Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

It doesn’t work.

Seconds later, I’m doing just that, knocking like crazy and calling to Chloe through the door as seconds run past. Finally, finally, I hear the lock click open and then Tori’s standing there in her pajamas staring at me with narrowed eyes.

“I was sleeping,” she tells me grouchily.

“I’m sorry, but I need to talk to Chloe.” I start to brush by her. “I need to explain—”

She puts a restraining hand on my arm. “Dude, Chloe isn’t here.”

My blood runs cold. Like, if I didn’t know it was a medical impossibility for me to still be standing here, thinking and breathing, I’d swear it literally stopped in my veins. “What do you mean?” I demand. “Where is she? Tell me, Tori. Tell me where she—”

“Where do you think she is?” she says in disgust, cutting me off. “She’s your wife, Ethan. She’s at your house.”

“My house?” For long seconds, I’m not sure I heard her right. “She left me in Vegas to come back here to my house?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure the house is both of yours now considering no one signed a prenup. But, yeah. That’s where she had the cab drop her off.” She steps back, starts to close the door.

I stop it with a hand. “Why’d she leave?”

“Dude, that’s something you’re going to have to ask her.”

“I plan to. I just thought a heads-up might make things easier.”

She shakes her head, shrugs.

I start to turn away, but stop as she says, “She’s worried about you.”

“Worried about me? She’s the one who’s been hurt.”

“Yeah, well, this marriage thing is a two-way street. Or so I hear.”

“Thank you, Tori.” I give her a quick, impulsive hug and she laughs, hugs me back.

“You’re welcome, Ethan. Now go get the girl. I need to sleep.” This time I don’t stop her as she closes the door in my face.

I head back to my car at a slightly less breakneck speed than I left it, my mind whirling as I try to figure out what’s going on. It’s not that I’m not thrilled that Chloe is at my house—where I want her, where she belongs—but it doesn’t fit her usual pattern. At all.

Her typical modus operandi is to run from me when she gets upset. And I get that. I really do. With her past, it’s amazing that she’s been able to trust me at all, let alone to the extent she has. And I know that she’s been hurt so much that it’s second nature for her to run when she thinks she’s in for more pain.

I don’t like it, but that’s how it is. How it’s been pretty much from the beginning.

This whole leaving me in Vegas only to turn up in my—our—house, is totally new ground for us. Then again, we were never married before. Maybe she meant what she said about forever, after all.

It only takes a few minutes for me to get home from Tori’s condo, and as I pull through the gate into the driveway I can’t help the way my heart thumps in my chest knowing that Chloe is in there, waiting for me. Knowing that, no matter how much talking we have to do today to make things right, we’ll have that chance. Because my wife is even braver than I gave her credit for.

I don’t bother pulling the car into the garage. Instead, I leave it right at the top of the driveway and bound up to the front door. It isn’t locked—another sign that Chloe really is here, even though at first glance there’s no sign of her.

It’s a big house, though, so that doesn’t mean anything. I go off in search of her, and while I don’t find her right away, it only takes a couple minutes for me to find her purse resting on the kitchen table, her shoes kicked off in the family room, her s

uitcase open on our bed.

The fist around my gut finally loosens and I take my first real breath since I walked into our suite at the Atlantis and found it empty. Maybe now I can finally believe things are going to be all right.

Or maybe I should wait until I actually find her before I start believing that. I check the bathroom, but she’s not in the shower. I check the media room, my office, the patio and pool area, and various other rooms in this suddenly too big house. Its size has never bothered me before, but right now it annoys the hell out of me.

I’m just beginning to think that maybe she went for a run, when I notice the sliding glass door in the kitchen is a little ajar. It surprises me, because I’ve never seen Chloe use the small balcony off the kitchen before, but then again, there’s a first time for everything. Or so I’m figuring out.

When I step outside, though, I find her not on the balcony, but on the sand down below.