“And he can fucking have you because I already have what I want,” Chase said, sighing in relief when his phone chimed, letting him know that he had a message. When he read it, he realized that it might already be too late.
Chapter 41
Orlando International Airport
For a moment, all Sloane could do was sit there, staring down at her phone as she tried to make sense out of what just happened only to drop her head back against the bathroom wall with a sigh.
They’d fired her.
She came to the airport with absolutely no idea what she was going to do next, just hoping that the agency would be able to give her something short-term so that she could get through this without losing her mind and…
Somehow, they already knew about Chase.
She’d barely managed to say her name when she was suddenly asked to hold while they got a manager. Apparently, she’d violated too many rules for them to ignore that they hadn’t known where to start. They hadn’t been happy to find out that she’d decided to stay with Chase when she’d taken a leave of absence, but that apparently paled in comparison to the fact that she’d been sleeping with him for the past five months. They hadn’t given her a chance to explain, not that she could, Sloane admitted as she sat there, staring down at her phone while she tried to figure out what she was going to do now.
Sighing heavily, she forced herself to get up and cross the small distance to the bathroom sink so that she could stare down at the reason why she came in here in the first place. Slowly exhaling, Sloane grabbed her bag and threw it over her shoulder before she picked up the pregnancy test and tossed it in the trash. Feeling numb, she grabbed her suitcase and made her way back to the waiting area, sat down and laughed without humor as she dropped her head in her hands while she tried to figure out the best way to tell the man that didn’t love her that she was pregnant.
She’d been hoping to buy herself a little time with this job, put a little space between them while she came to terms with the fact that he didn’t love her before she came back. Now, she had no idea what she was supposed to do. The only thing that she knew was that she wasn’t ready to face Chase, not yet.
She just needed a little time to wrap her mind around everything and figure out what she was going to do now. For a moment, she considered crashing at her parents’ house, but she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened and she knew that if she suddenly showed up at their door, unable to stop crying every time someone mentioned Chase’s name that they would have questions, questions that she didn’t want to answer right now.
She just needed to get out of here, just for a little while, Sloane decided as she looked up at the announcement board, taking in all the upcoming flights, not really caring where she went just as long as it wasn’t here. With that in mind, she grabbed her bags and headed to the nearest ticket counter.
Needing a moment, Sloane stepped in the longest line that she could find so that she could look for her wallet. She’d buy a ticket on the first flight out of Florida, find a hotel with twenty-four-hour room service and spend the next month crying her eyes out as she tried to figure out how she was going to do this and then…
She’d come back and hopefully have an idea how she was going to break it to her family that she was pregnant, unemployed, and most likely black-listed from ever working in home health care ever again. Then, she’d tell Chase that she was pregnant and go from there, but for right now, she really just needed to get the hell out of here.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but at the moment, it was all she–
“I’m afraid that you’re going to have to come with us,” came the announcement that she almost ignored thinking that he was talking to someone else until he added, “Miss Maxwell.”
At that, Sloane looked up only to frown when she saw that she was surrounded by airport security. “What’s going on?”
“You’re on the No-Fly List,” the man standing in front of her said, gesturing for her to follow him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sloane demanded as one of the men grabbed her suitcase while another man pulled her bag off her shoulder and she found herself walking toward a door with “Security” spelled out in black lettering.
“There’s been some sort of mistake here. I’m not on any list,” Sloane said as she was led through a security door and down a long hallway.
“Then this shouldn’t take long to sort out,” came the response that had her sighing and wondering what else could go wrong today as they stopped in front of a white metal door with a small glass window.
“This way,” came the murmured demand as the door was opened, revealing a small room with a metal table and chairs bolted to the floor.
“Can I get you coffee or something to drink while you wait?”
Absently shaking her head, Sloane mumbled, “I can’t have coffee. I’m pregnant,” as she stepped inside.
“I’ll have someone bring you some water then,” he said, giving her what he probably thought was a reassuring smile before he left, shutting the door behind him with an ominous click.
Nodding, Sloane sat down on the cold metal chair and dropped her head in her hands, struggling to hold it together, she just wanted to go home and pretend that none of this happened. There was something seriously wrong with her, Sloane decided as she sat there, trying to figure out exactly how she’d ended up here.
She should have kept her mouth shut, allowed herself to pretend that he loved her, taken the test as soon as she thought that she was pregnant and–
Spent the rest of her life hating herself for settling for something that she didn’t want. She honestly wasn’t sure how she’d expected her life to turn out, but she’d never imagined that she would end up like this. God, if she could go back…
She would have made the same choices, Sloane realized with a sigh. Even knowing that Chase wasn’t in love with her, she couldn’t regret falling in love with him no matter how much this hurt, and god, did this hurt. She knew that it was only going to hurt worse when it finally sank in. She really wasn’t looking forward to that.
The sound of the door opening had her wondering what else could go wrong. When she felt a cold bottle pushed against her arm a moment later, she absently mumbled, “Thank you,” as she dropped her arm and found herself staring at Chase as he sat down across from her.
“What are you doing here?” Sloane asked as her gaze flickered toward the door, noting that it had been left open and even as she had to wonder what the hell was going on.
“I called in a favor,” Chase said, drawing her attention back to find him watching her.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, unable to help but frown.
“I couldn’t let you leave.”
“So, you had me detained by Homeland Security?” Sloane slowly asked, trying to make sense out of what was going on here and failing miserably.
“It seemed like my best option at the time,” he said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal.
At her blank stare, he added, “I couldn’t take any chances that you’d get on a plane, so I asked Hunter for a favor.”
A sinking feeling had her asking, “You called my boss, didn’t you?”