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Hendrix was stepping off the precipice. “You took the most important thing in the world from me. How does it feel?”
The most important thing in the world? What was Hendrix talking about? Before Chloe could voice her shocked query, William answered.
“Eleanor,” he exhaled slowly, sitting into the seat opposite Chloe.
Shards of metal were embedding in Chloe’s flesh. She looked from one to the other, and finally, jerked up from the table. “The drunk driver.” She closed her eyes, swaying unsteadily. “That was you.”
She swallowed, but her mouth was filled with sawdust. “Oh, God. You asked me to name our child after her. What kind of a sick asshole are you? It’s not a coincidence, is it?” She gripped one of the chairs for support. Mentally, Chloe did the arithmetic. “You were with Eleanor Forrester.” She gulped for air, but she could barely get enough in. Hendrix poured some water into a glass and walked it to her. He didn’t touch her. He’d lost the privilege. He could see it in every line of her body. Instead, he placed it on the table top, and then moved a step away. Her body was tense and taut, but there was a fatigue to her shoulders, too.
“Yes,” William hissed.
“The accident. The horse riding accident.” She slapped her hand on the table when William didn’t answer.
“Yes,” he shouted. “Yes, okay?”
“You were drink driving.”
His smile was supercilious but his voice was defeated. “No proof of any such thing, is there?”
“You took care of that,” she waved her hand through the air. “That would have been easy for you, with your connections.”
Hendrix hadn’t thought it through. He had wounded William, but it was Chloe that he’d cut to the core. Chloe that he’d poured pain over. How had he not foreseen her agony? To this extent, at least.
Her whole world was being pulled to shreds.
“Yes,” William said again.
“And you.” She spun around, her eyes so cold when they landed on Hendrix that they were almost unrecognisable. “When did you realise? When did you know?”
“As soon as you said your name.”
She closed her
eyes and swayed. The first time they’d met. Nausea choked her throat. She blinked her eyes open and stared into the room, but everything was different. No one looked the same, least of all her. “I see.” She walked to Hendrix slowly. He was only a pace or two from her. She was before him in an instant. She banked down on the butterflies that flapped hopefully at the proximity. She could never be with him again. She could never touch him. Never speak to him. She slid the ring from her hand and put it on the table.
“Is everything here finished? The divorce, I mean?”
He nodded. “It will need to process through the courts –.”
“But he can’t weasel out of it?”
“No.”
“And you’ll put my money back in my bank account, William?” She addressed him without looking at him.
“You call that money? It was small change, Chloe.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She dropped her gaze from Hendrix’s face. It was committed to memory. She would never forget a detail about him, but she had to leave him behind. “Then there’s nothing more to say, I suppose.”
She walked out of the boardroom and away from the only two men she’d ever believed she loved.
The only two people who’d ever hurt her.
And she wondered, almost idly, as she waited for the lift doors to open, how she was ever going to recover this time around?
CHAPTER TEN
Chloe wasn’t surprised he’d come; she was only surprised it had taken him so long. She’d managed to stuff all of their things into two suitcases and catch a cab back to her home – her long deserted flat in Brooklyn – and had even had an afternoon to wallow in numb pain. Now, as the sun pinched out of the sky, and darkness descended, Hendrix had arrived.
