Crazy for Love

by Victoria Dahl

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MAX STRETCHED HARD before collapsing back into the pillows. He didn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t. Whatever time it was, it was way too damn early. Chloe had spent the night, and between talking and making love over and over again, he was so exhausted he felt slightly beat up. In fact, his back still stung faintly with the evidence she’d left with her nails. Hell, yeah.

  That memory perked him up, and Max dared to open his eyes against the glare of sunshine pouring through the white curtains. White curtains. A complete waste of material.

  At first he could see nothing but brightness. Then he registered the pillow mounded about two inches from his face. A slight shift of his head revealed the rumpled sheets next to his arm. There was no naked woman curled into them. Damn.

  A few minutes later he summoned the energy to turn his head the other way to check the time. No wonder the sun was so darn bright. It was almost eleven o’clock. He watched the second hand make a few sweeps around the face of the old-fashioned alarm clock and then he pushed up and forced his feet to the floor. He stretched until his spine popped in all the places he was starting to feel his age.

  Sure, he was only thirty-five, but he’d spent a lot of those years on the sea lifting heavy tanks and being banged around by storms.

  Another reason he needed to get off that damn ship. With a groan, he launched himself from the bed and grabbed a T-shirt and shorts from the floor.

  Elliott glanced up from his paper, but wisely only raised an eyebrow in greeting as Max headed for the coffeepot.

  “Thank God,” Max muttered when he saw the steam rising from the pot. He poured a cup and collapsed into a chair at the table.

  Half the cup was empty by the time Elliott folded the paper and cleared his throat. “So, you and Chloe?”

  “Yeah?”

  Elliott shrugged. “You seem to be hitting it off.”

  “I guess we are. What about you and Jenn?”

  “What about us?”

  Max rolled his eyes at the stiffness in his brother’s voice. “You seem to like her.”

  “Of course I like her. She’s pretty and sweet. But…she’s out of my league. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

  Scowling, Max raised his gaze from his coffee to his brother’s face. “What the hell are you talking about?” Jenn was nothing like Elliott’s ex-wife, as far as Max could tell. She was modest and had a quiet strength about her…along with a lot of nervousness.

  “We went out and we had a nice time. That’s it. No big deal.”

  “You gonna ask her out again?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  Elliott shook his head. “I don’t want to date someone I’ll have to worry about. Whether she’s happy or bored or needing something better. I need someone who’s not so…beautiful.”

  “She seems really nice.”

  “She is.”

  “So you’re going to set her aside just because of how she looks?”

  His glare was so hot it nearly singed Max’s eyebrows. “I don’t mean she’s good-looking. I mean she’s beautiful, and that’s too much for me right now.”

  “All right,” Max offered, holding up his hands in appeasement. “I got it. Just don’t start crying.”

  “Jesus.” Elliott coughed in a half laugh. “I’ll try to hold back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What about you? You think you can talk about Chloe without getting choked up? Because you looked pretty damn starry-eyed last night.”

  “Ha,” he laughed, even as his thoughts turned serious.

  “She doesn’t seem like the kind of girl you usually date. She’s a little…too normal.”

  “Yes.” His heart turned over at the words. “She is. She totally is.” Chloe. The thought of her name lodged in his chest and shook there like a crazed bird. She was normal, and she was earthy and sexy and curvy and calm.

  And Max was headed back to the damn sea in a few weeks. The sea and people he’d known for years. Friends who had never seen anything past the show he put on for them. Nobody out there on the water was like Chloe.

  “I’d better hit the shower,” he said, just as a man’s shout floated through the front windows. When he glanced over, Max’s head swam with discomfort. A few seconds later, he found himself still staring blearily toward the windows. Then a second shout came, this one a different voice.

  Suddenly worried about the women, Max stood at the same moment Elliott did, and they rushed for the porch together. The sight that greeted them was…strange. Alarming, yes. But not dangerous.

  Two photographers stood on the sand about twenty feet away, their cameras pointed in the direction of the women’s cabin. Another man held a professional video camera and panned the beach around them. All of them were weighted down with film and extra equipment. The videographer even had a steady-cam system. These people were a familiar sight to Max. Paparazzi.

  For a moment, he thought it had something to do with Genevieve. Ridiculous, of course. He hadn’t seen her in nine months. And why would she be here, anyway? But Genevieve’s insane lifestyle had been his only experience with paparazzi. Luckily, he’d stood on the sidelines for most of that, just as he did now.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  Keeping an eye on the cameramen, Max stepped barefoot onto the sand and stalked toward the other cabin. The cameras began to click when his foot touched Chloe’s porch. “What the hell?” he repeated with a little more strength as he raised a fist to pound on the door.

  It didn’t open, so he knocked again. The sun bounced off the closed door and stabbed into his eyes like knives.

  Finally, it snapped open. “Max,” Chloe said, a tension pulling her voice lower than normal.

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she answered, which would’ve been ridiculous even if her eyes hadn’t been red from crying. There were photographers outside, after all.

  “Chloe, there are paparazzi on the sand!”

  Her eyes flickered toward them, the intensity in her gaze flat and dark. “I know.”

  “So what the hell is going on?”

  As the clicking grew more frantic behind him, she opened the door wider and pulled him in. The door shut out the cameras with a slam. He swung to face her, holding up his palms and hoping an explanation would fall into them.

  But Chloe’s jaw was clenched tightly, as if she wouldn’t give up the truth for anything. She looked exhausted and sad, but she didn’t look shocked. She didn’t look like a girl should look when confronted with her first pack of crazed photographers.

  “Who are you?” he whispered.

  Her gaze met his, hazel eyes unflinching as she stared him down. “You know who I am.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “I’m Chloe Turner. That’s all.”

  He pulled his focus from her eyes and looked at the closed curtains shutting out the sight of the beach. “That’s not all you are, clearly. Can we please not pretend that I’m an idiot? What is all this about?”

  A soft scuff distracted him from his growing anger, and Max turned to see Jenn getting up from the couch. Offering him a careful nod, she walked slowly toward her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  Chloe was still standing by the front door of the cabin, as if she were frozen to the floorboards. Her face was nearly as pale as the curtains behind her.

  “Maybe you should sit down,” he offered, smothering his anger with concern.

  She cut a hand through the air, seemingly impatient with his worry. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. A strange starting point.

  He crossed his arms and looked at the floor, because he couldn’t watch a woman squirm. He couldn’t stare her down and watch panic inch over her face.

  “I was engaged.” Her voice hitched on the last word.

  Max felt his heart hitch, as well. “Engaged?”

  “Yes. We’d dated for a couple of
years. He asked me to marry him. Then, a month before the wedding, his prop plane crashed into the Great Dismal Swamp.”

  He jumped as if someone had swiped a knife over his arm. “Oh, God, Chloe. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” He was stepping toward her when her bitter laugh stopped him.

  “The plane crashed, but he didn’t. Thomas jumped out with a parachute, then caught a bus to a beach resort in Florida. He faked his own death to avoid marrying me.”

  “What? When?”

  She bit her lip and twisted her hands together. “A month ago.”

  He stepped back so quickly that he almost fell over the couch.

  “I know,” she hurried on. “But it feels like a lifetime ago. Honestly—”

  “A month ago?”

  “Yes, but…it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “Really? I’m thinking it’s worse than it sounds, because none of that explains the photographers outside.” Max was shocked at the fury in his own voice. He had no reason to feel such intense anger, but there was a whole host of emotions brewing inside him, and they all seemed intent on pushing anger to the top of the pile. Engaged?

  “I…” Chloe’s eyelashes fluttered and her hands hovered helplessly in the air, and the gesture stirred up that mass of emotions in Max’s chest, revealing sympathy and fear.

  “Chloe—”

  “When Thomas was caught, he blamed me. That’s why the paparazzi are here. Because he’s convinced the world that I’m the worst Bridezilla that ever walked the face of the earth.”

  Max shook his head in confusion.

  “I’m famous for being a crazy bitch, Max. Okay? That’s who I am.”

  The more she talked the less sense she made. Chloe wasn’t a bitch. And she wasn’t crazy.

  The sound of the photographers’ voices drifted past the closed windows, drawing Max’s brow into a scowl.

  “I’m sorry,” Chloe whispered. “I know I let you think… I just liked being here with you, pretending everything was okay.”

  “That woman at the bar last night. She knew who you were.”

  She took a deep breath, and when she exhaled, her body seemed to shrink. “Everyone knows who I am, Max. Everyone who hasn’t been living on a boat for the past few months.”

  “My brother—”

  “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who watches a lot of TV.”

  Max looked around the room as if there were someone else who could help him debunk this ridiculous story.

  Chloe walked past him and dropped heavily onto the couch. “Jenn brought me here to escape. We were hoping it would be isolated enough to give me some peace. And it worked. For a few days.”

  “This is… So this is the most important thing in your life right now, and you didn’t mention a word of it to me?”

  She winced. “It’s not who I am. Or I didn’t think it was. For the past few weeks, I’ve been lost and doubting myself, and here on the island, with you—” she snuck a glance at him “—I could be who I wanted to be. You should be able to understand that.”

  Well, that was a fucking swipe if he’d ever heard one. “Not even close. I was trying to be myself with you. Big difference.”

  “You only fessed up when you were caught.”

  He ground his teeth together, telling himself not to yell. “That was before we had sex, Chloe. Are you seeing the distinction?”

  Instead of fighting back, she looked down at her clasped hands. “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve told you, but I didn’t want to.”

  Max knew his limits. If he stayed, he’d sit next to her on the couch and pull her into his arms and tell her it was all right. He’d find some way to protect her from the tiny but virulent mob outside, and try to figure out a way to make everything better.

  He couldn’t do it. Not again.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said in such a rush that the words ran together into one desperate gasp.

  Chloe’s gaze flew to meet his, her face flashing disbelief…as if he’d slapped her. “Oh. Okay.”

  “I’m sorry.” And he was. The muscles of his arms were twitching with the need to pull her close. Walking away didn’t feel natural though, and as he turned and stepped away it felt as though he were trying to slip free of a spike impaled through his chest. It hurt. And he knew if he just stopped moving, he’d be able to breathe again.

  But Max got his hand on the doorknob and turned it, and he stepped out of Chloe’s cabin and left her behind. He had to.

  THANK GOD FOR LEAN CUISINE. Chloe didn’t have to leave the cabin, didn’t have to open the door. She and Jenn were fine for the day, but they couldn’t live like this for the rest of the week.

  “Maybe the guys will take us fishing,” Jenn said as she finished off the last of her chicken alfredo. “We could get out of here and the reporters wouldn’t be able to follow.”

  Chloe slowly shook her head.

  “Max was just shocked. He won’t stay mad for long.”

  “He might,” Chloe murmured, wallowing in self-pity. “He should be.”

  “Do you like him?”

  She inhaled for a long time, trying to hold off tears, then let her breath out just as slowly. She set her empty Lean Cuisine tray on the coffee table and curled her feet beneath her. “You know I do.”

  “So give him a couple of hours and then go talk to him.”

  “What’s the point? We’re going to have to leave, and he’s heading back to the ocean anyway.”

  “You still shouldn’t leave it like this. If you talk it out, you can get in touch again after all this has blown over. Next time he comes back to the States…”

  Her heart thumped pitifully at the thought. Maybe Jenn was right. Chloe’s life was a disaster right now, but someday it wouldn’t be. Maybe someday they could see each other again, casually. Just for a few weeks while he was home.

  She didn’t blame Max for being mad. She’d pulled him into a maelstrom and he’d been totally blind-sided by the storm. He had every right to be furious, but he didn’t seem like the type to stay that way for long. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jenn tilting her cell phone up to look at the screen. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing!”

  “I see you reading your e-mail.”

  “I’m not! I was just checking…something.”

  Chloe shifted the throw pillow higher on the arm of the couch and laid her head down on it. “Just give it to me straight, Jenn. What are they saying?”

  Jenn sighed and waited a few moments, clearly hoping Chloe would change her mind. But Chloe just closed her eyes and waited.

  “‘Bridezilla on the Beach,’” Jenn said flatly. “‘While her fiancé anxiously awaits a hearing that could result in multiple felony charges, Bridezilla Chloe Turner luxuriates at an isolated Virginia island resort—’”

  “Luxuriates?” Chloe snorted.

  “‘—seemingly unconcerned with Thomas DeLorn’s fate or the end of her engagement. This indulgence in the face of tragedy is hardly a surprise, given the stories we’ve all heard about her selfish nature, but considering that she would’ve been on her honeymoon this week, you’d think even Chloe Turner would be in a somber mood. Meanwhile…’ Is that enough?”

  “No, go on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  Jenn let the quiet stretch on for long seconds, and Chloe didn’t know if she was resisting or just reading ahead, but she finally picked up the story. “‘Police say they are carefully building a case against Mr. DeLorn, and should have more information to reveal soon. They also say Chloe Turner has cooperated fully in the investigation, which comes as no surprise.’ That’s it.”

  “What are you leaving out?”

  “Nothing!”

  Chloe snuggled deeper into the pillow. Despite the way Max had worked her out the night before, she’d slept fitfully. “Liar. Spill it, Jenn.”

  Jenn’s voice sounded more than hesitan
t, as if it were being dragged backward through the mud. “It says they have exclusive information about your island partying that they plan to reveal tonight.”

  Her eyes popped open. “Shit.”

  “Max would never talk about you!”

  “Maybe not. But the hotel clerk will. And the bartender. And everyone else who saw us in that bar together. I’m about to be called heartless and fickle. And worse than that.”

  “Chloe—”

  “We’re going to have to leave, Jenn. If they find out about Max, they won’t leave him alone. Unless they have to leave to follow me, of course.”

  Jenn grabbed her arm. “Maybe they won’t find out about Max.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The beach is no fun when the water is blocked by those damn buzzards.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  When she heard the roughness of tears in Jenn’s voice, Chloe reached to tug her over to lie down, too. She wrapped her arms around Jenn’s delicate shoulders and sighed as Jenn settled against the couch. “Thank you so much for this vacation. It’s been amazing. Mind-blowing, even.”

  Jenn huffed out a watery laugh.

  “You were right. It was just what I needed.”

  “This’ll be over soon,” Jenn whispered. “A few days after the charges are filed, the story will get old.”

  “Maybe. There are rumors of a federal prosecution, too. Filing a false flight plan. Crashing the plane…”

  “Still…it has to get old before then. There’ll be another scandal.”

  “I know. It’ll get old. We’ll be back to normal. Except we’ll all be single again. You and me and Anna. It’ll be so much fun.”

  Jenn didn’t answer, but Chloe was too lost in her own twisting thoughts to care. The problem with these damn stories about her was that there was always a grain of truth in them. Some sharp-thorned detail that hooked into her skin and stuck there. In the past, it had been the claims that she’d cared more about the wedding than the groom. At some point, she had obviously gotten too caught up in the wedding plans to notice that her fiancé was willing to do anything to get away. Then she’d been so swept up by the drama that she’d forgotten to be heartbroken over the betrayal.

  And now? Now she was very worried they were right about her heartless selfishness. She’d come here to deal with her shock and grief and pain. And yet she’d found herself enjoying hot sex and interesting conversation with a man who was a virtual stranger.