Pulling Chloe (Hard Love Book 3) by Veronica Starling

Author:Veronica Starling [Starling, Veronica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

“Tell me about your past,” Gunter said quietly.

Chloe lay naked in his arms, listening to the rain outside. It was a dark day. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

She was quiet for a while. “Because you’ll look at me differently.”

“No I won’t.”

She eyed him untrustingly. “What do you want to know?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Where’d you grow up? What are your parents like? What do they do for a living? How’d you end up here? That kind of thing.”

Chloe’s resentful and uncomfortable expression made Gunter second-guess having asked her.

“Max hasn’t told you anything?”

Gunter shook his head.

“I’m surprised.”

“I mean he’s told me sex stuff about you two. And he told me about Jane.” Gunter suddenly remembered Max’s warning not to ask Chloe about the baby. But he’d already said it. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Chloe sat up, flushed. “It was a while ago. Thank you.”

“That must have been hard. I can’t even imagine.”

“I don’t know why you brought it up then,” she said sharply.

Gunter’s face burned. “I’m sorry.”

Chloe softened and sighed. She lay back against him. “It’s alright.”

“Will you tell me?”

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking.”

“Why? How bad was it?”

Chloe told him everything—about her insane father who killed himself, her horribly abusive mother who died of liver failure, and her pedophile uncle who traumatized her for years. She talked about running away and being forced into prostitution. She talked about shooting her tyrant pimp in the face and how’d she’d become a stripper and finished school. She told Gunter the story of their wedding trip to the Virgin Islands during a hurricane—more than just a hurricane for them. She told him hesitantly about trying to kill herself then told him about her ex-psychiatrist and losing her baby.

“It wasn’t until I left San Francisco that I’ve felt any sort of peace. I don’t ever want to go back. Max saved me from a lifetime of misery.”

“But you were doing okay when you met him, weren’t you? Ready to start a regular job and stuff?”

“I was fooling myself to think I would be happy doing that. I would have self-destructed. I mean I self-destructed anyway, but it was under Max’s care if that makes sense. Without him I don’t know if I would have come through it. I don’t think so. I know it sounds like I’m giving him all the credit. I definitely worked through problems that only I could have worked through. He couldn’t help me with that part, that internal part, or he would have, I’m sure.

“Physically, though, he did actually save me. If he hadn’t found me in St. Thomas, I would have died. I’m certain of that. And if he hadn’t arrived in time when Dr. Lasher did what he did, I think I would have died then, too. I think Dr. Lasher would have killed me. There was a craziness in his eyes. You know?

“It’s distinctive, that craziness. Like emptiness and rage and spite all at once. Like sickness, too. Or urges that are sick.

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