much right now either because of what I predicted did happen.” Dani rose from the sofa. “But I like him more than I dislike you, and you make him happy.”

  My eyes closed as I struggled to find the right words. “I won’t—I’m not—the only woman who could make him happy.”

  One of her manicured eyebrows edged into her stocking cap. “Just like he’s not the only man who can make you happy?”

  My tongue worked into my cheek. “Dani . . . he hurt me. He left me.”

  She shorted. “Here’s a guarantee—he’s going to hurt you again. That’s life. That’s love. We’re humans and, by definition, flawed. He’s going to hurt you. And you’re going to hurt him. Expect it. Plan on it. But what I’ve witnessed between you two over the past six months is that your love is bigger than all of that.” Dani peeled off her gloves, one finger at a time, staring at me. “And he might have left you as some dumb eighteen-year-old kid, but you left him as a full-grown woman with enough life experience under her belt to know better.”

  “So what? My leaving him was worse?” I slid her cup of tea across the counter, my hands still shaking. “Is that the big thing you flew here to tell me?”

  Dani rolled her eyes, glancing at the messy pile of sketches I’d drawn for the old farmhouse back home. “I flew here to tell you that you just walked away from the best thing in your life.”

  The knife in my stomach twisted. “No, the best thing in my life walked away from me a decade ago.”

  “He still loves you.” Dani blew at the steam billowing from her cup. “He never stopped loving you.”

  “Love isn’t enough.” My eyes dropped as I sniffed.

  Dani plowed through my personal bubble, her face so close to mine our noses were nearly touching. “No,” she said, eyes narrowing, “it’s everything.”

  16

  I’d been staring at the same spot for what felt like hours. The empty patch of wall directly above the fireplace, where something most definitely needed to be displayed, but it couldn’t be just anything. It had to have a level of significance, a piece that tied together the whole theme of this place. The fireplace was the heart of any home in my opinion, a place where bodies gathered around the warmth and light of a good fire, where troubles could be turned to ashes and dreams could ignite.

  “Miss North, is there anything else you need done tonight? We finished with the baseboards on the second floor except for the last couple of rooms at the end of the hall. Figured we could finish that up tomorrow before we start building the bookcases in the library.”

  I forced my focus away from the spot above the fireplace. “You’ve done more than enough for one day.” I smiled at two of the many contractors I’d hired to refinish the old farmhouse. “Thanks for everything.”

  I waved as they turned to leave, flipping off lights behind them. I calculated in my head how many more weeks we had left before completion. Everything had gone slower than I’d anticipated, and slower than my general contractor had estimated, but that was the way of construction. You couldn’t build anything to stand the test of time and weather the storms of life quickly. It took time. And patience.

  A couple of months had passed since my trip to Iceland, and despite Dani’s last-ditch effort to get me to see reason and return to him, I hadn’t. Maybe because I was right. Maybe because I was afraid I’d been wrong. Maybe because I was afraid he wouldn’t want me back. There were a lot of uncertainties in my life where Chase was concerned.

  Most of all, how I was going to live my life without him.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place.” An unexpected voice echoed through th
e large room.

  A smile worked at my lips as I rummaged through my large toolbox, trying not to show my surprise. “It’s a work in progress.”

  “All great things are.” His footsteps reverberated closer.

  “So I’ve been told.” I took a slow breath before turning to look at him. It had been months since I’d last seen him, though the image of Chase had never left my mind. “Don’t you have a new album to be recording?”

  His shoulders moved beneath his white shirt, practically glowing from the moonlight draining in through the windows. “That was the plan,” he said, staring at me in such a way that made my muscles turn to jelly. “Until you.”

  “Until me?”

  He nodded. “My plans center around you now.”

  “We haven’t seen each other in three months.”

  “It took me some time to put all of these plans centered around you in place.” Lights danced in his eyes as he kept moving closer. “It doesn’t happen overnight, you know?”

  “I’m not sure I do know. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out what you’re doing here when you’re supposed to be in Nashville, making the new album that your publicity team promised the fans this summer.” I closed the lid on the toolbox, too flummoxed to distinguish between a wrench and a hammer at this point.

  “I’m leaving all of that behind me, Em.”

  I ignored the way my spine tingled when he said my name. “All of what behind you?”

  “My career.”

  I blinked, confusion thickening. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m retiring from my life as Chase Lawson, country singer and star. I’m hanging up that hat and putting on another.” He grinned when his stare fell to my arms, where splatters of paint had dried.

  “What new hat have you got in mind? Award-winning actor? Real estate tycoon? Rock n’ Roll Hall of Famer?”

  He shook his head. “Something less in the public eye. Actually, something not in the public eye at all.”

  “Should I keep guessing? Or are you going to tell me what this new title of yours might be?”

  “Your husband.”

  His words took a moment to process, my heart responding one way while my mind rallied the other. One held onto the pain, while the other had long ago let go of it.

  “I love you, Em. Always have. Always will. And if it takes me every day of the rest of my life to convince you to be my wife, then that’s what I’m damn well doing.” His hand ran through his light hair, his eyes expressing the agony in his words. “It’s you or no one. I’ve known that from the first day I met you . . . but it took me this long to work up the nerve to tell you.”

  This time when the tears threatened to come, I didn’t stop them. I’d been damming them back too long, too much, and I needed to release them. “You’re really retiring?” My voice squeaked from my throat tightening.

  Chase retrieved his phone from his back pocket and pulled something up on the screen. When he flipped it around, I read the headline, “Chase Lawson Retiring at the Height of his Career.”

  He swiped over a handful of others, all similar in tone, before shrugging. “If it’s on the internet, it must be real, right?”

  My mouth moved as I struggled to catch up to what was happening. “When I said that life wasn’t for me, I didn’t mean that I wanted you to give it all up. You worked hard to get where you did. You achieved something most people only dream about.”

  “I’m not concerned with other people’s dreams. Only mine. And when I close my eyes and think about everything I could ever want in life, all I see is you.” His hand brushed down my forearm, his shoulders relaxing as he did. “And maybe a few little ones with your smile and my sense of mischief.”

  “You shouldn’t have to choose between me and your career.”

  “I’ll choose between you and anything out there, Em, and it will be you every time. One career is a small thing to give up in exchange.”

  “One career?” I blinked. “You make it sound like you’re leaving behind a part-time position as a fry cook instead of being the most famous musician in country music today.”

  His fingers tangled with mine. “Where you’re concerned, they’re the same.” When he noticed the tears I was finally letting fall, he tucked me to him, strong arms holding me close. “I left you for all that back then. Now it’s time for me to leave it all for you.”

  My arms wound beneath his arms, circling behind his back, not sure I’d ever felt anything so solid in my life before the connection Chase and I shared right at that moment. “Compromise? It’s an important part of all relationships after all.”

  His head shook against mine. “Not on this. Don’t meet me halfway. Let me come to you.”

  My answer came in the form of a kiss, though I wasn’t sure of its exact reply. All I knew, as his mouth moved against mine, was that I’d finally buried the ghosts of the past, extinguished my fears for the future, and found happiness in the present.

  “I think I know the perfect thing you can hang in that spot above the fireplace you were staring at earlier.” Chase kissed the corner of my mouth, his eyes sliding toward the entryway.

  When my gaze followed his, I found his old guitar propped against the wall, the very one I’d purchased for him a lifetime ago when I was the only one he shared his music with. It was scarred from years of use, but it had been well taken care of and still shone like it had that first day he’d picked it up and played his first chord. I supposed all things were like that—some mix of scarred and spotless. The secret was in learning from the wounds and protecting the rest.

  “What do you think?” he asked, smiling at the old guitar with me. “I’m hanging up my guitar for you. Figuratively and literally.”

  “I think it’s found its home.”

  “I found my home twenty years ago when you offered to share your snack with me on my first day of school because I didn’t have one.” I felt something cool against one of my fingers, a familiar ring hovering above my fingertip. Chase’s throat moved. “I just lost my way, and it took me ten years to find my way back.”

  My eyes met his. All the answer he needed to find was held within them.

  “Welcome home,” I whispered as the gold band slid down my finger, accepting the warmth of my skin. My mouth was halfway to his when I stopped myself. “Are you sure this is what you want? Despite what you think, you don’t have to give up your career for me. You can have both. You can have me and a family and the legacy you create with your career.”

  Chase hadn’t stopped staring at the ring on my finger, images of the future seeming to flash on a reel before him. Then, with the kind of intention that made a person gasp, his eyes locked on mine. Those same eyes I’d seen so much of my life reflected in—the highs, the lows, and everything in between.

  “A man’s legacy isn’t the number of people who know his name,” he said, his words warm against my skin. “It’s defined by one good woman who knows him and loves him despite it.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  Thank you for reading FOOL ME ONCE

  by NEW YORK TIMES and USATODAY

  bestselling author, Nicole Williams.

  Look out for her next book, releasing this spring!

  Nicole loves to hear from her readers.

  You can connect with her on:

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  Website: authornicolewilliams.com

  Also by Nicole Williams

  ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE (Random House)

  TRUSTING YOU & OTHER LIES (Random House)

  CRASH, CLASH, CRUSH (HarperCollins)

  UP IN FLAMES (Simon & Schuster UK)

  DATING THE ENEMY

  EXES WITH BENEFITS

  ROOMMATES WITH BENEFITS

  TOUCHING DOWN

  STEALING HOME

  MISTER WRONG

  TORTURED

  COLLARED
<
br />   HATE STORY

  THE FABLE OF US

  THREE BROTHERS

  CROSSING STARS

  DAMAGED GOODS

  HARD KNOX

  GREAT EXPLOITATIONS SAGA

  LOST & FOUND SERIES

  FINDERS KEEPERS SERIES

  THE PATRICK CHRONICLES

  THE EDEN TRILOGY

  Enjoy the first free chapter of ROOMMATES WITH BENEFITS, a swoony friends-to-lovers romance, included with your purchase of FOOL ME ONCE.

  ROOMMATES WITH BENEFITS

  CHAPTER ONE

  I felt like all of my dreams had, or were about to, come true.

  Waved farewell to Podunk hometown? Check.

  Arrived in posh metropolis with luggage in tow? Check.

  Signed to a top agency? Check.

  About to roll up to my swanky new pad? Check.

  The world wasn’t just at my fingertips—I felt like it was clutched in the palm of my hand. All the obstacles—everything I’d had to overcome to get here—and I’d done it. I’d paid the price. Now I was ready to reap the darn reward.

  “Oh, crap.” My heart soared into my throat when I glanced at the taximeter for the first time since leaving the airport. I’d been totally preoccupied with staring at the bright lights and sights of New York City. “Is that how much it will cost for the entire ride? Hopefully?” My eyes widened when the meter tacked on another fifty cents.

  The driver glanced at me through the rearview. He must have thought I was making a joke until he saw my face. “What? You serious, kid?” His meaty arm draped across the passenger seat. “That’s how much it costs to get to right here.” He speared his finger out the window, two bushy brows lifting. “There’s still another mile before we hit the address you gave me.”

  “Pull over. Please. Pull over.”

  Digging inside my purse, I counted out what I owed the driver. Which left me with a whole two dollars and some cents to my name. Ever since I was a little girl declaring my plans to make it in the big city, everyone had been warning me that New York City was expensive. I guessed I hadn’t realized that translated to public transportation as well.