I nodded. “Completely.”
He smiled, and I wondered if I was looking into the eyes of a true psychopath. “Excellent. Goodnight, Ashleigh.”
“Goodnight, Evan.”
I waited until I heard him head up to the guest wing, and, only then, did I shove my face in one of the settee’s decorative pillows and scream.
Scream and scream and scream.
11
Princeton
December
Marc
“You didn’t have to make the trip out for this. It’s not like there was a ceremony or anything,” I said.
We were at a restaurant near campus. Both of us sitting at the bar looking at the television. Some college football game was on. A normal Saturday afternoon.
And the day of my emancipation.
George huffed. “You graduated college, you asshole. That’s reason enough to, at least, take you out to dinner.”
We’d ordered burgers and some beer.
“Guess this means you won’t be coming back to the house anymore,” George said.
I looked at him and tried to gauge his reaction, but it was as if he was purposely playing it cool.
“No. I have a place in Brooklyn I’ll be moving into.”
“Still working for Landen?”
“Not for much longer. Now I’ve got my degree, I’ll start applying at other firms.”
George nodded, and I could see he approved. “You going to ask about her?”
“No. Nothing to ask about.”
I’d told her to move on, and she had. That was one way to look at it. Another was to consider what she’d told me this time last year in Florida. That her father was going to sell her to this guy in marriage.
That day at the airport, too. She’d insisted I shouldn’t believe anything. She’d always love me.
Except, there was also the day back in August. When she’d come into the office and had seemed fine. Not a care in the world. As if she and her father had repaired whatever rift had happened between them.
For me. A slight smile. A wave.
“Something’s not right,” George said, urgently. “There’s nothing normal about them. When I’m driving all three of them someplace, Ash and Evan sit in silence. Then the doors open, and the cameras start flashing, and suddenly they’re America’s sweetheart couple. While Arthur beams at them from behind. None of it is real.”
Yeah, the engagement had been well advertised. It was not fun to go grocery shopping and see the girl whose virginity I’d taken, smiling at me from the page of a magazine with her arms wrapped around some other guy.
“Don’t get me started on Sanderson. There’s something not right about him, either. I take him and Landen to these clubs in the city.”
“What kind of clubs?”
George shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not like they ever let me inside. But it doesn’t feel right. They’re doing more than drinking and smoking cigars, I can promise you that. Like they’re taking part in some seedy side of wealthy New York other people can’t even imagine. I’m worried about her. Worried she’s going to get sucked up in all of this.”
“She’s a grown woman, George. She could leave if she wants to.”
Because that’s what I told myself. What I told myself every day. If this wasn’t her choice, she could say no. Give back the ring. Move out of her father’s home. Find a job. All those things were possible.
George shook his head. “You’re so naïve. You have no idea how controlling money can be.”
“Only if you’ve convinced yourself you need it,” I retorted.
“I thought you would do something,” he said, clearly disappointed.
“Do what?” I wanted to know.
“I don’t know. You cared enough to challenge Landen to bring her back from Switzerland. You went to Florida to see her. I thought you two had a chance to be together.”
“There was never any chance,” I snapped. “Never. Not for me. The son of a heroin addict. Landen was never going to allow me to so much as hold her hand in public, and you know it. This is what he wanted. Cameras and social media buzz and a big, splashy wedding to New Jersey’s most eligible bachelor.”
“So, you’re just going to let her go?”
I already had. No texts, no calls. A complete shutdown of communication. Those were her demands and I’d lived by them for months.
I’d also lived with the impact of those demands.
There was no lightness in my life. There was no joy. There was only work and more work. The burden of school would be lifted, but did it matter?
“They don’t talk?” I asked George.
He knew who I meant. “No. Never. It’s like she’s an accessory he puts on, then takes off when it’s not needed.”
Ash talked to me constantly. Even when I didn’t want her to.
“I’ll go see her,” I said.
George let out a sigh of relief. “Talk to her. Explain to her she doesn’t have to do this if she doesn’t want to.”
“I’ll see where her head is. That’s all I can do. But if she smiles and tells me she’s happy, then I’m walking away. You might not like the fact that Ash cares more about the money than you want her to, but if the billionaire creep is what she wants, you have to accept that.”
“It’s not. I know it. She’s been sad for months, and it’s only when the cameras are directed at her, she smiles. It’s as if all the joy’s been sucked out of her.”
I didn’t react to his use of the word joy. However, I also thought it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Landen Estate
Marc
I stared up at the house and could not believe I was doing this. The minute I’d told George I was willing to go see her, he’d plucked out a small notebook from his coat pocket and started rattling off steps I needed to take.
Make sure Landen and Sanderson were occupied. George could confirm that.
Make sure all the cameras were off. George could handle the inside cameras, but the outside cameras were controlled by a monitoring company.
Which meant it was my chance to act out a script in front of the cameras. I would drive up. Head to the carriage house. A box with my personal items would be there, already packed.
So, I had the time it might take me to box up my stuff to sneak into the main house, talk to Ash, sneak back to the carriage house, then calmly take my box to my car and drive away. As if that had been my sole purpose for being on the property.
There had been a moment when I’d considered just pulling up to the front door and knocking. Fuck Landen. What was the worst he could do to me now? Fire me? I was leaving anyway.
The only thing that stopped me was the thought of what he might do to Ash.
He’d sent her to Switzerland. Might that truly have been some kind of punishment?
I parked the car and walked around the main house, past the pool and the tennis courts to the carriage house, like I had a million times before. Using my key, I unlocked the door and saw the box George had packed. Trophies from high school. Some clothes and books I’d left. Nothing I needed, but as far as excuses go, it was, at least, legitimate.