Chapter 1
“Another. Make this one a double.”
The bartender looked at Chloe Greyson with his bushy eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. When she didn’t flinch, he tilted his head and poured her bourbon, three fingers’ worth.
“Sure you can handle much more, darlin’?” He leaned both hands against the bar and watched her throwback half of it in one gulp. He looked genuinely concerned.
“Don’t worry. I’m just getting started.” Chloe downed the rest and nodded at him to pour again, which he did, albeit reluctantly.
She’d already had two, after all.
She didn’t immediately drink that one, so he walked away to help other customers. Chloe rubbed her thumb over the glass, letting the bourbon try to warm her insides the way it burned her throat.
Still, she shivered with cold. Her hands trembled.
I know where you are, Chloe. Did you really think I wouldn’t be able to find my own wife?
She sipped her drink while trying to banish the ghostly voice of her ex-husband.
Norman’s voice on her phone had been a shock from which she hadn’t yet calmed down. In hindsight, she didn’t know why it surprised her. A few years without contact from her ex-husband had lulled her into a false sense of safety. She should have kept moving, changed her name again, done something more.
Most of all, she should have known from the beginning, when he’d started harassing her from prison and the police would do nothing to help, that it was going to be impossible to escape his shadow. Norman wasn’t half as clever as he thought he was, but when one’s father was the omnipotent Senator Allen Greyson, the silent figure who pulled the strings behind the curtain, one didn’t have to be clever. Money could buy anything. Power could move mountains. Power could buy loyalty.
Loyalty got everything done.
And apparently, it could find one ex-wife who’d relocated and taken a new last name because she desperately didn’t want to be found.
The bartender passed by and splashed another shot of bourbon into her still half-full glass as he passed. He winked and said, “On the house. You look like you could use a win, huh?”
She managed to smile at him and drink a little more bourbon, and had to keep herself from explaining there was no such thing as winning in her life. Chloe had been a mere infant when her mother had died, and just a sophomore in high school when her father was killed in a car accident. She’d had friends then, a social life, a promising future in business, and a sweet, attentive boyfriend in Norman Greyson.
He’d been everything she’d ever dreamed of.
After she was made an orphan, Senator Greyson insisted on taking her in, so she moved into his mansion with his cold but polite wife, Carla, and her accent that reminded Chloe of Scarlett O’Hara’s. It was wonderful living there.
At first.
By the time she graduated high school, wedding plans for her and Norman were in the works, mostly headed up by Senator Greyson, and Norman had started to change. He was possessive but neglectful at the same time. Domineering. He was going into politics like his father, and expected Chloe to be like his mother—a pampered wife who stayed at home, appeared with him at society functions to make him look good, and tended to his needs at home by making sure the servants did everything Norman wanted.
Chloe was supposed to have been his trophy wife, and most importantly to Norman, the mother of his child.
Cold shivers ran down her spine.
She scoffed at the memory and drank some more, but no amount of bourbon could ever erase the memory of Norman’s face when the doctor had said he was sorry, but they were young and could try—
“You should slow down.”
The voice was deep and gentle, and Chloe realized it came from a man on the stool next to her. She hadn’t noticed when he sat down, and that was truly a testament to how drunk she was becoming, because he was striking.
The man was tall and looked well-built inside his jeans and long-sleeved black T-shirt, with short, straight blond hair that hung thick and carefree like he might have just rolled out of bed. It gave him a boyish quality, combined with his sculpted features and piercing green eyes. He smiled at Chloe. “Not that I’m trying to tell you what to do, but you’re getting inebriated. That seems dangerous.”
She burst out laughing. “I can handle myself, but thanks.”
“I doubt it. A delicate creature like you shouldn’t be in place like this. But since I’m here, I’ll watch out for you. But getting drunk alone…I can’t imagine why you would do such a thing.”
“You’re lucky, if you can’t imagine it.”
He’s going to watch out for me, is he? Probably watching how many drinks I’ve had to be sure I’m drunk enough to sleep with him when it’s time to leave.
She waved her hand in the air. “Bartender, a drink for my new babysitter here.” What the hell. She’d buy him a drink, and then she’d leave and get a bottle to take home so she could drown her sorrows without somebody judging h
er for getting a little tipsy.
“No, that’s not—” He put a hand up, but the bartender had already poured him a bourbon. He picked it up and eyed it suspiciously, then took the tiniest sip Chloe had ever seen anyone take. He made a face. His brow furrowed. “You drink this willingly?”
“Eagerly,” she said.