The very thought sent ice flowing through her veins.
She hated the idea.
She was definitely jealous.
That had to be a good thing, she convinced herself. That meant that she still cared enough about Fin to be upset by the idea that he might be moving on.
Maybe her feelings for him had never gone away; maybe they’d just been buried.
By pain and loss and grief and guilt.
Their son’s death shouldn’t have pushed them apart—it should have brought them together. She and Fin had been in love. They’d wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Losing their son shouldn’t have changed that.
It shouldn’t have changed anything.
And maybe it hadn’t.
Maybe it had just clouded things a bit. The same way the clouds covered the sun. They made it invisible for a time, but it never disappeared. It was always there.
Just like her love for Fin.
Grief might have clouded it in the last seven months, but it was still there.
“Thank you,” Taylor said inside the room. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Fin. Without you, I don’t know what I'd do.”
“Eavesdropping?”
Chloe jumped a mile and nearly let out a very girly shriek. Eric Abbott stood there, a small smirk on his face. Her cheeks burned, and she quickly moved away from the door before Fin found out that she’d been listening in on his conversation with Taylor. She thought about denying what she’d been doing, but what was the point? Eric had probably been watching her hovering at the door for the last couple of minutes.
“Fin in there?” Eric asked, following after her.
“Yes.”
“With Taylor?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know she’s in there too.”
“You don’t like the idea of him being that close to another woman.”
“They aren’t close,” she protested. “He’s just helping her. She’s been through hell. You know that. You know what that man does to his victims. Fin found her, and he feels responsible for her. He doesn’t want her to be alone; he just wants to help her until her family gets here.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Eric said quietly. “Sounds like you need to convince yourself.”
He was right.
She needed to convince herself that Fin still loved her evenafter she broke his heart by walking away. She had to convince herself that she hadn’t thrown everything away just because of guilt. She had to convince herself that not only could she heal from the loss of her baby, but that she could reclaim her life.
Coming here tonight might not have turned out the way she’d expected, but it had given her the answers that she’d sought.
Well, some of them, anyway.
Now she knew what she wanted.
She wanted Fin.
She just had to find out if he still wanted her.
Chloe was afraid it was already too late. That she’d ruined things beyond repair. She couldn’t blame Fin if he didn't want to forgive her for walking away from him when they had needed each other so badly. She just needed a chance to explain everything to him. To explain why she’d needed time and space.