Addicted (Ethan Frost #2)(75)

“I tried. You have no idea how many times in the last three weeks I tried to tell you, Chloe. And then you instituted that no discussion policy and I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could catch a break.”

I think back to that night, to the way he kept trying to say something over and over again. To the way I kept shutting him down. The memory makes me sick, especially when it registers that I might have been able to stop this. If only I’d listened. If only I hadn’t tried to hide.

Things get a little gray and fuzzy around the edges and for a moment, just a moment, I think I might pass out. But then reason comes to the rescue. Reason and rage and a sad kind of righteousness as his words finally sink in. “You really thought you wouldn’t have to tell me? That I wouldn’t find out? Ever?” I demand incredulously.

“No, of course not. You’re too smart not to have found out everything eventually—even without my mother’s interference.”

“Then why?”

“I wanted to fix it. I wanted to right the wrong, fix the mistake. I thought if I did it right, no one would have to know about your past, about what happened to you. But I could still make sure that Brandon never had the chance to hurt another girl or abuse his power ever again.

“Don’t you see? I can’t make it better for you, Chloe. There’s nothing I can do to undo the terrible, disgusting things that happened to you. But I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to figure out how to get you some kind of justice. I’ve hired private detectives to try and pick up the trail, to see if there was a witness to what happened that night. Or some other night, with some other girl. Someone who hasn’t signed an NDA. Someone whose testimony won’t put her in contempt of court.

“I’ve gone out of my way to sabotage Brandon’s chances of running for office. That’s why my mother showed up. And that’s why you were on the covers of those magazines yesterday. She’s fighting back, fighting dirty—the only way she knows how. She’s bent on destroying you one way or another and it’s my fault. I tried to protect you, tried to make things better for you and all I ended up doing was making them worse.

“I just spent the entire day with a team of private detectives, combing through evidence I can use to make Brandon step down from the race. And I’m still looking. I’m still determined to make him pay for what he did to you. If I could do that, if I could make him suffer as you did, I was hoping you’d be able to forgive my part in what happened to you.”

He stops then, his breathing coming in uneven pants as he waits for me to speak. As he waits for me to tell him that I understand what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. But the truth is, I don’t understand. I never asked him to avenge me, never asked him to do anything but love me. To let me love him.

And yet, here we are. Bruised and bloody and broken, our relationship shot to hell and with no one to blame but ourselves. Me for instituting that ridiculous no talking about the past policy and him for actually listening to it when he had a secret this big, this powerful, this formidable.

Because I can’t not do it, I reach for Ethan’s hand, stroke my thumb over the palm before I start to talk. “I can’t do this anymore.”

For the first time Ethan looks panicked. “Don’t say that.”

“I have to say it.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.” I reach inside me, looking for the rage that was there just a few short minutes ago. I can’t find it. I can’t find anything but the hurt and the sorrow that well up from deep inside me, that fill up every crevice of space inside of me. “I love you. And I know that you love me. But sometimes that isn’t enough. This thing we have between us, this addiction fed by the drama of the past and the need of the present … it’s destroying us.”

“No.” Ethan shakes his head, his hand grasping at mine like it’s a lifeline. Like he’s drowning and it’s the only thing keeping him afloat. “What we have is the only good thing in my life.”

“Then why do you keep screwing it up?” The anger’s back as readily as it had left. “Why do you keep pushing me away? Again and again and again? Why do you keep making me have to leave you?”

“I don’t mean to.”

“That’s not good enough. I trust you. After everything that I’ve found out, after everything that’s happened, I still find a way to trust you. And every time, you betray that trust. Every time you find a way not to trust me.”

“I do trust you! Chloe, I trust you with my life.”

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But you sure as hell don’t trust me with your heart.”

“How can you say that? I’d do anything for you. I know I’ve made mistakes. I know I haven’t told you things you needed to know—”

“It’s not that you haven’t told me that bothers me at this point, Ethan. It’s why you haven’t told me. And why we keep doing this same thing again and again and again?

“When you first found out about Brandon and me, your first instinct was to break up with me.”

“You were so vulnerable. I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

“And when I told you I couldn’t live with the lies, you let me walk away. You left me to suffer alone for two weeks. And if I hadn’t made a move toward you outside that restaurant, we’d probably be alone still.”