The Look of Love (The Sullivans #1)(41)

Chase’s heart broke for the little girl inside of Chloe that longed for those hugs. He wanted to make up for each and every one of those hugs she hadn’t gotten, starting now.

“When I met Dean I was young and stupid and desperately looking for that warmth.” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “Turns out I had awful instincts, at least I did when I wanted something so badly to be true that wasn’t.” She shrugged as if she was trying to make it all less of a big deal. “He was nice at first. And I was so happy to finally feel like I had somebody. That I was part of a team. But, we weren’t really a team. After a few years, Dean started to control me, what I did, who I saw. He liked keeping me as a pretty possession. Like his fancy house and his shiny car. I was just one more pretty thing to bring out from the locked cabinet to show off to people.”

Chase wanted to say a thousand different things to Chloe about how stupid her ex had been. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault for believing he was a better, kinder man than he actually was. He wanted to rage at the unfairness that her ex had turned on her.

But he didn’t want to do or say anything that would make her stop talking to him. So he forced himself to swallow it all and simply ask. “When did you decide to leave?”

“One day I was sitting at the country club with a bunch of his friends’ wives that I really didn’t have anything in common with, and I realized I’d been entirely swallowed up by him. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wasn’t interested in listening.” She swallowed hard. “That was the first time he scared me.”

Chase worked to keep his muscles from tensing with rage beneath her. “What did he do?”

“Nothing physical. But he’d started drinking more and more and it was like he wasn’t listening to anything I’d said. When I woke up the next morning, all of my quilting stuff was gone. My fabric. My machines. Everything.”

This time Chase couldn’t stop himself from saying, “What an ass**le.”

Her mouth was tight as she said, “A few weeks later, after I finally accepted what the rest of my empty life was going to look like with a man who didn’t actually love me, I filed for divorce and I moved to Lake County.”

“Somehow you must have known it wasn’t safe for you to stay in the city.”

She shook her head, saying, “No,” then paused, frowning. “Maybe. Maybe that’s why I felt like I had to leave.” Her frown deepened. “I love San Francisco,” she told him, “but I felt like I needed to start fresh. I didn’t want his money, I just wanted my freedom back. Freedom to work on my quilts. Freedom to choose my own friends. Even the freedom to wear ratty jeans or shoes that don’t have a designer name on them. My apartment never really felt like home, though, even though I wanted it to. Even though I needed it to.” She blew out a breath. “But that was okay. I told myself I could eventually make it home, because I thought filing for divorce, leaving him, and moving away had worked. I didn’t hear from him for months, so I thought he’d accepted the divorce.” She moved her hand up to her cheek and touched the fading bruise. “Evidently, he hadn’t.”

“What happened the night I found you?” Chase could hardly get the words out between clenched teeth.

Her eyes darkened. “I was getting ready to paint my living room when I heard someone at the door.” He could feel the shock of that memory radiating from her tight muscles. “Dean was standing there and I was so surprised to see him I let him in without thinking, without even once second guessing that I wasn’t safe with him. But then I realized he was drunk. I don’t know how I could have forgotten how much he was drinking toward the end, but I had. I don’t know, maybe I made myself forget things I didn’t like remembering.”

“That’s natural, sweetheart.”

But it was like she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t do anything but relive what had happened with her ex-husband.

“He said, ‘You’re not getting away from me. You’re mine.’ I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to come to my new town, to stand in the middle of my apartment and tell me that. I didn’t think not to be angry, not to say that I wasn’t his. I told him to go away, that we’d talk later when he wasn’t drunk.”

Chase knew what came next. “Nothing worse for a drunk than hearing that he’s a drunk.”

She nodded. “He told me to shut up and said that he’d made the mistake of letting me get away with too much when we were married and that this time he wouldn’t.”

Chase echoed the words, “This time?”

She closed her eyes. “His exact words were, ‘You’re coming home with me right now. And this time you’ll do what I tell you to do.’”

Chase barely bit back a string of curses as she continued, saying, “He’d never been like that before, never just outright scared me. But I didn’t want to back down, didn’t want him to think he could control me anymore. So I told him I was already home. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere with him and that I wanted him to leave. Now.” Her words hollowed out even more than they already were. “He lost it and grabbed my hair and when I pulled away, he punched me.”

She lifted her hand to her cheek, but he was already there with his, cradling her soft skin, wishing like hell that she’d never had to be hurt. Knowing he never wanted her to be hurt again.