The Marriage Agenda(26)

"You've mentioned that a time or two."

He propped himself on one elbow, and with the other hand, teased a few  tendrils of hair from her face. "I'm pretty sure I could never say it  enough."

Chloe groaned. "You're killing me."

His brow knit. "I thought I was being nice."

"Never be nice. That's the worst thing you can be."

He looked at her in bewilderment. "What?"

"Sincere. You want to be sincere. ‘Nice' sounds too much like you're  saying or doing something because it's expected and not because you mean  it."

He rolled over, off her, his body disengaging from hers with a loud plop. It should have been funny.

It wasn't.

"Chloe, I can't love you. I don't know what else to say."

She sat up, dragging the sheet with her. "Try the truth. You don't want to love me."
         

     



 
"I thought we had an understanding-"

"Oh, no worries. I'm not out to change your mind." That was the truth.  He hadn't even looked at her. What chance did she have of changing him?

"Then what the hell is the problem?"

"You tell me, Knox. You claim to stand for honesty, but you can't stop  lying to yourself. You're not Rex. Don't you get that? You're not him."

Now he looked at her. Dead on, and so intensely she nearly edged away  from him. "Maybe not," he said, "but I was the little boy who cried  every damn time he made my mother cry. She never knew it-she never cried  in front of me-but when her heart broke, so did mine. I've carried that  burden for as long as I can remember. I used to wish she'd just take me  and leave. I would have lived in a cardboard box if it meant she would  be happy, because then I could have been happy. But no, she wouldn't  walk away. The family name meant too much to her, so she stayed. She  stayed strong. Then Rex got himself caught, and the one thing that kept  her hanging on all those years was destroyed. It was that damned name.  She wanted me to have a foundation-a legacy, dammit-but Rex couldn't  keep it in his pants."

"No one blames her for that."

"The reality can only matter so much, Chloe. She could have found  happiness, but she held on to Rex because she wanted something to hand  down to me. And now that he's ruined the family name, everything she  sacrificed for is gone. It's just … wasted."

She touched his arm. "That's terrible, and I'm sorry for every bit of  it. Truly. But nothing you've told me explains what you've got against  letting yourself love someone."

"Because, dammit, I'm afraid."

The silence that followed was profound. And endless. Only the  grandfather clock in the gallery carried on as if nothing had happened,  the ticks grating in the quiet.

Minutes passed. Five. Ten. Twenty, for all she knew. Eventually he  spoke. "Love isn't worth it. Not for anyone, Chloe. Not even you."

"You're right," she said, fighting tears. He didn't deserve them.

"What do you mean?"

"You're right. Loving someone is the biggest leap of faith you'll ever  take. Sometimes bad things happen, but if you don't take the chance,  you'll miss every good thing life has to offer. Maybe your mom should  have taken a chance and walked out on Rex, but it's just as likely the  chance she took was in staying. You're not in a position to judge her.  That was a personal decision on her part-maybe even a personal  sacrifice-but whatever it was, I can guarantee she didn't do it to watch  you give up."

"I'm not giving up," he said. But he sounded defeated.

"No, you're not giving up," Chloe said. "But I think I'm going to have to."





Chapter Seventeen

Knox stared through his windshield, trying like hell to focus on the  road but seeing only Chloe. She was right-he really was an ass. Why had  he thought he could make her forget about falling in love? Just because  touching her had a way of chasing the shadows from her eyes didn't mean  it was a good idea. And now he'd gone and hurt her-really hurt her. She  hadn't said as much, but she didn't need to. The expression on her face  said it for her. And what she did after that made it ten times worse.

She didn't fire back. She, who never let anything get past her, had  simply rolled over to her side of that enormous bed, and she'd stayed  there … not sleeping. He knew, because he'd grown so accustomed to the  deep, even sound of her breathing that it had become his solace in the  dead of the night. And that night, her breath was halting. Uneven. Not  at rest.

He thought about apologizing, but for what? Being honest? Because when  it came down to it, an apology would be a lie. He was sorry he'd upset  her, but he couldn't ease the brunt of the truth. Chloe meant the world  to him, but he couldn't love, and a woman like her couldn't live any  other way. Rebuilding that bridge between them would only harm her in  the end.

She deserved more than that. She deserved more than him. And though he  felt like the worst kind of man, he knew the best thing he could do was  let her be hurt. Because then she would get mad, and eventually that  would save her.

Something had to, because he sure as hell couldn't.

 …

There had been something different about the night of the  reception-something for the longest time that Chloe couldn't quite put  her finger on. They'd been together at the charity dinner, but that  hadn't been about them. Maybe it hadn't felt big enough. But at their  reception, when he'd pulled her into his arms in front of everyone and  Knox Hamilton had kissed Chloe Lochlan, the moment had been  unmistakable. Something inside her had shifted.         

     



 

And when he'd said he wouldn't love her, that same something twisted. And shattered.

He was right. She knew he was. He'd made clear from the beginning she  was entering a business relationship and nothing more, but facts hadn't  kept her heart from getting involved. The best thing Knox could have  done was slam the door on those emotions, and though the timing couldn't  have been worse-after sex, of all times-she'd certainly felt the impact  then, like no other. A rejection was one thing. One during the  post-coital haze was just the kind of brutality she needed.

She was done. She had to be.

Fortunately, she had something else on which to focus. Pactron.

Eleanor Byrd was indeed the one behind Emerson Environmental's thumbs-up  on the Pactron project. Clearly they'd found a way to separate business  and pleasure, but that didn't explain the handwritten note from HL,  whom she remained convinced was Pactron CEO Harold Levenworth. The files  had almost certainly come from Rex, which meant the note thanking Rex  for "pushing" the deal through probably belonged to him, as well.

Rex, Emerson Environmental, and Eleanor Byrd. The most bizarre of  triangles, yet inexplicably connected. How … and just as importantly, why?  And was there anyone else? She needed another look at those files. Knox  was off at a two-day conference-convenient, because she had absolutely  nothing to say to him-but he'd given her carte blanche over his files,  so she grabbed her laptop and took it into his study.

His chair-the buttery soft one with which she'd fallen in love-smelled  of leather. The scent, too, took her straight back to the limo and that  night that had followed … how everything had been beyond perfect until  he'd thrown that not even you at her. She had to give him credit-he was  all about not misleading her-but how could he touch her the way he had  and still utter those words? He could have at least waited until they  were dressed. Hell, a distant text message would have been perfect. That  way she could have fallen apart in private rather than given herself a  headache trying not to fall apart in his bed.

But headache or not, she hadn't fallen apart. Not then and not since.  She couldn't help how she felt about him, but until he got down on his  knees and declared his undying love-and fat chance there-she was done  with hoping anything would change. They had an agreement, and they'd  both be a lot happier if she gave up the blind hope that it could ever  be anything more.

She had her own career on which to focus, and she had a very strong feeling she'd find the key to it in those files.

She went first for the Pactron file, seeking any mention of Emerson.  There were copies of the environmental study findings but nothing else  that appeared to carry significance. Two other companies had provided  environmental studies-Greenleaf and Impact-and both reports came back  that the factory would have minimal detrimental effect on the site.  Chloe was no expert, but the results didn't make sense. In fact, at one  time a developer had tried to put a subdivision of single-family homes  on the land, but the ground had been too wet.

Too wet for houses but not too wet for a power plant?

She leafed through the rest of the files, but none were dedicated to  Eleanor, Emerson, Greenleaf, or Impact Environmental. Or, for that  matter, Harold Levenworth. In anyone else's files, that wouldn't be so  unusual, but if these were Rex's files …