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“She’s smiling now,” Tanya said when I showed up at the facility, and there was a very pregnant pause, as though Tanya almost wanted to say,You could go in and see her.
I never did. I hadn’t visited Mom in her room for a few years now, and still, today, I couldn’t bring myself to face Mom with a fake smile.
“Back to the airport, sir?” Chris asked while I mused on it.
I shouldn’t care about Chloe. I didn’t really. It was lust clouding my thoughts. I desperately needed her warm body in my bed. I wanted to bury myself in her, bite down on her neck, and feel her clench around my cock while she came.
I put my head in my hands. I was fucking miserable and didn’t know what to do.
Chloe had messed me up more than any other woman in the past.
I had initially planned to fly back to DC. I’d wanted to meet Mark Waldorf, an executive known for his retail brilliance. I’d briefly met him earlier that day and wanted to hear his take on creating unique and immersive customer experiences over dinner or drinks tonight.
But we were closer to New York now, I thought longingly.
Chris could just as well drive me up to Manhattan instead of Teterboro Airport. I could leave the jet in the private hangar. The past two days had been frustrating. I wanted to see Chloe, but I also didn’t want to tell her about my mom. Because I knew the truth would be shocking for her to hear. She felt her dad’s absence so keenly that she simply couldn’t see things from my perspective.
I hated having a past that I couldn’t come to terms with.A normal childhood without complications that asked to be hidden would’ve been great, Mom and Dad.Instead, I had a past that Chloe would no doubt balk at if she knew the whole truth about how I avoided my mother.
Thinking about that made me angry. If only I’d had a normal childhood with normal love and affection from my parents, perhaps personal relationships would have been easier for me. Instead, all I had was the feeling I’d been cheated out of something.
Besides, what Chloe and I had was strictly physical. We had both decided that emotions had no place between us. Why was I thinking about coming clean with her about my anger with my mom?
“All okay with Ms. Tassater?” Chris asked quietly as we drove.
I met his gaze in the rearview mirror and nodded. I’d almost forgotten that Chris knew my mother—he’d worked for us when Mom and Dad were still together. Chris knew what life had really been like. He didn’t look up to Mom with crazy fervor that some of her old friends did, which was helpful for me. When my first few companies had gone public and I got thrust into a more elite world, Chris was one of the few people I’d thought of when I realized I needed someone I could trust. Just like Chloe now. No matter how briefly I’d known her, I trusted her.
“Yes, Chris. Please take me back to Manhattan,” I said, sitting back in my seat, relieved at last. “To Chloe’s home.”
There was no more conflict in my mind. I’d meet Mark Waldorf later. He could wait. Meeting Chloe couldn’t.
I stirred in my seat while Chris drove me, feeling restless. I was back in Manhattan one day earlier than I’d originally planned. The pull to go back to New York, to see Chloe again, was impossible to ignore.
The thing that I couldn’t help notice at Chloe’s home was how the things she owned were old and faded. The stained couch, wooden chairs with scratches and marks on their legs, and a creaky bed. I had known that Chloe’s financial situation wasn’t great, but visiting her at her home had really emphasized the factthat we were from entirely different worlds. I now understood her reaction to the venue and the food at the dinner I’d taken her to and the clothes I’d sent her for the gala.
I was starting to feel worried over what I’d asked of her, especially when I thought of how the news and media judged women so harshly if the truth was ever found out. Chloe’s professional relationship with me wasn’t the best foot to start things off. She needed to stay in her job to make sure she could financially support Henry, which meant we really needed to be discreet about this.
If it hadn’t been for the conference and being away from her, I might have backtracked on my proposal to her. But the speed with which I requested Chris to drive to Manhattan told me enough. I couldn’t stay away from her.
Chloe and I haven’t even started dating yet, I reminded myself.
Why was I so restless to speak with her—face-to-face, where I could see her body shake with laughter or smell her jasmine-tinged perfume? When I had been away, I’d missed that.
My breath caught in my chest. What the fuck was I thinking? I put my head in my hands for a moment and put a stop to my thoughts.
We are still strictly physical, I assured myself.
I called her on the way, partly to convince myself that she wasn’t different. What I felt for her wasn’t unlike what I’d felt for the women I slept with in the past. But she didn’t answer. I waited for ten minutes, and I tried again.
This time, she answered, and before I could say hello, I heard her sobbing into the phone.
39
SEAN
This was not the sound I had expected to hear from her. Heavy, shaking breaths and jumbled words. She wasn’t making any sense.
“Chloe, are you okay?” I asked, sitting up in my seat and getting worried.