Chapter 31 "You're the Best, No One Compares to You"
Chloe sank into her chair, her entire demeanor deflating.
Michael leaned against her cubicle partition, looking down at her with a ruthless, surgical precision. "Let's be brutally honest, Chloe. You’re only so desperately eager to throw yourself back into his bed right now because he aged like absolute fine wine."
Chloe’s head snapped up.
"It's true," Michael continued coolly. "My dad—or rather, the man who sired me—went looking for my mother years later. But the second he saw that she had remarried, had two kids, and looked worn out and exhausted by life, he turned right around and walked away. What 'undying feelings' could possibly survive that kind of reality check?"
Michael tilted his head, his eyes gleaming with dark curiosity. "If Nathan had lost his hair, grown a massive beer belly, and turned into someone like Alex over there… would you still be so obsessively in love with him?"
Chloe opened her mouth, a fierce defense instantly on the tip of her tongue, but Michael raised a hand, cutting her off.
"Don't answer that. I don't want to hear it."
"Why ask if you refuse to hear the answer?" Chloe snapped.
"Because if you say no, I'll think you're shallow and coldhearted. And if you say yes, I'll know you're a hypocrite. So there’s no point."
"Then why even bring it up? You are incredibly annoying!" Chloe glared at him, snatched the file folders from his hand, and stormed toward the breakroom.
Michael stroked his chin, clicking his tongue as he watched her walk away. "So fierce. How did a genius like Nathan ever let himself get entirely enslaved by a girl with that kind of temper?"
When Chloe returned to her desk, her blood was still simmering.
Michael’s hypothetical question was infuriating—as if he actually believed she was entirely superficial. Yet, a tiny, insidious voice in the back of her mind whispered: What if Nathan really had turned into Alex?
As if summoned by the thought, Alex’s round, flushed face appeared over her partition. He was sweating slightly, his features soft and blending together into a pleasant, doughy smile. "How’s the adjustment going, Chloe?" he asked kindly.
"Good," Chloe replied, quickly looking away from his thinning hairline.
"If anything feels off, or if you need help with the software, just let me know!"
"Sure. Thanks." Chloe watched him waddle away, his large belly straining against the buttons of his dress shirt. He paused to chat up a few of the younger, attractive female designers before circling back to her desk. "Oh, by the way! I mentioned you to some university alumni back in Chicago. They asked me to arrange a little welcome-back dinner tonight. Are you free? Want to join us?"
Chloe’s immediate instinct was to politely decline. But she glanced at Alex's chubby face, and a sudden, masochistic urge seized her. She needed to test herself.
"Alright," she said.
Alex beamed and trotted off cheerfully.
Chloe unconsciously bit her thumb, her brow furrowing. If Nathan had actually turned into someone like Alex, that would be... difficult. She had to admit, she had always been aggressively visual when it came to men.
But wait—you don't just stare at a partner. You build a life with them. The soul matters too.
She glanced up toward the glass walls of Michael's corner office. He was staring right back at her, clearly trying to stifle a smug, knowing laugh.
Chloe aggressively pumped her fist at him through the glass. That absolute jerk. Why did he have to put this in my head?
After work, Chloe climbed into the passenger seat of Alex's sedan and headed straight to the reserved restaurant.
The luxurious private dining room was already filled with a half-dozen alumni. Chloe didn't recognize a single face; none of them had been in her graduating class. They had clearly just used her return as an excuse to drink on a weeknight.
Once the appetizers arrived, the liquor started flowing. The table dissolved into loud chatter about college nostalgia, corporate promotions, and the exorbitant cost of their children's private tutors.
Chloe sat quietly, but she drank. Heavily.
Through the increasingly hazy blur of the wine, she found herself staring blankly at Alex across the table. In her intoxicated mind, she forcibly projected Nathan’s tragic history onto Alex's doughy frame. She imagined this balding, middle-aged man waiting twenty-three agonizing years for her, whispering with a broken voice, ‘Chloe, you’re finally back. All these years, I just kept hoping you’d return.’
A violent, suffocating ache clamped down on Chloe's chest.
She grabbed the bottle, refilled her massive wine glass to the brim, and downed it in one agonizing gulp. She wanted the fiery burn of the alcohol to sear away the dull, stabbing guilt rising from the depths of her soul.
Seeing that the guest of honor could hold her liquor, the alumni cheered and aggressively poured her more.
By the time the bill was paid, Chloe was completely, hopelessly wrecked.
She could barely put one foot in front of the other. Alex had to wrap a thick arm around her waist, practically carrying her out of the restaurant and into the freezing winter air.
"Alex," Chloe babbled, her words slurring wildly as she slumped against his side. "You're such a good guy! You really are! You just need to lose some weight! If you lost the gut, you'd be perfect!"
"Uh-huh. Sure, Chloe. Let's just get you a cab."
"No, listen to me! For me. Will you lose weight for me?" Chloe reached up, clumsily tugging at Alex's lapels.
Alex sighed, not bothering to argue with a drunk woman. "Okay, fine. For you, I'll hit the treadmill."
"Look at you! You used to be such an absolute hottie!" Chloe scolded, her vision swimming. "Now you're fat! It's unacceptable!"
"Hey, so what if I'm fat?" Alex retorted, finally annoyed. She had been badgering him about his weight for the last hour. Not even his own wife nagged him this relentlessly!
They stood on the curb under the glowing restaurant awning, waiting for Alex's driver to pull around. With Chloe heavily leaning her weight against his chest and Alex firmly gripping her waist to keep her upright, they looked shockingly, uncomfortably intimate.
Neither of them noticed the black Bentley pulling silently up to the curb.
The heavy car door swung open.
Nathan stepped out into the street. The moment his dark eyes locked onto the sight of another man’s hands wrapped firmly around Chloe’s waist, the air pressure around him seemed to violently plummet.
His expression darkened into something lethal. He closed the distance in three massive strides, his jaw clenched tight enough to snap bone.
Before Alex could even register the movement, a large, powerful hand clamped onto Chloe’s arm, abruptly and forcefully ripping her away from Alex's side.
"Hey! What the hell—who are you?" Alex barked, his hands left empty as he stumbled forward.
"Her guardian," Nathan stated, his voice a low, terrifying growl. He yanked Chloe flush against his chest, locking his arm around her back like a steel vise.
"Guardian?" Alex stammered, intimidated by the sheer size and absolute menace radiating off the man. "Chloe? Chloe, who is this guy?"
Chloe blinked, her head lolling back against Nathan’s immaculate wool coat. She looked up at his sharp, furious jawline through a heavy drunken haze, and a goofy, utterly devoted smile spread across her flushed face.
"My husband," she slurred proudly. Then she frowned, correcting herself. "No. My ex-husband."
Suddenly, the rejection from the night before came crashing back into her alcohol-soaked brain. Her smile shattered.
"Why are you my ex-husband?" Chloe whined, her hands coming up to fiercely grip the lapels of Nathan's coat. "Nathan, I really, really like you. Please don't leave me."
She buried her face into his chest, sobbing softly, her fingers knotting into his clothes like a lifeline.
Alex, finally putting the pieces together, blanched. He quickly held his hands up in surrender, muttered an awkward apology, and practically sprinted down the block to wait for his car elsewhere.
Nathan didn't even watch him go. He scooped Chloe up, folded her into the passenger seat of the Bentley, and slammed the door.
As soon as he slid behind the wheel, she immediately slumped sideways, throwing herself across the console and burying her face into his neck. Her hands wandered restlessly, sliding under his coat to eagerly map the hard planes of his chest.
Nathan’s breath hitched. He instantly clamped his large hands over her wrists, pinning them firmly to his chest. "Chloe. Don't move."
"Nathan, don't be mad at me," she pleaded, her breath hot and sweet against his jaw. "I don't think you're old. I really don't. I've been thinking about it all day, and I finally figured it out. Even if you lost your hair, and got a beer belly, and turned into someone exactly like Alex... I would still be absolutely obsessed with you."
Nathan froze, his heart executing a violent, agonizing stutter.
"I'm not shallow," she whispered, her beautiful, glassy eyes looking up at him with pitiful desperation. "I care about more than just your pretty face. I can feel how much you love me. I can feel it in my bones, Nathan!"
"I never thought you were shallow," Nathan rasped, his voice rough as sandpaper. He carefully released her wrists, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, threading his fingers deep into her hair. "I just know I'm not good enough for you anymore."
"You are good. You're so damn good. There is no one better than you in the entire world," Chloe fiercely insisted. She pulled her hands free and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, dragging him closer. "You're the absolute best. No one compares to you. No one."
She chanted the words over and over, pressing clumsy, desperate kisses against his jaw, until the alcohol finally dragged her under. She went entirely limp, falling deeply asleep against his chest.
The Bentley was suffocatingly silent.
Nathan lowered his eyes, staring down at the woman completely surrendered in his arms.
Her skin was flushed and rosy from the cold and the wine. In the dim light of the dashboard, she looked exactly like a dark fairy tale—so intensely beautiful, so vivid, and so utterly untouched by the horrors of the last two decades. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to drag her into his lap and consume her.
Nathan’s hand trembled as he raised it. He traced the pad of his thumb delicately across her full, parted lips.
He remembered exactly how it felt to devour that mouth. He remembered exactly how she tasted, how she shattered for him, and God, he was so hungry he felt like he was starving to death.
He knew his iron-clad defenses were on the verge of complete, catastrophic collapse.
He had intentionally let her believe he had a wife just to build a reinforced wall between them, desperately trying to stop her from throwing herself back into his fire.
But with her in his arms, smelling like wine and begging him not to leave her, his control was fraying down to a single, snapping thread. He just wanted to surrender. He wanted to lock the car doors, take her home, and ruin them both.
But he couldn't. He truly, utterly couldn't.
His life was the bleak, dying light of the evening sun—cold, scarred, and fading into darkness. But she was the blazing, magnificent sun at high noon. If he pulled her into his gravity, he would only drag her into the dark.
The next morning, Chloe woke up in her own bed.
Her head was throbbing with a dull hangover, but her memory of the previous night was terrifyingly, crystal clear.
Despite the alcohol, her mind was razor-sharp. She remembered throwing herself at him. She remembered begging him. She remembered the way his breathing had fractured, the desperate grip of his hands on her wrists, and the agonizing hunger burning in his dark eyes before she passed out.
Chloe sat up, pulling the blanket to her chest, a slow, dangerous realization dawning on her.
Nathan kept insisting they shouldn't get back together. He kept pushing her away with cold logic. But his physical reactions—his uncontrollable jealousy, his trembling hands, the raw devastation in his voice—screamed that he was absolutely terrified of letting her go.
He was hanging on by a thread. He was violently struggling against his own desires.
Chloe’s eyes narrowed.
If I’m completely willing to give him everything he wants, why is he still fighting me?
She didn't know exactly what demons were torturing him, but she suddenly knew one thing with absolute certainty:
If she pushed him just a little bit harder, Nathan Archer was going to completely break.