Page 36 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

M eg had been dreading this moment from the first time her agent suggested she find proof of an agreement with Matt.

Okay, she’d been dreading it a lot longer than that. As she stood on the doorstep of the home she’d once shared with the man she loved, it occurred to her she hadn’t been here since three weeks after the wedding that hadn’t happened.

After Meg had pulled her runaway-bride move, Matt had refused to let her stop by the house to collect her belongings.

She’d spent several weeks living out of the suitcase she’d packed for their honeymoon until Kyle finally called to say she could come get her things.

Matt hadn’t been there at the time, and the whole transaction had the aura of a bank heist. She’d scrambled furtively from one darkened room to the next, grabbing her possessions and wondering where Matt had gone.

She’d assumed he’d taken their tickets to Tahiti and invited Annabelle.

She hadn’t wanted to know. She’d just been concerned with gathering as much of her stuff as possible while Matt was out of the house.

She hadn’t wanted much, really. A few family heirlooms, her clothes and personal things.

There had been no fight left in her at that point.

She just wanted to get in and get out with as little conflict as possible.

But as she stood here now on the doorstep, it occurred to her she should have fought for more.

She ran a hand over the small copper fountain she and Matt had found together at an antique store, its surface smooth and turquoise with patina.

Should she have laid claim to it? Or had she been smart to cut her losses and go?

The door swung open, jarring her from her memory. Meg looked up to see Chloe staring at her with a blank expression. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Meg confirmed. “You said two o’clock worked?”

“You’re five minutes early.”

“I’m sorry.” Meg glanced at her watch. Dammit, how did she always manage to do that? “I can come back if you want.”

“It’s fine.” Chloe held the door open and Meg stepped through, thinking how weird it felt to have another woman granting her entrance to the home that used to be hers.

It hadn’t really been hers, though. Not legally, anyway. Matt’s name had been the only one on the loan, and it had just been easier to walk away and let him have it. After everything that had happened by then, it wasn’t like she wanted to live there anyway.

Now she stood here in the entryway, hands folded in front of her so Chloe could see she wasn’t armed and didn’t plan to take anything that didn’t belong to her. Or was that even a concern?

“Like I said, I don’t know what you’re going to find,” Chloe said, pushing the door shut behind Meg. “We’ve already gone through all the file cabinets.”

“I know.” Meg swallowed, knowing she had to tread carefully here. “It’s just that something might jump out at me that wouldn’t necessarily catch your attention or mean anything significant to Sylvia or?—”

“I’m not getting in the middle of this,” Chloe interrupted, putting her hands up as though surrendering. “That lawsuit thing, you know that’s not my doing, right?”

“I know.” Meg swallowed. “And I appreciate you letting me look around.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t thrilled when Sylvia told me she’d filed that suit. I was engaged to him. I should have had some say in his estate, don’t you think?”

Meg nodded, not sure it was her place to comment and not wanting to say anything that would make it worse.

But maybe she could make it a tiny bit better.

“I don’t think Sylvia means any harm,” Meg said softly.

“She just sees relationships as ‘less than’ if there’s no certificate attached.

Just because you didn’t sign your names on a piece of paper doesn’t mean the relationship was any less valid.

The history, the understandings you had together as a couple—those things existed, even if you didn’t walk down the aisle and say those two words. ”

“I do,” Chloe murmured, nodding. “I do get it.”

Meg stood there silent for a moment, not sure if she should offer a hug or a smile or a snarky comment about her former-future-mother-in-law.

None of those things felt right, so she just stood there with her hands clasped in front of her and Chloe watching her like she was still trying to figure out Meg’s place in her life.

“I’m sorry,” Meg said at last. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to marry him. And I’m sorry for anything I might have done to make him less inclined to hurry down the aisle again.”

Chloe dabbed the corner of her eye with a tissue she pulled from the pocket of her cashmere cardigan.

“Actually, I think it was the opposite. I think he was more eager to go through with marrying me to prove he was capable of it. That he could commit to forever with someone, even after everything that happened with you.”

“That makes sense.”

Chloe shook her head and stuffed the tissue back in her pocket. “That was one thing I never understood about him,” she said. “The constant need to measure himself against everyone else.”

“Matt was always competitive,” Meg agreed. She kept her voice soft, expecting at moment that Chloe would remember they weren’t girlfriends, that they didn’t really owe each other explanations or confessions or even kindness.

But Chloe seemed to be in a talking mood. “It’s like he had this idea that his parents set the bar so high for a happy relationship, and he wanted so badly to get that right in his own life.”

“Wow,” Meg said, not sure she would have made that same observation. Is that why Matt had been reluctant to marry her? The desire not to screw up something his parents had done so well? “I never thought about it like that.”

Chloe shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time to think these last few weeks. You’re right, his competitive nature probably drove a lot of it. Not just with relationships, but with everything in his life.”

“How do you mean?” She probably shouldn’t be probing like this, but Chloe’s theory made her curious.

“Take Kyle, for instance.”

“Okay.” Meg crossed her fingers nothing in her face gave away the arc that shot through her at the mention of his name.

If Chloe saw anything, she didn’t let on.

“It just always seemed like Matt had this brotherly competition going on in his mind with Kyle—who had the most career success, who had the nicer car, who had the most notches on his bedpost. And the thing is, I don’t think Kyle even knew they were competing. ”

“He didn’t,” Meg said, too quickly, perhaps. Did she have any right to speak for him? But she knew with absolute certainty she was right. “Kyle’s not the competitive type,” she added.

“And then with you—” Chloe swallowed, seeming to consider her words for the first time. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Matt always kept tabs on you.”

“Really?” A funny roar filled Meg’s ears, and she felt herself twisting her fingers into tighter knots.

“He didn’t stalk you or anything,” Chloe said quickly, turning to straighten a framed photo on the wall.

Her family, from the look of it. “It wasn’t like that.

But sometimes he’d be distant, so I’d check his internet browser to see if there was something suspicious going on.

And I’d see that he’d been looking at your Facebook page. ”

“But we weren’t even friends,” Meg protested. “Facebook friends, I mean. Matt’s whole family unfriended me right after the split.”

“I know. But you must not have your profile locked down tight?”

“That’s true.”

“And you still had mutual friends in real life. Every now and then I’d hear him ask them about you. He wanted to know if you were seeing anyone, if you’d found someone else.”

Meg bit her lip and studied Chloe’s face, expecting to see anger or bitterness or jealousy, but none of that appeared. Her eyes were watery and red-rimmed, but not angry.

She thought about Kyle, wondering how hurt she’d be if she found him lurking on Cara’s Facebook page or asking around about old girlfriends.

Then again, maybe everyone checked up on exes. God knows she’d done it at first, though she hadn’t gone near Matt’s social media for over a year. She hadn’t even known about Chloe until a few weeks ago.

“That must have been awkward for you,” Meg said, not sure what else to offer. “Having him show an interest in an ex.”

“Not as awkward as you might think. I wasn’t threatened by you, honestly.”

“I—um, I’m glad?” Meg bit her lip, unsure of the correct responses to anything. This whole conversation was new territory for her, like visiting a foreign country populated only by women who’d loved the same man she had.

Chloe just shrugged. “I don’t mean that in a snarky way.

Just that I never got the sense he was checking up on you because he wanted you back.

He was checking up on you because he wanted to be sure he was happier.

That his life was going better than yours was.

He wanted to know the choices he’d made had landed him in a better place than the ones you’d made had done for you. ”

“I didn’t realize we were competing.”

Chloe laughed. “You were always competing. Everything was always a competition for Matt, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

Meg’s head spun, and she couldn’t decide whether this whole conversation was enlightening or depressing. Either way, Chloe didn’t seem bothered.

“I think it would irritate me,” Meg admitted. “Knowing someone I loved was checking up on someone he used to be with. I don’t think I could be as cavalier about it as you are.”

Chloe shrugged. “That’s the difference between us. I’d rather know about all the skeletons in the closet. I’d rather throw all the baggage on the bed and open it up to see what’s inside so I know how to deal with it.”

“That’s very adult of you.”

“I try.” She turned away. “Come on. Speaking of going through baggage, I guess you’d better get started. File cabinet’s in here.”