Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

I’m not okay with any of it. Not what he did to Chloe and those other women. Not how he got away with all of it. And most definitely, not how he’s planning to run for Congress and beyond, building a life for himself making laws that he feels absolutely no compunction to follow.

None of that is okay.

Chloe might be strong enough to live with the past—and a future where Brandon never pays for his crimes. But I’m not. And I never will be.

Chapter 3

Ethan leaves early—a little while after we make love—slipping out of bed after a few minutes of cuddling with a kiss and a murmured I love you. He thinks I’m sleeping and I let him. Not because I don’t want him to stay, but because I do. Being separated from him for the last week has felt like losing a limb. Like losing myself. Now that I have him back again, there’s a part of me that wants to hold on to him. That wants to squeeze him so tightly that our bodies merge into one. That we merge into one and I can feel his love, his light, inside of me forever.

If he knew I was awake and watching him walk out, if he knew how empty I feel when he’s not with me, he would never be able to go, even to make the arrangements for our wedding.

And I need him to go, at least for a little while. I need to think. To figure out what my next move is. In some ways, it’s so simple. Ethan and me together. Forever. That’s my endgame, his endgame—and this time I’m not going to let anyone fuck it up. Not Brandon, not Ethan’s mother, not myself. When he showed up at my door last night, I knew that was it. Turn him away then or be with him forever. I love him, adore him, need him like I need air to breathe. There was no choice—not the first time I met him, not last night when he humbled himself before me, not now.

But that doesn’t mean marriage to him is going to be easy.

I don’t know how to do this. How to love Ethan when he’s so hell-bent on revenge. My past is…dirty. It’s dark and bloody and so painful that some days I can barely look myself in the mirror. I’ve lived the last few years by burying it. By ignoring it. By making a new life for myself, away from my family. Away from what happened to me.

Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest way to do things, but it worked.

I functioned.

I went to class, got good grades, landed one of the most prestigious internships in the world.

I survived.

Now Ethan has churned all that old stuff up and I feel exposed. Broken open. And while I understand why it needed to be done—why he needed to know about the rape and my family’s greed—that doesn’t mean that I want it to be a focal point of my life from now on. I don’t want to lay in bed at night thinking about it, don’t want to spend every day wondering what Ethan is going to do or when he’s going to do it.

Which means I have to convince him to let this go—to let Brandon go. The problem is, Ethan’s one of the good guys. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and he’s always on the side of right. Always. It’s who he is.

The guy who wears the white hat.

The guy who flies his employees to Vegas when forest fires force an evacuation from San Diego.

The guy who donates half his income to charity even as he works tirelessly to create products to help those who are suffering.

He’s that guy, and the problem is, that guy doesn’t understand—he can’t understand—that sometimes evil wins. Sometimes bad things go unpunished. Sometimes you just have to settle for what is instead of what you want it to be.

Ethan’s never settled a day in his life.

Except for me.

Except for us.

It’s a painful thought, one that has me rolling out of bed and reaching for the robe I dropped on the floor when I seduced Ethan back into bed a couple hours ago. If I get up, if I keep busy, then I won’t have to think about the words his mother threw at me with pinpoint precision when we were in Napa. I won’t have to think about the fact that he’s settling for me. Or that with my past and my family, I’ll never be good enough for him.

So instead of thinking about that, I walk to the bathroom, fumble the light on. It’s seven a.m. and normally I’d be racing to get dressed so that I’m not late for my internship at Frost Industries. But I quit that job when things blew up with Ethan for the last time and it feels weird to think about going back to it now. Somewhere in the middle of everything that happened last night, he asked me to go back. Told me that my job is waiting for me if I want it.

And I do want it.

I worked my ass off for that internship. It’s the key to my future. I know that. Just like I know that I should jump at the chance to get it back. But it feels strange to take it now. To know that the only reason I have the job is because of Ethan. Because of our relationship. No one else would be allowed to quit such a highly competitive internship and then just go back to it if she changed her mind.

At the same time, though, I really do want the job back. I really do want to work at Frost Industries again. In the short time I was there, I learned more than I ever did in my classes.

Blindly, I squirt toothpaste on my toothbrush, start to brush my teeth. But a quick glance in the mirror has me gasping, the toothbrush dropping into the sink with a clatter.

I have at least a dozen bruises. Probably more.

On my collarbone. On the slopes of my breasts not covered by the robe. On my wrists.