Page 37 of Just A Little Chase

He gave her a very poor attempt at a smile. “I think the weekend accomplished what you needed for your family.”

“Yes, it did,” she agreed, and for that, she was grateful.

She got out of the car, and he did the same, meeting up with her at the trunk where he pulled out her luggage.

“So, what are you going to tell your parents about us?” he asked, his voice low, somber even.

He was referring to their inevitable breakup. She shrugged, trying to remain indifferent when her emotions were a tangled mess in her chest. “That things didn’t work out. People break up all the time.”

He nodded, and she could see the conflict in his eyes. The pained expression on his face told her that he was having as difficult a time letting her go as she was with walking away.

She’d never been the type of woman to beg and plead for a man to want her. But she realized she couldn’t leave Chase without telling him how she truly felt about him—even knowing it wouldn’t change his decision.

She cleared her throat. “There’s something I want you to know, Chase,” she said, holding his gaze. “I care about you. In fact, I’m halfway in love with you.”

He groaned, sounding like a man tortured. “Lauren—”

She cut him off and rushed on, not wanting to hear his platitudes. “I hope you don’t come to regret letting go of something that has the potential to make you happy. You might not think you’re capable of being happy, but I’ve seen it this weekend. I felt it. I lived it with you because you made me happy, too.” She stepped up to him and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. “I wish it could have been different for us. Goodbye, Chase.”

His jaw clenched, turmoil swirling in the depths of his eyes, but when he didn’t say anything in return, she grabbed the handle of her luggage and followed the walkway leading up to her building.

At the beginning of this past weekend with Chase, she’d promised to keep her heart out of the equation, but that was before she’d seen the man beneath the façade he put up for the rest of the world. And that man had been impossible to resist.

* * *

For what felt the dozenth time, Chase attempted to review the prospectus on his computer screen, seeing the financial and investment data, but his brain was having a hard time retaining the information. Which was a problem, when he needed to assess whether this particular investment aligned with his client’s financial goals and risk tolerance.

He groaned in frustration at his inability to concentrate and sat back in his leather chair, rubbing his fingers across his forehead. Being distracted was par for the course the past four days, since watching Lauren walk away from him while struggling internally with all the foreign emotions waging war inside of him. There had been panic and dread at the thought of never seeing her again, and worse was the hurt he’d seen in her eyes because causing her pain was the last thing he’d ever intended to do.

And then there was the crushing amount of regret he couldn’t shake, no matter how hard he’d tried. Telling himself he’d done the right thing was a fucking bitter pill to swallow, especially when he was miserable without her.

Chase wasn’t a man who’d harbored a lot of regrets in his life. Even as a child, when his mother had walked out without so much as a goodbye and his own father had been emotionally and mentally unavailable, Chase had done whatever it had taken to survive and get himself to the point where he only had to think about himself.

Having two absentee parents had forced him to grow up fast. That lack of unconditional love and guidance throughout his formative years had taught him to rely only on himself, to the exclusion of forming emotional attachments with others because he refused to live through that kind of painful disappointment ever again.

He’d held on to so much bitterness over his mother’s abandonment, and then his father’s choice to drown his sorrow in self-pity and alcohol, to the point that those two major blows in Chase’s life had driven him to make sure he became a stronger, more accomplished man than his dad ever was.

Chase had always believed that the anger and resentment pushing him forward made him stronger because it meant no one could hurt him or make him feel so isolated and less than ever again. And maybe, at one point in his life, those emotions had served their purpose to shape him into the successful man he was. But now… that lingering anger and resentment made him feel weak, because he was too fucking afraid to open up to a woman who gave him so much hope for a future he’d never allowed himself to even consider.

He’d always been of the mind that he couldn’t change the past, so there was no sense in wallowing in regrets and wishing that things had turned out differently. Mostly because the situation he’d been dealt when it came to his parents hadn’t been within his control.

But losing Lauren had been based on his decision. His actions. He was responsible for being exactly where he was, alone again, having lost a woman who’d not only pierced his emotional armor, but had given him the sweetest glimpse of what it felt like to have it all.

Instead, he’d been a martyr, so fucking convinced letting her go had been noble, because really, how could a vivacious woman like her fall in love with a broken man like him, one who knew nothing about deep, unconditional love? And now, he just felt hollow inside because he missed Lauren. Her sassy and mischievous personality and her optimistic outlook on life, despite what had happened with her ex. The way she made him smile and laugh and not take life too seriously when he was with her. How she’d been able to forgive her sister for what had happened between them.

And now, when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t stop seeing her standing at the curb when he’d dropped her off four days ago, her heart so open and vulnerable as she told him how happy he’d made her that weekend. How was that even possible?

Chase’s chest tightened as he replayed Lauren’s last words to him in his mind, each one a piercing reminder of how he’d failed her. He’d spent years building walls to protect himself, but now he saw them for what they truly were… barriers to love, to happiness, and everything that mattered.

And Lauren, he realized, mattered most of all. But was he ready to try with her? And if he was, how in the hell did he repair the damage he’d done?

The vibration of his cellphone indicated he had a text notification. The sound startled him out of his thoughts, and he picked up the cell. The message was from Billie, who he hadn’t seen or spoken to since his weekend with Lauren. He paused before opening the text, wondering if his sister somehow knew what occurred between him and Lauren and intended to interrogate him via text.

Dread settled into a hard knot in his stomach, and he swiped open the message to read what she’d written.

How about meeting me for dinner tonight at Luigi’s? There’s someone I want you to meet.

He frowned at the cryptic message, though he was relieved that her text wasn’t about Lauren. He hated to think how disappointed Billie would be with him if she knew how badly he’d fucked things up with her friend.

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