Page 96 of The Challenge

She swallowed. “Okay…”

I sucked in a breath and let it out. “I almost moved to Chicago to be with you.”

Chapter 35

CHLOE

Did he just say what I think he did?

I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“You heard it correctly.”

“How could you have moved to be with me when we weren’t even speaking?”

Evan ran a finger along his glass. “Well, it was going to be a leap of faith.”

My heart felt like it was in my mouth. “Tell me what happened.”

“You remember I told you that Katerina and I broke up before I found out about Effie…”

I tensed. “Yup.”

“Well, this was right after we’d ended things. For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. At the time, my position at the power plant wasn’t as stable as it is today. This engineering job opened about half an hour outside of Chicago. I hadn’t even been looking, but I was contacted by a headhunter. The only reason it appealed to me was because I would be closer to you. I could come see you, maybe mend what’d gone wrong between us. I didn’t feel like there was anything holding me back from confessing how I really felt about you.”

Even though I suspected I knew the answer, I asked, “What happened?”

“Well, as you might’ve guessed, Katerina found out she was pregnant with Effie.”

I blinked hard, taking in his admission and realizing my entire life might’ve been different had he taken that job. I knew in my heart I would’ve welcomed him into my life and apologized for how I’d acted. We would’ve had a fresh start. God, where would we be today?

“Had you already accepted the job?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I was about to, though, when she gave me the news. The timing was very strange.”

Tell me about it. I felt robbed. “Does anyone else know you almost moved to Chicago?”

“Uncle Drew knows.”

“Does he know it had anything to do with me?”

He nodded. “Uncle Drew pretty much knows everything about everything.”

“No wonder he gave me funny looks at the party.” I looked away. “I’m honestly shocked.”

“I figured you would be, especially since I hadn’t been in touch with you all that time. I didn’t know what I’d find when I got to Chicago. I had no idea whether you had a boyfriend, and I certainly wasn’t sure you’d be receptive to anything happening between us. But I’d decided to take a leap of faith, figuring the worst that could happen was I’d get to experience living in a new place for a while with a job that paid pretty damn well. But I wouldn’t have even considered moving that far if you hadn’t been there.”

I took a sip of wine, closing my eyes to let this soak in. “Okay, so tell me what things were like after that. You found out Katerina was pregnant, turned down the job, and then what?”

“Well, like I said, I’d never given my notice at the power plant. So, my job there was still safe. But as far as my personal life, I was in shock about the pregnancy news for a while. And I also had to mourn any plans I’d had when it came to you. Once the depression wore off, I decided I needed to man up and do the right thing.”

“Which was getting back together with Katerina.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “And eventually marrying her.”

“When you broke up initially, before you knew she was pregnant, who initiated it?”

“I did.” He looked up from his glass, his stare penetrating. “And I think by now you can figure out why.”