CHAPTER 8: The Truth
The wood crackling in the fireplace was the only sound that filled the pregnant silence in the living-room of Lex´s penthouse. Chloe wondered if she looked like a deer caught in headlights because that´s the way she was feeling after hearing Lex utter his final words.
"Don´t be afraid to answer, Chloe," said Lex, breaking the silence and noticing the emotions which crossed Chloe´s expressive face.
"What is it that you´re expecting me to say or to confess, Lex?"
"Do you remember our last time together?" he asked quietly, standing an armful away from her back as she surveyed Metropolis from the panoramic window of his living-room.
Chloe couldn´t very well tell him she´d been having dreams of him ... of them together for some time now, and that she´d been able to put a face to the passionate man of her dreams only after he visited her in Star City. Confessing it was mostly the recollection of their intimate encounters that her mind could remember on its own would have meant granting him too much to manipulate her with.
She cursed her body inwardly for reacting to the memories and to his proximity. She wondered if he still knew her well enough to realise what his questions were doing to her and if he could hear the way her heart was drumming from where he was standing.
Lex´s eyes roamed Chloe´s figure leisurely until they reached the column of her neck, which she had left clearly visible by putting her hair loosely up with the aid of a barrette. He noticed her quickened heartbeat as his eyes caressed her pulse, and he remembered what it felt like to press his mouth there. He wondered if her skin was still as silky to the touch and if she tasted the same. He knew he´d made her a promise and he intended to keep it, but having her around was like being in heaven and hell all at once.
"The gaps are bigger than the memories, but I do remember us... yes," she confessed, trying not to give away too much.
"Then you know exactly what I meant. Your husband might have loved her and raised her like a daughter, but Laura isn´t his, Chloe, and you know it. Laurie was born almost nine months after my dad´s trial was over. How far along were you when Fairchild proposed? Three months? We were exclusive, Chloe. And, before you say anything, we always took precautions- I´d have never run the risk. As much as I´d have loved to tie you to me then, it was hardly the right time. It was nobody´s fault; only fate," he told her warmly as Chloe´s hand travelled to her neck on its own accord to clutch at her St Christopher and trace the engraved words. Fāta viam invenient."There´s something I want to show you," he added after a short pause that felt like an eternity.
Chloe saw him walk towards his impressive library and press a button to reveal a hidden compartment. He took a dossier with LuthorCorp´s logo on its cover and, turning around, looked at her in the eye before stretching out an arm to hand her the documents.
"You´ll find everything you need to know there. You might doubt my word or not remember conceiving our child, but you won´t be able to deny what science´s proved to be true."
Chloe´d tried not to acknowledge what her sixth sense had been telling her- that Lex was Laura´s father. Self-denial had been the only way of protecting the fragile cocoon that was keeping her and baby Laurie together and safe.
"Where did you get this?" she frowned, leafing through the papers and coming across Laura´s medical records and lab tests. "Stupid question," she added under her breath, knowing there was nothing impossible for someone with the power and resources of a Luthor. And now the cold scientific facts before her eyes were tearing the flimsy protective fabric she´d spun around her and her baby. There was no use in hiding any more and, surprisingly, a little voice inside her told her it wasn´t the end of the world. "He did know, didn´t he? That´s what he wanted when he came to Star City. He wanted to use his own granddaughter to pressure you at the voting. He needed a vote to break the tie, and why not yours? He must have relished the thought of revenge...."
"I´m sure he did. I can only imagine his surprise and outrage when Sleuth- which is a LuthorCorp-owned company, by the way-published your first novel. He must have recognised your style or, at least, seen a large dirty portion of his young years in Suicide Slums reflected in the book. You might have not remembered the trial, but the memories of everything he´d done to become the man he was were intact in your mind, Chloe. I read it; it´s a wonderfully written and entertaining thriller- the unauthorised biography of Lionel Luthor."
"I honestly didn´t know."
"Of course you didn´t. You wouldn´t have jeopardised the lives of your husband and Laura. If you had stayed single and childless... then I can very well picture you publishing the book without minding the consequences because that´s who you´ve always been, and it´s one of the things I admire and love about you."
"That might explain how he traced me," she said holding his gaze and fighting against the treacherous blush she could feel creeping up to her cheeks."How did he find out about Laura, though?"
"Because of this," he responded, shaking an orange plastic tube which he´d also taken out of the compartment and stashed away in the pocket of his trousers.
Chloe´s eyes fixed on the transparent tube which she recognised immediately as her baby´s prescription.
"I´m afraid our daughter´s inherited my off-the-charts white cell count- a condition so rare, there used to be only one patient with it and only one treatment provider, LuthorCorp."
The incontestable evidence of parenthood presented by Lex left her with no way out but to accept it at face value.
"What now, Lex? She´s all I´ve left in this world," she said, swallowing the lump in her throat as the magnitude of what had been revealed in Lex´s living-room came crashing down on her.
"I´d never dream of taking her away from you, Chloe," he responded quietly, coming closer to her and grabbing her gently by her upper arms. "But she´s mine too. She´s our daughter. I want to get to know her and her me. Let me be there for you both. Let me protect what´s mine," he said passionately, feeling her tremble.
"Our daughter´s not a possession; she´s a person. And you´re presuming too much," she told him, tilting her chin up in a typical Sullivan gesture devised both to cover up how much his touch was affecting her and to convince herself she still had control over her treacherous body in his presence.
"God! I´d forgotten how stubborn you could be sometimes. It was a figure of speech, OK? She´s my own flesh and blood, the child I conceived with the woman I love and still plan to marry some day," he said boring his eyes into her deep green pools and fighting the urge to crush her lips with a passionate kiss to show her how much it meant to him to have them both back in his life. "Don´t say anything, Sullivan," he added when he saw a glint of... was it rebelliousness in her eyes? "I just wanted you to know or... to remember that I´ve never been one to give up when I see something I want. I thought you´d appreciate my being honest with you, Chloe. That doesn´t mean I´ll pounce on you or force you into a relationship. I intend to keep the promise I´ve made you. And when the time comes- for it will- you´ll come to me voluntarily."
"You´ve got a very high opinion of yourself," she replied, fighting a smile.
"So I´ve been told," he smirked.
"Was it always like this?" she asked him wistfully.
"Energising?" he said with a twist of his mouth. "Verbal judo, we used to call it. Yes, it was like that from the first day we met."
"I can´t remember ever reacting this way," she confessed aloud, thinking of her marriage to Phil.
"It must be being around me then," he responded smugly.
"You´re too smug for your own good, Luthor," quipped Chloe, feeling flushed and more aroused than she´d ever been after foreplay with her late husband.
"You look exhausted. It´s been a very long day for all of us," he spoke after a tense silence filled with memories of their times together before destiny had torn them apart. "Goodnight, Chloe," he murmured, strengthening his resolve in an effort to show her he could be trusted.
There would be time to woo her and win her back. Now he had to focus all his energy on finding out who the head of the operation was and making the threat against his family disappear.
