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“Go?”
His smile was dazzling. “The way I see it, you’ve given me twenty four hours to show you that I’m worth another chance. And I’m not going to waste a second.”
* * *
He played guitar like an angel. Chloe sat on the floor of his penthouse, feeling pleasantly relaxed. Despite the strangeness of their day, it hadn’t felt strange. It had felt wonderful.
“Stairway to Heaven is sort of a guitarist’s right of passage,” he said, slipping the guitar over his head and coming to sit cross legged in front of her.
“You play it well.”
He shrugged. “My father was a brilliant musician. He taught me.”
“Was?”
Hendrix’s face clouded momentarily. “He gave up after Eleanor died. Losing our mother hit him hard enough. Eleanor was the final straw.”
Chloe didn’t shy away from the topic, despite the way her own life was now bound into the story. “He stopped playing?”
“Yes.” He had hidden too much from her. “He stopped doing anything other than drinking an enormous quantity of Pinot Noir.”
“Really?” She felt a spike in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It would appear his ability to cope with grief was better than mine.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded. Their knees were almost touching. She felt a surge of awareness at his proximity. “He named you after Jimi Hendrix?”
“Yes. And Eleanor is for Eleanor Rigby. My father always said it was the best song every written.”
“I love that song,” Chloe smiled. “I thought that, when William suggested we use the name.”
“Parallels everywhere,” Hendrix murmured.
They stared at one another, searching for understanding. Hendrix spoke first. “I love you, Chloe.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. She nodded, finally. “I know.”
“And I hate that I hurt you the way I did.”
She nodded again. Her voice was a little unsteady, but she had so many emotions zipping through her that it was hardly a surprise. “I know that too.”
“I want you back. I need you back. And I’m not going to stop until I have you back.”
She leaned forward, brushing her nose lightly to his. “I know.”
“You know?” He asked, pulling away so that he could see her eyes.
She fidgeted with her fingers. “You said you just wanted me to leave the door open a crack. That you wanted to prove that you deserved me. So prove it.” She jutted her chin at a defiant angle. “Show me that you will never hurt me again. Show me that you will worship Ellie, and make her safe, and love me forever. Show me that I can trust you again. Show me that … show me that you love me.”
Hendrix was soaring higher than the angels. He could have screamed with pleasure. But he only smiled, a small hint of promise in the curve of his lips. “For the rest of my life.”
And there was such searing intensity in his look that she just knew. Life was never straight forward, but some decisions had to be made on emotion.
“I’ve been so miserable,” she confided with a sigh. “I think I made the right choice. The smart choice. I have to be sensible, because of Ellie. But I’ve spent a whole month waking up and literally counting down the minutes until I could get back into bed. I came to realise that I had cut my nose off to spite my face.” She shook her head. “And Ellie’s missing you. And if you’re missing us, too, then none of it makes any sense.”
He moved to his knees, and pulled her to him. “I have missed you like the stars would miss the moon. I have ached for you. I have seen your ghost with every blink of my eyes. There has never been a love like I feel for you. Please let me make you understand that.” He kissed her nose. “Please let me love you with all that I am. Please let me show you how wrong I was, and how sorry I am. I ache for you, my beautiful Chloe.”
“I know,” she said teasingly, but she was breathless.
