“This is stupid,” he muttered. “I should just drive you home.”
“Even if he’s not home, I need him to see the Uber transaction.”
I knew Marc didn’t understand. I knew he thought I was making my father’s surveillance seem more dramatic than it was. If anything, I was underplaying it. Arthur had been even more diligent since my return from Florida.
Almost as if he was anticipating a rebellion on my part.
There were cameras in the house where there hadn’t been before. I was also pretty sure my tutor was being paid to report on my actions and behaviors. A new bodyguard, just in a different package.
My every step was monitored. The only freedom I had was when I was spending time with George, but that wasn’t often since he was shuttling Arthur to Manhattan more than ever.
Today wouldn’t be any different.
But I checked. He would be able to see the flight had arrived on time, but he would have no way of being able to determine if my luggage had been delayed on a separate flight.
The timing would work out. I’d purposefully not picked up my suitcase before meeting Marc, so it would find its way to the airline’s lost and found.
He was navigating through the cars now. Finding an open spot near the curb.
I reached over and grabbed his forearm, digging my nails in deep. I wanted my words to match the pain I was inflicting.
“No matter what you hear about me, don’t believe it. Don’t believe any of it. I’ll always love you. You have to know that. You have to see that is my only truth.”
He let his head fall back on his shoulders. “Ash, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more for you. Braver…something.”
I turned to him then as he stopped the car. It didn’t matter if I cried now. Because we were at the end of the ride.
“You will be,” I told him, finally able to look into his eyes. “I’m betting everything I have, that someday you will be.”
10
Landen Enterprises, LLC
Four months later
Marc
“Oh, wow. There she is,” Trevor muttered to me, but I was focused on the numbers on my laptop.
We were sitting in the conference room, working on a client’s profile. I’d finished my last summer class and was working full-time at Landen Enterprises until my final semester started next week.
One more semester. Graduation by December. I didn’t yet know what I was going to do after that. I doubted I would stay here. Working here was too hard. Seeing Landen occasionally was too hard.
All of it was too hard.
Life was too fucking hard.
Nothing had prepared me for the silence. Ash had been a part of my life since I was twelve years old. Always there, always talking. Always pushing me, prodding me, poking me. Pissing me off.
When it ended—and true to her word, everything had ended, all communication—I didn’t know how to deal with it.
She’d texted she’d gotten her period on time, and that was it.
My final communication from Ash was about her fucking period.
About ten thousand times I picked up the phone with the intent to end this shit. To talk to her. To tell her maybe we couldn’t date. Maybe we couldn’t fuck.
But we sure as hell meant something to each other. We were part of each other’s lives. That shouldn’t have to end, just because we weren’t going to have some happy fucking ever after.
Except every time I did, every time I squeezed the phone in my hand like a drunk trying to stay sober while his hand was wrapped around a beer, I remembered her asking me not to break. Not to break, because then we would end up where we’d been.
It was only because I knew she was right, I did as she asked.
So I put my head down and I worked. I studied. I spent all my energy on making sure I was on top. I wasn’t going to just graduate, I was going to do it summa cum laude. On the weekends, I worked for Landen. Grew my account to a significant sum, and eventually was assigned to a client with Trevor as my manager.
I didn’t think about her. Or, at least I told myself every day not to think about her. Which wasn’t exactly the same thing.
Erica started showing up on Saturdays. She made her intentions known. She wanted me. Just for a fuck. There were times I told myself to just do it. Take her out to dinner, then to her place and fuck her.
To say that I’d done it. That I’d moved on from Ash.
I hadn’t. I told myself it was because Erica wasn’t my type. The truth was, I knew how it would feel. It would feel different than it had with Ash, and I didn’t need yet another thing in my head reminding me that Ash was, and would be, the only woman in my life.
Because that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t my father who had a beef against her. It wasn’t my father who had decreed she would never be good enough for me. That bullshit was on her side. Not mine.
“Fuck, she still looks like a virgin,” Trevor said.
The word got my attention and I lifted my head to see who he was talking about. And there she was. A summer dress, her blond hair down around her shoulders. She was smiling.
How the FUCK was she smiling?
She breezed through the cubes on her way to her father’s office. He happened to be in today, which wasn’t the norm. They must have had plans for lunch or some shit.
It was like being gutted. She looked so light. So effortless. As if nothing was causing her pain or weighing her down. As if not having me in her life made her better and not worse.
When, for me, it had been months spent in hell.
“Although, I suppose she isn’t anymore. Now that she’s engaged.”
I blinked. Then blinked again as she turned into her father’s office, never once looking around at the people milling about the cubes. Never once seeing me sitting in the damn conference room.
“What did you say?”
“Yeah, Landen told me. All proud and shit. Happened last week. She’s engaged. Evan Sanderson, whose family money makes Landen’s money look like pocket change. So, I bet he’s happy.”
She was engaged. To be married. To the man she’d suspected her father was selling her to.
Except it was the twenty-first century and shit like that didn’t happen. He couldn’t force her to marry anyone. If she was being forced to marry, why the hell was she strutting around the office smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world? Having lunch with the man who would do something like that to her?
Landen came out of the office, Ash behind him. She linked her arm with his, and, again, didn’t bother looking around the office, trying to see if she could spot me among the other employees.
I don’t know why I did it. It was instinct, or compulsion or something, but I stood up. Just that. I stood, and I could feel Trevor’s eyes on me, wondering what the hell I was going to do.
“Do not make a scene,” I heard him say under his breath. “Sit down.”
Only I didn’t. I stood there and knew when they turned to leave through the receptionist area, she would see me. She couldn’t not see me. She didn’t stop walking, didn’t stop talking to her father. Instead, she tilted her head, gave me a shy smile, a little wave, then kept walking. Out of the office, without any more acknowledgement than that.
When it was over, I fell back into my chair, because my knees wouldn’t hold me.