When he finally got in the car, the scent of smoke filled the whole thing, but I didn’t gripe about it. I couldn’t. I was still shaking. With the way he looked straight forward, hands resting on his knees, jaw twitching, my chest caved in. I already knew it was going to go so badly. It was his job to pay attention to detail, and I was sure he’d heard every word.
His throat bobbed. I couldn’t breathe. “You gonna talk?”
My resolve was still present. “Stick to this story no matter what you encounter,” Delia’s voice said in my mind. I watched him as I said, “You mean about that psycho in there who took my fucking picture?” I demanded, but my voice shook.
His head whipped in my direction, slate gray eyes burning through me, his nostrils flared. “I mean the truth.” He was quiet, calm. Too calm. “Are you going to tell me the truth?”
“The truth about what, Kai?” I glared until he pulled his phone out and stuck it in my face. Everything in me withered up.
“The truth about your real name being Chloe Dumont,” he stated with a cold mask in place.
That was all he’d needed to find the real me. The me I loathed.
Without any expression at all, he flipped through picture after picture of me in long formal gowns and skanky bathing suits. Then he stopped on one with me standing next to him, his arm slung over my shoulders, his highlighted hair falling in his face as he leaned in to graze his nose along my cheek. The memory of that picture being taken was so prevalent. I wore my fake Southern belle smile, but I’d been so detached by that point, so dead inside. Even with my efforts, I hadn’t been able to get rid of all the articles and photos.
I looked away from his phone, that distant feeling seeping into my bones.
“Who the fuck is that, Chloe?” he snarled, his composure slipping. I closed my eyes. “This article says this guy was your fiancé. Or still is. He’s been looking for Chloe Dumont since she disappeared three years ago.”
I opened my eyes. The disgusted look he wore hurt everything inside me, the detachment not really working. I still cared about him. Still loved him—I couldn’t deny that I did anymore. It wouldn’t go away just because he’d found out some of my secrets.
Furious eyes boring into me, he barked, “Who the fuck are you?”
“Take me home, please” was all I could say, looking straight forward.
He leaned over the center console, getting in my face. I couldn’t help but meet his enraged gaze. “Even now? Even now that I know the truth of things, you won’t talk to me?”
“You don’t know the truth of anything,” I stated, my heart shriveled up. Sure, he’d asked for it, had wanted me to share it, but I wasn’t ready for that. I might never be.
“Don’t I?” He tilted his head. “Pageant life a little too strict for you? Didn’t want to be tied down by marriage so you ran off to live the way you wanted?”
I turned my gaze forward once more, looking at nothing, ignoring the sharp pain that sliced through me with each of his words. I repeated, “Take me home, please.”
A plunk sounded on the center console where he dropped the keys. “You can take yourself home. Like fuck will I go anywhere with someone who’s lied to me for the last fucking year.” The look of pure disdain on his face shattered everything inside me, but I didn’t let it show. I couldn’t.
I just grabbed the keys and got out of the car. He got out, too, but didn’t look back at me as he strode away, lighting another cigarette.
I didn’t think as I got behind the wheel and started the car. Held it together while I drove home. But the moment I stepped through the door, I crumpled to the floor and sobbed.
My control was gone. I’d been so ready to be with Kai, to move everything, turn my back on my ridiculous rules, just to be with him, because I loved him. But that wasn’t enough. Not really. Not when I wasn’t willing to share the truth of my horrid life. My love for him wasn’t strong enough for me to give up my secrets.
He didn’t come back that night, and when I glanced outside the next morning after the worst night of sleep I’d ever had, his truck was gone. I wasn’t sure how I could live, how I could keep going, but I had to. I had to do exactly as I had done three years before.
15
Kai
My phone buzzed on the bar in front of me. The bar I’d spent most of the last five days at. It wasn’t Kate or Chloe or whoever the fuck she was. She hadn’t called or texted once in the five days since that horrid afternoon. Sure, I hadn’t called her either, but a part of me still hoped she might decide to talk to me, even though I was still pissed as hell.
That part of me hoped so damn much, I’d chosen an apartment that would fit the four of us, one I thought she would like the most. The hope made me an idiot. I was supposed to move into it in three days, and then I was back on duty the day after that. I still had to get furniture and shit, but I just couldn’t motivate myself to do much of anything aside from sitting at the bar, smoking and drinking.
The worst part of it was that she’d finally given in, finally decided to come live with me after her summer classes, with any luck before the twins were born. We could have been a family.
But it would have been
