“I thought it might be Tom.”
“Sorry.” Based on everything she’d heard last night, Tom wouldn’t be stopping by in the near future.
Larissa shrugged and shuffled toward the kitchen. “This is Ian from the coffee shop, right? The rich slacker?”
“One and the same,” Chloe replied.
“I thought you said you weren’t interested. How’d you end up going away with him for the weekend?”
“Long story.” A long, depressing story, and La-roo had enough on her plate to deal with. Opening the fridge, Chloe searched for the orange juice. “You don’t want to know.”
“Come on; tell me. I need to talk about something other than my problems. What happened?”
Chloe told her the bare-bones story.
“Wow. Stranded at a mountain inn. That sounds so romantic.”
“Only because you’re addicted to romance,” she replied, handing her a glass of juice. Even as she protested, however, scenes from the weekend laid themselves out in her head.
“Maybe, but you’re not nearly as unaffected by it as you pretend to be,” Larissa retorted. “You cannot tell me you spent the entire weekend under those conditions and didn’t feel even a little spark.”
Chloe’s heated skin betrayed her. She tried to hide behind her orange juice, and failed.
“Oh my God, you did!” Chloe’s skin burned hotter. “That’s wonderful! Makes me glad to know both my friends have decent love lives.”
That was Chloe’s line. “Better change the number to one.”
“I thought you said you and Ian...?”
“We did, but it was only a weekend fling.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Because she wasn’t worth more. “You know I’m not interested in a relationship. That’s yours and Del’s thing.”
“I’m doing real well in that department, aren’t I?”
Seeing the dejection on Larissa’s face made Chloe’s already beat-up emotions feel worse. “I’m sorry, La-roo. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“You weren’t. My new single status is something we both need to get used to. But I also don’t believe you. You may say you don’t want a relationship, but I don’t buy it for a minute.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The conversation was getting uncomfortable. “Do you want me to make breakfast or do you want to head to the diner corner?”
“I’m not hungry. Do you want to know why I don’t believe you?”
“Because analyzing me will cheer you up?”
The blonde shook her head. “Because you make the same speech every time you end a relationship. You make a very big point of stating how you weren’t emotionally invested.”
“Because I usually wasn’t,” Chloe reminded her.
“Methinks the lady protests too much.”
Seriously? She was going to psychoanalyze, and quote Shakespeare? “I need coffee if you’re going to do this,” Chloe muttered.
She reached for the coffee pods, grabbed one and dropped it into the brewing chamber. “And for the record, I do not protest too much. Some people simply aren’t meant to find love. I’m one of them.”
For a moment, the only sound in the kitchen was that of the coffee streaming into her mug.
“Why on earth would you think you aren’t meant to find love?” Larissa asked after a moment. Did Chloe really say that out loud? Damn.
“I meant be loved. Be in love.”
“Use whatever phrase you want, it’s still not true. You’re as worthy as anyone.”
“Have you checked my dating record?” She tried to sound flippant, but the attempt sounded flat.
“No offense, Chloe, but that’s because you tend to date losers.”
Maybe you need to date a better class of guy. Ian’s words repeated in her ear.
“I thought this time I was.”
“What?”
Seeing the confused look on Larissa’s face, she realized she’d spoken out loud. “I thought this time was different.”
“You mean Ian.”
Chloe nodded. “But he walked away, too. Or he was about to.”
“What do you mean, ‘about to’?”
“I beat him to the punch.”
Larissa’s jaw dropped. “You broke up with him? Chloe, what were you thinking? You don’t know if he was planning to walk away.”
“Yes,” she said, “I do.”
“How?”
“Because I’ve been dumped enough times to know the signs, that’s how!”
She shouldn’t have shouted, but arguing the point made the wound raw again. Larissa didn’t taste the goodbye in his kiss or see the regret in his expression.
“He told me I deserved better,” she said in a softer voice. “All I did was preempt the inevitable.”
Tears threatened to burn her eyes. Refusing to give them a chance, she slid to the floor. Drawing her legs tight against her, she let her forehead fall to her knees. The same pose she’d found Larissa in last night.
“Oh, Chloe.” A warm presence materialized on the floor next to her, followed by an arm around her shoulders. “He’s a jerk. Tom’s a jerk. All men are jerks.”
“I’ll give you Tom, but Ian?” She shook her head. Much as it hurt, she couldn’t call him a bad name. “He was nothing but honest from the start.” If anything, she was the one who wasn’t special enough to change his mind.
“You really like him, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she whispered into her knees. At last she admitted the truth she’d been fighting since Friday night. “I like him a lot.” More than liked, actually. Somehow he’d gotten past all her defenses and captured the very thing she swore she’d never risk. Her heart.
No wonder breathing hurt.
“At least Delilah found Simon, and those two are definitely soul mates,” Larissa was saying. Good old La-roo, looking for the silver lining. “So they do exist. We’ll have to wait a little longer to find ours, is all.”
Chloe bit back her discouraged reply. No doubt Larissa would bounce back and find true love, but her?
She couldn’t help but believe her soul mate had kissed her goodbye last night.
Given how she felt, only an idiot would go to the coffee shop the next morning.
“We could go to the place across the street,” said Larissa, who met her on the corner.
Chloe didn’t want to go to the place across the street. “Absolutely not. Do you plan to stop eating dinner at the pub?” she asked, referring to the little restaurant where Larissa and Tom used to grab dinner.
“No, but that’s different. The pub is in my neighborhood. I was meeting you guys there before Tom and I met.”
“This is the same thing. I’ve been visiting this coffee shop for months. I didn’t stop coming after Aiden, and I refuse to stop coming now.” It was a matter of pride.
Plus, possibly, she wanted to make a point of showing Ian what he’d given up. She’d taken extra care with her appearance, going for a leather jacket and dangerously high heels, the kind that turned heads on the subway. The cut on her chin was almost healed and she’d done her makeup to perfection. The only way anyone would know she wasn’t 100 percent together was if she removed her sunglasses and revealed the circles underneath her eyes. Vestiges of another lousy night’s sleep. She didn’t plan on removing the glasses. Not in front of Ian.
Forcing her head high, she strutted down the sidewalk with such long strides Larissa had to double-time to keep up. “What are you going to do if he wants to talk?” the blonde asked when they were four doors down.
“I’m not. We said everything yesterday.” And she wasn’t ready for friendly small talk.
No more banter, she realized. The back-and-forth might have lasted only a week, but she couldn’t picture being in the shop without Ian’s sandpapery voice teasing her about something. She’d miss talking most of all. The sense of connection that had them finishing each other’s sentences, as though they were two halves of the same brain.
Great. Two doors away and she was already getting emotional. Maybe she should have gone to the other place, after all. Blinking away the moisture, she adjusted her sunglasses and pulled open the front door.
Ian’s absence was the first thing either of them noticed. “I thought you said he hung out at the front table?” Larissa remarked.
“He usually does.” The table sat empty today. “Must be out back.”
Her sixth sense said otherwise, though. There was a noticeable chill in the air that wasn’t normally present, while the red and orange walls—which she’d told him inspired warmth—looked garish. Even the furniture possessed a worn indifference. They were missing the ingredient that brought them to life.
As if fate wanted to truly hammer home a message, Aiden waited on them. “Ian’s not here,” he said. “He said something about having to take off for a few days.”
“See?” Chloe said when the barista turned around. “Told you he wouldn’t want to talk with me.”
She couldn’t have felt worse if she tried.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR THE AMOUNT of money he’d donated the past two days, you’d think he could get a decent cup of coffee. Obviously, the university president didn’t appreciate flavor as much as he appreciated signed checks. Then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers. The man was already treading a thin ethical line by doing him this favor. Ian set his half-empty cup on the desk and resumed his pacing. Every so often his eyes would stray to the clock on the wall. Checking the time. Wouldn’t be long now.