And if, at the end of their summer of love, she had come to him with her final decision, he would have supported it. Looking back, he genuinely believed he would’ve supported it. Hell, he’d been scared too. Terrified, and he was only weeks from voluntarily going off to war, for fuck’s sake.
But she did it afterward. After the planning, the prepping, the proposal.
And permanently placed herself in his crosshairs.
She dropped back down into the swing, deflated. And said the hollow words he’d been waiting ten years for.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Silence followed, her distant gaze refusing to meet his, and then she had the gall to straighten her toes and kick the swing into motion, rocking as if this were a sunny summer day, lemonade in hand, everything hunky-dory.
“The doily. How’d it get broken?” Given the current topic, it was an absurd question. But somehow, as important as her decision so long ago.
“Oh, you know. Sometimes you break things without meaning to. Carelessness. Callousness,” she said, those attributes aimed at him. “Maybe some things are too weak to stand the test of time. The tests of the real world. Things break, and before you know it, you’re broken, too.”
He snorted. “That’s a load of bullshit. It’s obvious your actions broke it, Chloe. Not time or circumstance. Take responsibility.”
Her grief-stricken gaze bored into his. “I do take responsibility for my action. I did it. I signed on the dotted line and did it. And I’ve hated myself ever since.”
For the first time since that terrible day ten years ago, after Genevieve cheerfully delivered the news of Chloe’s betrayal, he believed her. Genevieve.
Chloe did it willingly.
Not by coercion.
“You know what, Chloe? I hate you for it too. I hate that every time I came home from deployment, I wanted you to be there even after what you did. Instead, there was nobody. No girlfriend, no wife, no family. No welcome home sign painted in patriotic colors. No full-body hugs, and tears of relief and ordinary everyday life to live together until my next deployment. No homemade muffins or lobster rolls or sweet sayings like ‘each for the other, two against the world.’”
She inhaled sharply, then shook her head in disbelief.
“Yeah,” he said sarcastically. “I remember that too. I remember it all. Extra mayo and cherry cupcakes and cheesy vows of forever and talking until midnight and being so happy that my girlfriend was also my best friend. And during that whole wonderful, awful time, my mother was dying. You made it tolerable. Hell, you made it better. I loved you, Chloe!”
“I love you, too.”
He heard her whispered vow, but his anger was on a roll, and his brain registered past tense. Loved, not love.
“And yet, you did that to me?” He pointed toward the framed doily on the wall inside the carriage house—and the never-given gift inside the hope chest. “You broke me into a thousand fucking pieces. There isn’t enough tape on the planet to fix me. And it’s because I tangled with you.”
“Okay,” she agreed—loudly—holding her hands out, done letting him talk. “That’s fair, and I’m sorry! I’m sorry about everything! About it all! I cry myself to sleep nearly every night, wishing I could take it all back. Make different choices now that I know better. But I did what I thought was best for us.”
“For you, you mean.”
“Yes, for me! For you, too, since you were already dust in the wind! For all of us, Jameson, because, believe it or not, I was thinking about the wellbeing of someone other than myself!”
Winding down, she wiped her eyes, openly crying. “And ever since, there are days when yes, I think I made a mistake. That I chose wrong. But there are also other days. Days when I go to Riverhead and realize I made the right choice for the most important person involved.”
His head nearly exploded at her merciless admission.
“When you go to Riverhead?” he repeated, aghast.
Because that told him everything he needed to know. She was in love with Wyatt. And glad to be free of anything tying her to the past. To him.
“Yes,” she said, and a small, watery smile lit her face. “He’s . . .”
Laying a hand over her heart, he watched her defenses melt away. “He’s so amazing. I wish you could see that. And I wish he were still mine.”
Jameson felt like puking.
“That chump can’t even remember extra fucking mayo.” And Chloe, a beautifully flawed woman he’d forever be in cursed love with, still wanted him.
Her expression went from adoration to confusion. “What?”
“I’m not sticking around to see shit. Good luck to him,” he said with a sneer. “I hope you two have a nice life together.”
And confusion turned to . . . devastation. But then he walked away.
“We’re not together,” she yelled to his retreating back. “Because of you! Because you’re a coward and an asshole, and stop bringing me food, and get off my property!”
Gladly. He had no desire to come between her and her forgetful lover.
He had one desire, and that was to get in his truck and head southbound until he hit the white sandy beaches of Florida. Return to his no-Chloe life of loneliness.
Run, Jamie, run.
Because that was what she wanted.
That was what he wanted. Right?
But halfway across the yard, he stopped. Looked up at the clear, star-filled sky. Sucked in deep breaths of rage. And swore viscously at the universe.
Then he did what he should have done ten years ago. What he didn’t have the faith in her or the guts in himself to do.
He turned around.
Some things needed to fall apart so they could be put back together. Better. Stronger.
The beloved doily, for instance.
The same held true for some individuals. And some couples. Chloe and Jameson, for instance.
And damn, had they fallen apart. A million little pieces was right.
One of those pieces would forever be missing, and without it, Chloe was incomplete. They, as a couple, in love or out, would forever be incomplete. Just one critical piece short of whole.
Each for the other, two against the world.
And that world imploded.
But that was for another day.
Today, she stood inside the carriage house, in the shadowed light of a single lamp, and for the second time in her life, wept for the loss of her one true love. The man she hated with every fiber of her being, and yearned for with that same ferocity.
Today, he did what she so fervently prayed he would do ten years ago. While in a cold, pistachio-colored room, surrounded by her parents and pain. Acute, absolute, soul-crushing pain.
He opened the door.
And with it, closed a portal overflowing with liquid hate. The flip of a switch, darkness to light.
“I’m sorry.” His rough, surprising apology was issued without preamble, and he wrapped her in his solid, strong arms, his hold as rough as his voice. “I’m so fucking sorry, Chloe.”
One hand cupping the back of her head, he held her tightly to his chest. Too tightly, an onlooker might think, as if there was such a thing as Jameson Maine providing too much comfort. Too much safety.
“Don’t cry,” he begged, his breath brushing her temple as he buried his face in her hair. “It’s okay. It’s all right. I understand.”