She wraps her arms around me, holding me so tight I can’t fall apart like I desperately feel I’m about to. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
I pull in a ragged gasp, struggling to catch a breath as my throat tightens, and my eyes blur with endless tears. “I don’t want to tell him,” I admit. “I don’t even know why I said that. God, why did I say that?”
Nessie runs one hand over my hair while the other stays tight behind my back. It’s a move that reminds me of our mom—of us. “Because it’s still in the back of your mind. Things like that don’t just go away, Chloe.”
“How do I fix this?” I ask.
She shakes her head, holding me tighter. “Sometimes you have to let all of the pieces fall before you worry about picking them up, and in this case, I’m pretty sure you need to let others help pick up this mess.”
My nose burns as I sniff, trying to stop my tears. “I’d rather go back to forgetting it.”
Nessie sniffs in response. “You didn’t forget. That’s the whole point. You don’t forget when someone hurts you, that becomes a part of you. This is a part of you.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want it to be a part of me. Nothing happened.”
“What would’ve happened if I hadn’t gotten home when I did? Do you really think you’d still be able to give that same excuse?”
“But you did.”
“Chloe.” She takes a step back, her hands fisting in her hair again. “I have nightmares about that afternoon, and I’ve tried talking to you, but you won’t. I can’t say I’m sorry Tyler’s forcing your hand. You need to talk about it.”
I spin on my heel, slamming the bedroom door behind me.
27
Tyler
I pace the living room, attempting to pull my shit together and stop allowing my anger to dictate my words or reactions. The problem is, every time I think about Avery insinuating Chloe was a protitute or someone touching her—non-consensual touching—anger radiates from every fiber of my being, and I want to yell and destroy everything in my path.
It’s been seventy-two minutes since I stormed out of here with a demand and chased it with a threat in the same fucking manner my father used to. I called our lead lawyer to fire Avery, not giving a shit about being able to potentially charge him for embezzlement. Maybe Chloe’s right, and it was a mind game. Perhaps this was his objective all along, but I can’t force myself to give a single shit. I refuse to keep him employed and continue paying him and have our company associated with him when he crossed that line with her.
I pull in a deep breath through my nose and hold it, my muscles still vibrating as I cross the suite and make it to our shared room. Chloe’s in bed with the lights off. She’s on the very edge with her back turned to where I’ll lie.
I toe off my shoes and make quick work of brushing my teeth and changing into a pair of sweatpants because although I’ve been sleeping in the nude since Vegas, I’d feel like an even bigger arsehole than I already do if she woke up to my hard-on pressed into her back.
I slide into bed, respecting her space as best as I can. “Chloe,” I say her name quietly, not certain if she’s asleep. In all fairness, she was exhausted before all of this shit, and it’s late, which I realized too late was one of the many contributing reasons I shouldn’t have acted as I did.
“Can we please not have this discussion tonight?” she asks.
I roll on my side so I’m facing her back. “I want to apologize,” I tell her, considering her reaction if I reach across and set my hand on her. I’m so fucking desperate to feel her, it seems my entire body is depending on it. “I’m sorry for all of it. I was so far out of line. I never should have treated you that way or yelled.”
The sheets rustle as she shifts, but she doesn’t move any closer or turn to face me.
“I’m shit at trusting people, and just as I accused you, I have a hell of a time letting people into my life because there always seems to be a price tag tied to it. Fuck, you should meet my parents.” I sigh. “They’re married and haven’t lived together in years. My dad has a girlfriend—fuck, probably more than one—and my mum doesn’t give a shit because she’s content living the life he can provide her with.”
Chloe turns at this, rolling to face me. Even in the dimmed lighting from the open curtains, I can see her eyes are swollen and her cheeks tear-stained. The sight of her like this is a direct blow to my heart as I recognize that I caused that pain—albeit not single-handedly, but I certainly didn’t help lessen it.
I move closer, careful to allow some space before I reach forward and brush the hair from her face and follow the paths of tears with my fingers. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I knew you were uncomfortable sitting next to Avery. I’d seen it at the poker game, and still, the second there was doubt, I dismissed everything and accused you of turning on me, using me, and that wasn’t fair. I should have known—I did know—it just took a few minutes for my fucking sense to catch up to my anger.”
“I wasn’t trying to keep it from you as a secret. I just could tell there was animosity between you, and I didn’t want to make it worse. He probably knew exactly who I was. Everyone at the hotel did. He was using me to piss you off, and that just made me feel like a pawn, so I just removed myself from the board.”
I shake my head. “No, when that shit happens, that’s when we remove him from the game. We make the rules. Not him.”
“We weren’t even together at that point,” she reminds me.
I slip my arms around her, pulling her closer. “You may not have caught on to this yet, but you’ve been mine since freshman year. Delayed gratification, foreplay, call it whatever you will, but you were mine, and he knew it.”
There’s a flash of warmth in her eyes as she sets a hand on my chest. It feels so fucking good to have her touching me I nearly sigh at the contact. “This summer, I dated a guy for a few weeks. We’d gone to high school together, and he’d never paid any attention to me, and then all of a sudden, this summer he noticed me. And he was…” She shakes her head, her gaze going unfocused.
I place my hand over hers on my chest, hoping she can’t feel how fucking unsteady my heart is beating right now as I await her next words.
“He was a mistake, and I knew that, but Nessie and Cooper were starting to hang out, and I was feeling ridiculously desperate for someone—anyone—to pay attention to me, and I realized my mistake fast. I mean, the guy doesn’t eat anything but ground beef and carrots because the only thing he cares about is working out. And one night, he brought a BB gun when he wanted to hang out and started shooting at pigeons and seagulls, and rather than being smart and ending things, I kept listening to my friends from high school telling me how lucky I was that he liked me because, in high school everyone liked him.” She spreads her fingers so that mine fall between hers, and then she runs her thumb across mine. “We were the worst match. He hated every time I planned anything, and he saw everything I did as being uptight and boring, and I saw everything he did as juvenile and gross.