Chapter 14 Chloe Had No Family Left
She wanted to lash out at him.
She wanted to scream and demand an explanation for why taking a single, stupid private car to save time meant returning home to find him married to someone else, raising another woman’s son.
She wanted to confront him right there in the restaurant. How can a married man still have female colleagues fawning over him and cooking him ribs?
But what right did she have to ask?
The realization only made her angrier.
He had always been like this. Even when he was young, Nathan had been quiet, handsome, and completely oblivious to the fact that he drew women like a magnet. Female classmates, professors, colleagues… even the florist on their old street used to slip him free unsold bouquets at closing time.
He never seemed to realize how popular he was.
Now he was middle-aged, married to someone else, and still doing it. It was infuriating.
“I’m tired. I want to go back.” Chloe stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor.
Nathan paused, looking up at her in surprise. “Why so suddenly? The brisket hasn’t even arrived yet.”
He knew her perfectly well. The Chloe he remembered would never let anything ruin her mood for barbecue.
“I lost my appetite. I don’t want to eat anymore.” In a foul, burning mood, Chloe grabbed her shopping bags from the floor and marched toward the exit without looking back.
I’m not angry, she told herself as she power-walked through the mall. What right do I have to be? He’s flirting with another woman—his current wife is the one who should be upset. What does it have to do with me? I’m just his legally deceased ex.
Behind her, Nathan quickly tapped his phone to the table scanner to pay the bill and hurried after her, catching the tail end of her bitter muttering.
“Chloe. Slow down.”
He closed the distance effortlessly, reaching out and grabbing her arm.
The mall was too crowded. He was terrified of losing her in the sea of people, terrified that if she slipped out of his sight, she might disappear for another twenty-three years.
Chloe flinched and tried to pull away, glancing around guiltily. “Let go of me! What if your wife’s friends see us? It’ll be hard to explain!”
Shit.
Why did she feel so intensely guilty?
This man had been her husband just two days ago. Just last night, they had talked on the phone for an hour, and he had murmured into the receiver about how much he wanted her home.
And now?
Forget kissing him—even him holding her arm in public felt like she was a dirty, shameful secret.
Chloe felt an overwhelming, suffocating sense of injustice.
She had been treated so unfairly. What had she done wrong? Why had her entire life been violently stolen from her, leaving her with absolutely nothing?
Nathan didn’t let go. His grip on her arm tightened slightly as he stared down at her in silence.
He had such beautiful, dark, damp eyes.
Even back then, whenever he was quiet, pressing his lips together and just watching her, he always looked so profoundly sad that it felt like he might cry at any moment. Chloe used to joke that he had “crying eyes,” making it impossible for her to stay mad at him for more than five minutes.
Now, even older and shielded behind refined gold-rimmed glasses, those eyes hadn’t changed. Time had only deepened the heavy, unspoken sorrow inside them.
But Chloe was hurting too.
For a few hours, the adrenaline of shopping had masked the pain. But now, standing here with a stranger’s credit card in her pocket and a man she couldn’t touch holding her arm, the misery came crashing back down. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry until she was empty.
But he wasn’t her husband anymore. She had no right to throw a tantrum and demand comfort. He didn’t owe her his endless indulgence anymore.
He had taken the morning off, accompanied her shopping, and paid for everything. She should be grateful.
Yet her heart felt as though it were being crushed in a vice.
“Chloe, don’t wander off.” Nathan gently tugged her arm, stepping closer. His voice was hushed, almost pleading. “If you want to go home, the exit is this way.”
Hearing that soft, painfully familiar tone, the sharp edges of Chloe’s irritation melted into pure exhaustion.
She lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I was being difficult. I’m just… I’m really tired. Don’t overthink it.”
“It’s fine.” Nathan smiled faintly, letting the outburst slide exactly as he always used to. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you want to buy?”
“No.” Chloe shook her head.
The thought of it made her feel sick. All she wanted was to go home. She wanted the only place left in the world that offered her a shred of real security.
She missed her parents.
Beside the boy Nathan used to be, her parents were the only people who had loved her unconditionally.
Mom. Dad. Where are you? Why can’t I find you?
Chloe fought back the urge to cry right there in the mall.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to find them. After Nathan had left her at the old apartment the night before, she had dug out her dead phone, plugged it in, and dialed every number in her contacts.
Only one old high school friend had picked up. But she knew nothing about her parents.
The friend had said that for the first few years after she vanished, people used to visit her parents at Christmas. But later, the old house was sold and demolished to make way for townhouses, and Alvin and Carol Frost had simply moved away, disappearing without a trace.
Chloe sighed heavily and glanced sideways at Nathan. A dark knot of doubt twisted in her stomach.
Could he really not know where they were?
Impossible.
Given his character, it was absolutely impossible that he had just casually lost touch with her parents after she vanished.
Was he hiding something from her?
Chloe kept her head down, her fingers gripping the shopping bags so tightly her knuckles turned white, as a terrible dread began to pool in her stomach.
Nathan called the driver to bring the Bentley around to the nearest exit.
The ride back was silent.
When they arrived at the apartment, Nathan carried her bags inside. He checked her heating, set up her new laptop, renewed the disconnected cable service, and even tuned the television to a channel playing reruns of her old favourite shows.
The more considerate and careful he was, the more certain Chloe became that he was compensating for something.
Finally, Nathan packed up his briefcase, walked to the door, and reached for his shoes to leave.
Chloe stood a few feet behind him.
“Nathan,” she said, her voice dropping very low. “Where are my parents?”
Nathan froze, his hand hovering over his shoe.
Slowly, he straightened up and turned around.
Chloe was standing perfectly still. Her expression was dead serious, her gaze locked onto his with an unblinking intensity. Her entire body was taut, braced for a blow, ready to expose him the second he tried to lie to her again.
A deep, painful crease appeared between Nathan’s brows.
He knew he shouldn’t hide it from her. But she had only just woken up in this brutal, alien world. He couldn’t bear to deliver the final, devastating blow so soon. He had desperately hoped to buy her just a few days of peace, thinking that if she settled in first, it might somehow lessen the impact.
But looking at her now, he knew it was over.
This woman had always been far too perceptive when it mattered.
“They…” Nathan swallowed hard. He looked at her, his dark eyes brimming with absolute sorrow. “They passed away.”
The room went completely silent.
The world turned blindingly white before Chloe’s eyes.
The floor seemed to drop out from beneath her. She staggered backward, her hand blindly shooting out to grip the back of the sofa, her fingers digging into the fabric just to keep herself from collapsing.
“When?” she choked out. Her jaw trembled violently.
“Your mother passed away fifteen years ago,” Nathan said softly, his voice thick with suppressed emotion. “Your father passed the year before last.”
Alvin and Carol had been wonderful people. They had treated him like their own son when his own mother couldn’t understand him. Their deaths had hollowed him out, severing the very last threads connecting him to the life he had shared with Chloe.
Tears finally spilled over Chloe’s lashes, hot and fast. “How did they die?”
“Illness.”
Her voice cracked, growing terribly faint. “Did they… did they suffer at the end?”
“It was fast,” Nathan said quickly, desperate to offer her any comfort he could. “They didn’t suffer long. And they never stopped thinking of you.”
“And the funerals?” she whispered.
“I handled everything. Both of them. They were buried with dignity. You don’t have to worry.”
Nathan took a step toward her. He wanted to catch her. He wanted to pull this shattered, trembling woman into his arms and hold her together.
But Chloe flinched back, bowing her head to hide her face from him.
“Thank you, Nathan,” she whispered.
She turned around, her shoulders shaking, and walked slowly down the hall into the bedroom.
Click.
She locked the door.
As if a single piece of wood could stop her from throwing herself against his chest and screaming her grief into his shirt.
Alone in the dark, Chloe bit down hard on her own finger to muffle her sobs, sliding down the door until she hit the floor.
There was no one left in the world to hold her.
She had no family left. Not a single one.
She was entirely, completely alone.
What do I do now? she thought, the silence of the empty house pressing in on her. Who is supposed to tell me what to do now?