Chapter 6
Chloe's POV
I put my coat on, picked up my bag, and walked out of the room.
Rachel was on her feet almost at once.
"How was it?"
She took hold of my arm, looked at my face, then looked the rest of me over.
"What did he say to you?"
"Told me to cancel."
"Then cancel it."
She answered fast and was already pulling me toward the door.
Ethan stepped back from the wall and cleared the way.
I took out my phone. Eleanor's name was still in my recent messages. I opened it and typed a few words:
Continuing on the original terms. I'm willing to marry.
Send.
Rachel read the screen, and the hand on my arm stopped.
"Chloe."
"I know what he just said."
"Then why—"
"There's something I haven't told you."
She looked at me, and finally she stopped walking.
I put the phone away. My wrist still hurt a little.
"Outside," I said. "I'll tell you outside."
Ethan caught up with us on the steps outside the club and asked where we were headed, said he could drive us.
Rachel stopped at the bottom and held up her phone so he could see the ride-share screen. "Thanks. We're getting ourselves home."
He didn't push it. He just waited with us until the car pulled up and opened the back door for me.
I gave the driver my own address.
She didn't ask on the way, and I didn't say anything. The radio was on the whole ride.
At the apartment I dropped my keys and my bag on the little cabinet by the door. Rachel came in behind me and stood there after she closed it, waiting until I'd hung up my coat before she said, "Can you tell me now what you're actually thinking?"
I turned around. She'd held it in the entire way home, and her face looked worse than it had at the club.
"He told you to cancel, and you texted his mother right in front of me and said you'd marry him." She set her bag down. "Chloe, I need to know what happened."
I opened my mouth and couldn't find anywhere to start. I used washing my face as an excuse and stood over the sink a minute longer than I needed to. When I came back out, she'd poured water for both of us and was sitting on the sofa waiting.
I took the cup, didn't drink from it, and sat down beside her.
"I met him before. Eight years ago. He's the one who saved my mother."
Whatever she'd had ready stopped there. I looked at the rim of the cup and told her the rest slowly, the way you tell something you haven't said out loud in a long time.
After my mother found out about Martin, she still went into the shop and worked for a while. It looked like she was getting better. But some days I'd come home from school and she'd still be in the clothes she'd put on that morning, sitting in the living room with the lights off, and she wouldn't even notice I'd come in.
I was sixteen that year. Most of the time I had no idea what to do with her. She said she was just tired, so I heated up dinner. She said she wanted to be alone, so I went to my room and kept listening for whatever was happening on the other side of the wall.
"The thing on the bridge." My hand tightened on the cup. "Elias was driving past. He's the one who saved her."
I still remember the mark his cuff left on the railing, and I remember holding on to his coat and not knowing what else to say besides thank you.
Rachel's fingers touched the back of my hand. "And your mom after that—"
"She tried again." I looked down. "Nobody got to her in time."
She took the cup out of my hand and set it on the table, then put her arms around me. I leaned into her and realized I'd been sitting stiff this whole time. It had been eight years. On a normal day I could talk about my mother — how her cooking was always too salty, how she could never remember where she'd left her glasses. It was only that stretch of time that still took my hands and feet away from me.
"So the second you saw him tonight, you knew?" Rachel asked.
I nodded. "He looks a little different. But he opened his mouth and I knew. He doesn't remember me, and I didn't tell him."
"Why not?"
"I haven't figured out how to say it." I wiped at the corner of my eye, not really wanting her to see. "He's already decided I'm here for the money. If I bring it up now, it's going to sound like I'm building a case for why he should want me. And him saving my mother doesn't mean he's responsible for me."
Rachel pulled back a little and looked at me properly. "It doesn't mean you have to marry him either."
"I know."
"In the coffee shop you were talking about taking the money and living your own life. Now you want to sit with him. Do you understand how far apart those two things are?"
I looked at my phone on the table. The message to Eleanor was still sitting there. Not many words, and it hadn't cost me anything to send. Explaining it was turning out to be harder than I'd expected.
"The money still matters. I didn't suddenly stop caring about it," I said. "But I saw him tonight, and I know how sick he is, and I can't think about it the way I did before. I want to see him again. I want to find out if there's something I can do."
"He might not want anyone doing anything."
I didn't answer right away. She was right — he'd made his refusal clear enough. I could still see myself standing there with my coat in my hands while he walked past me, not willing to hear another word.
"I'll ask him again." I said it after a while. "I want to hear it from him."
Rachel watched me, and the impatience in her face finally eased off. She put the cup back in my hand and told me to drink some of it, then sat back against the sofa.
"Then you promise me something too. Once you're in that house, if anyone makes you uncomfortable, you tell me. Don't sit there and take it because you're remembering what happened back then."
I promised her. She still wasn't satisfied, and she asked a few questions about what he'd said inside, and then she checked the time and said she was staying the night.
I didn't argue with her. Only after she went to look for a spare blanket did I open the message I'd sent, read it once, and set the phone face down.
Rachel left for work at eight the next morning, once she'd made sure I was all right.
I was toasting bread in the kitchen when Eleanor's message came through.
She was very glad I was willing to marry him, and she hoped I'd move into Blackwood Estate before the wedding was made official, so I could get used to the family and the household first. Below that was the transportation schedule, and a question about what time I usually left for work on weekdays.
I read all of it and didn't answer right away.
"I'm willing to keep talking about this marriage, but I still need his own confirmation. Before I move in, I'd like to know whether you've spoken with him."
The phone rang within a minute.
"Chloe." Eleanor's voice was as warm as before. "I understand your concern. Since the injury he's gotten worse about other people arranging his life for him — especially anything that looks like taking care of him. He may have said some hard things last night. Don't take them to heart."
I carried the phone to the window. "So have you talked to him?"
"I'll talk to him."
She said it as easily as if that settled it. I watched the cars waiting at the light below and let the silence sit, and her voice gradually turned serious.
"He has responsibilities he can't put down. He's my son, and he's the Alpha of Blackwood. There are things in this family that can't stay on the shelf because he doesn't want to look at them. I'll handle it. You come first, and we'll talk in person."
Eleanor hadn't given me an answer that said she had his agreement. I could hear that. But thinking of the way he'd been last night, I wasn't willing to let it go there either. At least I'd see him once more and ask the question straight, instead of hearing it filtered through his mother.
"I'll come this afternoon. I can stay for a few days," I said. "But the marriage still has to be discussed with him."
"Of course." She answered fast. "The car will be there at two."
After I hung up I packed a suitcase, enough clothes for a few days and my things from the bathroom, and put my work laptop in a separate bag. Before I zipped it I hesitated, then added one more coat.
