Billionaire Novelist's Fiery Debutante (14 page)

He could tell she’d made up her mind, and there was no chance in hell he was dissuading her. Still, he couldn’t help but give it a shot.

“Why do we need to do things like other people? I like you. You like me. Why don’t we take a leap of faith and see how it turns out?”

“Because if it doesn’t? I’m the one who’ll have to move out and start afresh. I’m the one who’ll be picking up the pieces and figuring out where to go from there.” She shook her head. “You know what? I think it’s insanely selfish of you to even ask me this.” She rose to her feet. “I’m out of here.”

“Honey!”

“You stay, mother. I’m sure you and Josh will get along wonderfully.” She cocked her head. “You know what? Why don’t you ask her to move in with you. I’m sure she’ll jump at the chance.”

And with that parting shot, she stalked off and left him and Grace staring after her, too stunned for speech.

CHAPTER 31

There was a chill in the air when Chloe returned home, and as she neared the house that she’d called her home for the past three years, she knew it wasn’t the wind that chilled her bones, but the fact that she’d just broken up with Josh, possibly the only man she’d ever really cared for.

She’d wanted to clear her head and had decided against taking a cab. During the walk home the realization she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life had come home to her with sickening clarity.

On the one hand, moving in with Josh had clearly been the wrong thing to do. In spite of having spent a week together in an island paradise, they barely knew each other. On the other… Judging from the state her heart was in, love had found its way into her soul sometime during the past few weeks, and leaving Josh behind felt like agony.

Never to lay eyes on his lovely face again.

Never to rest her head on his shoulders again.

Never to gaze into those twin pools of amber and see his lips quirk up into an easy smile.

As she strode along the road leading home, she thought about all this and more and thought her life was just one long stretch of bad decisions. First she’d wanted to become a singer. She’d made it to the top, only to turn around and run away as fast as her legs could carry her. Rolling Stone had called her the most talented one-hit wonder that had rocked the charts in decades, and yet she’d run away from it all, unable to cope.

She’d gone all out to make it as a writer, refusing to capitalize on her fame by launching the book under a pen name, wanting to start over. Well, she had, and her debut novel had sunk like a stone. Perhaps she simply wasn’t cut out to be a writer after all. Not everybody could be Joshua Poole…

Josh.

He loved her. Or at least had felt the initial stirrings of infatuation—enough to invite her to share his home. And she had bluntly refused. Had actually taken his offer and thrown it in his face, adding insult to injury.

Why? Why would she hurt the man she cared deeply for? Why would she willingly destroy the only real chance at happiness she’d had in… well, perhaps forever.

Maybe she should follow her mother’s advice and consult a shrink. Perhaps they could shed some light on her erratic behavior, and help her restore a balance to her life that was sorely lacking.

As it was, she’d blown her chance at love, as she’d blown her chances of success. As she slipped her key into the lock, and opened the door to the house she shared with the Five Riders of the Apocalypse, she decided to put the whole affair out of her mind. Her writing dream, like her singing dream, had gone poof. And her love life was in as big a shambles as the rest of her life.

She would have to start over. Perhaps find a regular job—lead a regular life for once and forget all about being special—being different.

As she passed the hallway mirror, she studied herself carefully. Her short blond hair was tousled from the wind, her makeup runny from crying, and her lipstick smeared from biting her lip. She looked a fine mess and all because of one guy.

As she looked into her eyes, she softly whispered, “Chloe, honey, you can do better than this—you are better than this. Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps, honey, and get over yourself.”

She smiled a watery smile and heaved a deep sigh. Then she dumped her pocketbook on the dresser, as ugly and dark as the other furniture in the house, and tiptoed upstairs, careful not to wake the boys. When she reached the third floor, where she had her room, she noticed Kiki’s door was open to a crack, and light flickered, slanted across the ceiling.

Darting a quick look inside, she saw that the big guy was sitting at his desk, playing a video game on his computer. When she eased open the door, he looked up, his eyelids drooping. The moment he caught sight of her, his face creased into a wide smile.

“Hey, honey. You home already?”

“Sure. No point hanging around.”

At the tone of her voice, he returned the console to the desk. “Something the matter?” Then he caught sight of her face, and he bit his lip. “Honey! You’ve been crying!”

She nodded, the tears once again welling up. Holding onto the doorframe, she said in a teary voice, “I just broke up with him, Kiki.”

“Who? Lee Child?”

In spite of her predicament, she had to laugh. “Yes. He wanted me to move in with him.”

“But that’s great!” Then Kiki’s face fell as the meaning of her words registered. “Though if it means you’re moving out of this house, it’s not so great.”

“Don’t worry,” she sighed. “I told him to go to hell.”

As Kiki gave her a look of confusion, the truth hit home. She’d just told the man she was in love with to take a hike. Stumbling into the room, she plunked down on Kiki’s bed and buried her face in the man’s One Dimension pillow. “Oh, Kiki!” she wailed. “I just did the most stupid thing possible!”

As he eased his bulk down next to her, she felt the bed roll and shift. Then he placed a meaty paw on her back and patted it gently. “It’s all right, honey. We all do crazy shit sometimes. No need to beat yourself up about it.”

She whirled around. “But I love him, Kiki! I really do!”

Kiki frowned. “Then why did you tell him to take a hike?”

She let out a desperate wail. “Because I’m a stupid cow, that’s why!”

His face became stern. “I won’t tolerate that kind of talk, Chloe. You can’t talk trash about my very best friend in all the world, not even if it’s you who’s doing the talking.”

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, smearing more makeup across her face. She didn’t care. She could look like hell, and she didn’t care one bit.

“I liked the guy,” said Kiki thoughtfully as he rubbed her hand. “Even though he’s not Lee Child, he looks like a fine writer. I might even read one of his books. I just hope Lee won’t mind.” Then he frowned. “Tell me again what happened?”

Chloe, her eyes closed, told her friend the whole story, starting with her sojourn on Eden Island, and ending with the terrible scene she’d made, humiliating herself in front of both Josh and her own mother.

“He hates me now. I just know he does. Deirdre told me how disappointed he’s been in women, over and over again. How they had all let him down. And how she feared I would do the same.”

“And now you did,” stated Kiki matter-of-factly.

“And now I did.”

She was silent for a spell, the sobs racking her chest finally subsiding.

“You could always give him a call,” Kiki suggested, still holding onto her hand. “Just tell him how you feel. I’m sure he will understand. I mean, it is a bit much to take in, don’t you think? First you meet the guy, then you have hot sex on the beach, and then suddenly he’s asking you to move in with him in some Podunk town in Montana? If some hot he-man Lee Child lookalike asked me to move to Pleasant Springs with him, I’d probably…” His eyes misted over at the thought. Then he shook his head. “Well, that’s neither here nor there.”

Chloe stared up into her friend’s trusty face. “You would have said yes in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?”

Kiki shrugged. “And what if I did? We’re different, you and I. If a big, handsome, hunky piece of man ass writer God reached out and told me to share his life, his home, and his bed? I’d jump at the chance. But then I’m something of a man whore. You know that about me, right?”

At these words, Chloe burst out into a wail of desperation again, and Kiki returned to patting her hand and speaking soft words of consolation.

Yep, she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.

CHAPTER 32

“I came very near to saying yes, you know that?”

“Yes to what?”

She gestured helplessly. “To everything. The house—the home—the everlasting love.”

Kiki’s eyes went wide. “He offered all that?”

Chloe grimaced. “Well, not in so many words, he didn’t.”

“So how do you know?”

“It was in his eyes.” She thought back to Josh’s soft amber eyes when he’d suggested she join him in Pleasant Springs. It had all been in his eyes, she knew. His invitation, right there.

“I guess if he felt that way about you just now, he’ll still feel that way about you tomorrow, hon.” Kiki hitched up his broad shoulders. “Like I said. Just give the man a call. Tell him you’re sorry, and you changed your mind.”

Chloe shook her head despondently. She couldn’t. She simply couldn’t bring herself to face Josh ever again. He would shoot her down, she knew. She’d had her chance, and she blew it.

Rolling off Kiki’s bed, she squeezed her friend’s arm. “Thanks for the support, Kiki.”

The big guy had been seated on the bed and now rolled to where she’d been lying. “Don’t mention it. If I’d just messed things up with my boyfriend, you’d do the same for me.”

“I sure would,” she agreed warmly. He was a real friend, and she knew she could always count on him in her hour of need.

With a little wave, she returned to her own room across the hall, leaving Kiki to his computer games. The moment she started to close his door, the sound of a deep snore reached her ears, and she smiled. No more computer games tonight.

As she hopped onto her bed, the blinking light of her laptop caught her eye. She’d simply slapped it closed that afternoon, her story still stuck in limbo. Now, feeling tired and forlorn, she suddenly decided perhaps this was a good time to fuel the muse and get cracking on that masterpiece she’d been trying to revive ever since returning from Eden Island.

The promise of Josh’s that he would read over her pages flashed through her mind. Pity she hadn’t taken him up on it. Now she wouldn’t have the benefit of his experience.

Seating herself at her desk in the darkness of the room, the only light coming through the window from the street lanterns outside, she flipped open her laptop and stared at the blinking cursor for a moment.

Evangeline was taking the advice seriously this time. Never again would she

She frowned. What would Evangeline never do again? She had no fricking idea, but then that was the thing, wasn’t it? No writer ever had a fricking idea what to write next. Then a piece of advice Josh had given her on the island struck her.

“Whenever you’re stuck, just close your eyes and write the next line. And then the next. And then the next. It’s the only way to proceed.”

Taking a deep breath, she poised her fingers over the keyboard and closed her eyes. At first, no words came to mind. Then, suddenly something did.

Never again would she doubt him. Never again put words in his mouth he hadn’t spoken. And never again would she love another. She’d found her man now, and the thought gave her the strength to go on.

Sentence after sentence rolled onto the screen as her fingers tapped the keys, and as a story unfolded before her mind’s eye, tears started welling up in her eyes. Furiously wiping them away before applying her fingers to the keyboard once again, she was a writing machine, and as sentence followed sentence, one page turned into two and then ten, she finally collapsed, exhaustion claiming her for its own, and when her head plunked down onto the keyboard, she wasn’t even aware of the soft chime of her phone, nor the buzzing of her printer.

As she finally drifted off into a deep sleep, Chloe Thomson was lost to the world of man and swallowed up by the world of dreams.

***

Josh had tried to reach Chloe numerous time after their unfortunate parting, but she either refused to pick up or had lost her reception. Considering they were on Long Island and not Eden Island, the first proposition was perhaps the most plausible one.

She really didn’t want to have anything more to do with him. And the weirdest thing? He didn’t even understand why.

After she’d stomped off, leaving him and Grace wrapped in an uncomfortable silence, Chloe’s mother had quickly started making excuses for her daughter. Chloe was distraught, she said, after the thing with the paparazzi. She’d hoped to escape that kind of thing when she’d returned to a life of anonymity, and she hated that she was being dragged back into the limelight like this.

He understood. Of course, he did. But then why would she take it out on him? Did she blame him, perhaps, for what had happened? In a sense, she was probably right. If not for him and the budding romance he’d imposed upon her, she would never have caught the paparazzi’s eye. The two of them together? That was front page news, and he’d told Grace. Explained how sorry he was about the whole thing.

She would have loved to see the two of them together, but knowing Chloe, Grace feared the affair was over before it had even begun. Her daughter was stubborn and prone to making rash decisions and then refusing to go back on them.

The decision to quit showbiz had been one of those snap decisions, and look where it had landed her. With no career and no friends. Well, at least if you didn’t count those five musclemen she bunked with as friends. They were all gay, anyway.

For some reason, this little bit of news had perked Josh up considerably, reminding him that even though he’d come to like Kiki and the others, he still harbored feelings of jealousy against the men who got to share Chloe’s home.

But why she would gladly play house with these men and not with him, Grace couldn’t explain.

“Perhaps you’ve sprung all this on her a little too suddenly, Josh,” she’d endeavored to find a reason for her daughter’s decision to bolt. “A girl needs time to adjust to important changes like these. We like to take matters of the heart slowly, not rush into them head over heels.” She’d tapped his hand smartly. “You should have wooed her a little. Candlelight dinners. Summer night concerts. Walks along the beach. That sort of thing.”