“I wish I understood, too. I thought things were good between us, Chelsea. Can you help me understand what went wrong? Can we at least talk about it?”
The look on his face was breaking her heart. He obviously thought she was rejecting him. She wasn’t. If he only knew. She stared at her hands as if they might show her an answer. Or at least give her some direction about what to do next.
But of course, he didn’t know the full story.
“Ethan, this morning when I said I needed to talk to you, it wasn’t about me leaving. Actually, I didn’t know I was leaving until later. Until after you sent me the photo from the paper.”
“Now I really don’t understand. What was so reprehensible about that picture that it’s driving you away?”
“There is nothing reprehensible about the picture. Ethan, I—”
She clamped her mouth shut. In the midst of this craziness, she’d almost told him she loved him. She did love him, but it didn’t matter and it would only make things harder if she confessed her feelings.
So she did the only other thing possible. She told him the truth. “I haven’t been completely honest with you, Ethan.”
He was frowning at her, as if her revelation hadn’t surprised him one bit. Had he known all along that she was hiding something? Of course he hadn’t known. Still, he sat there, arms crossed, looking annoyed and defensive in his staunch silence.
The phrase he who speaks first, loses came to mind, but Chelsea knew there was no getting around it. She had to be the one to break the silence.
“Let me start from the beginning. The night I met you, I wasn’t planning on running into anyone. I certainly wasn’t planning on seeing you again or falling for you. My name isn’t Chelsea Allen. It’s Chelsea Ashford Alden. Chelsea Allen was a name that I used to use sometimes when Juliette and I would go out and I was trying to fly under the radar.”
His brows drew together. “Fly under the radar? What does that mean? I understand that sometimes women don’t want to be bothered, is that what you mean?”
“No, I mean fly under the radar, as in not being recognized.”
“Why? Are you someone famous who I’m not familiar with?”
She shrugged. “Sort of. My father is the fifth Earl of Downing. My brother is Thomas Ashford Alden. Does that ring a bell?”
He did not look impressed, which was fine. She didn’t expect him to be up on British politics.
“It’s quite likely that my brother will be the next prime minister of Great Britain—”
“And you couldn’t trust me with that?” He shook his head and got up and paced the length of the room. She wanted to give him time to let this sink in before she told him the real reason she was running.
“If your father is an earl, does that make you royalty or something?”
“Yes. Sort of. I’m at the very end of the line for the throne, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Well, yeah, it really does. It’s who you are. Why didn’t you tell me? I get using the fake name when we first met, but Chelsea, we’ve seen a lot more of each other since then. You could’ve told me. You could’ve trusted me.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. This was it. This was the moment she’d been dreading. But she had to tell him. There was no holding back.
“Ethan, please sit down. There’s more. There’s a reason I lied to you.”
She told him everything—about Bertie Veal, about the secret recording, about Hadden selling it to the tabloids after she broke up with him, about her parents’ mandate, about running from the reporter who seemed hell-bent on ruining her life.
“He’s bound to find me and I have to leave before he tracks me here—to you and Lucy and Juliette. You don’t need that in your life. You don’t need to be linked romantically to someone who is known around town as that woman—the one in that video—wink, wink, nudge, nudge.”
She paused and it was the stupidest thing—her heart thudded against her breastbone and she was hoping he would gather her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right, that he would love her and protect her and make sure that Bertie Veal never hurt her again. But he just sat there looking through her with a vaguely horrified expression on his face.
It was the look she’d feared since the moment she realized that she could love this man. But he had fallen for Chelsea Allen, a woman who didn’t even exist.
* * *
Chelsea had been gone four days and Ethan had felt every ticking second like a dagger to the heart. Leave it to him to fall in love with a woman he couldn’t have. That was why he hadn’t gone after her, hadn’t begged her to stay. This had nothing to do with inferiority complexes or male pride; he simply knew when he was facing an impossible battle. It wasn’t that he was being a defeatist, he was being a realist.
It was clear from the moment Chelsea told him she was leaving that she couldn’t wait to get out of this town. If Molly, who had been born and raised here, had been loath to stay, why would someone like Lady Chelsea Ashford Alden—someone of noble birth, who had gone to the same college as the Duke of Cambridge, the guy who would likely sit on the throne of England. Hell, the fact that Chelsea could even say she was in line for the throne was daunting. He refused to kid himself that someone like that would want to give up the jet set for life on a horse ranch that was rooted just as deeply in him as London was in her.
He wasn’t even angry that she’d lied about her name and had evaded the truth about her background. Okay, he was at first, but not now. The reason he was letting her go without a fight was because it was simply good horse sense.
He was still a little too raw to contemplate the prospect of being just friends. After she’d told him about the video that creep had sold to the tabloids, Ethan had given in to curiosity and spent the better part of an afternoon online, searching the web for stories about Lady Chelsea Ashford Alden. He could not find the infamous video and he wouldn’t have watched it if he had. He could only hope that somehow her well-connected family had been successful in helping her wipe the video off the internet.
One thing he did find online was a story about Chelsea and him that was written by Chelsea’s stalker, titled, Could This Be Love for Lady Chelsea or Just Another Spring Fling? The con artist had ripped off the photo of Ethan kissing Chelsea at the fair, the one that had originally appeared in the Dallas Morning News.
Pain and a sense of loss as raw and real as the day that Chelsea had told him she was leaving stung every nerve ending in him, tempting him to sign off and leave well enough alone. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he was punishing himself or soothing himself by reading story after story about this woman he thought he knew.
Though the web seemed to be cleansed of the video, plenty of sensational and obviously fabricated stories remained. He came away from the search with the sound conclusion that the Chelsea Ashford Alden he saw on the web, the one depicted in all those trumped-up tabloid stories was not the same woman he’d fallen in love with. That was not Chelsea. The person in the tabloids was an exaggerated figment of a desperate reporter’s imagination.
Chelsea wasn’t any different than any other woman who had done her share of having a good time, raising a little innocent hell. At least she’d steered clear of substance abuse and she didn’t let alcohol rule her days and nights. He’d witnessed that firsthand. No, the Chelsea Ashford Alden he’d met was kind and generous and decent. She was also beautiful and charismatic and the daughter of a well-connected, high-profile family. That made her the perfect target for a sleazebag like Bertie Veal.
It also didn’t change the fact that she was in England and he was in Texas. Lady Chelsea Ashford Alden would never be content in a small town like Celebration. So Ethan threw himself into his work at the Triple C and pretended that he didn’t have a huge gaping hole in his chest where his heart used to live.
Chapter Thirteen
On the day of the grand opening party, which was a trial run before hosting Connor Bryce’s wedding reception, Ethan dressed in khaki slacks and a plaid button-down that he had taken the time to press so that he’d look presentable for Lucy’s big night.
He had to give credit where credit was due. She had stuck to her guns and brought this dream to fruition. He was proud of his little sister. That was why he was determined to make this night about her, not about the person who was conspicuously absent tonight. He missed Chelsea. The ache lingered like arthritis in his soul. But as with all adversity he’d ever faced in his life, he learned to live with the pain, to push through it and carry on.
Tonight would be no different. He would go to the party, help Lucy however he could—though Juliette, party planner extraordinaire, seemed to have everything under control. He would be there as a source of support and do his best not to think of Chelsea.
She’d been gone two weeks now. Every single day of that time he’d had to consciously restrain himself from calling her. His heart longed to see her one more time, but his head reminded him it was hopeless. He wasn’t looking for a long-distance relationship. He certainly wasn’t about to pin his hopes on her having a big change of heart and trading in the glitz and glam of London for him at the Triple C Ranch.
That was just how it was. The truth hurt, but as with everything else he would survive. Or so he told himself. It had become his mantra. If he repeated it enough, someday he might believe it.
The party started at seven. He wasn’t much for shindigs like this. So when he’d called Lucy and asked her if she wanted him to come early and she had assured him she and Juliette had everything under control, he decided to do his evening rounds of the ranch, checking to make sure everything was buttoned up for the night.
The sun was hanging low in the western sky, bathing everything in soft tones of gold and orange, red and blue, showing off as it bid the world good-night and prepared to tuck itself away. Another day done. Since she had been gone he’d started feeling a little sadder at this time of night. During the day, when the sun was hotter than the hinges of hell, it burned right through him, numbing the pain. The vast blackness of the night threw a cloak over his emotions. Thank God he hadn’t reached for the bottle. He’d been tempted because it was the one sure way to anesthetize the pain. In fact, a couple of times he’d had to call his sponsor and have him talk the bottle out of his hand. He wasn’t going to let losing her break him.
The urge for a drink was always the worst at twilight. He remembered his mom calling this time of night the blue hour and now he understood why.
Tonight, as with every night for the past two weeks, as he drove by the pastures and the stables he saw reminders of Chelsea everywhere he looked. In the shadows of the oak trees, in the distance by the post and rail fence, in the rolling hills that graced his land. Her specter lived there.
How long was it going to take to exorcise her?
This morose thought was particularly irritating because she wasn’t dead. He couldn’t even pretend like she was dead to him. He couldn’t hate her. He couldn’t call her names or scoff at her way of life because he still loved her. The only thing she was guilty of was coming from a different world—and for that matter, he was just as damn guilty as she was. Actually, he shouldered more of the guilt for not trying to meet her halfway. For letting her go without trying to salvage something of them or letting her know he was willing to be her friend. They could do that long distance, couldn’t they? Couldn’t they be friends?
No. He didn’t want to be her friend.
But for the first time since she’d left, he realized that he wasn’t good with completely cutting her out of his life. He had no idea how she felt because they hadn’t talked. No one had made the first move to reach out to the other. Suddenly, it seemed ludicrous not to man up.
Glancing at the dashboard clock that glowed neon-green, he noted the hour and his brain calculated the time difference between Celebration and London: six hours. If it was seven thirty here, that meant it was one thirty in the morning there. It was late. But it was a Saturday night. He wondered what she was doing. Was she home asleep? Or was she out with friends...or out on a date? Even though he had no right, the thought kicked him in the gut.
He pulled the truck over and took out his phone. He brought up the last text they had exchanged, the one where she had asked him to meet her at Juliette’s house the night everything went down. For about the millionth time, he racked his brain, trying to think of something he could’ve done differently that might’ve changed the way things turned out.
Of course he came up with nothing. Except the nagging reminder that he could’ve asked her to stay. But he couldn’t ask her to trade in the big city for small-town life. And he was back at square one.
This train of thought had become part of his nightly routine and was as intrinsic to him as doing rounds of the property.
What a terrible way to end things. He’d been so caught off guard by her revelation. He’d honestly thought she had called him there to say she needed space, that things were moving too fast for her. He’d been idiot enough to believe all he had to do to make things right was give her a little room and she would realize how right they were together. Hell, he didn’t need to be joined at the hip with the woman he loved, but he sure as hell needed the two of them to want the same things. Been there done that with someone who wasn’t on the same page. It never ended well.
The reality check still wasn’t resonating. It was bouncing around his brain like a ping-pong ball, but the message of good sense wasn’t reaching his heart.
He scrolled up past the text that had decided their fate and read happier messages.
Chelsea: What do you want to do for dinner tonight?
Ethan: I’d like to have you in my bed.
Ethan: Want to go riding this afternoon?
Chelsea: Are you talking horses or...? :)
The playfulness made him smile through the ache. If someone didn’t know better they might think the relationship was solely based on sex—and God, the sex had been off the charts. It had rocked his world. But there had been so much more.
If he texted her now, she’d get his message first thing in the morning... That banked on her being home sleeping. If he texted her, she could reply whenever she was ready.
He scrolled past the record of them, back to the blank screen and typed:
Hi, doing my rounds of the ranch. Realized that we never got to go riding. The next time you visit Jules, let’s make that happen.
He started to delete the message. In fact, he did erase the part that said let’s make that happen, but after staring at it for a while, trying to figure out what to write instead, something that didn’t sound bitter or pathetic or too presumptuous—For God’s sake was he actually sitting here second-guessing himself over a text message?
It was a text to a friend. Nothing more. So he retyped it and pushed Send before he could talk himself out of it. The overwhelming urge to wash away the sickening insecurity with a tall, cold draft nearly overwhelmed him. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands until the wave passed.
He was better than that. He’d worked too damn hard to get where he was, to stay sober this long and rebuild his life, to fall off the wagon tonight. He needed to go put in an appearance at Lucy’s party and then he would get the hell out of there.
As he reached for the gear shift, his phone signaled an incoming text.
His gut tightened as he picked up the phone and saw Chelsea’s response.
Hello, stranger. Good to hear from you. You must be a mind reader. I was thinking about you and Lucy. Tonight is the big grand opening trial run, isn’t it? How is it going?
I’m on my way to the party now. I know it’s late there. I hope the text didn’t wake you.
>
You didn’t wake me. I’m at a party myself. My love to you and Lucy. I’m there in spirit.
Since she was out on the town, he debated whether or not to respond—it didn’t escape him that she hadn’t picked up on the bit about going riding. But both of them knew that was just an icebreaker. He wasn’t going to hold his breath, waiting for her to come back to Celebration. Maybe if they corresponded as friends, someday he would make the trip to visit her in London. It was already feeling complicated. That was why he decided a quick gotta go reply would be the best way to keep it casual.
Thx. I’ll share your message with Lucy when I get there. Talk to you soon.
He tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and drove to the barn. The parking lot was already crowded with cars and trucks. It looked like the entire town of Celebration had turned out to support Lucy’s new endeavor.
He managed to maneuver his truck into a space on the unpaved area behind the building and made a mental note to mention to Lucy that she should consider adding more paved parking. As he rounded the barn heading toward the front door, he could hear the sound of a band playing a Luke Bryan tune mixed with the convivial sound of happy people at a party. Good for Lucy. He hadn’t realized it before, but this really was her wheelhouse. If anyone knew how to have fun, it was his sister. And he truly meant that in the most supportive way. He checked himself before he opened the door, which was festooned with twinkling white lights and a wreath made of wheat stalks and checked ribbon.
Just because he wasn’t in the mood for a party didn’t mean he would bring the shade to his sister’s big night. As his hand rested on the door handle, he wondered if he should’ve brought her flowers to celebrate the occasion. He even considered leaving to get some, but he knew it was as much a stall tactic as it was a congratulatory gesture for her. The best gift he could give her was his presence and a good attitude.
And the sooner he did this, the sooner he could leave.
The Cowboy's Runaway Bride Page 16