Description: In the middle of their divorce, Chloe and Lex are pretending to be a happy couple in front of her father.
A/N I had this idea written down for a very long time, but never really felt like it. And it is the last one that I had ready, so for a next story… it’ll either come to me or I’ll be looking for some inspiration : (
Disclaimer Don't own anything
Part 1
It was raining. Huge droplets of water were falling down on earth so powerfully, making so much noise, that it was hard to hear another person speaking.
In a few days there would be Christmas, but it didn’t look like it would snow anytime soon. There was only that annoying rain.
They were saying it was people’s fault, because they stopped caring about their environment and now, it was going crazy. It was snowing when it was supposed to be warm, raining when it was supposed to be snowing.
Chloe Sullivan hated that weather. And she hated her life a little bit more as it was the exact resemblance of what was happening in the atmosphere.
She’d thought once she’d got the love of her life, she would be happy forever.
Fairy tale. Life didn’t work that way. Love didn’t make everything right.
She should’ve known better. She should’ve known the very same moment she’d fallen for him. Life with somebody like that would never be peaches and cream. It would be hard. He had a second love and that one was addictive as it was involving power. Especially when the whole company had fallen into his hands after the death of his father.
He was supposed to love her. He was supposed to put her first.
She should’ve known better.
She should’ve known that he hadn’t changed at all.
And her career… just another thing she’d sacrificed for him. And another thing she would probably never get back. She couldn’t write about him and, whether she liked it or not, he was the most influential person in Metropolis. If she couldn’t write about him, who could she write about? Where should she look for juicy pieces of information when most of them were connected to his company?
She was stuck with obits and anons about lost dogs…
She wanted to cry, but she allowed herself only for one stray tear in her eye.
She could stay there, on the street, right by the entrance to his company, looking into the distance, covered by a huge black umbrella.
Her life was all black now. It’d been gray once, because of him. Now it was black, because of her despair.
She knew the longer she was standing there the longer she kept him waiting. It wasn’t that she took pleasure in it. She just couldn’t bring herself to go inside. Not after everything she’d gone through.
She just couldn’t. That was the very place where she’d left him. Walked out of his life. And she hadn’t looked back.
“Mrs. Luthor?” a doorman finally asked, his voice unsure. Then she felt his hand on her damp shoulder. She was wearing a purple coat, but now it seemed to be more dark than bright. She hadn’t had the chance to get herself new clothes. She didn’t want those she had, because she’d got them for him. She never really had a favorite color. She liked red and yellow and green, but never really needed to have such clothes. It’d all changed when she’d fallen for him.
Then all she’d been buying was for him. Purple. Sometimes red. And lots of black and gray, so it would look good together.
Chloe sighed heavily, really hating her last name.
And there were times when she’d loved it. When she’d told him that she hadn’t cared about his name. She’d cared about him and she’d been proud of him. He’d managed to become so much better man than his father. She’d told him he should never be ashamed of his name.
“Mrs. Luthor?” she heard again.
She put the mask on her face, so he wouldn’t know how terribly she was feeling at the moment.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m going.” She turned to him.
“Mr. Luthor wanted to know if you were here already, but if you need some time then he can…”
“No,” Chloe shook her head and plastered a fake smile on her face. “I am fine. Thank you. I’m coming.”
“He’s waiting for you on the roof, Mrs. Luthor.”
“Of course.”
On the roof. Where there was a chopper ready to start and the only one missing in there was she.
Good, let Lex wait. He’d been so busy for the last few months that right now she actually wanted to punish him with waiting.
She folded the umbrella, water still dripping from it as she was walking towards the elevators.
She still had the master key. It allowed her to travel in the elevator uninterrupted, alone, straight up to Lex’s office.
Only she hadn’t been using it for a very long time.
They hadn’t been meeting in his office for a very long time.
Because he never had time.
When the elevator’s door slid close behind Chloe, she used the key and pushed the button that would take her to the roof.
She had about thirty seconds to put herself together.
He couldn’t know how awful she’s been. He just couldn’t.
She closed her eyes, shook her head, trying not to think of the last time she’d been in this building, but it was all futile.
***
Past
“Chloe,” Lex said as he looked up at her from the pile of papers he was working on. “Weren’t we supposed to meet…”
“We were, Lex,” she said, her voice cold and full of resentment.
“Chloe, why are you so upset?” he asked, his face concerned as he stood up from his chair and made his way to her.
When he got closer her body tensed. They always shared a very strong sexual attraction to each other and after four years of being together Chloe still wanted to just rip his clothes off and have her way with him. Even if that meant doing it on his desk and on the floor. With his secretary behind the door.
But that was not why she came to him.
“You did it again, Lex,” she said through clenched teeth, because she was so close to crying. He’d let her down one more time. She was sick of it. She’d been living like that for the last six months.
“Chloe,” Lex said her name and that did it. Tears started streaming down her eyes. “Chloe,” this time he was really concerned. He reached his hands to her, but she moved back.
“Don’t!” she yelled at him. “Just don’t!"
“Why did I do?”
“What did you do?!” she repeated, getting more angrier with him. “You stood me up again!”
“What? No… I…”He looked at his watch. “Fuck,” he cursed. “Chloe, I am so sorry.”
“That’s what you keep telling me for exactly half a year now, Lex. I lost count of how many times you just buried yourself in work, completely forgetting about me, your wife!”
“You know this is important. I have to clean that company off everything my father touched. And that is pretty much everything. I want the name Luthor to be respectable again, not to be a synonym for malicious deeds. Chloe, you, of all people, should understand that.”
“I do, I really do, but I can’t do that anymore. That company… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your father’s death destroyed our marriage. He was always there, mocking you for choosing me, provoking me that you would always be the same and you would… eventually stop caring about me… and…”
“I never stopped carrying. I love you!” Lex tried to get closer, but she made a few steps back again.
“He was right, Lex,” she said the words that were like a dagger to his heart. “He was right. Not in everything, because you never cheated on me…”
“I wouldn’t be able to… Chloe…”
“Stop!” she screamed when he reached his hands to her again. “Just fucking stop!”
“Tell me what I can do to…”
“Nothing! There’s absolutely nothing you can do! I’m done! It’s over”!
“What do you mean?”
“I’m done with you, Lex. If you really loved me…” she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again, looking straight into his blue gray pupils, “you would listen to me the first, maybe second time it happened that you neglected me, because you were working. You can’t love me! I start to wonder if all there ever was between us was just… that attraction, that thing we have that keeps pulling us together. It’s nothing more than a simple desire.”
“Chloe, you don’t mean that…” He shook his head.
“I do,” she reassured him. “What else can I do to get you back? I don’t have my career, because I sacrificed it for you. What do I have now? We don’t have children and we can’t even get pregnant, because you keep working!”
“And you refuse to go off the pills!” he finally raised his voice like she got to the most painful point. “You just don’t want your child to be a Luthor!”
“You know that’s not true! Don’t turn this all around!”
“I’m not! I’ve been worried about that for weeks!”
“How can we have a child if you work so much?! If I was pregnant now the baby would never see you! It would be like you and your father all over again! Maybe you would even send it to a boarding school, hah? Because the only few hours you’d be home you would like to spend with me, in bed, treating me like a whore you can fuck! You would not have time for your own child, Lex! And then what? Maybe I would get sick, because of all that boredom and misery and just die!”
She knew she went too far with that. She knew it the moment she saw the look on his face.
It wasn’t hurt, no, it wasn’t in his nature to actually show off that much emotions. He closed himself off. Retreated. She knew he would never come back from that.
“So, it’s over? Just like that?” he asked, his voice so calm it was like he hit her.
“I’m sorry, Lex, I didn’t mean to say…”
“Yes, you did.”
“Yes, it is over. I need my life back. I sacrificed everything for you and now I am tired of waiting for you. I’m not getting any younger. We aren’t moving forward. We have to end it.”
“So you just run away and find some guy that would be the exact copy of Clark Kent and start a family? Chloe, I will not let you give yourself to somebody else after I had you.” His eyes were so angry and cold now that Chloe was actually scared of him. He got to her and clenched his hand around her arm like a vice. “I won’t let another man touch you! You are mine!”
“Lex, you are hurting me!”
“You are mine!” he roared and brought his face to hers, trying to kiss her.
Only when he barely touched her lips, he felt a sting on his cheek.
She actually slap him.
“I’ll send you the divorce papers,” she just said and ran away, leaving him standing in the middle of his office, his face white as paper, eyes mad, fists clenched.
***
Chloe hated that memory. It was the last one. It was clouding all the previous ones. The good ones. The perfect ones. It destroyed it all.
There was no return for them. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be with Lex after all.
Only she couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone else. It was like Lex had poisoned here when he’d touched her for the very first time. Like he’d kept drawing that poison into her when he’d kissed her, when he’d entered her the first time and then many after.
He was always possessive, but she loved that about him. She’d never before had to be scared of it.
And now she would get into a chopper with him, fly to Smallville and pretend she was still deeply in love with him.
Maybe that wasn’t that hard, but it would hurt her. The worst was she had to pretend she still trusted him, wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. That one day she would give him children.
She would never do any of that. Technically, they were still married, because the final day was due after the Christmas. She would meet with him and his lawyers, bring her own lawyer, and they would sign the papers. And just like that they would no longer be married. Whatever they’d had would be erased. She would be free. Free to do anything she would want.
Only she had no idea how to get her career back, it seemed like it was too late already. And she had no idea what to do with her life. How to spend all the days and nights of it without Lex.
She was used to him. Used to the shape of his body so perfectly fitting hers. Used to his lips that were doing wonderful things to her body every time. Used to his skilful pianist’s fingers. Used to his big…
She shook her head, took a deep breath.
She would not longer think about him that way. Her body might still want him, crave for him, but she couldn’t give in. It wasn’t right. She had her pride.
She would not become a whore for him. She would not be stripped off all her dignity and freedom. She would not be dependent on him. She had to regain her own independence.
And she would do that, only it would be twice that hard when having him and her dad around.
She entered the roof and was welcome by a very strong wind that almost knocked her off her feet.
“Mrs. Luthor, let me give you a hand!” she heard another of Lex’s servants and, before she noticed, she was being led to the chopper.
She had to lower her head and cover her face with her arm, because the rain was so sharp and it was winding so much that she had to protect her eyes. She was moving blind, but didn’t care. Somebody was there to get her to the chopper. Somebody she didn’t know, so she was safe.
Only then she felt other pair of hands on her. Hands on her waist. Pulling her up. Helping her to get inside.
She would recognize that hands and that smell that hit her nostrils everywhere.
It was Lex.
Lex so close to her that her heart started beating like crazy.
Lex with his hands on her waist and if they just slip a little lower… she would feel them on her butt.
She wanted to push him away. She wanted to run away, because his influence on her didn’t cease. She wanted nothing more right now than to plunge herself into oblivion while kissing him, while…
She wanted to protest, to get away. She had to.
It was over before she even had the chance to.
The hands let go off her. She was seated.
The door was closed.
The chopper was ready to take off.
And there he was, sitting right next to her. Looking like she remembered, except those dark circles under his eyes. She wondered if that was because he worked even more now or maybe she was the one who pushed him to it.
But he didn’t fight for her after that fatal meeting in his office. That should tell her everything. She wasn’t that dear to him like she would like to think.
She was stupid. She was always stupid with him!
“Chloe…” he said, his voice slightly hoarse.
“Hi, Lex,” she said quickly and started fumbling with the seatbelts.
“Let me…” he offered, reaching his hands to her.
“I get it! Thanks!” she squealed and almost jumped as he was about to touch her again.
“Chloe… I won’t hurt you. I’m sorry for what happened, but…” he started, pain in his eyes.
Those eyes she knew she could just drown in…
She forced herself to stop looking into them.
“It’s not that. I’m not afraid of you,” she answered, but did not give him the real reason for her jumpiness. That wouldn’t be right. “Thank you for what you’re doing for me. I know you have no obligation to my father…”
“Your father has a weak heart and I would hate to see you losing him. If you don’t want him to know about… us… then it’s fine by me. I had nowhere to be anyway.”
Chloe’s hear clenched at that sentence.
He had nowhere to be…
But it wasn’t like it was her fault! He did it to himself.
“I just wanted to say I appreciate that,” she added and looked the opposite side, through the window. The chopper was taking off.
“Are you alright?” Lex asked with care in his voice.
She closed her eyes, tried not to panic again, tried to even out her breathing.
He knew she hated flying.
And when they’d been flying together in the past he’d always had her in his arms.
“I’m fine,” she said, coarsely.
The closeness was killing her. He was like a drug to her and she’d been on rehab for far too long.
“So, how are you?” she asked, finally gathering the courage.
“Not so bad,” the answer came. “How are you?”
She forced herself to look at him again. She knew that was a mistake. It didn’t miss her attention the exhaustion evident on his face and body. His tired eyes. Dark circles under them.
His coat was undone, so she had a perfect view on the light purple shirt on his body. A body she…
Stop, she told herself in her mind. That would not take you anywhere. You’re doing it for your father, not for you. It’s bad for you. Just remember how it ended.
It ended badly. That brought Chloe’s clarity.
“Been better, but I’m getting there,” she said.
She started to think if maybe that idea was a huge mistake…
Too late to back out now…
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by HotCrossedBunny
Bookmarks