Just One Scandal (The Kingston Family 2)

He watched her go, his heart shredded inside his chest. Needing to remind himself why he’d just hurt her so badly, hurting himself as well, he reached over, opened the top drawer in his nightstand, and pulled out the laminated paper with his sister’s handwriting.

His sister was gone. Her promised positive outcome had never happened. His dad had stage two cancer, not stage one as they’d thought. Once again, the doctors had been wrong.

He looked down at the list. Fall in love and get married. He ran his finger over the words and shook his head. No. He couldn’t let Chloe in. Couldn’t add her to the small group of people he already had wrapped in cotton in his head and prayed every day he wouldn’t lose.

If he could just make her see that he was right, she’d still be his friend. They could still look out for each other but from a distance. And it would be good.

Wouldn’t it?

* * *

Chloe closed herself in her room and didn’t come out until the next morning. She ate a protein bar from her purse for breakfast and used the time to pack everything she’d bought since she moved in. Thank God she’d bought suitcases in preparation for when she left. Her heart was breaking but she had no one to blame except herself. Beck had been one-hundred-percent honest from day one. Falling for him was on her.

Saying I love you to him had been a mistake, but she wasn’t going to apologize for her feelings or, worse, deny them once they were out there. He was too afraid of losing people to see the truth in front of him. He might not have wanted a relationship but they’d had one. Did he love her? That she didn’t know. But he had no right to tell her she didn’t love him or make light of her feelings.

“Rebound, my ass,” she muttered, zipping up her cosmetics case and finishing up her packing.

The last thing she wanted to do was leave Beck and the loft that had become her safe haven. She didn’t want to move in with Jordan and Linc, but she needed to be in the city, not an hour away at her mother’s. So she called Xander, and he’d willingly agreed to let her stay at his apartment uptown. As was typical, Xander was out at the Hamptons house anyway. Still, he promised to meet her at his apartment around ten with a spare key.

She’d called Linc and asked him to do his due diligence on the condo that interested her, but until she had a place of her own, she’d be at Xander’s.

She waited until Beck left for work before coming out of her room. His steps had echoed down the hall, and the beep of him unsetting the alarm sounded throughout the apartment.

Once she was alone, she called for an Uber and headed uptown. At least it was just Xander she’d be dealing with and not Linc. She’d just gotten her oldest brother to ease up on Beck, and when he found out about the end of their friendship/relationship/whatever the hell it had been, he’d lose the restraint he’d promised. Chloe wished she didn’t have to leave, but she had too much pride to stay.

She’d held herself together all last night and this morning. She was okay while her bags were loaded into the trunk of the car and as she climbed into the back seat. But as soon as she shut the door behind her, the tears began to fall.

* * *

Chloe met Xander at his apartment. Without asking questions, he told her to make herself comfortable and helped her drag her bags into the spare bedroom. It had closet space, and she didn’t want to take over her brother’s master bedroom in case he wanted to stay over. He’d left her alone to unpack, and eventually she heard voices in the outer rooms.

She stepped into the hall and headed to the living room, where, sure enough, she found Linc and Jordan with him. “Really?” she asked Xander.

He shrugged. “Linc happened to call while I was on my way to the city.”

“So you just had to tell him.” She glanced at her oldest sibling. “Did you come to gloat? To say I told you so?”

Linc’s compassionate gaze met hers, and she was taken off guard by the kindness in his eyes. “I never wanted you to get hurt.”

She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall again. “Well, it’s not like Beck didn’t warn me, you know? He said he didn’t do relationships, had no intention of falling in love, and would never marry. He was pretty specific, so I have only myself to blame for letting myself fall for him.”

“I’m not sure you can control who you fall in love with,” Jordan said softly, glancing up at Linc.