I’m not sure what I’m expecting. A necklace, a pair of earrings, a diamond ring, maybe—although I won’t admit that last one, even to myself. It’s none of those things, though. Instead, it’s a thick platinum bracelet in a chain design, made with links as heavy as those on my belly chain are delicate.
“What the hell?” Tori asks, staring at the thing in disappointment. “I thought for sure it’d be a ring. She reaches for it, but I snatch the box away, holding it to my chest in what I figure must be a pretty good Gollum impression. All that’s missing is me whispering, “My precious” in a creepy voice.
Because I know exactly what this is, and for the first time since I walked out on Ethan, a little spark of hope ignites deep in my belly. It’s just a spark, mind you, but it’s more than I had before. More than I’ve had in six long days. Maybe more than I’ve had in forever.
And when the doorbell rings a minute later, I feel that spark grow into a tiny flame. One that maybe, just maybe, can burn the chill away.
Chapter Twenty-four
“I’ve got it,” Tori says, and it’s a good thing, because I think I’m frozen in place. She grabs her shoes and Louis Vuitton bag on the way, then flings the front door open with great pomp and circumstance.
Sure enough, Ethan is standing on the other side of the door, looking paler and thinner than I have ever seen him. Tori looks him up and down, and doesn’t for a second betray that she’s been lobbying for him for days now. “Fuck up again and I’ll chop your balls off myself,” she says with a sniff. And then she’s gone, slipping out the door and down the hall before I can even figure out how to say hello.
Then again, I don’t have to. Because suddenly Ethan is standing in my kitchen, a huge bouquet of flowers in one hand and his heart in the other.
“You were right,” he says.
“About what?” I ask, because there’s a voice inside my head screaming that this is the most important moment of my life and I need to be very clear about it. It’s good advice, smart advice. Too bad my heart is pounding so hard that I’m afraid I won’t hear one word that he says.
Which is a problem. But one I’m willing to work around if it means I get to listen to Ethan’s beautiful voice. And if I get to stare at his beautiful face. Somehow, he’s more gorgeous than ever, despite the dark circles under his eyes and the sudden sharpness of his cheek and wrist and collarbones.
“About everything.” He sits down at the table without touching me, gestures for me to do the same. “Will you sit? Let me tell you a story?”
“Of course.” I nearly break a leg in my eagerness to comply with his request.
I expect him to start the story once I’m settled, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches for my hand and long minutes tick by with Ethan doing nothing more than running his thumb back and forth against the back of my hand. I wait him out, wondering even as I do if it’s the right thing to do. Should I prompt him, try to figure out what he wants to say? Should I—
“You know my dad was a soldier, right?”
I nod. “Of course.” The whole world knows that.
“And you know he died in a military operation when I was little.”
I nod again. “He got the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
It’s Ethan’s turn to nod. “He did.”
“That’s why you went into biomedical research, right? To help develop treatments to prolong life and better quality of life for injured soldiers.”
“Yes.”
Again I wait for more and again it takes him forever to speak. But when he does, it’s worth all the things he’s never said before, all the trust he’s never given me. “The day he left for that last mission, I begged him not to go. He was always gone, you know, always missing out on things that other kids’ dads were around for, and I was sick of it. My first baseball game was that Saturday and I wanted him to come to it. I wanted him home.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Yeah. I know. I was just a kid who wanted his dad. But when it came time for him to leave two days later, I wouldn’t come out of my room. I wouldn’t say good-bye to him. And when he came to me and tried to hug me, I told him not to bother coming back. I told him if he couldn’t be the kind of dad that my friends had, then I didn’t want him at all.
“Those are the last words I ever said to him.”
“Oh, God. Oh, Ethan.” I reach for him then, wrap my arms around him. He doesn’t fight me, doesn’t get me to try to let go, but he doesn’t really yield, either. He just sits there, like telling the story has made him numb.
“I’ve never told anybody that before.”
“I know. Thank you for telling me.”
He nods. “I do love you, Chloe.”
“I know.”
“And it’s not you that I don’t trust. It’s me.”
I rest my hands on his cheeks, turn his face to mine so that I can see his eyes and his expression. “I don’t understand.”
“My whole life, I’ve let people down.”
“That’s not true—”
“It is. My father wanted me to take his absences like a man. He wanted me to be the man of the house while he was gone. Instead I told him that I hated him and I cried every night.
“My mother wanted me to follow her family into politics. She wanted me to capitalize on my father’s service record and turn that into a political career for me that would hopefully culminate in the presidency. Instead, I went into biomedical engineering and she pretty much forgot I existed unless she wanted something from me.
“Same story with my brother and my grandparents. Same story with the various girlfriends I’ve had through the years. I was always good enough to fuck, always good enough to hang out with for a while, but never good enough to stay for.”
“You’re the most eligible bachelor in California.”
“That’s because of the money, not because of me.” He says it so matter-of-factly that I know he believes it’s true. “And then you came along and I fell for you the day I met you. And I wanted to do everything right. Instead, it couldn’t have been more fucked up if I deliberately tried.
“I kept thinking, if I could just make you love me enough. If I could just make you forget about Brandon and my mother and all the shit that came before—if I could do that, then maybe you would stay. And instead, I just kept driving you away.”
“But I always came back.”
He smiles a little. “Yeah. I don’t know why you did that.”
“Are you kidding me? The most eligible bachelor in California doesn’t know what I see in him?”
“That’s stupid. It’s just a ridiculous title some magazine thought up—”
“Maybe. But it’s also true.”
He shakes his head like he wants to be talking about anything but that article, anything but that title. “Chloe, I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I don’t know what else there is to say—”
“There’s not much else to say, is there? You did fuck up, royally.”
He looks shattered at the admission, broken all to hell and back. I know what that feels like—God, do I ever—and my conscience kicks in. Because he isn’t the only one who made mistakes here and he isn’t the only one who needs to make amends.
“You fucked up and I gave up. I walked away when I told you I wouldn’t do that again.”
“You had every right to walk away,” he tells me. “I don’t blame y—”
“Yeah, well, I blame myself. You hurt me, badly.”
“I know. I wish I could take it back, Chloe. I wish I could take it all back, baby. I love you so much it makes me stupid and afraid and weak. I love you so, was so desperate to keep you, that I ended up driving you away. I hurt you and that is something I never wanted to do, something I will regret for the rest of my life.”
It’s everything I wanted to hear, everything I needed to hear. Combined with the bracelet, and with the promise shining from his storm-tossed ey
es, it’s more than enough for me. Except … it’s not enough. Not for him. Not from me.
Ethan has done his mea culpa, beautifully. He’s let me inside himself for the first time, shown me pieces of him that I didn’t even know existed.
From the moment I first met Ethan, he’s been so sure of himself, so confident, so absolutely perfect, that I’ve never imagined him as anything else. Never imagined that he could screw up this badly.
To the rest of the world, Ethan Frost is this perfect, unattainable, superhero of a man, who can leap buildings in a single bound and save the world from whatever threatens it. But here, now, in front of me? He’s just a man. Humble, beaten, terrified that he screwed up so badly that he can’t fix it.
And I love him for it. I love him for his vulnerability, which caused this whole mess, and I love him for his strength, which is going to fix it. But only if I’m strong enough to meet him half way.
And I am. Oh, God, I am. Because life without Ethan isn’t worth living. He’s my addiction, my obsession, my love. And I am his. As long as I remember that, somehow I know that everything is going to be okay.
“Do you know what I see when I look at you?” I ask.
“An asshole who’s fucked you over?” He finally looks at me, and his blue eyes are so sad that they send another crack right through my heart.
“Not even close.” I kiss him before I start to talk, let my mouth linger against his until I feel him shudder in relief before pulling away. “I see the most honorable man I know. I see a man who sees something wrong and tries to fix it. A man who works tirelessly to make lives better for people he doesn’t know. A man who gives so much of himself—to his work, to his causes, to me. A man who, despite all the bad stuff in his past, is determined to save the world one person, one cause, at a time.”
I kiss him again, because I can’t not kiss him. Because I want to spend the rest of my life kissing him. “I see a man who took my fear of intimacy and turned me into a raging sex addict with his tenderness and his love and his promises. A man who fought for me when I didn’t know how to fight for myself. A man who told me he loved me before I was even brave enough to say I liked him—and who told me he was going to marry me one day. A man who loved me that much. Who loved me more.”
“I do love you,” he tells me, hands and voice shaking. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m sorry that you thought that meant I didn’t trust you. I’m sorry that maybe, a little bit, that’s exactly what it meant. And most of all I’m sorry that my family has—”
I cut him off with one last kiss. “New rule,” I tell him when he finally lifts his head.
“What’s that?”
“You can apologize for things that you’ve done, but you can’t apologize for what your family has done ever again.”
“They hurt you.”
“They did. But it was a long time ago. And yeah, it ruined me for a long time. But then I met you and what happened before didn’t matter so much. Until … you know.”
“I know. It kills me that I can never make what happened up to you, and that I can never erase the part I played in it.” Ethan closes his eyes, presses his forehead against mine. “But I promise you, Brandon won’t have the chance to hurt another woman the way he hurt you. I’ve got private detectives looking for any other woman he might have raped. I’ve exerted every ounce of political clout I’ve got to keep his campaign from gaining ground. And my mother and I have come to an understanding about her interference—in our life and his campaign.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He opens his eyes then, and they are blazing with anger and regret. “It’s the least I have to do. When I think of all the years you’ve suffered, all the years he’s had to hurt other women … It’s the very least I have to do. And the way my mother deliberately tried to hurt you—”
So many reasons why I love this man. “Your mother doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “The only thing that matters now is you and me and the future we’re going to make together.”
He nods, looking more intense than I have ever seen him. “I can live with that. On one condition.”
“What’s the condition?” I know what he’s going to say even as I ask.
“That you marry me.”
“I already told you that I’d marry you eventually.”
He grins. “Then let me rephrase that. Marry me today.”
“Today? We haven’t even known each other two months yet!”
“So? Are you planning on changing your mind?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why does it matter if we get married today or next year?”
He’s grinning but I can see the insecurity peeking through, and suddenly I can’t think of a reason in the world that we should wait another day, let alone another year. I reach into the jewelry box and pull out the bracelet under Ethan’s watchful eye.
I unclasp it, then stretch it out in front of him. “You know what this means to me, right?”
He looks at it, swallows tightly. “I know exactly what it means.” He holds his hand out and we both watch, silent and solemn, as I fasten the bracelet around his wrist.
When it’s done, I pull his mouth down to mine and kiss him, hard. “You’re mine,” I tell him.
He wraps a hand around my waist, his fingers burrowing under my clothes to stroke the platinum links of the belly chain. Links that match those of his bracelet exactly. “I always was, Chloe. I always will be.”
It’s exactly the right answer. But then again, this is Ethan Frost. He always has the right answers—except, of course, when he doesn’t. But I’m okay with that. More than okay. Because he’s mine and I’m his and everything else can take care of itself.
Suddenly, his idea doesn’t seem like such a bad one, after all. “You know, Vegas is only an hour plane ride away,” I tell him. “Do you think you can find us tickets on such short notice?”
Ethan’s mouth drops open and for long seconds he just stares at me. And then he smiles, so wide that I swear I can see forever. “Maybe, maybe not. But I know where I can find us a helicopter.”
Epilogue
At this moment, she truly is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something considering how many times I’ve thought that very same thing.
We’re at my vineyard in Tuscany, where the grapevines go on as far as the eye can see.
Where the sky turns burnished orange and gold and red in the early evenings.
Where there is beauty—rich, powerful, unforgettable beauty—in every inch of land, in every particle of air.
And still Chloe Girard Frost is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
At this moment, she’s standing barefoot in the middle of an old-fashioned grape press, head down, long blond hair blowing in the wind, skirt tucked between her thighs. Her feet are dyed a deep maroon as she stomps, stomps, stomps at the grapes and her hands are curved over her gently rounded belly.
One of the vintner’s says something to her and she throws her head back and laughs and laughs and laughs. It’s a gorgeous sound. A magical one. And one that I will never take for granted.
It’s been a year since she walked into my life, a year since she turned it upside down and inside out. A year since she burrowed inside of me, laid me open. Laid me bare. And I don’t regret one moment of it.
How can I when she’s given me everything I didn’t know I was missing? Everything I didn’t know I needed?
I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, heart pounding, chest heaving, body so tense that I feel like I’m going to break in half. Terrified that she’s gone. Terrified that I’ve lost her.
But she’s always there, her hand finding mine in the darkness, her body curving itself so perfectly around my own. In those moments I know that I would die for her, would kill her for.
She says I’m her addiction, her obsession. It only seems fair since she’s that
and so much more to me. She’s my heart, my soul, my everything and she has been almost from the moment we met.
I don’t know how I got so blessed, but I thank the universe every day. And every day I vow to take care of her and our unborn child. To make her happy. To make her smile.
Because she is beautiful, inside and out. Beautiful and perfect and mine.
To Jenn
Acknowledgments
I don’t even know where to start with this one. First of all, I have to thank Sue Grimshaw and Gina Wachtel, who have been so, so, so good to me. Thank you so much for putting up with me through the course of this book. I know I was awful and I am so, so grateful for all of your help and support and understanding. I am so lucky to be writing for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you to everyone at Random House, including, Madeline Hopkins who did an amazing job with copy edits in a very short time, Penelope Haynes who puts up with my chronic lateness and takes such good care of my books, Matt Schwartz, Kimberley Cowser, and April Flores whose brilliant marketing strategies have done such wonderful things for me and my books. Thank you all. I am truly blessed to work with such a fantastic team.
Thank you to Emily Sylvan Kim, my agent and dear, dear friend. You keep me sane and I don’t know what I would do without your help and support!
Thank you to Emily McKay, Shellee Roberts, and Tera Lynn Childs for the brainstorming and the pep talks (and for kicking my butt when I need it). I might be able to write without you guys, but I certainly wouldn’t want to.
Thank you to Martin Torres, for the forest fire idea, and much more importantly, for your friendship and support. You make everything so much more fun and I adore you!
Thank you, Mom, for all your help wrangling my house and my children—and for always being there to listen. I love you!
And finally, thank you to all my guys for understanding my crazy schedule and loving me anyway. I love you so much and couldn’t do this without you.