Indiscretion: Volume Four (15 page)

“So what the fuck was that little speech about, then?” Tears pooled in her eyes, and it was all I could do to continue looking at her, I was so disgusted with myself. “Well?”

“I just wanted you to know how I felt.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and I fought the urge to surround her with my own.

“Why?” I asked, raising my voice. “So I could look like the asshole for not feeling the same way, when you’re the one that flipped the script on our entire arrangement?”

She reached out to touch me, and I took another step away from her. “I don’t understand,” she choked out. “I thought that—”

“Well you thought wrong,” I replied, my voice dead. “Look, I came here to grab my shit and tell you I’m leaving town tonight. The job site is shut down indefinitely, so there’s nothing for me here.”

There’s everything for me here.

Fuck.
I turned away. I needed a moment. Lies. Everything I was saying was lies.

Daring a glance at her, I saw her lip quivering and the pain in my chest was as if someone had shoved a fucking knife through it. “You’re leaving tonight?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“I’m afraid so.” I clenched my fists at my side, hating this next part but knowing it was necessary. I needed her to hate me with everything in her so she wouldn’t pine away for me—so she’d move on with her life and find someone new to love.

Thinking of her in love with someone else had my stomach rolling with nausea. I pushed my hands in my pockets to try to appear relaxed and also to keep myself from reaching out for her.

“So, that’s it?” she whispered, her eyes full of shock.

“I don’t know what you want.” I shrugged. “We fucked for a bit. That was what we agreed on. It was fun while it lasted. Now I’ve got to get back to my real life.”

Finally, anger flashed through her eyes. “I can’t believe it. I
don’t
believe you.”

“You were a good lay, Chloe. Hell, you were a great lay,” I chuckled humorlessly. “But if you thought you had some kind of magic pussy that was going to make me fall in love with you and want to stick around, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

Her hand shot up and smacked me across my uninjured cheek. I enjoyed the sting on my face. It was a physical manifestation of what I felt inside.

“Get out,” she ordered, scary quiet.

I rubbed the side of my cheek. “I have to grab my stuff.”

Her hands hung at her sides balled into fists. “No. I don’t want to be around you for another second. Go.” She wouldn’t even look at me, her gaze focused over top of my shoulder. When I didn’t move, she pointed toward the front door and yelled, “Go!”

I took one last look at the woman who had my heart. The woman I would be begging forgiveness from some time in the future if I was ever given a clean bill of health—because I knew that, even if a year or two went by, Chloe would still own me. Heart and soul.

I turned and stalked out of her house and her life, forever perhaps, tears burning behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw while my stomach turned, wanting to expel it’s contents. It wasn’t until I stepped off her front porch that I let the first tear fall to the ground.

Chloe

I heard the front door close and I ran up the stairs to the bathroom, emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for whatever Max’s reaction would be, but nothing would’ve prepared me for that.

When I was finished, I wiped my chin with my arm and sank to the floor, a sobbing heap of flesh. The pain was indescribable and filled every crevice of my being. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like this, even when my mother had died.

How could I have been so wrong? Max had acted like a completely different person. I didn’t understand how I could’ve completely missed that side to him. I’d never seen anything in our time together to suggest he could be so cruel.

Hours later, I picked myself up from the floor and staggered to my bedroom, wanting nothing more than to pull the covers over my head and wallow in my own despair. When I fell to the mattress, Max’s scent wafted up to meet me.

God!
This was complete bullshit. He’d walked out of my life, uncaring about what he’d left behind, and yet he was still here torturing me.

I stood from the bed and began ripping at the sheets, a crying blubbering mess as I tore them up from the mattress. I raced down the stairs to the laundry room and opened the washing machine to throw them in and screamed in frustration.

Max’s clothes lay wet in the bottom. I dropped the sheets, feeling wild and beyond reason as I tossed them out and pitched them behind me, hearing them splat against the wall then onto the ceramic floor.

I screamed and cried, furious that I couldn’t just get away from all things Max related. As if he was still here, fucking with me.

By the time I’d gotten the sheets into the washing machine, I’d decided that the best way to rid all memories of Max from my life would be to gather up all his things from my house and set them on fire.

The idea was juvenile, but I wasn’t exactly in my right mind. I raced through the house, gathering up everything that could be considered flammable, shoving it into the wood burning fireplace in my living room. When I was confident that I’d gotten everything, I grabbed a match from the mantle and set the corner of one of his expensive shirts on fire.

As the fire took hold and the flames rose higher, the heat from the fireplace stung the skin on my face. I welcomed it. It seemed appropriate.

Then I lay in front of that fire, watching it burn until it was nothing but ash. In the end, it didn’t make me feel any better. Nothing would. What was there to save you from yourself when the man you loved left you behind?

Chloe

The February wind whipped up off of the ocean, chilling me further. I clutched my coat tighter around me as I hustled from where I’d parked into the coffee shop on Main Street.

Pulling my gloves off, I rubbed my hands together to try and get some feeling back into them. I had about twenty minutes before I had to meet a client to show him a commercial building for sale a few doors up, and I needed another jolt of caffeine. I needed a jolt of anything, really.

Six months had passed since Max walked out of my life, and it had been a desolate time. I did nothing but work, finding solace in keeping busy and keeping my mind from wandering to him. Though it did anyway, in those quiet moments—lying in bed and trying to fall asleep, waiting at a traffic light, and now, waiting in line to be served.

I purposely hadn’t looked up anything having to do with Max on the internet, and I forced Jackie and Jess to promise to do the same. If I dug, I was sure I could find something, and I wasn’t prepared to see pictures of him splashed across Page Six with another woman.

I still loved him. I was an idiot for it, but I did. I hadn’t made much progress in healing the gaping wound he’d left me with that day.

Once I got my coffee, I decided to sit at one of the tables and enjoy it until I had to head over to meet my client. It wouldn’t take me long to get there. Bar Harbor wasn’t the tourist mecca in the winter that it was in the summer. The two feet of snow and frigid breeze off the ocean made sure of that.

I sat sipping the steaming liquid when the bell over the front door chimed. I glanced over and my stomach leapt up from the confines of my body. Paul was walking in and, though I attempted to avoid his gaze, he spotted me right away and made his way over.

The labor board had finally finished its investigation and determined that both sites had been compromised with inferior structural steel. Both would have to be ripped to the ground and rebuilt. Law suits had been filed by both developers against the supplier—it was sure to drag out in court for years. Now I could only assume he was in town to oversee the job of demolishing what was left of the building.

Oh no…

Did that mean Max was back in town, too? My heart stuttered at the thought. I hoped not. I couldn’t handle seeing him. I’d barely managed to piece myself back together after all these months.

Paul approached my table and surprised me by sitting down. He nodded, looking a little apprehensive. “Chloe.”

“Paul.” It was strange that he was sitting here—even when I’d been seeing Max, Paul and I had only met a couple of times and never really had our own conversations.

“I was hoping I would run into you. I’m back in town for the tear down,” he said politely, confirming my thoughts.

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back into my seat. I couldn’t imagine what he and I had to discuss. “Why exactly were you hoping we’d run into each other?”

He placed a hand on the table, twiddling his fingers, seeming to consider what he was about to say. “I know what happened between you and Max.” His voice was low, discreet.

“Then I’m sure you can understand why I don’t want to discuss him,” I said with irritation.

I moved to get up out of my seat, but he placed a hand on my wrist, stopping me. I sat back down reluctantly. “I realize things ended on a bad note with you two.”

My voice was harsh. I was done with this topic. “Look, if you’re here to warn me that he’s coming back to town, you don’t need to bother. I plan to steer clear of him, if that’s the case.”

He shook his head. “He’s not coming back.”

Damn it.
I gulped. Why did that hurt like a fist to the gut? I didn’t want to see him, but at the same time hearing the finality in Paul’s voice that I wouldn’t see Max somehow hurt all over again.

“Then I’m not sure what we have to discuss.” I hated the emotion that edged my voice. I cleared my throat, regaining my composure. I’d become an expert at that these last six months.

But there was something in his eyes, something so sincere, that I couldn’t help but think there was something else going on.

He drew in a deep breath before speaking. “You need to go see him.”

“Excuse me?” What the hell was he getting at?

“I’m telling you…you need to see him.”

That expression on his face deepened with concern. It sent a shiver of fear through my entire body, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. Something was very, very wrong.

“Why would I go see him?” I asked, with equal parts anger and concern. “He made it perfectly clear that he got what he wanted from me and had no more interest.”

Paul pursed his lips and let out a growl of frustration, rubbing his hands along his upper thighs. “I’ve already said too much. He’s gonna be fucking pissed at me as it is. Please, just trust me and go see him in New York.” If nothing else had gotten my attention, his pleading tone did.

I stared at him for a moment, saying nothing, unsure of what the underlying message was here. “I can’t handle being dismissed by him again.” Unshed tears burned behind my eyes.

“It’s not what you think,” Paul insisted. “What’s your cell number?” he asked, pulling his phone out of his coat pocket. “I’ll text you his address.”

I recited it and he typed something into his phone, then I heard my phone ping from inside my purse.

He stood up and looked down at me. “At least consider it,” he urged. “I think you’ll regret it if you didn’t.” With that, he turned and made his way to the counter.

I sat for a second, stunned at the direction my morning had taken. I couldn’t be here right now, it was too much to process. Grabbing my purse and buttoning my coat back up, I raced out the door of that coffee shop to meet my client like the devil himself was chasing me.