He listened, stunned, as the air went dead. Was it possible she really hadn't sent the article? She had everything to lose. She loved her job. If she hadn't hit send, she was essentially walking away from it … and she'd made it clear she was walking away from him. He'd offered her everything she could ask for-a beautiful home, a faithful husband who couldn't get enough of her, children, a chance to further her career … Nothing was missing. The only thing that he'd failed to do was say he loved her, but what would that change?
Nothing. It wouldn't change anything, and he didn't want to think about what that meant.
He righted the chair and sat, staring for a long moment at her computer and the article she'd left for him before he switched to her browser. Her email was open. He clicked the link for sent mail and waited for the page to load. What was her editor's name? Beth something. He skimmed the list of sent email. No Beth. No anything. Chloe hadn't sent a single email from that account since the previous morning. He frowned, his eyes landing on the search box. Clicking there, he tried [email protected] and got nothing. Dammit, what was her last name? It was a big paper … odds were they didn't assign emails on a first name basis.
"You're an idiot," he muttered. @WashingtonTribune. Bingo. BethMahan. He clicked on the result and scanned the titles of recent emails. Each one was clearly labeled with an article title-the last few of which were decidedly home-and-garden-esque-but none had been sent in the last couple of days.
Frowning, he clicked back to the Tribune results and checked the list in case she'd sent it to someone else.
Nothing.
Chloe hadn't sent the article.
The proof obliterated what remained of his anger.
He sat back in her chair, his gaze skirting the wilderness of greenery in her office. The conservatory. She hadn't been kidding-potted plants filled tables in front of every window. He hadn't realized how big of a pile they made, but he liked it. They added life to the house.
Chloe had, too. She wasn't one of those women who needed to be dressed to kill every waking minute of the day. In fact, he loved her bare feet peeking out from under her sweats and the way she twisted her hair up off her neck. He liked how he could swipe a kiss and not end up wearing red lipstick-for that matter, he'd be hard pressed to admit it out loud, but he actually liked the cherry taste of whatever it was she used to make her lips look deliciously moist all day. She was flawlessly beautiful, but unlike so many other women he knew, she didn't paint it on. She was real, and that was the one thing he'd been missing all along.
His knee-jerk reaction to love had been honest, but he'd been lying to himself. He was absolutely the last person to believe in love, but whatever she'd triggered inside him the night they met had only grown stronger with time. He had no idea what had possessed him to shed his skin and go to that bar, but the moment he'd locked eyes with Chloe, something inside him had changed.
He'd grown up with the Hamilton name. He'd never known what it was like to be a regular guy-not until Chloe. He had never wanted for anything in his life, but in that moment, he knew she'd given him something no one else ever had. When she'd looked at him, she had seen a guy wearing faded jeans and an old T-shirt, and still her eyes had torn through him as though he was on the dessert menu. He'd been terrified to lose that, so when he'd introduced himself, he'd given his middle name-misleading, perhaps, but not untrue-and waited with bated breath for her to make the connection, but she hadn't.
She hadn't seen a Hamilton. She'd seen a man.
He'd been lost then. Maybe that was why he hadn't broken things off with her sooner. He'd known ever since he was a kid listening to his mother cry down the hall that he wanted nothing of marriage. Even before he'd fully understood his father's infidelities, he'd learned loving someone meant hurting them. He'd never met anyone with whom he had even thought he wanted a real relationship, until Chloe, and the last thing he'd wanted was to hurt her-not like that. So he'd ended it, and if he was honest with himself, he'd have to admit he hadn't been the same since.
He'd convinced himself he'd asked Chloe to marry him to further his career, but the truth was he wanted back the piece of himself that had left with her. He'd been so close to the truth when he'd refused to marry anyone but her, but he'd also missed it by a mile. He hadn't shed his skin that night they met. He'd found himself. He'd found himself in her. And then he'd made love to her, and before the sweat dried, he'd said she didn't matter enough.
Fuck. No wonder she was gone.
He clicked back to the article and read it once more. Most of her citations he recognized, and he didn't doubt the rest to be true. Chloe wouldn't fabricate this-she valued her job, reputation, and integrity too much to risk any one of them. Every damned word of what she had written was true. It had to be.
She had Rex in her sights, but she hadn't pulled the trigger.
Knox boiled with emotion. His father had paid off inspectors, doubtlessly having a hand in getting a factory approved that he'd been publicly against. He was smart-and dumb-enough to keep those payoffs from surfacing, and ultimately the whole house of cards had fallen because he'd chosen the wrong place to get his dick wet. If he hadn't gotten caught in that high-profile affair, he wouldn't have stepped down from his seat. There would be no need for a special election, and Knox wouldn't have married Chloe.
And she wouldn't have broken a story every top reporter in the country would have given his or her right arm for. She had everything she needed, but she had refused to hit send. Because she loved him. And that love was deeper and truer than he deserved.
He shook his head in disbelief. He'd figured she'd dig up something on someone, but never had he imagined it would be at his expense. She was a handful of keystrokes away from making her career and destroying what was left of the Hamilton name … and by extension, Knox. Toby would shit a brick if he knew Knox had prior knowledge of the story, but how the hell could you put a good spin on something like this?
He'd find out soon enough.
There was a certain peace in that.
Knox switched back to Chloe's story and deleted the message she left him at the top. He saved the changes, then attached the document to a new email. He hesitated only a moment over the To field before typing in his recipient.
She hadn't clicked send.
He hadn't any other choice.
Chapter Twenty
Chloe steered her piece-of-crap car into a parking spot near Belleville Lake, grateful the old girl had made the forty-five minute drive without leaving a trail of pieces on the road behind her. She needed time to think, and she wasn't going to get it at her old apartment or at Lila's or anywhere else that bred familiarity. For a person seeking solace, the state park was as good a place as any. Though the recreation area entertained a lot of traffic, it wasn't typically packed on a weekday afternoon-there were enough people there that she wouldn't draw attention, and that's all that really mattered. Toby would probably have a fit if he knew she'd let the old beast out of the garage-keeping up the Hamilton image absolutely required her to drive shiny late-model things-but she didn't feel right taking the car Knox had bought her. Not when she'd just wrecked what was left of his family by exposing his father.
Her heart felt as if it had landed in a million pieces, but she'd done the right thing. She'd rather live alone with her conscience than carry the burden of a lie.
She'd just dug into her grilled chicken salad-courtesy of a fast food drive-through-when her phone vibrated. She hit ignore, then checked her missed calls. Six of them, all from her editor. According to the timestamps, the calls had been coming in since minutes after she'd left the meeting room where she had been handed a bunch of empty accolades to go alongside her pink slip, both courtesy of the publisher, Harry Olander. The calls had been easy enough to ignore. She hadn't even noticed the vibrations from the phone while on the road.
She'd just set down the device when another call came in. It was her editor-or her former editor. Chloe was sorely tempted to ignore her for a seventh time, but curiosity got the better of her. Besides, it wasn't as if she had anything left to lose.
She answered. "Sorry, Beth," she said in lieu of a greeting, "the story wasn't what I thought it was." Not a shred of untruth there. "I'm sorry if I let you down."
"What are you talking about? Why the hell didn't you mention this story during the meeting?"
Beth sounded as if she'd just opened the door to find freaking Publisher's Clearing House standing on her front porch with an oversize cardboard check. "What story?"
"The one that just made your career. If it pans out, that is, but all things considered … "