Page 158 of The Promise Of You

Part of her world came crumbling around her. She felt betrayed. She was betrayed. She’d been betrayed once before, by her asshole boyfriend.

Now her parents.

And then she hears that bullshit from Gisele.

Fuck.

She must be torn to pieces.

I know what I want with Chloe. I want everything. I wasn’t joking when I said I wanted my daughters to look like her.

I want boys too.

With her.

The white picket fence if that’s her preference. Or a place in a city if that makes her happier. Hell, I’d learn how to sail a boat around the world for her if that was her jam.

She’ll make those decisions when the time comes.

Right now, I need to act fast.

Because when she comes to me—and she will—she needs to see I’m not messing around.

She needs to see, without a doubt, that her and me, we’re forever.

I pick up my phone and call my brother Ethan.

“I have a better idea,” he says when I tell him my plan. “Lemme talk to Lucas. See you up there in thirty minutes, an hour tops.”

Next, I get in my truck and call my parents. Then Autumn.

I spend the rest of the day working like crazy, hurting my back, nicking my finger, sunburning my neck, but with the help of what feels like the whole town, I get it done.

Then I get back to the apartment, take a shower, and wait for Chloe to reach out to me.

And she does.

Chloe:

We need to talk.

forty-eight

Chloe

Ilet myself into Justin’s apartment and give Moose a quick scratch between the ears. He looks at me sadly and plops down with a grunt, reading my mood.

The sliding door to the rooftop is open, music from The Green seeping through. I step out.

Justin turns around, his hair bathed in a halo of light, his tan deeper, it seems, his face stern, and worried.

My eyes sting.

It’s an unbearable hurt, this needing to leave, through no fault of his own, the beautiful man who now stands in front of me.

It’s all because of me—me and my demons.

I can’t share him. I can’t live in the uncertainty of his feelings, even if he does seem genuine to me. For now.

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