Chapter 13
Chloe was in her office the next afternoon when a package arrived. She took it from Cal, who had been sorting the mail and had dropped by to deliver something addressed to her.
She stared at the envelope on her desk after Cal had departed, wondering if she should even open it. She already knew it was from James, even though there was no return address. He’d already warned her it was coming.
She reached for the manila mailer nervously, wondering when she’d ever pay enough for her mistake with James and have him out of her life completely.
Not knowing what might be inside, she stood up and held it as far away from her body as possible, carefully breaking the seal. Tilting it toward her, she saw what looked like a flash drive, a tiny one that would plug into her computer.
Her fear dissolving, she removed it.
What. The. Hell?
It was obviously information he wanted her to see, and her stomach was rolling. It wasn’t like she’d ever done anything illegal or even immoral.
I don’t have anything to fear.
Tilting her chin a little higher, she sat and loaded the file onto her laptop on the desk, tapping her fingers on the wood surface impatiently while she waited for it to upload. All she wanted was to see what James assumed would send her running back to him and figure out how to combat the information as soon as possible.
I don’t want to think about him anymore. I just want it to be over. I’m happy now, and I’m healing. He’s nothing to me, and I won’t let anything he said or did affect me anymore.
Carefully looking into the envelope again, she noticed he’d sent a handwritten letter.
It took a moment of talking to herself to open it, trying to remember that he didn’t have the power to hurt her anymore.
Chloe,
View the contents of the enclosed file I sent and see if that’s really information that you want everywhere on the Internet. If not, I expect to see you at my house by tomorrow morning, or I’ll post it everywhere. You won’t ever be able to escape it. Do you think you’ll have any kind of career, or that your family will ever be able to survive this kind of scandal? I think not.
I’ll see you in the morning. Be here or this will be everywhere by noon. I have the original, and I didn’t send this via email so it wouldn’t inadvertently get released. It will be our secret if you do what I say. If not, you’ll find out exactly how destructive the consequences will be.
He hadn’t signed the note, but he didn’t have to. Suddenly, Chloe wasn’t feeling so sure of herself, shaken by the words James had put on paper.
Clicking with her mouse, she opened the download, and she could do nothing but sit in stunned silence as she viewed the vile contents of the file.
“Oh, God,” she gasped, helpless to move her eyes away from the screen. “Please, no.”
Tears flowed down her face unchecked, a look of complete horror reflected in her eyes. “It’s not possible. No. No,” she whispered desperately, unable to stop looking at what James had sent.
It didn’t take more than twenty minutes to see the entire collection that James had compiled, but her heart was racing, sweat and tears pouring down her face as she slammed the lid of her laptop. Emotions bombarded her body: terror, hate, apprehension, shame, and revulsion.
“This is never going to be over,” she said softly, her voice weak and vulnerable at the moment.
She heaved the laptop off her desk, letting it crash to the floor. Overcome with a sense of helplessness, she laid her head on her desk and sobbed.
Gabe hadn’t seen Chloe since lunchtime, and he was starting to feel uneasy. Granted, sometimes she got carried away with one of her horses and lost all sense of time. But as he sat down at the dinner table and her chair was empty, he was apprehensive.
Chloe was always home in time for dinner. If she had an emergency, she would have called.
Standing up, he dug in his pocket for his cell phone.
Nothing. No text or phone messages.
Gabe called her office, and then her cell, but he didn’t get an answer.
He checked his phone to make sure the volume on the ringer was all the way up, which it already was, and then punched a button to reach Cal.
“I’m looking for Chloe. Have you seen her?” he asked his manager in a clipped voice without even saying hello.
“She was in her office this afternoon,” Cal answered slowly. “Can’t say that I’ve seen her since then.”
“Why were you there?” Gabe’s heart started to gallop, and an eerie feeling of dread made his gut hurt.
“She got a delivery. I dropped it off.”
“What kind of delivery?” What the hell would Chloe get except possibly bills or junk mail? She talked to her family often. They didn’t correspond through the mail.
Maybe she ordered something?
“It was a large envelope. No return address, but the postmark was local,” Cal said thoughtfully, as though he was trying to remember details. Thank God Gabe’s manager was thorough, and looked at everything. “I wondered if it was junk mail, but it was stamped ‘personal’ on the outside.”
“Shit,” Gabe exploded, having very little doubt as to who had sent her something in town. It sure as hell wasn’t something she ordered off the Internet.
“Something wrong, boss?” the older man asked, sounding concerned. “Did I do something I shouldn’t?”
No, it wasn’t Cal’s fault. He’d just been delivering mail. “No. I’m just worried because I haven’t seen her. Can you saddle up and look around for her? It’s not normal that she didn’t come home for dinner and she didn’t contact me.”
“I’m on it,” Cal replied immediately. “Let me know if you hear from her. I’ll be looking.”
Gabe disconnected the call with a scowl.
Where in the hell is she?
His nagging internal voice reminded him that one woman had already disappeared without a trace from the Rocky Springs area, and his heart seized with dread. “Not going to happen,” he growled, striding over to the staircase and sprinting up the steps.
He shoved open the door of her bedroom with more force than necessary, his eyes scanning the room as he switched on the light.
Opening the closet, the breath he had been holding whooshed out of his mouth.
Her clothes and her suitcases were gone.
“Goddammit!” he cursed angrily, looking frantically around the room. Everything looked the same as the moment she’d arrived.
She’s gone. She fucking left me.
Racing back downstairs, his theory was confirmed when he couldn’t see her truck in the parking area in front of the house.
He slammed the front door, unsure of what he needed to do.
What did I do to make her go?
Last night had been incredible for him, but maybe he’d been too rough with her. Maybe he shouldn’t have completely let go of his need for her; maybe it was too much for her to handle right now.
He shook his head as he went to the living room, his appetite completely gone. She’d enjoyed the interlude as much as he had. It had been nothing more than a sensual game, and both of them had played and been rewarded.
He flopped down on the couch, torturing himself with wondering why she’d left.
It wasn’t like Chloe not to confront her issues, not anymore. If she’d been pissed at him, she would have told him.
And what the hell was up with the package?
What could James have sent to her to make her go rushing off the farm without telling anybody she was leaving?
He startled as his phone sounded loudly. Stumbling quickly to his feet, he jammed his hand into his front pocket to grab the cell. Quickly glancing at the caller ID, he rasped, “Thank fuck!”
Chloe.
“Where the hell are you? I’ve been worried to death about you!” he barked into the phone, not bothering with a greeting.
Her voice was tremulous and quiet. “I’m not coming back, Gabe. I’ve decided that James is what I want. I need to be with him. I’m only calling because I wanted you to know. I’m fine. Please don’t try to contact me.”
James? Fucking James, who’d tortured her for years? “What the fuck are you saying? You don’t want to be with him. You know you don’t.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone before she finally answered. “Yes. I really do. I guess I was confused for a while. But he is the man I really have to be with,” she answered, her voice growing stronger.
“Don’t do this, Chloe. Don’t listen to him. You know what he is,” Gabe bellowed desperately. “He’ll hurt you.”
“We’re going to work on our issues,” she answered, her voice almost robotic.
“Bullshit! You’ll go right back on the roller coaster again.” He paused before asking, “What about you and me? What about us?”
“There is no us, Gabe. It was temporary. We both knew that,” she said in a shaky voice.
“I fucking care about you!” he yelled into the phone. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means I’m sorry,” she said flatly. “I never meant to hurt you. But I need to be with James. Good-bye, Gabe.”
He stood there for a minute, trying to absorb exactly what Chloe had said. How was it possible that everything they’d had was one big bunch of horseshit, some kind of experiment for her, a test that led her back to James? Gabe’s heart was fucking bleeding, and she was sorry?
He didn’t bother disconnecting the call. Chloe had already done it. He sat down, rage flowing through his body like poison, burning at his soul. He tossed the phone against the wall, and brought his fist down on the glass table in front of him with all his strength, needing an outlet for his emotions.
“She fucking promised she’d never go back to him,” he bellowed, his rage exploding from his throat.
The glass shattered, shards cutting up his hand as he removed his fist from the hole in the glass. Blood poured from his fingers, but he didn’t care, didn’t even try to cover the bleeding limb.
He didn’t give a fuck about his hand. It was minor compared to how tortured his heart and mind were right now.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this, Chloe. I can’t,” Gabe said harshly, unable to accept that everything he’d shared, everything he’d felt, everything he’d dreamed about was all a lie.
He spent the entire night in denial with a bottle of whiskey, wondering if acceptance would ever come.