Taking Chloe by Veronica Starling

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

Chapter Fourteen

Flights were running again. They flew home. Nothing came of Terrence. Max had gotten away with murder because of the hurricane. Lena told no one. Chloe didn’t bring it up again. The gods had spoken, decreed that Terrence should die and that Max should walk away a free man. It wasn’t freeing. It was a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. He did his best to ignore it, but it was never really gone.

He paid movers to move Chloe’s things in. She left the furniture behind. It was all shitty anyway. And, of course, Max’s house was already neatly appointed.

“Where should I put my books? Your bookshelves are all full.”

Max bought Chloe a bookshelf. They were having a glass of wine while she organized her books. It had been nearly two weeks since that last night on the island. They hadn’t had sex since then. That was partly because they were waiting for test results—they’d since admitted that having sex right away was not wise in that regard—and partly because he respected her space. The test results came back clean over a week ago. But Chloe was content. Max didn’t want to push her or do anything to upset her. Distractions were becoming less and less effective, however. He was beyond desperate.

Max shook himself out of those dangerous thoughts and picked up an old photo album. Chloe stopped what she was doing, watching him open it to look. Her eyes were guarded, her mouth on the rim of her wine glass.

“This your dad?”

She nodded. It was an old picture, Chloe as a child sitting in her father’s lap. They both had huge smiles. She was a beautiful child. Her father was where she’d gotten her red hair, it seemed. His eyes were bright blue, though, unlike Chloe’s deep green ones.

“He was quite striking,” Max observed carefully.

She nodded again. He turned the page. The black-haired woman in the photo wasn’t smiling. He could see in her bone structure that it was Chloe’s mother. She was very pretty. There were those green eyes. The woman sat at a table, looking over the rims of her glasses, holding a newspaper. There was a coffee mug on the table, with a liquor bottle next to it.

“You look like her.”

“I know.”

Max imagined them as a family now that he could picture them. It would have been one of those families that people stop to look at because they’re so beautiful.

He turned the page. A man sat next to her mother on a green couch. They were smiling. Their smiles were the same. They had the same black hair. Max looked at Chloe. She was looking at the picture. Max didn’t say anything. He turned the page.

Chloe, older, was looking at the camera in this one. She was skinny as a twig; her beautiful eyes were sunken and desolate. He turned the page. It was another similar picture of Chloe, this time with a man’s bare foot touching her leg. The man holding the camera.

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