His adrenalin had done its job. He was confident and calm. After all, he had justice on his side. “And Mrs Ansell-Johns?” He used her surname to put distance between them. He needed to remember to whom he was loyal. And what he owed to his sister.
Clint checked his phone. “She’s in the building.”
“Good. It’s time.”
The culmination of months of waiting had finally arrived.
With each step he took towards the conference room, he hardened his resolve. He ignored the doubt. The softening of his hatred and rage. He pushed thoughts of Ellie from his mind, and refused to remember how good it had felt to wake up beside Chloe each morning. He put her cooking out of his head. He refused to think about the way she hummed as she baked, or the way she left little vases of freshly picked flowers through his apartment. Or the way she always smelled like lavender or vanilla or jasmine – some kind of sweet flower that made him want to fall to his knees and grab hold of her.
He pushed the door inwards, his expression blanked of any emotion. The lawyer – Ian – he’d met once or twice. He was inconsequential. A power broker at one time who’d ended up a figurehead only. No doubt he was there today because of his name, and the prestige that came with it. Hendrix bared his teeth in a wolf-like smile. His eyes glared briefly at William, and then moved to Chloe.
His heart squeezed tight in his chest, and for the smallest moment, his certainty fell. Her eyes were fearful. Her hands were fumbling in her lap, like she had done that first day she’d come to him.
The day he had promised to help her.
He turned his attention back to William. “William,” he said, the hatred impossible to miss.
“Good God.” William was as white as a sheet, and his small eyes flitted to Chloe. “It’s you.”
Chloe’s frown showed her confusion. Hendrix couldn’t look at her. He was going to free her from this pig of a man – that was what he’d promised her. And so why should he feel bad that his means were less than ethical?
If he was killing two birds using the one stone, then didn’t that make him clever? Resourceful even?
He strode across the room and took the seat next to Chloe. William faced her from the other side. Her face was angled towards him. Her eyes were boring into him. Hendrix ignored her.
“Yes. It’s me.” Everyone in the room ceased to exist, except William and Hendrix.
Chloe was reeling. How did they know one another? Hendrix had never said? And William had certainly never mentioned Hendrix. She’d gone to great lengths to choose a firm that was completely unconnected to the powerful Ansell-Johns family. Her body was filled with ice; her heart was hurting. “How do you know him?” She whispered.
But her words were easily lost in the swirling animosity that crackled through the boardroom.
The two men stared at one another long and hard. The strength of emotion was impossible to ignore. “Clint?” She turned to the junior associate she’d been dealing with. But it was apparent he was as clueless as she. Chloe slapped her palm against the timber table, drawing everyone’s attention to her pale face. “Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
Hendrix blinked, and felt as though Chloe was trying to rouse him from a dream. Or nightmare. Whatever it was, he didn’t intend to wake up from it until he was through. He lifted a finger and put it on her shoulder.
“Trust me,” he implored quietly, calling on her memories of everything they’d shared. Of what they’d come to mean to one another.
And though she had the feeling the building was crumbling beneath them, she had to believe. She had to believe that Hendrix had a plan. That she had misunderstood something. They’d talked about trust. They’d talked about it, and he’d made her feel so safe in him, that she did trust him. Even then. When nothing made sense. Later that day, she would wonder at her stupidity, but at that moment, she had blind faith and love on her side. And so she smiled up at him, and visibly relaxed.
William’s eyes were drawn to the intimate contact. Hendrix’s hand was still on Chloe’s shoulder. His thumb was brushing the soft fabric of her dress possessively. His lips sucked so tightly against his teeth that they were the same shade of white.
“Get your hand off my wife,” he intoned angrily, his eyes almost incandescent with anger.
Hendrix’s grin was smug. “She won’t be your wife for much longer.”
“I think Chloe might have a say in that,” William retorted, turning his angry gaze onto the blonde. “Think of our daughter, Chloe. Think of how often you want to see her.”
Hendrix felt Chloe stiffen, and he reached beneath the table and took one of her hands in his. “Chloe will retain full custody of the child. In addition, you will either offer to provide child support in the amount detailed here,” he nodded at Clint, who slid a piece of paper over the table, “or you will sign this form which legally breaks any ties between you and the minor.”
William laughed. A high pitched sound, a little like a stuffed pig. “What planet do you live on? That’s my wife. And it’s my child. If she wants to divorce me, you better believe I’m going to make her feel it for the rest of her life.”
“By using our child against me?” Chloe demanded with a firm quietness.
William locked eyes with her. “If that’s what it takes.”
Chloe shook her head slowly. “I’m never going to come back to you, Will.” She squeezed Hendrix’s hand. “Life’s moved on. For both of us.”
“With him?” He demanded hotly, pointing his thumb at Hendrix.
“That’s not important,” Chloe said. She dropped her gaze to the walnut grain of the table. “I left you three years ago, and I stopped loving you even before that.” William looked as though he’d been punched. “And I don’t know if you ever loved me. Everything about us was a mistake. Let’s not prolong it now.”
William stood, moving towards the large windows. He thrust his hands in his pockets, and for a moment, he created the impression of acceptance. Of weary dejection. But then he turned, and there was such vitriol emanating from his body that Hendrix knew it was about to turn much more sour than Chloe realised.
“I will never let you see her again.” He was talking only to Chloe.
“I’m afraid you won’t have a say in that.” Hendrix spoke for her. Chloe was shivering beside him.
“Wanna bet? The dossier I’ve got on her lifestyle,” he sneered the word, “would give any judge in the state a good reason to hand her over to me. Especially when you consider that I play golf with most of them.”
“Yes, that’s fascinating,” Hendrix’s voice was droll. “Unfortunately, you’re hardly the poster-boy for responsible living yourself, are you?”
They exchanged a look laced, from both sides, with pure hatred.
Hendrix kept his hand on Ellie’s, beneath the table, though he knew now he was living on borrowed time. “Affairs. Substance abuse. Gambling. Abuse. You’ve run the gamut of irresponsible living, haven’t you, William? In fact, I’d say some of your behaviour is downright criminal.”
William’s face puckered. He could barely speak, he was so enraged.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Hendrix would have stood, except that he didn’t want to break his contact with Chloe. “You’re going to sign this page.” He indicated the parental alienation form. “From this day forward, you will have nothing to do with Chloe or Ellie. You dare threaten Chloe, who is all that is good in this world, with outright lies? You think you’ll be able to make any mud stick to her?” His laugh was a harsh, angry noise in the now-silent room. “Chloe might get some temporary bad press, and she deserves better than that. But no court – no matter how tight you think you and your daddy are with the judiciary – would give your lies the time of day. She’s worked hard to make a life for herself. Her savings are impressive. Your fingerprints are all over their removal from her bank account. The sheer arrogance of what you did, and presumed you wouldn’t get caught with, beggars belief.�
� Hendrix’s eyes narrowed. “It’s almost as though you’ve got a track record of getting away with criminal behaviour,” he drawled.
“Shut up,” William responded angrily, obviously on the ropes. “Shut up!” He turned to his solicitor. “Tell him to shut the hell up!”
Ian cleared his throat. “May I have a minute with my client?”
“No,” Hendrix responded coldly. “You’ve caused enough delays already. My client wants this matter finalised. She’s waited a long time to get away from this man. She’s not going to wait any longer.”
Chloe looked up at Hendrix, in awe of how cool and calm he seemed. It was really going to happen. She’d never loved him more. Hope was an open window. She was on the verge, almost through it.
“You’re going to regret this,” William snapped, but it was all bluff. Chloe could see that. Something about Hendrix had set William off-balance. And it was working in her favour. She kept her eyes lowered, hardly allowing herself to blink, lest he change his mind. He picked up the pen, and everything inside of her shrieked and shook. The air around her seemed to glow with a rainbow of blinding colours.
She couldn’t help it, she lifted her clasped hands onto the table and leaned forward, her breath held, as she waited for him to sign.
Pen hovering on the line, he fixed her with one last glance. “This is what you want?” He demanded. “For me to sign away any right to our child?”
Her smile was wistful. What she wanted? No. What she wanted was to have loved a man who deserved it. To have made a baby with a man who deserved that child.
His eyes bore into hers, and then ran the length of her body. They froze on her hands.
The ring.
She dropped her hands beneath the table once more, silently cursing her stupidity in wearing it. Hendrix had suggested it might help, but she had planned to remove it.
“What is that?” He asked, his temper back. His tone was ice cold, but that showed the depths of his rage to Chloe.
The moment. It was here.
Hendrix leaned back in his chair with all the appearance of indolent relaxation. “I’m going to marry your wife, Ansell-Johns.”
“You?” William threw the pen down on the table and shoved his hands onto his hips. He stared at Hendrix as though he could make him combust.
“Oh, yes,” he lifted a hand to Chloe’s cheek and stroked it gently. “Tell him, darling.”
Chloe jerked her blue gaze to Hendrix’s, and though he didn’t speak, she heard his words as clear as day. Trust me.
“It’s true,” she exhaled, shocked that she actually smiled when she said it. Even in those unpalatable circumstances, the idea was still pleasing enough to bring warmth to her core.
“Over my dead body,” he ground out.
The emotions groaning through William were everything Hendrix had wanted. Seeing the obvious distress on William’s face should have had Hendrix dancing in his chair. But he felt nothing. Empty.
His smile was a veneer. “So you see, William, you might have thought you could cower my fiancé. But do you really want to take me on?” He stood now, so that he could, across the table, tower over the shorter man. “Do you really want to fight with me?” He crossed his arms across his broad chest. “You know I’ll stop at nothing to hurt you. You know I’ll take huge pleasure from seeing you, and everyone in your family, suffer. No matter what you try to do, I have the resources to fight you on your terms. And I will fight you, William. I will fight you until you are bankrupt and broken. Is that what you want?”
The air throbbed with tension.
No one spoke. Chloe was splintering into a thousand pieces. What was going on? What had happened between these two men?
Finally, William’s lips curled into a tight grin of sarcastic amusement. “Fine.” He lifted then pen once more, and this time, dug his signature across the page.
He looked at Chloe, his smile horrible and cruel. “The divorce papers?” He queried, without taking his eyes off his wife.
Ian held them out. “There are still several issues we haven’t decided, sir,” he warned.
“I don’t care,” William signed his name and slid the papers across the table. Clint caught them.
“Are we finished?” William asked.
Chloe was numb. Was it really over? She looked at Clint, and his easy smile finally lodged something loose in her brain. It was over. There was nothing to fear any more. She could live her life. She could be happy. Clint held the pen out to her and she signed on the line, without another moment’s delay.
“I’ll go file these,” Clint nodded at Ian and slipped out of the room, barely able to believe this nightmare of a divorce had been resolved.
“Why?” She whispered to William, once Clint had left. “Why now?”
The look he sent her made daggers dance on her spine. “I want you to suffer for leaving me, Chloe, and you will.” His eyes drifted to Hendrix. “You’ve got mixed up with the wrong guy.”
Now it was Chloe’s turn to laugh. “Yes, I did. But we’re divorced now.”
“I take it she doesn’t know?” William asked silkily, his little eyes harsh with hatred.
Hendrix refused to let the man see his panic. After all, he’d known all along this would be the cost of doing business. There had been no way to throw his relationship in William’s face without Chloe finding out.
“She hasn’t needed to know,” Hendrix said with a shrug.
“So what? You expect me to believe you two just happened to fall in love?”
Chloe was about to explain that sometimes it just happened that way, when Hendrix spoke first. “Does it hurt to know I’ve made love to your wife?”
“Hen,” Chloe warned quietly, her blue eyes clouding with confusion.
William’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you want? To hurt me?”
Hendrix was stepping off the precipice. “You took the most important thing in the world from me. How does it feel?”
The most important thing in the world? What was Hendrix talking about? Before Chloe could voice her shocked query, William answered.
“Eleanor,” he exhaled slowly, sitting into the seat opposite Chloe.
Shards of metal were embedding in Chloe’s flesh. She looked from one to the other, and finally, jerked up from the table. “The drunk driver.” She closed her eyes, swaying unsteadily. “That was you.”
She swallowed, but her mouth was filled with sawdust. “Oh, God. You asked me to name our child after her. What kind of a sick asshole are you? It’s not a coincidence, is it?” She gripped one of the chairs for support. Mentally, Chloe did the arithmetic. “You were with Eleanor Forrester.” She gulped for air, but she could barely get enough in. Hendrix poured some water into a glass and walked it to her. He didn’t touch her. He’d lost the privilege. He could see it in every line of her body. Instead, he placed it on the table top, and then moved a step away. Her body was tense and taut, but there was a fatigue to her shoulders, too.
“Yes,” William hissed.
“The accident. The horse riding accident.” She slapped her hand on the table when William didn’t answer.
“Yes,” he shouted. “Yes, okay?”
“You were drink driving.”
His smile was supercilious but his voice was defeated. “No proof of any such thing, is there?”
“You took care of that,” she waved her hand through the air. “That would have been easy for you, with your connections.”
Hendrix hadn’t thought it through. He had wounded William, but it was Chloe that he’d cut to the core. Chloe that he’d poured pain over. How had he not foreseen her agony? To this extent, at least.
Her whole world was being pulled to shreds.
“Yes,” William said again.
“And you.” She spun around, her eyes so cold when they landed on Hendrix that they were almost unrecognisable. “When did you realise? When did you know?”
“As soon as you said your name.”
She closed her
eyes and swayed. The first time they’d met. Nausea choked her throat. She blinked her eyes open and stared into the room, but everything was different. No one looked the same, least of all her. “I see.” She walked to Hendrix slowly. He was only a pace or two from her. She was before him in an instant. She banked down on the butterflies that flapped hopefully at the proximity. She could never be with him again. She could never touch him. Never speak to him. She slid the ring from her hand and put it on the table.
“Is everything here finished? The divorce, I mean?”
He nodded. “It will need to process through the courts –.”
“But he can’t weasel out of it?”
“No.”
“And you’ll put my money back in my bank account, William?” She addressed him without looking at him.
“You call that money? It was small change, Chloe.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She dropped her gaze from Hendrix’s face. It was committed to memory. She would never forget a detail about him, but she had to leave him behind. “Then there’s nothing more to say, I suppose.”
She walked out of the boardroom and away from the only two men she’d ever believed she loved.
The only two people who’d ever hurt her.
And she wondered, almost idly, as she waited for the lift doors to open, how she was ever going to recover this time around?
CHAPTER TEN
Chloe wasn’t surprised he’d come; she was only surprised it had taken him so long. She’d managed to stuff all of their things into two suitcases and catch a cab back to her home – her long deserted flat in Brooklyn – and had even had an afternoon to wallow in numb pain. Now, as the sun pinched out of the sky, and darkness descended, Hendrix had arrived.
He had a key. She’d given it to him several weeks earlier, when she’d thought, when she’d believed with all her heart, that he was some kind of hotter than hot knight in shining, heroic armour.
Chloe didn’t move when he walked into the lounge. Even if she had wanted to react, she couldn’t. Ellie was asleep on her lap, and Chloe wasn’t sure she had the strength to stand. Her eyes continued to pour their grief out of the window, as they had been for most of the afternoon.
Betrayed by the CEO Page 11
