Author: Bella Andre

“Thank you for trusting me.”

Her head shot up from where she’d had it against his chest. Wariness crept back into her expression as she said, “I like you. A lot. But—”

He should just keep his damned mouth shut. He should enjoy what they were doing and give her more time. But damn it, he was ready now. And he wanted Chloe to be ready, too.

“I know you won’t trust me completely yet. Even if I don’t like it, I understand. At least, I think I do.” He waited for her to say something about what had happened to her. He worked to push down the disappointment, but he knew he’d blown it when the words, “I don’t want no-strings-attached,” shot out of his mouth.

She immediately stiffened on his lap and tried to pull away. Just as he’d known she would. “But that’s our agreement.”

“No. I never agreed.”

“You did!”

“You wanted no-strings-attached and I was hoping I could convince you otherwise. Just like I’m hoping you’ll allow yourself to trust me completely one day.”

“I’m not looking for a relationship. You know that.”

“Yes, but I don’t know why. Tell me what happened.”

“I didn’t run from one guy to end up diving straight into a relationship with another one,” she began, and he could hear the reticence in the tone of her voice, could see how much she wanted to end their conversation in the lines that appeared at the sides of her mouth.

Her hand lifted to cover her cheek again and it nearly killed him not to put his hand over hers and pull it back down.

Which was why he’d never admired her more than he did when she dropped her hand and said, “But you’re right. It’s not fair for me to be so vague. Not to tell you why.” She sighed and her eyes grew even darker. “In a nutshell, I was married and it wasn’t great.”

“Even from the beginning?”

She shook her head. “No. At first it seemed great. Well, okay, at least.” She scrunched up her nose. “Honestly, I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times. Why did I fall in love with Dean in the first place?” She took a deep breath, one that shook through her all the way to his lap. “You know what I think I’ve figured out?” she asked in a very soft voice.

More glad than he could ever express that she was finally talking to him like this, he gently replied, “What’s that?”

“When we were looking at your family picture, every time you talk about them...” Her words fell away momentarily before she continued, “I wanted that. So badly. I wanted to be part of a family that was warm and fun and loved me.”

“You were an only child?”

She nodded. “But it wasn’t just that. My parents have never really been that open with their feelings. I know they love me, but I can’t remember ever hearing it. I don’t remember many hugs.”

Chase’s heart broke for the little girl inside of Chloe that longed for those hugs. He wanted to make up for each and every one of those hugs she hadn’t gotten, starting now.

“When I met Dean I was young and stupid and desperately looking for that warmth.” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “Turns out I had awful instincts, at least I did when I wanted something so badly to be true that wasn’t.” She shrugged as if she was trying to make it all less of a big deal. “He was nice at first. And I was so happy to finally feel like I had somebody. That I was part of a team. But, we weren’t really a team. After a few years, Dean started to control me, what I did, who I saw. He liked keeping me as a pretty possession. Like his fancy house and his shiny car. I was just one more pretty thing to bring out from the locked cabinet to show off to people.”

Chase wanted to say a thousand different things to Chloe about how stupid her ex had been. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault for believing he was a better, kinder man than he actually was. He wanted to rage at the unfairness that her ex had turned on her.

But he didn’t want to do or say anything that would make her stop talking to him. So he forced himself to swallow it all and simply ask. “When did you decide to leave?”

“One day I was sitting at the country club with a bunch of his friends’ wives that I really didn’t have anything in common with, and I realized I’d been entirely swallowed up by him. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wasn’t interested in listening.” She swallowed hard. “That was the first time he scared me.”

Chase worked to keep his muscles from tensing with rage beneath her. “What did he do?”

“Nothing physical. But he’d started drinking more and more and it was like he wasn’t listening to anything I’d said. When I woke up the next morning, all of my quilting stuff was gone. My fabric. My machines. Everything.”

This time Chase couldn’t stop himself from saying, “What an asshole.”

Her mouth was tight as she said, “A few weeks later, after I finally accepted what the rest of my empty life was going to look like with a man who didn’t actually love me, I filed for divorce and I moved to Lake County.”

“Somehow you must have known it wasn’t safe for you to stay in the city.”

She shook her head, saying, “No,” then paused, frowning. “Maybe. Maybe that’s why I felt like I had to leave.” Her frown deepened. “I love San Francisco,” she told him, “but I felt like I needed to start fresh. I didn’t want his money, I just wanted my freedom back. Freedom to work on my quilts. Freedom to choose my own friends. Even the freedom to wear ratty jeans or shoes that don’t have a designer name on them. My apartment never really felt like home, though, even though I wanted it to. Even though I needed it to.” She blew out a breath. “But that was okay. I told myself I could eventually make it home, because I thought filing for divorce, leaving him, and moving away had worked. I didn’t hear from him for months, so I thought he’d accepted the divorce.” She moved her hand up to her cheek and touched the fading bruise. “Evidently, he hadn’t.”

“What happened the night I found you?” Chase could hardly get the words out between clenched teeth.

Her eyes darkened. “I was getting ready to paint my living room when I heard someone at the door.” He could feel the shock of that memory radiating from her tight muscles. “Dean was standing there and I was so surprised to see him I let him in without thinking, without even once second guessing that I wasn’t safe with him. But then I realized he was drunk. I don’t know how I could have forgotten how much he was drinking toward the end, but I had. I don’t know, maybe I made myself forget things I didn’t like remembering.”

“That’s natural, sweetheart.”

But it was like she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t do anything but relive what had happened with her ex-husband.

“He said, ‘You’re not getting away from me. You’re mine.’ I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to come to my new town, to stand in the middle of my apartment and tell me that. I didn’t think not to be angry, not to say that I wasn’t his. I told him to go away, that we’d talk later when he wasn’t drunk.”

Chase knew what came next. “Nothing worse for a drunk than hearing that he’s a drunk.”

She nodded. “He told me to shut up and said that he’d made the mistake of letting me get away with too much when we were married and that this time he wouldn’t.”

Chase echoed the words, “This time?”

She closed her eyes. “His exact words were, ‘You’re coming home with me right now. And this time you’ll do what I tell you to do.’”

Chase barely bit back a string of curses as she continued, saying, “He’d never been like that before, never just outright scared me. But I didn’t want to back down, didn’t want him to think he could control me anymore. So I told him I was already home. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere with him and that I wanted him to leave. Now.” Her words hollowed out even more than they already were. “He lost it and grabbed my hair and when I pulled away, he punched me.”

She lifted her hand to her cheek, but he was already there with his, cradling her soft skin, wishing like hell that she’d never had to be hurt. Knowing he never wanted her to be hurt again.

“I was stunned for a minute. I honestly couldn’t believe what he’d just done. I kept waiting for him to start apologizing, to admit that he was completely out of control. But the look on his face, it wasn’t sorry. It was like he was finally victorious, looking at me there with his mark on my face. I was so freaked out that he was going to do it again or something worse, that I didn’t think, I just grabbed the nearest paint can and swung it at him. And then while he was down, I grabbed my bag and ran.”

She was shaking from recounting the story to him and he hated that he’d asked her to go there, that he’d made her relive it all.

“Chloe, sweetheart, you’re all right now.”

She closed her eyes tight. “Do you know what I was doing the whole time I was driving away in the rain? I kept wondering, why was I so stupid? That’s probably why I crashed into the ditch. Because I couldn’t pay attention to anything but that voice in my head that said I should have seen it coming.”

“Looking for the good in people is never stupid.”

She opened her eyes. “But being blind and naïve is.” She gave him a small smile that never reached her eyes, before moving her hand from her face to his. “I know you must have guessed some of this as soon as you saw the bruise on my cheek. But thank you for not pressuring me to call the police. I will. I know I have to. For once in my life, I’ve got to fight for myself. For my own life. And know deep inside myself that I can win that fight.”

From the moment Chase had met Chloe, every last one of his protective urges had come to the fore. Again and again, he’d wanted to jump in and take care of everything for her.

Never more than right this second. He wanted to get in his car and track down the bastard and make sure he never came near her again, make absolutely sure he never had another chance to lay a hand on her.

Only, damn it, he knew that if he did that, if he wrapped Chloe up tight and made sure everything was soft and easy for her from here on out, wasn’t that nearly as bad as the way her ex-husband had stolen her freedom from her?

How was he going to find a way to love her without smothering her need to be free?

“You’ll win.” He knew it with every fiber of his being.

Her fingertips moved across his lips. “So much faith in me,” she said softly. “I’m so glad you were the one who found me in the storm.”

But they both knew that didn’t really change anything. Because he couldn’t just tell her, “Hey, you know what? I think you’re ready for a new relationship.” Not when she’d just made it abundantly clear to him that she wasn’t.

As if she were reading his mind, she said, “So if I can’t be your girlfriend, is that it?” Her words were soft, but clear. And steady, even as she added, “Does that mean this is over?”

Chase had never been so torn between what he wanted...and what he knew he should do. But she’d just been completely honest with him, despite all the reasons she could have come up with not to trust him.

He owed her the same.

“I should say yes,” he finally gritted out against her fingertips. “If I had one single ounce of decency, I would say, yes, it’s over.” He took her hand in his. “But obviously I’m just as much of a scumbag as any other guy, because the thought of not touching you again, of not kissing you again, of not making love with you again...” His gut clenched tight, as if an invisible fist had gripped it. “I can’t even imagine it.”