Thursday, September 12th, 4:29 pm

Chloe stood in front of a mirror dressed in a green silk robe that fell just above her knees. It was loosely cinched around her waist, but the opening of the lapels fell low enough where I could see the swell of her inner breasts. She looked up through damp hair, staring at my reflection as I shut the door.

It was the first time we’d been alone together since that night I held her. I’d brushed hair from her face and felt the tears in her eyes. Now it felt like business as usual—her with her resting bitch face as she waited for me to say something.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

Not having much to work with, I grasped for anything to keep things from getting more awkward than they already were. “Have you napped at all?”

Have you napped at all? What kind of question was that?

Based on the side-eye I was getting, she thought the same thing.

“A little. Fell asleep in that hot tub. Can’t tell you how nice that was after being in the woods for so long.”

“Yeah, I imagine,” I said, lost in the sudden vision of Chloe slipping into a hot tub, wearing nothing as she extended her long, toned legs to step in before lowering herself into the bubbling water.

Chloe set down a brush and turned away from the mirror. The edges of the robe fluttered with every movement, showing tantalizing glimpses of thigh. “What do you want to talk about?”

Here goes nothing…

“You leaving.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Chloe said, turning her back to me and picking up the brush again as if we were done.

“Yeah,” I said. “There is.”

“Sorry, Marcus,” Chloe said unfazed. “You don’t get everything you want.”

I didn’t fucking deserve that.

“Why are you being like this!? Did I do something!?”

Chloe sighed. “It’s not you. It’s me.”

The utter uselessness of that statement blew my mind.

“What the fuck does that mean!?”

Chloe whirled on me. “It means I slept with my charge. It’s unprofessional, and I can’t do my job properly.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, which did a lovely job of showing off a healthy amount of cleavage. She was calculating enough that I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d done it on purpose to throw me off.

I wasn’t falling for it.

“What do you mean? Just because I saw you naked, you can’t watch my back anymore?”

“Basically, yes,” Chloe said.

Chloe was smart and disciplined. There had to be a better reason than this, so I did my best to calm down and work through the logic.

“Erin juggles my schedule, makes sure I’m fed, fends off the crazies, and gives me a phone whenever mine breaks or gets lost. Somehow we manage to find time to fuck like rabbits, and my calender is pristine. Same with Helen.”

“I’m not Helen or Erin,” Chloe said, “and their jobs are different.”

“Easier?”

“Different,” Chloe repeated. “I have to pay attention to a level of detail that would drive you insane, Marcus. The type of clothes people wear, or if there’s a plausible amount of dirt on some guy’s shoes… it takes all my concentration when I’m on the job.”

I thought about that… I mean, really thought about that. What would it be like to have to pay attention to every little detail constantly? I couldn’t tell you how many people we interacted with between Astrid’s house and boarding the plane. I’d bet anything that Chloe could tell me, though. What kind of Holmesian brain was needed to store all that information, and how did someone who could do that not go insane?

Chloe continued, “If I’m on the job, I have to be focused. I’ve already screwed up, more than—”

“When?” I asked, cutting her off.

“The coffee shop. When Cartwright pulled a gun on you.”

“You were dealing with my brother,” I waved her off.

“Doesn’t matter. I should have gone with you or sent John.”

“You’re not omniscient.”

“I have to be pretty cl—”

“What was the other time?” I asked.

Chloe sighed. “Vegas.”

“That’s not on you,” I said. “I had plenty of protection, and you were on the other side of town with the girls.”

“I’m not paid to protect the girls,” Chloe said. “I’m paid to—”

“You’re paid to protect who I say you’re paid to protect!” I was getting heated again.

“I can’t protect anybody if I’m admiring your ass at the wrong moment!” Chloe matched my venom with her own.

“So hire more Johns!” I barked.

“Then what’s the point of me being there!?” Chloe snarled. It was some of the most anger I’d ever seen from her.

I took two steps toward her. “Because you’ve saved my life, you idiot!”

Chloe didn’t have an immediate response, so I pushed.

I raised a hand and ticked off one finger. “You showed up at that warehouse and gunned down a hundred guys!”

“It was eigh—”

“Whatever! You pulled my ass out of the fire!”

I took another step and ticked off another finger.”And do you think I’d be standing here now if I hadn’t had you with me in the forest? It might have been me trapped instead of Astrid… or worse. You think I could have built that shelter? Or taken on all those mercenaries at the cabin?”

“You had Henry,” Chloe said.

I waved my hand through the air as if I were trying to backhand her words. “Oh fuck off! I wouldn’t have made it long enough for Henry to get there, and it could have easily been a blood bath if Tanaka had his entire force. Plus, you saved me on the chopper!”

I took another step toward her. “Who hurt you, Chloe? What happened to make you see yourself like this? I’m fucking lucky to have you!”

Something I said must have struck a nerve. Chloe didn’t say anything. For a second, I thought she might hit me.

Instead, she stiffened and looked off into the middle distance, chewing on her bottom lip.

“I don’t want you to go, Chloe,” I said, pleadingly. “I really like you, and I swear to God, if you get a replacement, I will ditch him at every opportunity.”

That got a snort from her. She cut her eyes at me and gave me a look like I was an idiot.

“We can’t continue this if I stay,” she said.

“Continue what?” I was already scared of the answer.

“Sleeping together.”

Yeah. That’s what I was afraid it would come to.

If I agreed, and she stayed, I could see her every day.

And I’d be haunted by the memory of what it was like to see her undress in front of me, while never experiencing it again. I could never feel the ripple of her muscles under my fingertips while making love. I would never get to taste her again.

That brought up another question.

“What happens if I say no?”

She shrugged. “Then I stop being your bodyguard.”

“Then what?”

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked. Her arms tightened slightly in front of her, almost like she knew what I was about to ask and was drawing into her shell a little more.

I couldn’t help myself.

“You stop being my bodyguard. Then what happens? Do we still keep doing what we’re doing?”

“No,” she said. That was it—no further explanation.

I didn’t have the fucking words.

I held up my palms like I was out of options. “So, that’s it then. You feel bad, and you decide you’re out? That’s it?”

This couldn’t be my fault, could it? Chloe would have told me if I did something wrong, if she felt nothing for me, or if I was a bad lay. It’s not like she shied away from hurting anyone’s feelings, right?

“Are you sure this has nothing to do with me?” I asked. “Chloe, I really like you, and I like what we did out there. It meant a lot to me, but if it didn’t mean anything to you or you didn’t feel anything… then just… let me know.”

“Fuck, Marcus,” Chloe said. She turned and walked to one of the two airplane windows nearest her. “You’re a moron sometimes. You know that, right?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I had a good time with you, and you made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a while. That’s the problem… if there isn’t a clean break, then I don’t think I can trust myself to be an objective security asset.”

“But you can’t stay with me even if you’re no longer my bodyguard?”

Chloe shook her head. “I would go to work for someone else. Marcus, do you have any idea how many hours I spend at my job?”

I genuinely didn’t. “A lot?”

“Most of my waking hours are spent doing this. I don’t have much time to devote to anything other than the job.”

“You’re making that choice, though.” I pointed out.

“And I enjoy what I do. It’s fulfilling. I’m sorry, Marcus, but everything else is second.”

I… didn’t know what to say to that.

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure why this was upsetting me so badly. It wasn’t like I was asking Chloe for a relationship. Sure, I was fond of her, but did I love her?

Did I even know the difference between desire and love anymore? It was getting difficult to distinguish the two. Was I just another entitled asshole who burned through women like hours in a day? Maybe. But that didn’t explain why the thought of someone else touching her—warming her at night while I faded into memory—made my throat close.

“So, you’re just done, then?”

She raised her hands, palms up. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I can’t keep doing this, and you do. Since we can’t make that work, we should part ways.”

Wait… she wasn’t telling me that her leaving was inevitable. She was saying that we were done sleeping together. That didn’t mean she was out of my life, though.

“What if we can make it work?”

Chloe turned to face me and leaned against the wall, arms still crossing her chest. “How?”

“We break off whatever we had in the forest, and you keep just being my bodyguard.”

Chloe arched an eyebrow. “You think you can do that?”

“It’ll suck,” I admitted, “but I think I can manage.”

The silence was eerie as we stared at each other. Her golden brown eyes daring me to look down at her cleavage as she stared directly into my eyes. I took the challenge and met her gaze without looking away—or down.

Finally, she said, “If you think you can manage, so can I.”

“So, you’ll stay?”

She closed her eyes and nodded once. “I’ll stay.”.

Relief should have followed. It didn’t.

A part of me was sad that this conversation wouldn’t end in a kiss… or with me slipping that robe off her shoulders. Right now, I needed that. I needed her.

There was still so much of Chloe I hadn’t unlocked—parts of her I hadn’t uncovered, hadn’t earned. And the idea that I might never get that chance made my stomach twist.

You’d think I would’ve pulled Erin into a room by now. But between the cold in the forest and the ache of this conversation, I hadn’t been in the mood.

Funny how pain had a way of lighting old fires.

I might have to wake Erin after all.

“One thing,” Chloe said, taking a couple of steps closer. Her head dipped slightly as she looked at me with a serious expression, chewing on the inside of her cheek in thought. “Does Erin know?”

“About us?”

“Yeah.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Good,” Chloe said. “It stays that way.”

“Why just Erin?” I asked.

Chloe snorted. “If you were going to tell anyone, it’d be Helen or Erin. More likely Erin since she’s here. Why?” she cocked her head as she looked at me, “Did you tell someone else?”

“Astrid knows.”

Chloe looked at me in disapproval.

“She figured it out on her own!” I said, raising my hands defensively.

The accusatory expression faded. “Yeah… I suspected she figured it out,” Chloe muttered and shrugged. “Eh… if it gets out, it gets out. Just don’t go spreading it around. Deal?”

I glanced down at her cleavage when she looked at the floor, giving myself a moment to mourn. When she looked back up at me, I was being a good boy again.

God, I would miss that body.

“Deal,” I said.

Our eyes held—too long.

Then she looked away. That was new.

She blinked first.

Maybe this wasn’t as easy for her as she wanted me to believe.

***

They say the best negotiations leave both sides a little unhappy.

This one felt like a win, but it didn’t feel good.

I had hoped we could pick up right where we left off in the forest, but if I had to choose between having Chloe in my life without the intimacy and not having her at all, I’d gladly choose the former.