Playing For Her Heart - Megan Erickson Page 0,43

her mouth and her ass and her ridiculously perfect tits.

Damn her.

Her determination not to let Sydney down was probably what did him in. His daughter’s own mother didn’t have a desire to stick around, but Chloe had been adamant that she would be there for Sydney. For his baby girl.

He stood up, threw his coffee cup away, and jogged out of the door. He turned the corner of the coffee shop and kept going down the alley on the way to the parking lot.

He caught a glimpse of Chloe’s back ahead of him as she disappeared behind the building. He ran harder, and his shoes pounded the pavement as he rounded the corner. Chloe was there, walking toward her car. She didn’t have a chance to look up before he grabbed her arm, spinning her around and backing her up against the brick wall of the coffee shop.

“Chloe,” he said, crowding her with his body. Her eyes were huge, tear tracks on her cheeks. He cupped her face, brushing away the wetness with his thumb. “I do care, and that’s exactly why I can’t let you walk away from me. Not after dropping that on me.”

“Please—”

He shook his head. “Tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help or—”

“No, I can handle it, I—”

“Chloe, I hate to break it to you, but no. I don’t think you can handle whatever this is because, frankly, you don’t seem to be doing such a good job at it.”

She scowled a little at him, and he liked it, that he’d sparked some fire in her to override her sadness.

“What did you mean when you said you let people down?”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, gaze locked on his. Her eyes skittered away, resting on a spot over his shoulder, before they came back to his face. “It should have been me.”

He furrowed his brow. “What should have been you?”

“In the car with Ethan. Instead of Samantha. Samantha was the one everyone loved. She was charming and beautiful. She had lots of friends. She would have been an amazing mother.”

“Chloe, don’t say that—”

“If it had been me who died, Samantha would have been able to keep the family together. She was strong like that. She would have been able to help my parents through their grief and she would have been able to prevent Ethan from turning into a depressed recluse.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “She would have been able to handle all of this. And I can’t. Chloe can’t. And I know it’s creepy to talk about myself in the third person, but I’m doing it anyway.”

He smiled a little at that. Her heart was huge, his Chloe. He’d seen it firsthand in the way she dealt with her brother and in the way she befriended his daughter. But there wasn’t room for him, he now saw. Which made him want to put his fist through the wall beside her head.

Most of all, though, he saw she was trying to fit everyone else’s problems inside, trying to take them all on her shoulders. He knew Ethan was estranged from his parents, but that wasn’t her fault. And for her to think it was on her shoulders to bring them together wasn’t fair to her.

“Have you talked to Ethan about this?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He doesn’t like to talk about Samantha, or our parents.”

“Yeah? And you think that’s fair to you?” He hated this, that she’d carried this around for years. “You’re not responsible for how your family is dealing with the loss of your sister. It was horrible and unfortunate, but you can’t place all of this on your head.”

“But Samantha was the glue of our family and I was just…an extra. She was necessary and it’s never been more apparent since she died that I’m not necessary.”

She didn’t think she was necessary. His heart was breaking open right there. “Don’t think for one minute that everyone wouldn’t have been just as devastated if you were the one who died. Your family loves you. Your brother adores you.”

“Because I’m the only sister left—”

“That’s not true and I think you know it.”

Chloe was cracking; he could see little bits of clarity peeking through the pinholes of her sadness. So he kept talking. “You can’t take all this responsibility on your shoulders. Have you even taken time to grieve her? Or have you been focused on everyone else?”

She didn’t answer, but the holes were getting larger. He was making progress.

“If your