Chapter 12 - WHAT CHLOE WAS ACTUALLY AFRAID TO LOSE
Chloe asked Daniel to meet without their parents.
Their lawyers approved a private conversation in a neutral office because no safety issue existed between them.
Chloe arrived without makeup.
Daniel noticed because he had almost never seen her that way outside a bedroom.
“My father is being removed as CEO.”
Daniel said nothing.
“The lender wants a restructuring officer.”
“That’s probably necessary.”
“You sound like Russell.”
“He’s usually right.”
Chloe almost smiled.
Then she looked toward the window.
“My parents might have to sell the Manhattan apartment.”
Daniel waited.
“And the Palm Beach house.”
Still he waited.
Chloe finally became irritated.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“That I’ll fix it?”
Her eyes filled.
There it was.
Not because Chloe had consciously arrived to ask for money.
Because somewhere inside her, she still believed catastrophe was the moment someone stronger stepped in.
“My whole life,” she said, “my mother told me there are mistakes rich people survive and mistakes everyone else pays for.”
Daniel thought of Eleanor on the floor.
“Your mother taught you the wrong lesson.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Chloe looked at him.
Daniel continued.
“You thought the problem at our wedding was that the server turned out to be my grandmother.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
“At first.”
“And now?”
“Now I know I would’ve let my mother do that to someone whose grandson couldn’t ruin us.”
It was the first thing she had said that sounded like accountability rather than strategy.
Daniel felt no triumph.
Only grief.
Chloe wiped beneath one eye.
“I loved you.”
“I know.”
“I still do.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t using you the way you think.”
“That’s the problem.”
She frowned.
“You loved me and still lied.”
Chloe looked down.
Daniel leaned forward.
“Your father was protecting his company. Your mother was protecting status. You were protecting them.”
“What were you protecting?”
The question surprised him.
He answered anyway.
May you like
“The version of my life where I never had to admit I chose badly.”
For the first time since the wedding, neither of them had anywhere to hide.
