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“Yes.”
“Bullshit.” Her temper was Medusa like. “If you loved me, you would have told me the truth. You would never have let me find out … like that … in front of a stranger, and my ex-husband … that he cheated on me with your sister. That he got another woman pregnant. That he killed her. That I nursed him better after he’d ended her life. That I named my daughter after his dead lover. Your sister.” The facts of the situation had chased one another around her head all day, and now they were tumbling out of her, like tiny shards of glass digging into the picture of the future she’d been hoping for.
“I thought …” Hendrix groaned and dipped his head forward, dragging his hands through his dark crop of hair.
“Yes?” She tapped her foot impatiently. “What did you think?”
“I kept telling myself that I owed it to Ellie. My Ellie.”
“And what did you owe to me?” She spun away from him, finding it hateful to gaze upon the man she had thought she loved. “God, Hendrix, I welcomed you into my life. I thought you were different. You’re the second man I’ve been with. I married the first. You talk about casual sex as though it’s as easy as buying bread or washing your hands. I don’t do this. I brought my daughter to live with you. And the whole time – when we were making love, and eating dinner together and reading the papers on the couch, and laughing at stupid movies – you were frothing at the mouth, waiting for the chance to wield me as an instrument of revenge.”
“No,” he denied. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t think about it when we were together. I tried to keep it separate in my mind.”
“How lovely of you,” she snapped. Her eyes were stinging. “I need you to go.”
Again, he ignored her request. “I’m telling you I love you, Chloe. I love you and I love Ellie, and I want you in my life. I want to go back.”
“To go back?” She whispered, lifting her fingers to her lips. “We can never go back.” Her stomach rolled with grief. “You asked me to trust you. Again and again, you told me to trust you. And I did.” She turned to him slowly, her face as pale as a sheet of paper. “I would never make that mistake again. I doubt I’ll ever trust anyone again.”
Hendrix could hardly breathe now. The lava was engulfing him. A fine bead of sweat had broken out on his brow. “I fucked up! I’m telling you that. I have hated him for so long that I stopped thinking clearly.”
“Poor you.” She had to be strong. Not just for her, but for her daughter.
“I can’t leave you, Chloe.”
“You will leave me, or you’ll be just as bad as William. I’ve finally broken free of one controlling bastard who used me for his own needs. Don’t tell me I’m going to have to do the same with you.”
The comparison to the man he hated most in the world was the final straw. He stood up straighter and shook his head. “I’m not like him.”
“No,” she agreed wit
h a concise nod. “You are so, so much worse.”
“I love you.”
“So did William,” she shrugged, shocked at how focussed she was being. How easy it was to argue with him when her heart was splintering beyond recognition.
“What can I do to show you how much I need you?”
Chloe straightened her spine. “I don’t frankly care if you need me or not. I’m sick of thinking about other people and their needs. I have spent the last two years devoted to my daughter. And I was happy. I love her. She’s all I need.” She stepped towards him, confident now that she was close to ending it. “And one day, when I’m ready, I might meet someone else. A man who is all of the things I thought you were. Someone who is as kind, and decent, and honourable and trustworthy, as you brilliantly pretended to be. And that’s who’ll deserve me. Not a shadow of that man, like you.”
Hendrix thought he’d scraped rock bottom, but her words proved him wrong.
Because she was completely spot on. She deserved a better man than he was. He closed his eyes against the realisation. “I want to spend the rest of my life being what you need. You talk about being happy? Having you and Ellie with me made me happier than I thought possible. For the first time in my life, I was part of a family. A beautiful family. I fucking loved waking up beside you, and watching movies with you, and watching you while you read the paper, or while you played with Ellie. I loved tickling Ellie until she couldn’t stop giggling. I loved reading her stories and watching In the Night Garden with her, even though it’s seriously psychedelic. I even loved standing on her goddamned Duplo pieces. I lost a piece of my mind when my sister died, and today, I realised just how mad I’d become. How utterly, batshit crazy. It was a train wreck.”
He took another step towards her. “An absolute unmitigated disaster. I heard myself speak, and it was as though I was outside of my body, shouting at myself to stop, to shut up, not to do this. And yet still, I threw it in William’s face, knowing what it would do to you. I’m not stupid enough to hope you’ll forgive me for that. Ever. It’s unforgivable. I’m only asking you to understand that everything else was real. Everything else you felt, and I felt, was separate to that. It was real. It was all real. Every bit of it.”
Chloe’s breath was burning in her lungs. She pulled at her necklace and made a strangled noise of anger. “I can’t listen to this. You’re a great lawyer, and you could probably win any case in the world, but I can’t do this. I should have been smarter after William. But I fell in love with you, and I went too fast. I let things go way too fast. You think you were crazy? That was me. To gamble with my daughter like that … I don’t know what I was thinking. But I had blind hope then. I trusted you. Without trust – which there can never be again – there can’t be love. There can’t be a future. There can’t be anything.”
Hendrix moved to stand directly before Chloe, and his eyes were suspiciously bright. He put his hands on her hips, and she was powerless to move. “Feel me, Chloe. Feel the man standing before you, and tell me you don’t want this. Tell me your heart isn’t screaming at you that we make sense. Despite what happened today.”
“My heart?” She shook her head sadly. “What heart?” For it was broken. Absolutely shattered.
“Please,” he groaned, dipping his head forward and kissing her lips. Her face was wet with tears. “Please give me a chance to earn you back. To at least try to show you that I know how badly I stuffed up. Please leave me just a tiny crack in the door.” He stroked her cheek. “I know we can’t just be what were. But at least don’t close me out completely. I can’t lose you, Chloe.”
She sobbed now, too overwrought to bother hiding it. “You should have thought of that. You can’t have it both ways. You wanted your revenge, and you got it. But you lost me in the process.” She moved out of his reach and dabbed her eyes with fingers. “It’s done. It can’t be undone now, no matter how badly you wish it.”
Hendrix swore under his breath. He paced across the room, and paused just outside the kitchen. “I know I ruined it. I’m just asking for a chance …”
