And he would.
Chloe pushed past him to start picking up the remnants of their night together. The clothes he’d stripped from her body. The wineglasses empty next to the bed. The high school yearbook he’d spotted in one of the boxes and insisted on paging through. “You have to stop somewhere, Max. As you said, you can’t keep living like this. Now is as good a time as any.”
She grabbed her phone and asked the Directory Assistance operator for the phone number of a local cab company, the whole time praying that Max would grab the phone from her hand because he couldn’t bear to leave. But he didn’t touch her.
Chloe ordered the cab, then turned slowly to face him. “Believe me, I’d get out if I could. I understand.”
“I want to stay,” he said softly. “You know that.”
She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to separate his attraction to her from his need to rescue damsels in distress. Maybe he did like her, but he had to hate her a little, too. Just as she found herself hating him a little. He’d taken care of all those other women, so why the hell did he have to take a stand with her? Why couldn’t he just offer his support?
She set the phone carefully on the table, afraid if she moved too quickly she’d fall apart. “Dispatch said it would only be three minutes. There’s a driver nearby.”
“Chloe…”
“Just go, Max. Wait inside the gate. They won’t be able to bother you there.”
He pulled her into his arms, but she stayed stiff. If she put her hands on him, if she tilted her head up for a kiss, she’d start crying. She’d weep and wail and beg him not to go. Max would stay if she asked him to, but that would be like asking someone to love you. A cheap and petty ruse that left you lonelier than you were before. And if you asked someone to love you, wasn’t that a guarantee he never would?
His arms fell slowly, as if he were still waiting for her to change her mind. “I’m going to stay here in Richmond, okay? In case you need me.”
“Need you,” she repeated dully. Hurt hardened into convenient fury. “In case I need you? Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Regardless—”
“I’m not some wilting flower looking for a protector, Max. I’ve done this on my own. I got through my fiancé dying. Then I got through the suspicions that he wasn’t dead at all. And the humiliation and betrayal of being exposed to everyone. And now…whatever the news is on Monday, I’ll get through that, too. What’s the alternative? Should I scream at the world to stop and let me off?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant, you arrogant asshole. Yeah, I wanted you here. I admit it. But I didn’t want a big strong daddy to take care of me. I wanted you here as an equal, but I guess you’re not up for that.” She knew her anger didn’t match what he’d done. He owed her nothing, not time or caring or even respect. But she had to put space between them or he’d stay and she’d call him.
And she had more than enough anger inside her to muster up.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, looking a little lost in the face of her bitterness.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You are. And you really should go now, because I don’t like you looking at my life as if it’s a fucking mess when you’ve been living a lie for thirty years.”
“Hey. My life has nothing to with this.”
“Not true. If you hadn’t been screwed up for so long, would you be running away right now?”
All traces of regret disappeared from his face. Now he looked furious. “I’m not running away. This isn’t my responsibility, goddamn it. You’re the one who told me I didn’t have to take care of every person I met.”
“Oh, sure, start with me. I guess I don’t mean as much to you as those other women you couldn’t bear to leave.”
“That’s not it at all,” he shouted. “You mean more to me.”
She couldn’t take this anymore. I care about you. That’s why I’m throwing you to the wolves. “Get out. And don’t bother hanging around Richmond. I don’t need you and I won’t call you.”
His jaw hard as the blade of a knife, Max glared at her. He shook his head, then looked down at the floor.
Despite her crazy tirade, despite his anger, he didn’t seem inclined to move, so Chloe stalked to the door and shoved it open. Flashbulbs crackled like an electrical storm, lighting up the trees in eerie bursts of colorless light. “Goodbye, Max.”
He stayed in her bedroom for a moment, glaring at his shoes, but what choice did he have? She’d opened the cage and he wanted out. Chloe didn’t even hear the questions shouted from the alley. The voices sounded like screaming ghosts as she stared at Max’s profile, memorizing the sad curve of his neck and the flexing muscles of his arms. Her body was winding up inside, like a clockwork toy about to snap.
“Get out!” she managed to choke out. Too loudly, she supposed. There was an almost indiscernible lull in the questions outside, before they began shouting anew.
Max rolled his shoulders and walked toward her. “Just…take care of yourself,” he said as he stopped in front of her. When she didn’t respond, he stepped out the door and started down the stairs. Unwilling to watch him leave, Chloe slammed the door shut with so much force that a picture fell off her wall, the glass cracking into a dozen shards. She felt the echo of the same sound inside her as she slid down to crouch on the floor, her face resting against the door.
Stupid. He was a stranger. He didn’t matter.
But that gear was turning inside her, and her nerves began to shred. She drew a deep breath, but with the windows all tightly closed, it was stale and humid in here, and the vague scent of leftover Chinese food left her nauseated.
Pressing a hand to her stomach, Chloe pushed herself to her feet and went to open the window that faced the backyard. It didn’t help. Unless she opened a window facing the alley, no breeze would travel through. The smell of the food was stronger here.
Desperate, Chloe grabbed a trash bag and yanked open the fridge, but before she’d finished dropping the five containers into the bag, she realized her mistake. She couldn’t throw it away. The garbage cans were downstairs, tucked against the side of the carriage house. Chloe narrowed her eyes. The roar outside had died down. Probably half the cameramen had followed Max around to the front. She could either take the food to the trash now, or live with the pervasive smell until dark. But she felt about half a minute away from throwing up at this point, and the smell was much stronger now.
Dropping the last container in the bag, Chloe headed for the door. She eased it open, noticing no change in the chatter below. Every beat of her heart seemed to knock against her roiling stomach, so Chloe took a deep breath and pushed the door wide enough to block them out. But this time it didn’t work. The neighbor on the far corner of the alley had apparently given in to bribery. Someone shouted her name, and she looked up to find two photographers and a video technician perched on the flat roof, their cameras aimed right at her. It wasn’t a perfect view. A huge tree cut through their line of vision, but it was enough. She stood there gawking at them for a good five seconds.
“Hey, Chloe,” someone yelled from below. “Are you going to marry Max Sullivan?”
“Chloe, why’d he leave so soon? Did you turn psycho on him?”
“Were you cheating on Thomas with Max?”
“Chloe, did you show Max your wedding dress?”
Her jaw trembled. Every nerve in her body seemed to shake. She just wanted to be able to take the trash out. Just wanted to date a nice man and go out to breakfast and not skulk around as if she were going to get caught doing something wrong.
“Is it true that Max wants you to lose weight to look more like Genevieve?”
Chloe thought of Max sleeping with that fashionable stick figure. She thought of him comparing her body to Chloe’s. She knew what was coming. Sites that put their pictures side by side. Sites that polled their readers as to who was sexier.
“Chloe, who are you wearing today?” one of the
men yelled. The rest of them laughed as Chloe glanced down at her favorite T-shirt. It was a worn green shirt with the Lucky Charms leprechaun on the front. She’d worn it for Max and joked about having a little Irish in her thanks to him. He’d growled and kissed her.
Now these people who’d driven him away were laughing at her secret joke. Tomorrow, even if the truth was painful, even if her worst fears about Jenn came true, they’d laugh again.
“Bastards,” she growled, her hand reaching for the edge of the door. Instead of ducking back inside, she closed the door behind her and stepped up to the railing to glare down at the dozen people below. “Stop it!” she yelled, watching their eyes light with glee. Cameras whirred and snapped in a frantic cacophony. She wanted to hit them, to hurt them as much as they’d hurt her.
Eyeing one wolflike grin, she recognized one of the first guys who’d started following her. Chloe reached into the trash bag and grabbed one of the flimsy boxes of food. “Stop it!” she screamed…then she threw the box as hard as she could.
Her aim wasn’t perfect, but the box caught his elbow and exploded noodles all over him. Triumph surged up to replace the fear that fueled her rage, but the triumph proved an even hotter fuel. While the other photographers laughed and hooted at their stunned friend, Chloe reached into the bag again. She aimed this box into the thicket of video cameras, and this time her aim was true. The biggest, baddest camera disappeared behind an explosion of brown goo. The laughter stopped, and the men gasped as if she had just tossed garbage on a child.
“Hey!” somebody yelled. There were curses and shouts, but the cameras kept clicking, and Chloe kept throwing. By the time she was done, half the mob below was covered in rice or noodles or sauce, and Chloe was panting as if she’d just run a hundred-meter sprint.
“Psycho-bitch!” one of the videographers screamed.
Chloe gave him the finger and flounced back inside with a sneer, her nausea just a memory. But as she washed her hands, her sneer faded. The reality of what she’d just done began to sink in.
“It was worth it,” she whispered, knowing full well that it hadn’t been. She snapped off the kitchen light and retreated to the bedroom to sit on her rumpled bed. She thought of calling Jenn. Or Anna. But she felt cut off from them, too. Adrift.
Chloe took off her shoes and her leprechaun T-shirt and her jeans. She curled up beneath the sheets she’d shared with Max Sullivan for just one night. And she cried harder than she ever had for Thomas.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TWO HOURS WITH HIS HANDS on a steering wheel went a long way toward grounding Max’s soul. He was back in the driver’s seat, in complete control of the rented Ford Explorer, dictating speed, acceleration and position on the freeway. In fact, it was so soothing that by the time he pulled onto his brother’s Alexandria street, Max was confident he’d done the right thing in leaving Chloe. Yes, he’d wanted to see her, but he should never have gone there with the trial still pending.
Chloe was right. He had no business trying to help other people when his own life was so screwed up. She was right, and that’s why he’d been so furious.
When he found his gaze straying to his cell, Max jerked his eyes back to the street with a curse. The phone hadn’t rung, so obviously there was no message from Chloe. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to call.
He regretted hurting her, but she’d been okay when he’d left. Pissed, but pissed was better than sad. Anger gave you energy and arrogance and righteousness. Anger would get her through until tomorrow.
And whatever she’d said to him in the heat of the moment, he’d call her tomorrow and make sure she was okay. And he’d call her again after that. And maybe…maybe after his next stint on the water, he’d get in touch and see where they were. There was something good between them, and Max wasn’t ready to let her go for good.
Max parked the truck in front of his brother’s high-rise condo and jogged up to the fourth floor. His phone began to ring the moment Max’s knuckles hit the door.
He dropped his bag to the floor and fumbled for the phone, but just when he got it out of his pocket, the door opened and he found himself facing Elliott with a phone pressed to his ear.
Max looked at his phone with disappointment.
“I was just calling you,” Elliott said.
“Right. What’s up?”
“What the hell’s going on?”
He shrugged, trying to think how he’d explain why he was back. He hadn’t called Elliott on the drive for this very reason.
“Mom called a few minutes ago. Have you seen the video?”
“No, I haven’t. But I know the press found out who I was. That’s why I left. Chloe doesn’t need more attention.”
“Um… Right. I think you’d better see this.”
Max’s heart dropped. For a moment, he had the horrible fear that they’d left the shades open last night in Chloe’s bedroom. “Come on, Elliott. What is it?”
Elliott tilted his head toward his office, and Max followed him in, waiting impatiently as Elliott pulled up one of the more popular gossip sites. “Mom called to say she was seeing all kinds of stuff about you dating some crazy woman…”
The site finally loaded and the headline was hardly subtle. BRIDEZILLA BAD BEHAVIOR FINALLY CAUGHT ON TAPE!
Max lowered himself slowly to the chair and scrolled down. The freeze-frame of the video showed Chloe’s carriage house, the camera zeroed in on a blurry image of Chloe at the top of the stairs. His chest tightened at the sight of her, exactly as he’d left her. Her cute shirt glowing green and her hair pulled back in a clip.
After hesitating for a few seconds, he called up his courage and hit Play, expecting to see him and Chloe racing up the stairs. But the bad behavior wasn’t about their affair at all.
He watched as Chloe slammed the door shut and glared down at the alley below her. Her face was tight with rage, teeth bared in fury. Max winced. “Stop it!” she yelled. And that was when she began her attack.
“Holy shit,” Max breathed as Chloe rained vengeance down on her foes. A few pieces of rice splattered the screen, but they failed to block the sight of her rampage. The last few seconds of the video zoomed in on Chloe’s flushed face, then pulled back to show her giving the finger to the world. “Oh, no.”
“Did something happen?” Elliott asked.
“I don’t know. This must have been after I left.”
“And she was fine when you left?”
Max almost managed to bite back his moan, but Elliott must have caught the start of it.
“Don’t tell me Max Sullivan has finally lost his touch?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that you’ve left a trail of beautiful, wild women behind you, and all of them still love you. That’s not normal, man. My ex-wife hates my guts, and she left me.”
Max stared at the freeze-frame of Chloe, the hair on his arms rising as if he were seeing a ghost. “Your wife left because she was missing something,” he murmured. “I give women something they need. Then they’re done with me.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Max read the accompanying story, then cruised around to a few more sites. They were all the same. Him. The video of Chloe. The video of him and Chloe scrambling up the stairs. Pictures of him with Genevieve. Pictures of Chloe when she was engaged. And lots and lots of editorials sympathizing with poor Thomas DeLorn, engaged to a psycho control-freak like crazy Chloe Turner.
His hands shook as he rubbed them over his face. “We got into a fight,” he said, the words echoing off his palms and back into his head. “About what?”
“Oh, Christ, Elliott. It was my fault. I’ve been…”
He hesitated, half hoping that Elliott would give him some space and walk away, but Elliott took the opposite approach and sat down on the desk to face him.
Okay. This was it, then. “I’m trying to change my life. I can’t maintain these crazed relationships anymore. I can’t keep dating w
omen because they need someone.”
Elliott’s brow creased with obvious confusion. “But you date wild women. Party girls. Popular girls.”
“Yeah.” Max sighed. He dug his fingertips into his forehead. “Yeah. I have an image…” An image that attracted fun, glamorous women, and a personality that left him holding on to the damaged ones. “It’s complicated.”
“How?”
“I’m not as laid-back as you think.”
Elliott’s mouth flattened with skepticism.
“I tend to get involved with women out of a misguided desire to help them.”
“Help them do what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Get their lives together. Learn to protect themselves. Whatever it is, it’s dishonest and it’s not right. I’m trying to change it.”
“You’re saying that’s why you like Chloe? Because she’s vulnerable?”
Max winced. “You make it sound like I’m preying on weak women or something. And Chloe isn’t…She’s not like that, or I didn’t know she was. I like her because she sees the truth in me. No one else ever has.”
“What truth?”
Max stared at Elliott, telling himself that his little brother wasn’t a kid anymore. They could talk as adults. They could be honest. “I… I have some, uh, control issues.”
“Well, I know you like to take charge, but—”
“No, it’s kind of a problem. I worry. A lot. I need to take care of people.”
“Like who?”
“Like everyone.” His brother’s frown was creasing deeper into his forehead, and Max had had enough honesty for now, so he changed the subject. “Anyway, I liked Chloe because I thought she was calm and normal, so this is all freaking me out. We argued because I thought I should leave. And then I left. She seemed okay.”
His brother glanced toward the computer.
“Obviously, I was wrong.” Max reached for the phone and dialed Chloe’s number. It went immediately to a message that said her voice-mail folder was full. “Her phone’s off.” He tried the landline and found it busy.
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