“Don’t make excuses for him.” Ethan pulls me in for a quick, hard kiss, one that has my head spinning and my heart pumping before he finally pulls away. “He’s weak, Chloe. And that weakness makes him dangerous. You need to be careful.”
“Miles would never hurt me. He’s my brother.”
He just looks at me for a minute. Then, “I used to say the same thing about Brandon.”
There’s nothing I can say to that, so I don’t even try.
“I mean it, Chloe. I know he’s your brother and I know you love him. But I don’t trust him—and neither should you.” He gives me another kiss, before clicking the locks on his car—the BMW this time—and opening the door. “Call me later, after he’s gone. Let me know how it goes.”
“It’s going to go fine.”
Ethan nods.
“You don’t look like you believe me.”
“I believe that you think it’s going to go fine.” One more kiss and then he’s climbing in his car. “Promise you’ll call me.”
“I promise.”
I step back, prepare to watch Ethan drive away. But he just points toward the elevator and waits. I roll my eyes, but he just shrugs and continues to wait for me to walk back to the elevator. It isn’t until the elevator doors are closing and he knows that I’m safe that I see him start to back his car up.
By the time I get back to Tori’s condo, I’ve replayed my conversations with both Miles and Ethan in my head and I’m pissed all over again. My brother acted like a maniac—hitting first and talking later—is there any wonder Ethan thinks he’s dangerous?
I open the front door prepared to let Miles have it, but Tori already is. She’s about six inches shorter than him and a million times more colorful, but she’s going toe-to-toe with him anyway, shouting at him about what a total douche he is and why he should have more faith in my judgment.
Neither seems to even notice that I’ve come back.
I slam the door hard, watch as Miles jumps guiltily. Good. He should be feeling guilty after the crap he pulled.
“What were you thinking?” I demand, crossing the room to him.
“He wasn’t thinking!”
“I was thinking that my sister would want to know that she was dating a total sociopath.”
“Just because his brother is one doesn’t mean he is, Miles.”
“Yeah, well, as far as I could tell five years ago, the whole family had serious issues. What makes you think big brother is the only one to escape them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I know him? And maybe because Mom and Dad have some pretty pathological behaviors, too, and somehow we managed to turn out all right.”
My brother snorts. “Yeah. We’re both the picture of mental health.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Tori grabbing her purse and slipping out the door. There are so many reasons she’s my best friend, and the fact that she’s choosing to leave her condo when sticking around would help her answer a lot of her questions, is just one of them.
“I’m pretty much socially paralyzed and you—you’re masochistic enough to think you’ve fallen in love with your rapist’s brother. You have to admit, Chloe, a shrink would have a field day with this one.”
“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing I’m not going to one.”
I cross to the kitchen, start putting away the groceries that Ethan brought. I can’t believe it was only half an hour ago that the whole day stretched out so beautifully in front of me. I mean, sure, Ethan and I are still feeling our way with each other after those awful two weeks apart, but we’re both trying.
And we were getting somewhere, too, until Miles decided to show up and screw everything up.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” I ask, pouring myself one from the pot I had made right before Ethan got here.
“I would love a cup.”
“Okay.” I fill one for him, as well, then grab a couple of bagels and slide them in the toaster.
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”
“I’m hungry. I figure you probably are, too.”
“I am. I took the red-eye in, came straight from the airport.”
I nod as I pop the bagels out of the toaster and spread cream cheese on them. “Why are you really here?”
“I told you. I’m here because you wouldn’t answer my phone calls.” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying for weeks to get ahold of you, ever since I got the Google alert that said you were one of Frost Industries’ new interns. You never returned my calls or my texts or my emails. What was I supposed to do?”
“Figure out that I didn’t want to talk to you, maybe?”
“Believe me, I figured that out. But you used to at least return my calls.” He slumps down into one of the chairs in the breakfast nook, looking utterly defeated. “How did things go so wrong, Chloe? We used to be so close.”
That was before you made a career for yourself out of the ashes of my suffering. It’s what I want to say. What I’m so close to saying, but it sounds ridiculous. Totally dramatic. Besides, I’ve never blamed him. Not really. He was as much a pawn in the whole disaster as I was. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always told myself. I always thought I believed it, too. Right up until this moment.
“Can we talk about something else for a while?” I ask him, taking a bite of my bagel and pretending it doesn’t taste like cardboard in my mouth.
At first it looks like Miles is going to argue—he probably doesn’t want to waste one minute more than necessary away from his lab—but in the end he just nods. “So, tell me about school. How’s it going?”
As far as topics go, it’s a pretty generic one. And a pretty innocuous one, too. Which is why I do exactly as he asks and tell him all about my junior year, which I just finished at UCSD. Miles asks a bunch of questions, laughs at the funny stories I tell, and even reciprocates with a few stories of his own from his lab back home. I work hard at not thinking about what money built that lab and I almost succeed.
But small talk only gets us so far and eventually he steers the conversation back around to Ethan.
“He’s not like us, Chloe. People with that much money don’t think the same way we do.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure you have a lot of money these days, too.”
“A few million is a far cry from Frost Industries. Not to mention the kind of family wealth he comes from.”
“That’s his stepfather’s money. Ethan’s dad was a soldier. You know that.”
“Everybody knows that. Congressional Medal of Honor winner. Killed in battle. War hero. That kind of notoriety comes with its own issues. Besides, he obviously aligns himself with his mother’s new family. Even I’ve seen pictures of the two of them at various New York and Washington social functions.”
“So he loves his mother. So what?” I try to act nonchalant, but I can tell Miles sees through me. Ethan’s mother—Brandon’s mother—was horrible to me after the rape. Utterly despicable. And yes, when I think about that fact it makes me wonder how things are ever going to work out between Ethan and me. That’s why I made such a point of making sure he knows that I’m not interested in talking about the past. At all. That it’s a sticking point in our relationship.
I can love Ethan for the wonderful man he is, can accept that he had nothing to do with what happened to me when I was a freshman in high school. But I can’t deal with all the reminders of the rape that his family brings with them. So, that’s how things have to be. Our relationship has to stay firmly grounded in the present.
“So she’s a psychotic bitch who would throw you into traffic if she found even half a chance.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not planning on giving her that chance.”
Miles smiles sadly. “That’s what they all say.”
“I know you don’t trust Ethan, but I do. He won’t let anything happen to me.”
“Are you kidding me with
this? He’s with you now, but what happens when his family needs him? His mother, or his baby brother? Don’t think he won’t go running the first opportunity he gets.”
“He says he’s done with Brandon. That he wants to kill him. Ethan doesn’t want anything to do with that bastard.”
Miles tilts his head back and forth in a maybe, maybe not motion. “You think he feels the same way about his mother?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. We’re talking really rich, really powerful people here, Chloe. Nothing is quite what it seems in their boardrooms and their politics and their lives. And you are kidding yourself if you think Ethan Frost won’t sell you out the first time his family needs him to.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Oh, he may be in love with you. He may even think he can stand up to his family for you—”
“He has stood up to them for me!”
Miles inclines his head. “Good for him. But there’s going to come a time when his family needs something or his company needs something or he just wants something really bad. And you’re going to be the collateral damage. How are you going to deal with that?”
“The same way I dealt with it when Mom and Dad took a bribe to cover up my rape and assault. I just will.” I take a sip of my coffee, try to pretend that my hand isn’t shaking all to hell. “But it’s not going to happen. Ethan won’t do that to me.”
“I hope you’re right. But you need to understand, he won’t see it as betrayal. It’ll probably be only business for him. A business deal he needs to make for Frost Industries. A business opportunity that his stepfather needs to explore. Whatever. But it will happen, Chloe. It always happens. He’ll crawl back into the gutter with Brandon or with his viper of a mother, his demon of a stepfather. Either way, it will destroy you.”
“You don’t know—”
“I do. I may be a scientist who spends most of his time in his lab, but I’ve studied history. I know how political intrigue works. I know how betrayal works. The only question is, do you?”
Chapter Fourteen
My brother’s words stay with me long after he leaves to catch his return flight to Boston. I wish they didn’t, wish I could just block them out of my head, but I can’t.
It’s not that I think Miles is right. I don’t.
I know Ethan. I love Ethan. He loves me.
He would never betray me.
Except … except … I’ve been wrong before. Really wrong. And where did it get me?
Raped and bruised and bleeding in a deserted parking lot.
Emotionally violated and devastated and broken in a soulless lawyer’s office.
Terrified and vulnerable and sad, so sad, in the twisted staircases and empty halls of my school.
I survived all of that because I told myself I would get out. Told myself I would make a new life far away from what had happened to me, where I would never have to think about it again. And I have. I have. Before Ethan and now with Ethan. It’s a good life. It’s a life I’m proud of.
It’s a life that a small part of me is still utterly terrified will be yanked away at any moment. And though I know it’s wrong to place my happiness in a man’s hands, there’s a part of me that knows if I lose Ethan I’ll never be the same again. I’m in too deep, totally addicted to the way he makes me feel, emotionally and physically.
It’s a haunting thought, one that stays with me no matter how hard I try to banish it.
At three o’clock, Ethan texts me just to check in. I’m not sure why, but I don’t respond.
At three-thirty, he texts again.
I still don’t respond.
At four forty-five. You ok?
I answer with a smiley face I’m far from feeling.
Chloe?
I turn my phone off.
At six o’clock, a box is delivered to my apartment. It doesn’t have a return address, but then, it doesn’t need one. I open it right away—of course, I do—I’ve never been able to resist a present from Ethan, no matter how many emotions are rioting inside me.
Inside the box is a suit—black with a thin silver pinstripe—that somehow manages to be both kickass and intensely feminine all at the same time, thanks to the heavy silver accent buttons and the tiny bits of lace peeking out from the inside of the wrists and lapels and ankles.
It’s Armani, of course, and the moment I lay eyes on it I know what it’s for. It’s a replacement for my one and only designer suit, which I lost in the rain on the beach the other night when Ethan and I made love.
The suit is gorgeous, no doubt about it. Exactly what I needed. And yet as I think of his previous gifts—strawberries and seashells and cinnamon tea—I can’t help but be a little disappointed. I feel stupid and ungrateful, but I can’t help it. I like the Ethan that gives me little just because gifts, little things that matter only because he was thinking of me, only because he knows me. The Ethan who understands that I can give gifts like that back to him, things that say I’m thinking of him. Things that don’t cost thousands of dollars.
Still, I pick up the suit to look at it, and as I lift it from the box, my heart begins to beat faster. Because underneath it is a triangular piece of sea glass. It’s blue, which is one of the more rare colors, and its edges have been worn smooth by years of being tossed between the water and the sand.
It’s beautiful and perfect and the exact color of Ethan’s eyes. I pick it up, hold it in my palm, close my fingers loosely, gently, over the top of it. And swear I can feel the warmth of the summer sand bleeding from the very heart of it into my hand. I don’t want to let it go.
Except there’s also a vintage hair comb I’m dying to check out, made up of swirling cascades of rhinestones—at least I hope they’re rhinestones—in the most dramatic display I have ever seen. It’s as beautiful as the sea glass, and as thoughtful. I have a small grouping of antique hair combs that I’ve been collecting since I was eleven. This is by far the nicest one I own—it’s one of the nicest I’ve ever seen—and I can’t resist taking it out of the tissue paper and holding it up so that the light can make the rhinestones dance and dazzle. Then I’m loosely twisting my hair behind my head and securing it with the comb. A quick glance in the mirror tells me it looks as good as I imagined it would.
And finally, as if those gifts aren’t more than enough, there’s a copy of Pablo Neruda’s One Hundred Love Sonnets. It’s a garish pink book, not exactly what you would expect for sonnets filled with such warmth and emotion, but I love it anyway. I clasp it to my chest for long seconds before turning to the page marked by an exquisite bookmark in the shape of a mermaid, another gift in and of itself. The sonnet marked is seventeen and though I’ve never read it before my heart starts beating faster at just the sight of it. Ever since I sent Ethan that Neruda poem when we first got together, he’s kind of been our thing. Back and forth we trade lines and stanzas and whole poems, images that touch us, words that Neruda wrote for his love that echo so beautifully the raw emotions we feel for each other.
Some of the sonnet’s lines are highlighted, and as I read them I feel the last of the ice inside me start to melt. I’ve felt frozen, not quite here—not quite right—ever since the night Ethan got back from his last business trip to the East Coast. First he tried to break up with me, then Brandon showed up and I broke up with him instead, then we pretended the other didn’t exist for two excruciating weeks and now we’re back together, but it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel whole.
And that’s my fault, I think. My rules and my damage have made Ethan reticent, have made him as cautious as I am afraid. And I hate that I’ve done that to him, hate that I’ve turned this beautiful, powerful, passionate man into someone who watches and waits, who thinks before he kisses me and who makes love to me like I’m the most fragile thing in the world.
That’s the last thing I want.
I love you as one loves certain obscure things, / Secretly, between the shadow and the soul. This p
oem, these words, give me hope that it won’t always be like this between us. I run my fingers over the words, trace the shape of the letters, imprint the meaning of them on my soul as Ethan is imprinted there. As he always will be.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. / I love you directly without problems or pride. The words echo in my head, in my heart. It’s how I love Ethan. How I’ve always loved him even when I so desperately didn’t want to. How I will always love him no matter what happens. No matter how things end up. Together, apart, no one will ever reach inside me like he does.
I think of Brandon in these moments—which feels like a sacrilege, but it’s one I can’t help. I think of the emptiness, of the pain and the loneliness, the terror and the rage. And I imagine what it would feel like to live without it, to live without any of it. To just be happy and in love and loved like Neruda describes.
I reach for my phone and switch it back on, pull up Ethan’s last text. And send him only the last two lines of the poem. So close that your hand upon my chest is mine, / So close that your eyes close with my dreams.
Fifteen minutes later, there’s an urgent pounding on the door, one that has my heart climbing up my throat even as I walk to the door. I know who it is—of course I know—but I check the peephole anyway, do all the responsible things a single woman living in a big city should do.
It’s Ethan—of course it is—so I fling the door open. And stare. I just stare.
I can’t help myself. He looks hot. I mean, he looks really, really, really hot. He’s wearing a pair of massively ripped jeans and a tight black T-shirt that shows off the curves of his biceps and the powerful muscles of his chest. And he’s got a look on his face that I’ve never seen before, like a starving man … or a dying one. Desperate, depraved, maybe even a little delusional. And I swear, my mouth actually waters.
And then, it’s on.
He grabs my upper arms.
Yanks me to him.
Shoves the door shut behind him.