Crazy for Love

All traces of regret disappeared from his face. Now he looked furious. “I’m not running away. This isn’t my responsibility, goddamn it. You’re the one who told me I didn’t have to take care of every person I met.”

“Oh, sure, start with me. I guess I don’t mean as much to you as those other women you couldn’t bear to leave.”

“That’s not it at all,” he shouted. “You mean more to me.”

She couldn’t take this anymore. I care about you. That’s why I’m throwing you to the wolves. “Get out. And don’t bother hanging around Richmond. I don’t need you and I won’t call you.”

His jaw hard as the blade of a knife, Max glared at her. He shook his head, then looked down at the floor.

Despite her crazy tirade, despite his anger, he didn’t seem inclined to move, so Chloe stalked to the door and shoved it open. Flashbulbs crackled like an electrical storm, lighting up the trees in eerie bursts of colorless light. “Goodbye, Max.”

He stayed in her bedroom for a moment, glaring at his shoes, but what choice did he have? She’d opened the cage and he wanted out. Chloe didn’t even hear the questions shouted from the alley. The voices sounded like screaming ghosts as she stared at Max’s profile, memorizing the sad curve of his neck and the flexing muscles of his arms. Her body was winding up inside, like a clockwork toy about to snap.

“Get out!” she managed to choke out. Too loudly, she supposed. There was an almost indiscernible lull in the questions outside, before they began shouting anew.

Max rolled his shoulders and walked toward her. “Just…take care of yourself,” he said as he stopped in front of her. When she didn’t respond, he stepped out the door and started down the stairs. Unwilling to watch him leave, Chloe slammed the door shut with so much force that a picture fell off her wall, the glass cracking into a dozen shards. She felt the echo of the same sound inside her as she slid down to crouch on the floor, her face resting against the door.

Stupid. He was a stranger. He didn’t matter.

But that gear was turning inside her, and her nerves began to shred. She drew a deep breath, but with the windows all tightly closed, it was stale and humid in here, and the vague scent of leftover Chinese food left her nauseated.

Pressing a hand to her stomach, Chloe pushed herself to her feet and went to open the window that faced the backyard. It didn’t help. Unless she opened a window facing the alley, no breeze would travel through. The smell of the food was stronger here.

Desperate, Chloe grabbed a trash bag and yanked open the fridge, but before she’d finished dropping the five containers into the bag, she realized her mistake. She couldn’t throw it away. The garbage cans were downstairs, tucked against the side of the carriage house. Chloe narrowed her eyes. The roar outside had died down. Probably half the cameramen had followed Max around to the front. She could either take the food to the trash now, or live with the pervasive smell until dark. But she felt about half a minute away from throwing up at this point, and the smell was much stronger now.

Dropping the last container in the bag, Chloe headed for the door. She eased it open, noticing no change in the chatter below. Every beat of her heart seemed to knock against her roiling stomach, so Chloe took a deep breath and pushed the door wide enough to block them out. But this time it didn’t work. The neighbor on the far corner of the alley had apparently given in to bribery. Someone shouted her name, and she looked up to find two photographers and a video technician perched on the flat roof, their cameras aimed right at her. It wasn’t a perfect view. A huge tree cut through their line of vision, but it was enough. She stood there gawking at them for a good five seconds.

“Hey, Chloe,” someone yelled from below. “Are you going to marry Max Sullivan?”

“Chloe, why’d he leave so soon? Did you turn psycho on him?”

“Were you cheating on Thomas with Max?”

“Chloe, did you show Max your wedding dress?”

Her jaw trembled. Every nerve in her body seemed to shake. She just wanted to be able to take the trash out. Just wanted to date a nice man and go out to breakfast and not skulk around as if she were going to get caught doing something wrong.

“Is it true that Max wants you to lose weight to look more like Genevieve?”

Chloe thought of Max sleeping with that fashionable stick figure. She thought of him comparing her body to Chloe’s. She knew what was coming. Sites that put their pictures side by side. Sites that polled their readers as to who was sexier.

“Chloe, who are you wearing today?” one of the

men yelled. The rest of them laughed as Chloe glanced down at her favorite T-shirt. It was a worn green shirt with the Lucky Charms leprechaun on the front. She’d worn it for Max and joked about having a little Irish in her thanks to him. He’d growled and kissed her.

Now these people who’d driven him away were laughing at her secret joke. Tomorrow, even if the truth was painful, even if her worst fears about Jenn came true, they’d laugh again.

“Bastards,” she growled, her hand reaching for the edge of the door. Instead of ducking back inside, she closed the door behind her and stepped up to the railing to glare down at the dozen people below. “Stop it!” she yelled, watching their eyes light with glee. Cameras whirred and snapped in a frantic cacophony. She wanted to hit them, to hurt them as much as they’d hurt her.

Eyeing one wolflike grin, she recognized one of the first guys who’d started following her. Chloe reached into the trash bag and grabbed one of the flimsy boxes of food. “Stop it!” she screamed…then she threw the box as hard as she could.

Her aim wasn’t perfect, but the box caught his elbow and exploded noodles all over him. Triumph surged up to replace the fear that fueled her rage, but the triumph proved an even hotter fuel. While the other photographers laughed and hooted at their stunned friend, Chloe reached into the bag again. She aimed this box into the thicket of video cameras, and this time her aim was true. The biggest, baddest camera disappeared behind an explosion of brown goo. The laughter stopped, and the men gasped as if she had just tossed garbage on a child.

“Hey!” somebody yelled. There were curses and shouts, but the cameras kept clicking, and Chloe kept throwing. By the time she was done, half the mob below was covered in rice or noodles or sauce, and Chloe was panting as if she’d just run a hundred-meter sprint.

“Psycho-bitch!” one of the videographers screamed.

Chloe gave him the finger and flounced back inside with a sneer, her nausea just a memory. But as she washed her hands, her sneer faded. The reality of what she’d just done began to sink in.