“Why, hello, Chloe. How are you? Did you make it home from Royal, okay? Oh, lovely, I see you did. And how are you faring? Well, I hope.” Fury mounted, replacing the miasma of misery she’d been dwelling on within. “We need to talk, do we? You wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to talk to you before. Why the hell should I listen to you now?”
She turned her back on him and kept walking. There was a dull thud of a car door and then the creeping sound of tires on the road as he followed her. The car drew up beside her again and the passenger window rolled down.
“Chloe, please. I’d like to talk.”
Every cell in her body was urging her to do as he asked. To actually stop walking and get into that luxury status symbol that he drove, but a perverse imp of self-preservation made her keep putting one foot in front of the other. A couple was walking toward her, and she saw concern painted clearly on both their faces. The man stepped forward.
“Ma’am, are you okay? Is this guy bothering you?” he asked. “Would you like us to call the police?”
“No, it’s okay. I know him, I just—”
She just what? She didn’t know what she wanted. From the minute she’d left the Wingate estate, she’d wanted Miles. In fact, through every waking moment and almost every sleeping one since, she’d wanted him. She’d wanted what they had to be still in one piece, not shattered and bleeding all over the floor. She’d wanted to feel as if she was a part of him, the way he was indelibly a part of her. She dragged in another breath before speaking to her potential rescuer.
“Thank you for asking. I’ll be fine.”
And with that, she turned toward Miles’s car and let herself into the passenger side. As he drove the car away from the curb, she forced herself to smile and wave to the couple.
“I appreciate you not making a scene back there,” Miles said, keeping his eyes firmly on the road in front of them.
Chloe didn’t know what to say so she opted for silence. The moment Miles pulled up outside her house she got out of the car and walked to the front door. She could feel Miles just a few steps behind her. Once they were inside, she gestured to the living room, and he went and sat down on the sofa.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” she said.
She probably needed more than a moment to gather her thoughts together but with him right here under her roof right this minute, the least she could do was dump her things in her bedroom and then go and wash her hands and face. After leaving her bags on the desk she kept in the corner of her room, she scurried to the bathroom and quickly splashed some cold water on her face.
Chloe regarded her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a wreck. The light summer tan she’d accumulated during the break had faded and a lack of sleep had left her skin and eyes pale and dull. She quickly dried herself off and forced herself to return down the hall to where Miles awaited her.
He hadn’t stayed seated. Instead, he was up and pacing the threadbare carpet.
“I thought you’d escaped out a back window or something,” he said half-jokingly as she came into the room.
She’d been tempted, but she wasn’t going to let him know exactly how much he’d unsettled her with his sudden reappearance in her life.
“You said we need to talk?” she answered.
Chloe lowered herself onto the single armchair she possessed and sat stiffly with her hands clasped in her lap, almost as if she’d been called before the principal and was expecting a reprimand. Nervously, she began to chew the inside of her cheek.
Miles moved past her, and the merest waft of the cologne he wore teased her nostrils. She breathed in sharply, then instantly wished she hadn’t as her mind was filled with the scent of him and just how close she’d been to him to inhale that particular fragrance. A deep pull of longing dragged through her center and she felt a faint tremor ripple through her body in response. Darn it, how could she let him affect her so easily?
He finally sat down opposite her and leaned forward. She drank in the sight of him, concerned to see that he looked about as rested and happy as she did, which was to say not very much at all.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She stared at him. She’d betrayed him in the cruelest way and he was asking her if she was okay? Chloe dragged in a deep breath and let it go before answering.
“No, Miles. I’m not okay. How about you?”
The words bounced between them like a tennis ball in a grand slam tournament.
“Me neither. Look, I know I was abrupt with you when you left the estate and I’m sorry. The way I handled that was wrong. I was angry and I didn’t listen to you. I owed you that much at least.”
“What are you doing here, Miles?” she asked, her voice wreathed with the weariness that pulled at every muscle in her body, including her heart.
“We need to talk... No. Correction. I need to talk and I ask that you listen.”
Chloe let her body relax against the back of the chair.
“Okay, I’m listening.”