Page 44 of Under His Embrace

I nodded. “You know how controlling they were.” He’d never met them, but we talked. Even Chloe told him how hard they were to please when she hung out with me and Romeo when he visited.

“She’s their only daughter and they wanted her to be the good girl, the sweet, upstanding citizen of a wholesome small town. Not with a Mafia ‘gangster’ and living a life of crime in the city.” Now I had to roll my eyes. It was so stupid, so closed-minded.

“What I don’t get is how she was all for moving here with you when you’d further your training. From what I remember, she made it sound like she wanted to go against her parents’ wishes and choose you.”

I grunted. I remembered that as well. “Something had to have changed to make her reconsider.” By running off to college far away, without telling me goodbye, it seemed she was all talk about wanting a future with me.

“What, though?” Romeo asked. “What could have happened to make her change her mind?”

I didn’t know. For so long, I'd assumed it was the same old. The issue of her parents being so vehemently against the idea of Chloe living with me or marrying me. They despised me when we dated, and they never lightened up on their opinions of me no matter how much Chloe argued I wasn’t a horrible person.

“Whatever prompted her to change her mind, it was stronger than any feelings she had for me.”

He watched me stand. “And what of her feelings now?”

Last night, they all saw me with Chloe and how much of a couple we were, dancing and eating like we were at a real wedding as each other’s date.

“Are they strong enough to make her stay this time?” Romeo asked.

I shrugged, hating that I didn’t know the answer to that. In my arms, I could swear that she loved me as fiercely as I did her. Until she could explain why she left and stayed away, though, I refused to claim that I knew anything about her sentiments. I was sick of assuming that I was good enough to fight for, that I was worthy of her love for good.

As I left him with that question, I wondered what it would take to get the final answers from her without pushing her too hard.

Back in the recess of my mind, I feared the worst.

Maybe she’d never feel as deeply about me.

There was a chance I’d never be deemed worthy of her love forever.

And I hated that she could render me so powerless as to need her love to feel whole. To feel complete.

20

CHLOE

My self-loathing pushed me to get out of bed.

The longer I kept the truth about Caleb from Franco, the worse I felt.

Instead of lying in bed and rehearsing how I could tell him once and for all, I wondered where he’d gone. I was alone in his room, but I felt like a trespasser, an imposter of a lover to be here when I was actively deceiving him by not revealing that he was a father.

I got up and headed back to my guest room that I slept in the night before. After I dressed in another change of the borrowed clothes Eva and Tessa provided for me during my stay, I sought Franco.

Forgoing breakfast, I settled for a cup of iced coffee. If I ate anything, it might come back up. That was how nervous I was. The little bit of a conversation I overheard from the men on the other side of the kitchen put me on edge too. They were guards, more men I didn’t know, but their mention of people fighting in Brooklyn made me think of Caleb, who was staying there for now.

For now. In a couple of days, I would have to put an end to my stay here. I would need to go pick him up from his spring break vacation with Ethan.

I had to go back to real life, the one in which I was a single mother determined to hide from her stalker of an ex.

I had stayed under the illusion of being here in the lap of luxury and free to reconnect with the man I loved and missed.

This was it. The moment had come. I had to tell Franco and I had to go back to Caleb.

Franco had shown me nothing but security. He had been patient and so tender with me, letting me into his life without any exceptions and conditions. I had no reason not to come clean. No excuses.

Just do it. Tell him.

I resolved to, no matter how hard it would be.

---