After doing some investigation, it turns out that the men hit up several bars in town demanding the same thing. But after Deuce’s burned to the ground, they high-tailed it back to Texas. Now is not the time for me to take a case out of town. I need to get Chloe back. But, I also made a promise to Gary and Savvy. I have never once gone back on my word, and I’m not going to start now. As much as it kills me, I need to leave town.
I pack my bags and my Explorer. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I don’t know what this will do to Chloe, either. I know what it’s doing to me. It’s breaking my heart to know what I did to her and that I can’t fix it. I need to make one more attempt to try and talk to her. If I could just get her to listen to me and tell her why I did what I had to do, and just how wrong I was.
I stop at the florist and walk around like an idiot. I feel so out of place in a store like this. I don’t know what the fuck to get her.
The woman behind the counter asks, “Can I help you find something, sir?”
“I just need something that says, I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Ah, I see, well I can put something together for you? How much did you want to spend?” she asks.
“I don’t know, just make it real nice, I have a lot to apologize for,” I tell her.
I guess she took that to heart, because when she told me the total, I about had a heart attack. Good thing I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of guy, they’re fucking expensive.
I call Levi and ask him where Chloe is. He tells me she’s been at home for about twenty minutes. I get in my truck and drive straight there. On the way there, I plan out just what I need to say to her. ‘Chloe, I love you. I’ve made a big mistake. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I thought that I was protecting you from my lifestyle, from my job, but I was wrong. The best place for you is in my arms. Can you please forgive me? I swear, I’ll live the rest of my life proving to you that I’m worthy of your love.’ Yeah, that should do it, sounds perfect.
I get to her condo, grab the flowers, and knock on her door. And I wait. And I wait. She doesn’t answer the door. I know she’s in there, Levi said she didn’t leave.
I place my head against the door and say, “Chloe, I don’t know if you can hear me. I need to leave town for a little while. I don’t know when I’ll be back. You know I wouldn’t leave unless I really needed to. I just want to talk to you. Please, I’m begging you. I’m standing here with my heart in my hand, begging you to just please let me talk to you.”
I’ve never been so torn up in my life. It’s always been black or white, right or wrong. This grey shit fucking sucks. I hate leaving things like they are. I hate what she’s doing to herself. I hate what I’ve made her do to herself.
Chapter 5
Chloe
As I stand on the other side of the door, with my forehead pressed against his on the other side, I didn’t think my heart could break any more than it already has. I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, and I don’t go to therapy. I can’t go to Deuce’s anymore. I have nothing left and I have nothing left to give. I don’t have a spirit; the man who kidnapped me stole that. I don’t have a soul; he took that too. Thou shall not kill, I killed a man. I don’t have a heart. Max ripped that out and threw it away, like it never meant anything at all to him. I’m an empty shell, I have nothing left. I am nothing.
“Chloe, I don’t know if you can hear me. I need to leave town for a little while. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I just want to talk to you. Please, I’m begging you. I’m standing here with my heart in my hand, begging you to just please let me talk to you,” he says.
Oh, I hear you alright. Your heart may be in your hand, but at least you still have one, mine doesn’t exist anymore thanks to you.
“Chloe, please just open the door. I know you’re in there. Please don’t leave things like this. Just let me talk to you,” he says, then punches the door, startling me.
I take two steps back and sink to the floor. I wish I could just take my own life and end the horrible existence that I call my life. I don’t have it in me to kill another person, even if it is myself. I lay on the floor, begging for death to just come down and consume me. Wrap me in your shroud of darkness and take me to wherever it is you want to take me.
As I lay there on the floor staring endlessly at the ceiling, every thought of how my life could end plays out like a dream. Like a freeing, good dream, to release me from my hellish existence. I want it. I need it. I just want the hurt to stop; something, anything, a fatal car accident on the way to work, a mugging or a gunshot to the head. I don’t care what it is; I just need something, anything that will take me away from it all. I give it all permission to take my life. To please, just end it for me, I don’t want to live anymore. I defy it not to take me. Do you hear that? Whoever it is, the Grim Reaper, the Angel of Death, or Satan himself, I forbid you to do nothing. I challenge you to walk away. Do you hear me? You’re a coward. You don’t have the balls to take me away.
As I lay there continuing to stare at the dark ceiling, I start to laugh, because I know none of that’ll happen, why do I think that? Because, my life sucks and everything in it is shit, I don’t have the luck to have it end for me. I clamp my hand over my mouth when I hear Max start talking again.
“I have something out here for you. I’ll leave it on the porch. When I get back in town, you’re going to talk to me, whether you like it or not,” he says.
I listen to his footsteps walk away. I hear his truck door close. I hear his engine start up, then I hear him drive down the road and out of my life once again. I don’t know where he’s going, or when he’ll be back, but if I have it my way I won’t be here when he does.
I eventually get off the floor and open the front door to see a beautiful arrangement of flowers on the doorstep. They mean nothing to me. I pick them up and walk them straight to the dumpster. Max can say he’ll talk to me as much as he wants when he gets back, but he will never get another piece of me. Not only do I not have anything left to give him, but I’d never give him the chance to try and find any shred of what could possibly remain. He can buy me all the flowers in the world, but they will never fix the damage that’s been done.
It’s been weeks and Max is still out of town, not that I care. Adrian and Shay’s wedding is this weekend, and it’s the last thing I want to go to. We had our final dress fittings and the seamstress took one look at me and gave me a dirty look. I still don’t sleep or eat much of anything. She’s going to have to do a rush job to take in the dress. I don’t care about that, either. Work doesn’t even excite me anymore. It’s the only thing I have left that’s good in my life, so I do at least put my all in at work. I don’t know why I bother though, I’ve worked my ass off to get to where I am, but I’m still not where I should be or anywhere close to where Kyle is in his career. At one point we were equals, but I’ll always be ten steps behind him now.
The wedding day is here and I’m dressed. I even let the makeup artist plaster on tons of cover up, to take away the dark circles under my eyes. I let the hair stylist do what she wanted to my hair, I don’t care what it looks like. Everyone is fluttering around excited and pampering Shay. As I sit in the back of the room, I try desperately to think of a way I can just slip out unnoticed.
“I have something to say before we get to the something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue part. Chloe, I’ve thought long and hard about what to do about you. I’m very concerned with how you’ve been behaving these past few months…” Amelia says, looking at me.
“I told you all, I’m fine,” I tell her, and anyone else in the room who cares to listen.
“No, you’re not. But, let me finish. I won’t claim to know what you went through being held those three years. I had a little taste of it when I was there with you. But, you survived something that normal people only ever hear about in a news report or watch on a television show. We both survived. Don’t give that man the satisfaction of seeing you like this…”
“He’s dead, he gets no satisfaction. I saw to that, I killed him myself,” I remind her.
“I know he’s dead, sweetie. You’ve been through so much. You deserve to be happy. I know why Max broke up with you,” she says.
Everyone’s eyes are on me. I don’t even care anymore why Max broke up with me. It doesn’t matter anymore.
“You can keep it to yourself. I don’t care why, and I don’t want to know why he broke up with me. I don’t care about any of you,” I shout.
“That’s just the thing, we all care about you. I talked to your counselor and she said you stopped seeing her a few months ago…” Amelia starts to say.
“I don’t need her, I’m fine. And how dare you go behind my back and talk to her. She has no business even sharing that kind of information with you. Everyone just leave me alone,” I say.
“I’m not going to do that. None of us are. I have something for you,” she says and hands me a small gift bag. I don’t want to cause a scene on Shay’s wedding day, so I take the bag. I pull out the tissue paper and my hand stills in the bag, I feel a lone hot tear slide down my cheek. It’s the first tear that I’ve been able to shed in months. Amelia kneels in front of me and places her hands on my knees. “You never let that man get the best of you. Never. I don’t know what your future holds with Max, but I can tell you that you can’t let this get a hold of you either. We’re all worried about you. I’m not saying that you need to get over Max. I’m not even telling you to stop loving him. If you’re meant to be with Max, then it will happen. But, sweetie, if you’re not meant to be together, then you need to let go and move on. You’ve been through so much and you can’t let a breakup pull you down into this depression. That is what this is, too. Honey, I need you to promise me that you’ll start going back to counseling.”
I pull out what’s in the bag, it’s an origami unicorn. When Amelia was kidnapped, she had picked up a very similar unicorn that I had made off a bookshelf. During my three years held captive, I was given boxes of things to keep me busy. One of the books he gave me was how to make origami. I’d spend hours making the most intricate creations. Amelia hugs me and we just hold each other, while I sob uncontrollably. I never let that man get the best of me. I had placed everything that I knew that defined me in a safe place and I sheltered it so one day I could have it back. Only to have it all stepped on and crushed like a discarded cigarette by Max.
“Alright. Now that that’s out, let’s get this wedding going,” Amelia says, and walks back over to Shay.
I don’t hear another word said. It doesn’t matter. In the end, that man won and so did Max. Between the two of them, they stole every part of me that made me, me. And what’s left isn’t worth the air I breathe.
Max
Staying away all this time has killed me. I just wrapped up the case with the two men in Texas, and they will both be facing a long stint in prison. I’m relieved that I made it back in time for Adrian and Shay’s wedding. I’m also anxious to see Chloe. Chase and Levi have been giving me daily reports on Chloe’s activity. They both report that she has the same routine, work then home. They said she looks pretty bad, but I just need to see it for myself.
Adrian and Shay are getting married in the horse stable where their engagement party was, and coincidently where I made the biggest fuck up of my life and decided I needed to break things off with Chloe.
Asher and Willow make their way down the aisle and I crane my neck to see if I can spot Chloe, yet. Come on, where are you, I just need to see you. I need peace of mind to know that you’re doing alright. Next down the aisle are Amelia and Kyle, fuck where is she. Then come Mia and Ava. As soon as they start walking, I spot Chloe in the doorway and my heart sinks. This is really bad. She’s so skinny her hip bones are visibly noticeable through her dress. Her eyes are dark and lifeless. When I first met her, she had that same look on her face and the same void in her eyes. But, what I see today looks ten times worse.
I’ve looked at many a man with my death stare before and they’ve all cowered and crumbled at my feet. But Chloe stares straight ahead, as if I’m not even in the room. Ah, there, her eyes lock with mine and it’s me who cowers. My heart sinks. Even in the short glimpse, the pain and the anger that she showed me is far worse than I imagined. As she passes me down the aisle, I want nothing more than to get out of my seat, wrap my arms around her, and take all that anguish away from her. Tell her how much I love her and what a fool I am. I can’t do that, I’d disturb the wedding. If, by looks alone I could, through some sort of telepathy, tell her everything I need to say, I would.
I don’t hear a word of the ceremony. I can’t take my eyes off of Chloe at just how utterly broken she looks. It rips my gut to shreds that it was me who did that to her.
She never looks at me again through the whole service. On her way back down the aisle, her eyes are cast downward. As soon as I can, I race from my seat to find her, but between all the guests and the wedding party taking photos, there just isn’t an opportunity to get her alone.
The guests are invited for cocktails outside the stable, while the inside is prepared for the reception. I nurse a beer as my temper soars. After the beer is drained, I head back inside and take a seat. I get lost in my thoughts about just what I should do.
I can hear the stable quickly filling with guests, and even with my back turned to the door, I feel her enter the room even before I see her. Her presence is so spellbinding and it has me so captured, that my body knows she’s close. The wedding party enters and everyone takes their seat at the head table. Fuck this is going to be hard to talk to her with so many people, and without making a scene. Dinner is served and I still have not taken my eyes off of her. She just pushes the food around her plate, but never takes a bite. Dinner is cleared and everyone starts dancing and having a great time. But Chloe just sits at the head table with a blank stare on her face.
I’m so angry; I have sweat pouring down my back. This shit has gone on long enough. It’s time for some drastic measures. Shay is having the father-daughter dance. Her father passed away a few years ago, so the dance started with her brother, Drew. Through the whole song, every male member of the Wellington family cut in and took a turn dancing with her. These Wellington’s sure know how to cut you to the quick. I don’t think there’s a dry eye in the house. The dance ends and I just can’t take it anymore. I get up from my table and walk with determination to the head table. This shit ends right now. I get to the table and she nervously plays with her fingers in her lap, but doesn’t look up at me. I tap my fingers on the table and still no response.
“Can I talk to you for few minutes?” I ask politely in a soft voice.
Still I don’t get a response from her. I can tell this is going to be harder than I thought. But, that’s alright. I deserve it.
“Can I please just talk to you outside?” I ask again a little louder.
She glances up from her lap and looks around the room, everywhere but at me. I can see her brain trying to calculate an escape. Some of the guests are now starting to look at us, wondering what’s going on. The music stops completely and now all eyes are on us. Shit, that’s not good.
“You’re making a scene. All I’m asking is for you to step outside and talk to me,” I say getting impatient.
I’m starting to break out in a sweat again. Between all the unwanted attention, and Chloe ignoring me, I’m suddenly very uncomfortable. I stare in her eyes just looking for some sort of emotion, something to tell me she’s still alive in there. She takes her napkin out of her lap and tosses it in front of her, gets up and heads toward the bar without even looking at me. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!
“You’re seriously going to walk away from me?” I say, walking behind her.
Oh, that’s it. It’s time for some serious actions now. I walk in front of her and stop. She tries to step around me, but I step in front of her again.
“Alright, we can play your little game, if that’s the way you w
ant it,” I say with a smirk.
Before I can think better of it, I bend over, plant my shoulder in her stomach, and lift her over my shoulder. She kicks and screams and pounds her little fists on my back as I walk out of the stable.
“You wanted to play the hard way, you left me no choice. You will talk to me whether you like it or not,” I tell her.
As soon as we’re out the door, I swat her in the ass and say, “Knock it off and I’ll put you down.”
“Let me down or I’ll scream bloody murder,” she shouts.
“Only if you’re a good girl and hear me out,” I reply.
“Alright, just put me down.”
The second I put her down, she smacks me across the face and starts to run away. In two long strides, I grab her around the waist with ease, lift her off the ground and pull her into my body with a thud.
“NO! Let me go, you can’t do this,” she screams while digging her nails into my arms.
She rakes them up my forearms while she wiggles and fights in my arms. Fuck that hurt. I carry her to my truck, throw open the passenger side door and sit her ass in the seat. She thrashes around in the seat and kicks the dash with her feet. I hold her in then slam the door closed. I make my way around to the driver’s seat watching her through the windshield the whole way. She quickly darts to the driver’s side and locks the door. Funny girl, like that’s going to stop me. I reach into my pocket, pull out the key fob, dangle it with a smirk and hit the unlock button. Instantly she locks the door again. Well, I can stand here all day and play this game if she wants.
I unlock the door again, this time with a sigh, she gives in. As I get in the truck, she tries to escape out the passenger door. I quickly lock the doors and start up the truck and speed away. Dirt and gravel go flying in the air, as I speed down the driveway to the main road.
Running Into Love - The Complete Box Set Page 57
