Exposed

  The knot inside me finally dissolves at this final proof that she still loves me. That she’s still here…and still mine. Once I get close enough, I take her hand, pull her into my side. She lets me, and so we stand there, staring out at the crashing waves for what feels like forever.

  She doesn’t say anything and neither do I. I don’t know if it’s because we’re too worried about breaking the fragile peace that’s settled over us or if it’s because there’s too much to say. Either way, the air is heavy with the weight of all the words we’re not saying.

  Finally, when I can’t take it any longer, I start, “Chloe—”

  “I wasn’t leaving you,” she interrupts. When I just stare at her in confusion—not sure what she’s saying or how I’m supposed to answer it—she continues, “When I left Vegas. I wasn’t leaving you. I was just—”

  “Just what? You didn’t call, you didn’t text, you didn’t even leave a note. You just disappeared.”

  “Because I knew you’d follow me.”

  I stare at her, baffled and incredulous. “Excuse me?”

  “Look, I know it was a shitty thing to do. I didn’t mean to scare you, didn’t mean for you to think I’d run off and left you for good—I thought we already covered the whole forever thing when we got married. But I wasn’t getting through to you in Vegas. I couldn’t get you to look past your fury and your hate. I was hoping if I could get you back here, where you belong, you’d see reason.”

  “I think I’m being eminently reasonable.”

  “No, you’re not!”

  “Brandon is a threat to you and I’m eliminating that threat. What could be more reasonable than that?”

  “Are you even listening to yourself? You just talked about eliminating your brother, a human being, like he’s nothing more than a business problem that has to be dealt with! How is that reasonable?”

  “Eliminating him as a threat to you. Not out of existence. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “I don’t think I’m putting anything in your mouth, Ethan. You’re so wrapped up in this revenge scheme of yours that I’m not sure how far you’ll go to make it happen. And that scares me. It’s all you can see now—”

  “I see you.”

  “Do you? Do you really? Because I’ve been telling you from the beginning how much I don’t want you to avenge me, and yet you keep pushing it. Keep going and going and going on this path that I don’t want you on and it’s like you don’t even hear me.”

  “Jesus.” I drop my arm from around her, pace a few steps up the beach to work off some of the nervous energy that’s bubbling inside of me. “I don’t get why you’re so dead set against this. He raped you. He made your life hell for years. He played a part in destroying your whole family and he never paid for it. You spent years locked in a cage of your own fear and pain and rage and he has never spent a day in jail for it. How can you not want to see him taken down? Especially now that he’s running for a position of power that will make it even easier for him to abuse another woman?”

  “Is that what you think? That I don’t want to see him punished?” she demands.

  “Isn’t that what you’ve been saying all along? That you don’t want me to do this because you just want to move on? That you just want to forget?”

  “I’ll never forget, Ethan. He raped me. And then he went to school and told all his cool, senior friends that I was a slut. That I begged him for it. That I wanted rich cock as much as I wanted air. And any time I tried to say something different, any time I tried to change the discourse, that damn nondisclosure agreement was thrown in my face.

  “Brandon all but declared open season on me and it kept up long after he graduated. I spent years in hell, afraid of being caught by myself in stairwells or classrooms or just walking home from school because his rich buddies thought it was their right to say and do whatever they wanted to me. I have been groped and fondled and sexually harassed by more boys than I can count. I have been pinched and slapped and bruised. I have been pushed down the stairs. I have been—”

  “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!” It’s a scream of pure primal rage and it’s torn from me without my consent as her words rain down on me like fists. I’ve heard some of this before, but other parts are brand new and it’s like I’m hearing it all for the first time.

  Before I can stop myself, I grab Chloe by the upper arms and demand, “How can you not want revenge? How can you not want me to bury him? Bury all of them?”

  “You think I don’t want revenge? You think I don’t want Brandon to pay for what he did to me? Sometimes I want it more than I can breathe. When I walk by a group of men at work and I can barely hear over the frantic beating of my heart…when I’m at a party and I’m paranoid until I can find a corner to press my back against so I can protect myself…when you touch me when I’m not expecting it and I flinch away because I can’t not remember…I want it then so badly that it’s all I can think about. Making him suffer the way I’ve had to suffer.”

  “Then why are you fighting me on this? Why are you pushing me to let it go when that’s the last thing either one of us wants?”

  “Because I love you! I love you so much that I am stupid with it, that I can barely breathe with it. Don’t you see? I love you so much more than I will ever hate him. If someone had told me six months ago that was possible, I would have laughed in their face. I never thought I’d ever care about anything more than I hated Brandon.

  “But then you showed up, with your fucking blender and your too-big brain and your quest to make the world a better place and I never imagined it would feel like this. But it does. You mean more to me than anything ever has or ever will and the last thing I want is for something to happen to you because of ancient history that doesn’t matter anymore. That I won’t let matter anymore.”

  She’s breathing hard by the time she’s finished, tears rolling down her cheeks. And I’m done. I’m just done.

  I pull her into my arms, hold her shuddering body against my chest. “I love you,” I tell her, pressing kisses to the top of her head, her forehead, her cheeks. “I love you so much, sweetheart.”

  “I know.” She chokes the words out. “I don’t know why you do, but I know that you do.”

  Her words hit me hard and low, because how could she not know? I start to pull away, to look her in the eye, but she wraps her arms around my waist and holds me to her.

  “I love you,” I tell her in between pressing kisses to whatever parts of her I can reach, “because you are the bravest person I have ever met. I love you because you’ve gone through hell and put yourself back together again and somehow didn’t let it change your compassion for the rest of the world. I love you”—by this time, I’m the one choking out words—“because you have an amazing heart and incredible strength and a brilliant mind. I fell for you the minute you called me on my shit in the cafeteria that day and I’ve kept falling every day since.”

  She sobs a little, buries her face more firmly against my chest.

  “And I know,” I continue, putting a finger under her chin and tilting her face up until I can look into her beautiful green eyes, “how hard it is for you to trust in anything or anyone, but you’ve trusted me with so much since that first day. I need you to trust me with this, too. I won’t let Brandon hurt you. I won’t—”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about!”

  “I know that. And I promise, I won’t let him hurt me, either.”

  “You can’t promise that.”

  “I am promising that.”

  “Baby.” She brings her hands up, cups my cheeks. Her eyes are still filled with tears, but behind the tears is a steely resolve that I can’t ignore. “I’m not sure how you see this going in the long run, but I’m telling you right now, that it is going to end badly.”

  “I have a plan—”

  “You can have a million plans and it still isn’t going to work out the way that you want it to. You are a brilliant man and in anything else, I would trust your pl
ans implicitly. But you are too close to this. Too close to me. Too close to Brandon. And you’re being driven by a rage that blinds you to everything else.”

  “I have a plan,” I repeat, wrapping my hands around hers. “Sebastian’s helping me. Brandon is going to go to jail. And though it kills me that it won’t be for what he did to you, at least he’ll know why he’s really in there. And he won’t be able to run for Congress, won’t be able to use his power and position to hurt another woman. It’s not enough, but it’s something.”

  “It’s a lot. It’s too much. You can’t actually believe he’s going to just lie down and let that happen, do you?”

  “He doesn’t have a choice. He may have powerful friends, but so do I. And I’ll call in every favor that I need to in order to make sure this happens.” I lower my mouth to hers, kiss her gently. She doesn’t respond at first, her mouth slack against mine. I coax her though, my lips brushing against hers again and again until she finally opens to me. Finally lets me in.

  I don’t let myself think about how relieved I am. Instead, I just kiss her and kiss her and kiss her, our lips and tongues moving over and against and inside one another. Again and again, until our mouths are numb and the surf has risen a few inches to lick against our ankles and calves. Again and again, until the rest of the world vanishes and it’s just us.

  Chloe pulls away first. She licks her swollen lips, takes a deep breath, then another and another. At first, I think she’s just trying to catch her breath, but then I realize she’s working her way up to saying something she doesn’t think I’m going to like.

  “Tell me.” I reach up, smooth her glorious curls away from her face.

  “You don’t know Brandon as well as you think you do.”

  I make a face, start to tell her that I know my brother’s strengths and weaknesses better than she’s giving me credit for, but she holds up a hand to silence me.

  “He resents you,” she continues. “You’re the man that he’s not strong enough or smart enough or good enough to be and he hates that. I might have only known him for a year, but the way he talked about you to his friends—to anyone who would listen—that kind of fury and resentment doesn’t just go away. Especially not when you consider everything you’ve done in the last seven years versus what he’s done. How many times have you had to save his ass? How many times have you had to fix messes that he’s created?”

  I wince at that, and she shakes her head, puts a placating hand on my arm. “Stop going there, okay? I’m not talking about what you did with me.”

  She might not be talking about it, but I can’t help but hear it. Can’t help but nearly crumble under the guilt and the regret.

  Chloe won’t let me wallow, though. She just presses a few warm, soft kisses to my chest before continuing. “I’m talking about how many scrapes he’s gotten himself into that you’ve had to get him out of. How many times he’s fucked up only to have you run damage control for him. And even if he was grateful for your help, even if he needed it, how do you think that help made him feel considering the fact that he has always—will always—live in your shadow? You’re Ethan Frost. He’s just your fuckup of a little brother.”

  “Who is well on his way to being the next US Representative for his district in Massachusetts. Not exactly something to be ashamed of.”

  “No. But not all that fabulous when you consider he’s getting it because you don’t want it.”

  I freeze, shocked by her words…and her perception. “How did you know? I didn’t think anyone—”

  “Come on, Ethan. I might be young and I might be new to the table, but I’ve read every article and interview with or about you that I can get my hands on. I even stood there and let your mother spew vitriol all over me as she listed all the reasons I’m wrong for you. I can read between the lines. You’re the son of a real-life American hero. You’re a self-made almost billionaire. You’re a huge philanthropist who works to save the planet, poor children and US military veterans. If there’s a better political candidate than you out there, then believe me, I haven’t seen him.”

  “I’ve never wanted that. Politics is a dirty game, one I don’t want to play.”

  “Exactly my point. You don’t want to run. Brandon does. Your mother is putting all her political and social capital behind him, trying to make him into something he isn’t and never will be. But you can’t stand there and tell me Brandon was her first choice for this role. You can’t tell me she hasn’t tried to talk you into running.”

  “It was a long time ago. I told her I wasn’t interested. She pushed. I pushed back.”

  “Exactly. And now your brother is running for office. And he’ll probably win. After all, he can make it to the House of Representatives. Maybe he’ll even make it to the Senate. But you, you can make it to the presidency in a heartbeat—Jesus, it’s practically tailor-made for you. Or at least, it would be if you hadn’t married the girl with the murky past.”

  “Loving you is more important than any political aspiration I might or might not have.”

  She blushes, looks at her feet. “However you feel about it,” she says huskily, “you have to know that Brandon is aware of the discrepancy. You have to know that he hates you for it. He’s a child. He’s weak and spoiled and arrogant and it has to kill him that the whole world is pretty much at your feet while he has to beg for everything he gets.”

  “I work damn hard for what I have.”

  “Of course you do. I know that, you know that, nearly everyone who knows you knows that. But the Brandon I used to know, the Brandon who runs up gambling debts, who does drugs and hurts women just because he can, who abdicates any and all responsibility for his crimes, doesn’t see it like that. All he sees is that he’s getting your leftovers and that has to grate on him. Add in the fact that you’re actively trying to gather enough evidence to effectively tie him up in a bow and deliver him to the district attorney’s office, and you have to know he’s going to fight back. You have to know he’ll do everything he can to tear you down.”

  Her words make sense. They hurt, because there’s a tiny part of me that is—that will always be—Brandon’s older brother. But it’s the same part I silenced when I talked to Valducci, the same part of me I silenced when I told myself that destroying him was the only way to avenge Chloe and truly make her feel safe again. And it’s the same part of me I’ve despised since I found out about what he did to Chloe and the part I played in hurting her because of him.

  The relationship we once had—a relationship that was always more in my head than it was in actuality—isn’t enough to save him. Nothing is. The moment I found out what he did to Chloe any collateral he had with me was used up.

  “I understand what you’re saying,” I tell Chloe. “I do. But Brandon isn’t the bogeyman. He doesn’t get a free pass because he’s too awful a human being to take down. I can handle him and whatever he decides to throw at me.”

  “But that’s just it. I don’t want you to have to handle it. He’s not like you, Ethan. He won’t fight clean. He’ll do whatever he has to do to protect himself—and to hurt you.”

  “Don’t you understand that you’re just making more of an argument as to why he has to go? He’ll continue to hurt people with impunity until someone stops him.”

  “But why do you have to be the one to stop him?”

  “Who else is going to do it?”

  “Anyone else. I don’t care. I just want you safe.”

  “I am safe. I will be safe. By the time Brandon knows what’s hit him, it will be too late for him to save himself.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “And how is that going to make you feel?”

  “I’ll deal with that when I come to it.”

  “Don’t you think we should deal with it now?”

  I shake my head, give her a rueful smile. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Can you at least promise to think about what I’ve said? Maybe you could go after him a little easier—”

/>   “There is no easy way to do this.”

  “I know that. I do,” she insists when I eye her skeptically. “But could you maybe scale back the revenge, make it a little smaller? Maybe just kill his political career but don’t actually send him to prison? Hurt him, but don’t destroy him and make him come gunning for you?”

  “And how exactly do you propose I do all that?”

  “How am I supposed to know? You’re the genius in this relationship.”

  I can’t help laughing at the indignation in her tone. “More like I’m one of the geniuses.”

  I wrap an arm around her waist, start propelling her back toward the stairs. “Now, come on. Enough of this talk. Let’s focus on what we’re going to do for once, instead of on what Brandon has done or will do.”

  As a change of subject, it isn’t a very good one. But Chloe nods anyway as she allows me to guide her up the steep stairs and into the house.

  We’ve weathered our first argument as a married couple. It won’t be our last—not on this subject or on a million others that will come our way through the years that have nothing to do with Brandon. But for now, it’s more than enough that we’re both here, we’re both together, and we’re both fighting to make it through the darkness to the light on the other side. Tomorrow is soon enough to worry about everything else.

  Chapter 14

  Chloe and I maintain a fragile peace for the next few days—due more to omission on my part and self-delusion on hers than on any compromises we’ve actually reached. But the longer I go without mentioning Brandon the more relaxed she gets, so that a week after we’ve gotten back from Vegas I feel comfortable bringing up another subject that’s been on my mind.

  “I want to have a wedding reception,” I tell her over a breakfast of chocolate croissants from her favorite bakery on Prospect and a new strawberry almond-milk smoothie I got out of the cookbook Chloe gave me as a wedding gift.

  She freezes, a bite of croissant halfway to her mouth, and gives me a look that’s half confusion and all horror. “I’m sorry? You want to have what?”