Chapter 30 Nathan Refuses to Reconcile
Her lips were softer than he had ever calculated—warm, breathy, and utterly devastating.
When his tongue tentatively brushed against hers, a heavy, intoxicating sweetness flooded straight to his chest, making his very soul violently shudder. He tasted the faint, elusive flavor of her mouth, like melted honey and adrenaline.
On that narrow, creaking dorm mattress, they clung to each other as if the world were ending.
Nathan’s palm glided hungrily over the thin cotton of her dress, tracing the delicate curve of her spine. Her fingers tangled deep into the dark hair at the nape of his neck, her nails pressing gently against his scalp as she pulled him down, deepening the kiss until his vision blurred.
Their bodies slotted together flawlessly, leaving not a single millimeter of space between them. Even through the barrier of their clothes, he could feel the frantic, accelerating hammer of her heartbeat matching his own, their body heat rising to a fever pitch.
The old ceiling fan whirred uselessly overhead, stirring the sheer curtains into gentle swirls, completely failing to dispel the suffocating heat radiating between them. The breeze rustled the meticulously organized lecture notes spread across his desk, providing a lighthearted, fluttering soundtrack to his absolute ruination.
Nathan dragged her closer, his left hand sliding down to grip her waist. Through the thin fabric, the scorching warmth of her skin burned into his palm.
Her breathing fractured, transforming into tiny, desperate tremors against his lips.
This kiss was no longer a tentative experiment; it had become a definitive, earth-shattering confirmation. A confirmation of raw desire and undeniable existence. In this single instant, a cramped college dorm room had expanded to become his entire universe.
He felt his formidable, genius-level rationality completely melting away.
She bit his lower lip gently—not enough to hurt, but a sharp, playful nip to remind him that this long, agonizingly passionate kiss was dizzyingly real.
That scorching summer afternoon, pinned beneath her on his own bed, Nathan was kissed again and again until he couldn’t think.
She kissed him tenderly, whispering sweetly against his jaw, promising never to yell at him over the phone again. She confessed that she had demanded he appear within ten minutes because she was terrified of losing him, because she missed him with a physical ache, and because she just wanted to see him, touch him, and hold him sooner.
"Nathan," she murmured against his mouth, her voice trembling with sincerity. "I love you. I love you so much."
Listening to her breathless confession, feeling her soft hands mapping his chest, Nathan felt himself completely dissolve. He was no longer a top-tier medical student or a guarded prodigy. He was a handful of water in her palm, a lump of clay ready to be molded into absolutely whatever shape she desired.
The memory faded, abruptly replaced by the blinding glare of modern city streetlights.
In the deep, freezing Chicago night, a black Bentley sat idling by the curb, completely swallowed by the endless stream of traffic.
Inside the luxurious cabin, a forty-two-year-old man sat motionless behind the steering wheel, drowning in the ghosts of his past. A faint, razor-thin smile touched Nathan’s lips—a smile completely saturated with both nostalgia and excruciating bitterness.
Suddenly, his phone screen lit up the dark interior. It flashed silently for a long moment. After a heavy hesitation, he finally tapped the screen and lifted it to his ear.
A voice, completely wrecked with tears, tore through the speaker. "Nathan... you really won't come find me?"
Nathan’s eyes instantly burned red. His throat constricted as he gripped the leather steering wheel. "I'm on my way," he rasped softly.
How could I not come find you?
I dug through the ashes of the world for twenty-three years looking for you. Now that I finally know where you are, how could I ever stay away? If I could rip the sky apart, I would be standing in front of you instantly.
He hung up the phone and violently threw the Bentley into gear, doing an illegal U-turn across the avenue.
The car tore through the nighttime traffic. After breaking several speed limits, he finally spotted her.
Chloe was standing on the freezing sidewalk, wrapping her coat tightly around herself. As the Bentley’s headlights washed over her, she squinted, stepping tentatively toward the glow.
Nathan shoved the door open and stepped out into the biting wind. He stood beside the car, his large hands tightly clasped by his sides to hide their slight tremor. He gazed deeply at her, his dark eyes tracking her every movement as she approached, step by step, looking exactly the way she had in his dreams.
She stopped three feet in front of him. She looked up, her eyes wide and wet. "You don't have a wife."
"No," Nathan replied, his voice a flat, impenetrable wall.
"Then why did you make me think you did?"
"I never explicitly stated I had one."
"But you deliberately led me to believe it!" Chloe cried out, her voice cracking. "Why?"
Nathan fell completely silent. The wind whipped his dark coat around his legs.
Chloe squeezed her eyes shut, trying to suppress the desperate, frantic impatience clawing at her chest. She forced her voice to drop to a ragged whisper. "Did you deliberately mislead me because... because you didn't want to get back together?"
"Yes." Nathan lifted his chin, his dark gaze locking onto hers with terrifying clarity. "I do not want to get back together."
"Why?!" Chloe demanded, her heartbreak instantly spiking into furious irritation.
"Because I do not believe we are right for each other anymore." Nathan’s tone was ruthlessly, agonizingly calm.
"In what way?"
"In every conceivable way."
Chloe let out a harsh, bitter laugh, taking a step back. "I see. So now that you’re a successful, wealthy, famous professor, you look down on me? I'm just a high school graduate with no money and no status."
"If you're going to use that defensive logic, then I have a question for you," Nathan said, his eyes narrowing with a sharp, piercing intelligence that made her instantly defensive. "On the day you woke up, when you looked at me for the very first time... what were you actually thinking?"
"Nothing," Chloe snapped defensively.
"Liar," Nathan said softly, his voice cutting straight through her armor. "You were looking at me, wondering who this exhausted, hardened stranger was. You were wondering why I looked so old. Weren't you even a little bit terrified of me?"
"No! I just... I just felt a little uneasy," she stammered, her cheeks flushing.
"And then, weeks later, when you convinced yourself I had a wife and child... what did you feel then?"
"What else would I feel? I was furious! I was jealous!"
"And?" Nathan took a slow, deliberate step toward her, his towering frame casting a long shadow over her. "Were you also relieved? Did a small part of you think, 'Thank God he's married, because I have absolutely no idea how to handle being around this man anymore'?"
Chloe physically flinched. A violent twinge of guilt struck her chest. He had seen right through her. "I... I didn't!"
"You did," Nathan stated, his eyes dark with devastating certainty.
"You just assume you know everything? Can you read my mind now?" Chloe shouted, feeling both completely exposed and fiercely angry.
Nathan gave a hollow, self-deprecating smile. "Usually, yes."
"I don't want to psychoanalyze this! I'm asking you a direct question," Chloe pressed urgently, stepping into his space. "Do you still like me?"
Nathan looked down at her flushed, desperate face. "That question should be coming from you, Chloe."
"I—"
"Chloe, I want you to go home and think this through very, very carefully before you speak," Nathan interrupted, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register. "You know how I operate. I am a perfectionist. I always demand an A+. And in relationships, I only accept absolute, unequivocal devotion."
His eyes locked onto hers, stripping away all her defenses. "If your sudden desire for me is just a passing wave of guilt, a trauma bond, or a desperate dependency habit because you're lonely in a new era... I do not want it."
"Give me a break!" Chloe stomped her foot on the concrete, utterly exasperated. "You weren't this notoriously difficult when you were twenty!"
Silly girl, Nathan thought, his heart bleeding behind his ribs. That 'Love' class at twenty? I personally tutored you to ensure you got an A+. Now... I'm a forty-two-year-old ghost barely passing the course myself. How can I possibly be your study partner?
Chloe and Nathan parted ways on a fiercely unpleasant note.
She slammed the door to her apartment, utterly frustrated. She had foolishly believed that the moment the "wife" obstacle was cleared, they would fall effortlessly back into each other's arms. Instead, she discovered the most insurmountable obstacle was Nathan’s own traumatized pride.
He was rejecting her so completely, effectively demanding that she prove her feelings weren't just a pity project! She was so blindingly furious she completely forgot to even ask about Mason.
What kind of ridiculous, high-stakes game was this? Even if her feelings weren't a perfect A+ right now, they were at least a solid A-! Why did he have to be so impossibly demanding?
The restless anger kept her tossing and turning until dawn.
The next morning, Michael walked past Chloe's cubicle with his morning coffee and rapped his knuckles sharply against her desk.
Chloe flinched, her head snapping up from where it had been resting on her folded arms.
"Hey. Even if you have special VIP connections with the boss, you can't sleep on the clock," Michael warned lightly.
"I'm sorry," Chloe mumbled, slowly sitting up and rubbing her face. Seeing her coworkers already frantically typing away, she quickly adjusted her blouse. "It won't happen again."
"Didn't sleep well? You look like a raccoon," Michael noted, his sharp eyes catching the heavy dark circles bruising her skin. "Go splash some cold water on your face, then come to my office."
Five minutes later, Chloe slumped into the chair opposite Michael's massive desk.
Noticing her fiercely dejected expression, Michael leaned back and raised an eyebrow. "I take it you two didn't have a tearful, cinematic reunion last night?"
"Are you the FBI?" Chloe retorted bitterly.
"I'm just looking out for Nathan," Michael replied evenly.
Chloe glared at the carpet. "Your precious Nathan rejected me. He interrogated me on the street and said we aren't compatible."
Michael didn't look surprised. He slowly studied her, his expression turning deadly serious. "Honestly, Chloe? Given your past dynamic and the current reality of who he is now... you really aren't compatible."
Chloe’s head snapped up, betrayed.
"It's not just the twenty-three-year age gap," Michael continued ruthlessly, refusing to sugarcoat it. "It's the massive disparity in social standing, wealth, life experience, and trauma. If you just rush blindly back into his bed right now, explosive conflicts are inevitable. And if you force a relationship and then break his heart a second time? It will completely destroy him. It will ruin the only beautiful memory he has left. Nathan is absolutely right to be terrified of you."
"I think he's drastically overthinking it!" Chloe argued defensively. "What could possibly go wrong? I'll just give in to him from now on! I'll accommodate him!"
"And right there, that mindset is exactly why he rejected you," Michael countered sharply, his voice cracking like a whip. "Can you 'accommodate' him for the rest of your life? That isn't passion, Chloe. That's a pity project. That's repayment for a debt."
Michael leaned forward, his dark eyes locking onto hers with absolute, unyielding intensity.
"A man as brilliant and ruthlessly proud as Nathan Archer would rather die completely alone than be your charity case."