by J. C. Reed
I kept staring at him. I couldn’t wrap my head around Chase’s words. My head was spinning. Everything was too much.
“What about us?” I asked weakly.
He took my hand in his. “We’ll come out stronger.”
I shook my head, both to deny his statement and to get rid of the tears stinging my eyes. “No.” In spite of the earth-shattering sadness inside me, I smiled. It took all my willpower to do so. “Chase, I get what you have to do.”
“I sense a but…”
I smiled again. “But I need to annul the marriage. There is no ‘us.’ There can’t be. What you have to do…I understand, but I can’t do it with you.” I squeezed his hand. “Please let me go. There’s no point in believing there could ever be more between us. My heart’s not in it. It never will be. You’re not the kind of person I’d ever want in my life.”
Which was a lie. The pressure behind my eyes intensified. I had to finish this once and for all before I broke down and he saw through the mess inside me, right into my bleeding heart.
He stared at me for one hard moment.
“Laurie—”
“No, I’m serious. I want to annul it.” I took a shaky breath and let it out. “You can have my inheritance. No hard feelings, but please, don’t expect me to stay married to you. Please,” I begged, closing my eyes. “Just sign the papers.”
“You can’t annul something you’ve consummated. Besides, I can’t,” he whispered. “We have a contract.”
My heart sank. “You can cancel it, Chase. No one forces you.”
“I could but I don’t want to,” he said softly. “The risk is too great. In order to win, I need you to be my wife. I need the situation to be…”
“Convincing.” I nodded. “I understand, but I don’t want to live with you.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
I closed my eyes, feeling despair, hopelessness, and sadness washing over me. “I can’t live with you. I can’t see you every day.” I opened my eyes again.
“Why?” Chase asked. “There are so many things I want for us. I want to wake up next to you. I want to see you every day. I won’t let the past break us apart.”
I shook my head again. “I cannot deal with the pressure, nor a trial. I cannot face it. You’ll never be the person I—”
I fell in love with.
I broke off, keeping that part to myself.
“No,” he said forcefully. “I want to know why you want to stay away from me.”
“Because…” I struggled choosing my words. “I can’t get involved with you again.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to get more emotionally attached than I already am. Okay? Stop asking me such questions, I can’t answer them,” I said angrily. “Just accept that I wouldn’t be proud of myself.”
“Laurie.” He sounded genuinely shocked. “I won’t give you a divorce.”
“Yet,” I added.
“No.” He shook his head. “I won’t agree to a divorce at all. Not now, not tomorrow, nor when the trial’s over.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
“I don’t want to lose you.” His words came out low, and for a moment I wasn’t sure I had heard him right.
I frowned. “Look, you don’t have to lie, Chase. It was a business proposition. Nothing more. You wanted revenge, I wanted the letters. There is no need for you to pretend that there was more between us.”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.” His lips swept over my cheek, his nose brushing mine, as he whispered in my ear, “When I said I like you, what I really meant isn’t that I want to fuck you, or that we’re great friends. I’m saying that I really want to be with you. Every minute I see you, I fall in love with you even more, and I know you can feel it, too. Don’t pretend there’s nothing between us because you’re lying to yourself.”
I shook my head. A tear trickled down my cheek. “What we had was nice, but it wasn’t real. None of this is.”
“What about our feelings?” he asked, moving back.
Our feelings.
I smiled bitterly.
Not real.
Not his feelings, nor mine.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to love.” I looked up at him. “As for you, if you really love me, if only a little bit, you’ll let me go. You’ll stop asking to see me. You’ll stop contacting me.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re not ready,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, Chase. Please listen to what I’m telling you. I don’t want to love you. What we have—had—will pass. There’s no point in believing there could ever be more. That…” I broke off, the pain too heavy.
For a long moment, there was silence.
“Okay,” he said. His expression was pained, but it was nothing compared to what I was feeling inside. “Okay.” His fingers settled beneath my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I’m going to let you go, Laurie, but I want you to know that I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll wait until you’re ready for my love.” I pulled away but he didn’t let go. “Twelve months. That’s how long it’ll take me to get your inheritance back.”
“Twelve months,” I repeated. “In twelve months I want my divorce. Until then…”
“I’ll stay away if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want, Chase. No contact. I don’t want to hear from you again.”
His jaw set, but he said no more. He let go of me. I used the opportunity to get up and walk past him, closing the door behind me.
Chapter 20
The moment I slammed the door behind me, a first ripple escaped my throat. Pressing a hand against my mouth to stifle the sound, I headed for the bathroom and locked up behind me.
It was the only place where I knew Chase wouldn’t hear the silent cries.
It was the only place where I felt it was safe to let out my emotions.
To escape the pain I was feeling. When I had asked for a divorce, every part of me broke. It broke in the knowledge that I had fallen in love with him, and that no matter what I said or did, I wasn’t important to him. He wanted his revenge, and once he got it, I’d be a part of his past.
In spite of his claims, I was a tool he’d discard of once he didn’t need it any more.
Stripping off my clothes, I stepped inside the small cubicle and turned on the water, the coldness seeping into my skin.
It was going to be hard, but between the choice of seeing Chase every day, feeling the pain of knowing he’d never love me the way I loved him, and the choice of staying away, feeling the pain of his absence, I knew I’d rather go for the latter.
I sunk to my knees, burying my face in my hands, and let the water pound against my naked body in the hope it could wash away the pain, the love, my soul.
I didn’t know how long I just sat there, stuck in that one place where my dreams had been crushed, and I was forced to face the harsh reality that I had been a pawn in Chase’s game.
Eventually, the crying ebbed, and I forced my shivering body into an upright position.
I forced myself to take slow steps toward the mirror and face the woman I had become.
Her reflection stared at me, her eyes hard, unforgiving, as if she was questioning my decision.
“Shut up,” I whispered to her and wrapped a towel around my shivering body, then returned to my room to change.
Everything felt empty now that I knew Chase would be gone. He didn’t say when he’d be leaving, but my heart was already missing him like crazy. A few times, I caught myself glancing toward the door in the hope he’d magically appear and tell me his plans had changed.
That’s when I noticed the piece of paper on the floor.
Chase. I knew it was from him.
I dashed for it, my breathing trapped in my chest, as I lifted the paper to read the beautiful cursive.
Laurie,
I don’t want to part like this. Please meet me at the beach.
I promise.
-C
No xox. No love. Nothing. Only a simple word: promise.
Promise could mean a lot of things in Chase’s world. It could also mean nothing.
I couldn’t go. Of course, I couldn’t.
It was out of the question. And yet my heart longed to see him one more time. After all the crying, I felt as if the worst was over. I had accepted that things were over, that nothing would change his mind, that he’d sign the divorce papers after the twelve months were over, that things between Clint and I would never be the same again after what Chase was about to do—not that they were great to begin with.
I retrieved my phone from where I had left it on the bed and scrolled through my missed calls. Clint’s number showed up a few times. Sitting down, I speed-dialed his number, my pulse spiking.
“Hi, Clint.” My voice sounded different. Strangled. Defeated. As if a part of me had died.
“Lauren.” His fake voice echoed down the line. “How’s my favorite girl doing?”
I cringed at his choice of words. It wasn’t like he had a few daughters.
“I’m good.”
A pause, then, “Where are you? I’d like to talk to you.”
“I’d rather do this over the phone.”
Another heavy pause.
“Why are you making things difficult for me?” His tone was still friendly, but underneath I could hear the anger, the accusation. “I raised you as the good daughter you are and how are you repaying me? You steal the contract we had and go behind my back to file a court order. Now, don’t deny it. I know you’re behind it. It’s okay. You can admit it, and I promise I’ll forgive you. But right now, I need you to stop those childish antics and withdraw—”
“It wasn’t me,” I cut him off.
“What?”
“I didn’t steal the contract.”
“But you know what’s going on,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’re a clever girl. I don’t have to tell you that going against me won’t bring your mother back.”
My grip on my phone tightened. “How come you never say her name? In all the years since she’s been dead, you never once said her name.”
I let out a wry laugh as the realization dawned on me.
“Of course I know Eleanor’s name. You know how much I loved her. I think of her every day.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “You never told me what happened the day she died. You never told me what happened to her. It’s like she never existed. All the years, I spent at Waterfront Shore, it was like I never had a mother.”
“It’s because her memory’s too painful.”
“You knew her for only two years, Clint,” I said dryly.
“In spite of her mental illness, she was still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
His words touched me. They made me incredibly sad. But there was something calculating about the way he said them. Like he had practiced them.
“Is it true, did you destroy other people’s lives?” I asked. “Did you convince people to invest their money in their business before you took everything away from them?”
The silence lasted for a second. “What does that have to do with my estate?”
Not your estate or the estate.
My estate.
“You mean my mother’s estate?” I asked. “The estate that had been in my family for generations before you came along?”
“You know it’s mine. It’s what your mother wanted.”
“Did she?” I asked.
The silence was short, the reply hateful. “What are you talking about? Your mother was mentally ill, but she wanted me to have the estate.”
“Exactly.” I nodded, for the first time really seeing Chase’s point. “Was she even able to make a rational decision?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I swear, I’ll crush you.”
The threat was there, not veiled. Plain and simple.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“You greedy bitch,” Clint said. “I agreed to give you one quarter of the inheritance, and that’s how you repay me? You don’t deserve it. You hear me? If you don’t drop the case, I’m going to make you pay.”
I hung up, my fingers trembling at his harsh words.
It didn’t take long before the phone began to ring.
I counted the calls as I put on clean clothes. By the third time Clint called, I was long gone.
Chapter 21
I found him on the beach. It was a beautiful place, I had to give him that. Much less crowded than I had expected, and so close to the hotel. He was sitting on the white sand, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He didn’t turn his face to me as I dropped down next to him, stretching out my legs as far as I could. The water was sparkling blue, beckoning to me to take a swim, if only this vacation hadn’t turned out quite so unexpected. If only I didn’t know Chase was about to leave.
For a while, we sat there, the hot Mexican sun warming my skin, but not quite reaching my heart.
Chase spoke first. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Surprised me, too.”
He nodded, his eyes absent. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
My eyebrows rose. “About what?”
“About us living together. You know, going back to NY together.”
I shook my head, then sighed. “No, Chase.”
“Laurie,” he whispered. “I don’t want to lie—”
“Then don’t.” I looked away because his eyes were too beautiful. Too damn convincing.
“You’d never understand.”
I smiled bitterly. “Trust me, I do. You and Kade need revenge, and I so happen to be the collateral damage. But here’s what I don’t get. What’s in it for you when all is said and done? I really hope it’ll be worth it.”
“It’s not just revenge, Laurie,” Chase said. “Clint destroys people. He needs to be stopped. I think I’ve made myself clear on that part.”
I sighed again and watched the waves roll in, but the serenity of the setting didn’t quite manage to calm the raging storm inside me. “I know. I talked with him earlier.”
“And?”
“I told him it’s on. That’s why I’m here.” He looked at me surprised, and I felt the need to clarify. “I want you to go ahead and do what needs to be done.”
“That means a lot to me.” He grabbed my hand, his eyes meeting mine. “I promise you as soon as Clint loses his money, it’ll all be transferred to you. No harm done.”
I chuckled darkly. “No harm done, huh? What about my feelings, Chase? I thought we had a real thing going on.” I turned to him and caught the imploring glint in his eyes. “You really think I came here because I might be afraid of losing money? Honestly, I don’t care about that at all. It’s the other matter that bothers me.”
His expression changed from surprise to disbelief.
“Are you saying you feel more?” he asked quietly.
“More?” I laughed through the curtain of tears clouding my vision. “I feel everything. I feel the sun in my eyes when I look at you. I smell the sky when you breathe. I don’t call this nothing. I call it everything.”
“Then leave with me.” His plea surprised me, his intensity made me want to pack my bags and follow him to the end of the world and back. “I can arrange a seat for you.”
“I can’t,” I whispered. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. What I said earlier, I meant it.”
His eyes widened. “You want—”
I nodded. “I still want a divorce.”
“Why?” There was so much sadness in his eyes, my heart felt like it was going to burst from the weight of my pain. “Why would you give us up? You know that I want to give us a try.”
“Because I can’t deal with it.” I looked at him. “You got what you wanted. Me. An
d your revenge. But now I need to move on. For my sake, for our sake. Because what we have is not real. It’s—”
His hand touched my face. I didn’t even have time to take a breath before his lips came crashing down. They ripped open a hole in my heart, filling it with the sweet promise of something I knew would be gone in the blink of an eye.
Not with desire, not with anger, not with hope, but love.
Love for this man I barely knew.
Love for someone who couldn’t love me as much as I did him.
Or at least that was what I thought.
“It feels pretty real to me,” Chase whispered against my lips.
“It’s unrealistic,” I whispered. “You fell in love with your target. You honestly believe it’d ever work out?” I inched closer, barely able to stifle the need to throw myself into his arms and trust him with my heart I knew I could never give him. “I want things to be different. I want there to be an us, but life doesn’t work that way. I hate to say it, but your brother’s right.”
His mouth tightened. My answer didn’t please him.
“I care about you, Laurie,” he whispered. “I really do. But—”
“But what?”
“I’ve never let anybody be this close to me. My brother says I’m incapable of love. That’s what everyone told me, and I believed them. That’s why it was easy to go on with my plans, and why I suggested that I do it rather than Kade. But after meeting you, something inside me changed.” My breath hitched at his words. “It was easy to make myself believe that it was only a job, that I could move on after the deed was done, but now—” His glance searched mine in a long, tender moment. “—now I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to stay away from you. I don’t think I want to. You have come to mean so much to me.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “What are you saying, Chase?”
“I’m a lawyer. I’ve been taught not to let my feelings interfere and all that bullshit. But with you I feel that I can be myself. I feel that something is happening between us. I think that’s why I can’t stay away from you.”