“Andrew is jealous of you seeing other men. Typical reaction,” Kat surmised.
“Poor Joe, you were his thirteenth failed date this year.” Bella took a swipe at the chicken korma with a piece of bread.
“Joe was really nice. I hope he finds someone,” Ashley said, preventing Bella and Kat’s verbal spar from escalating. Nodding, Kat turned to the television, pausing on teleshopping.
“His problem is he’s too nice. Women these days don’t want nice. They want difficult. Look at us. Ashley fell for a cold-hearted jerk, I fell for a two-timing bastard, and Kat… I guess she’s safe, since she’s dating herself.”
Kat was glued onto a commercial for a juicer on TV, so she didn’t listen to Bella rant about her non-existent love life.
“I should buy this juicer. I can make myself healthy smoothies every day. It’s only eighty-nine dollars. Can I use your phone, Bella?”
“Be my guest.” Bella hurled her phone towards Kat. “Nice catch.”
“How’s work?” Ashley asked Bella, while Kat tried to get her order placed.
“Tiring right now since I have to grade midterms. Having to mark assignments is the worst part of this job.” So that was what the mountain of papers on Bella’s kitchen table was. “I have been putting those off.”
“Don’t you have teaching assistants to do the marking?” Ashley asked.
“Not for the midterms.”
“The juicer will be delivered in a week. I’ll make you guys kale juice when I get it,” Kat announced after she had ended the phone call. She did a twirl and raised her arms in triumph.
“Yuck. No, thanks.” Bella said.
“Kale juice is good for you.” Kat informed, then shot off some statistics to back it up. Being a reporter, Kat didn’t believe in anything that wasn’t supported by logic and scientific studies.
“So is sex. But I’m not getting enough of it.” Bella complained.
Bella had broken up with her last serious boyfriend more than four years ago. Bryan was a pop star, and like every fangirl, Bella had believed that she would be the one to make him settle down. In the end, she had become another dumped girlfriend. And he hadn’t just dumped her, he had cheated on her even while they were together. Ashley still remembered the article on Bryan’s new girlfriend on the front page. He hadn’t even bothered to tell Bella that he was moving on. If it was her, she’d have been crushed, but Bella had moped for a week, then moved on. Her ability to forget the past was admirable, really.
“Haven’t you met anyone?” Ashley asked.
“It’s not easy for a woman over thirty to meet eligible bachelors. Look at Kat, she’s been single forever.” Bella cast Kat a pitiful glance.
“I’m not looking for anyone.” Kat seized the newspaper lying under the couch and turned to a page where her article had been printed. Kat was notorious for seeking comfort in her professional achievements when she wanted to avoid talking about her love life.
“By the way, there’s something I want to tell you both. It’s about Andrew.” Ashley dove into the narration of the recent phone call she had received from Mr. Smith, all the way to her argument with Andrew at the café.
“So do you think I should give him another chance? I want to, but I’m afraid it’ll turn out like last time.”
“Don’t ask us. We weren’t the ones who got hurt the first time.” Kat was still reading the newspaper.
“Maybe you should talk to your therapist about this,” Bella suggested.
“Maybe I should,” Ashley agreed.
“Take your time and think about it.” Bella cuddled up to her. “We are always there for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Here is my bit of unwanted advice based on what I’ve observed. Based on your actions and his, I believe this relationship can still be salvaged. Doing it is the only way you will know the outcome for sure, though,” Kat shot, lying on the couch.
“Are you telling her to date Andrew?” Bella asked.
“If that is what she wants. Isn’t that what you want, Ashley?”
Ashley threw another prawn into her mouth. “What I want is to not get hurt again.”
“You underestimate yourself. You are stronger now. You can handle the hurt. But can you handle thinking, ‘I could have done that, but I didn’t?’ Can you handle the emptiness that comes from withdrawing?”
“She gives bad advice, as expected of someone who’s been single most of her adult life,” Bella commented.
“I had a steady boyfriend for five years,” Kat argued. “Fear never leads anywhere but down, Ash.”
Ashley stared at the teleshopping commercial.
Kat could be right.
She had been afraid all her life—afraid of being unemployed, afraid of being nobody in a world of somebodies, afraid of living, then afraid of dying, now afraid of loving.
Maybe the time had come to let go of her fears once and for all.
Chapter 15
Andrew didn’t know what he was doing, drinking champagne at Carl’s seventy-first birthday. He tried to come up with some—any—excuse for his presence here. But he couldn’t find one.
He’d felt like it, so he’d gotten into a tux and driven down. That wasn’t an excuse, it was an impulse. He didn’t do impulsive, but since the night at the bookstore, the lines between what he did and didn’t do anymore were becoming severely blurred.
Carl’s suburban mansion in Greenhaven had been turned into a party venue for the evening. With glittering lights and Victorian furniture, it resembled an English ballroom. On the long tables were meticulously crafted canapés. Carl would have hired the best caterers in town—quality mattered to him. There was a bar at the end of the hall, where drinks were being mixed to fulfill every alcoholic fantasy.
All the glitz and glamor of high society was here. Women paraded in designer gowns with expensive sets of diamonds or pearls clasped onto their necks.
Waiters wearing bow ties flowed through the crowd, offering guests glasses of drinks.
Andrew took a swig of champagne, noting that not much had changed in Carl’s friend circle since Andrew had left Finn. He was the only man in his thirties here. The rest of the crowd was middle-aged and senior men and women with their husbands and wives—mostly from Carl’s professional circle.
In the ocean of faces, he recognized many. There was Frank, who’d be retiring this year, Arshad, his father’s trusted right-hand man, and Xuefeng, the new director of equities Carl had poached from a competitor.
But the main man Carl Smith was missing.
Craning his neck, Andrew bumped into Frank and his wife, who bored him with every excruciating detail of their retirement home in Nice for fifteen minutes.
“Frank’s worked too hard, too long,” his wife said. “Now we’re going to enjoy what’s left of our time on earth.”
That was a fatalistic statement for a lady who was only sixty-five.
“One of these days, Carl needs to hand over the company to you and retire. He’s seventy-one already. How much longer can his body hold up to the demands of being a CEO?”
Andrew nodded politely, inwardly laughing at Frank’s naiveté. Carl? Retirement? Carl Smith would work until his dying day. So would Andrew. Like father, like son. They loved their jobs too much to sacrifice them for the sake of an extended vacation in the south of France.
After Frank and his wife moved to the bar, Andrew joined a circle of associates, most of whom had not seen him in a long time. Since he was here, he might as well network. He remembered some of his subordinates, but they had all now risen to the upper echelons of the company.
“So, you’ve been doing pretty darned well since you quit Finn,” Harry said, his Newcastle accent thick. “I heard you’re writing a book.”
The undercurrent of envy in the stares he received made him uncomfortable. These were people he had once thought of as friends. But it was only a matter of time before anyone who stayed in the ultra-competitive finance world became victim
to the ‘rat race’ mentality.
He was glad he had escaped this world.
“Good evening,” his father intruded, putting Andrew in alert mode. He couldn’t disguise his astonishment when he saw Andrew. “I didn’t expect you’d show up.”
It had been six years since he had seen Carl in person. In those years, nature had robbed much of the little youth his father had owned at sixty-five. His puffy, cotton hair had become a thin layer of white threads on his scalp. There were more lines on his face than in a prune.
Carl looked old. Really old. That hit Andrew in a strange way. He had expected Carl to remain forty-five and strong forever. To realize that his adversary was now a frail old man made him go soft.
The other men in the crowd immediately flooded Carl with ‘Happy birthday’s.
“Happy birthday.” Andrew’s sounded the least congratulatory.
Carl coughed. It must be an old-age thing, Andrew thought.
“I’m pleased you came.”
Andrew couldn’t begin to express how odd it felt to hear something that even remotely resembled praise. One by one, the circle of people scattered in other directions, leaving him and Carl alone.
Carl looked over his shoulder, his attention shifting to something distant.
“Oh, Ashley.”
Andrew’s stomach contracted when he heard that name and an angel in pale pink floated over to them. He rubbed his eyes, disbelieving. She couldn’t be here. It made no sense.
“Happy birthday, Mr. Smith.” Ashley handed his father a small, golden-wrapped package.
“You didn’t have to buy me a gift.” Carl accepted the gift, nevertheless.
“It’s your birthday.”
Her face, radiant and dewy, appeared more angelic than usual. Under the shimmering glow of the lights, she robbed the splendor from the room, leaving his eyes only capable of focusing on her. Andrew sucked in a breath, and forgot to exhale.
“I took the liberty of inviting Ashley here. Doesn’t she look stunning?”
Stunning seemed like the pithiest word in the world at this moment. Ashley wasn’t wearing a designer gown, yet she made every other woman in the crowd melt into insignificance. Her dress, made of some kind of sheer fabric and sequined with glitter, was sheer, sticking to her outline and reminding him of all the magnificent curves she possessed.
He wanted to bundle her into his arms, carry her to the room upstairs, peel away every delicate layer of the sheer fabric and finish what they had started that night. She promised so much without saying anything. One gaze in his direction and she had him thinking of ways to circumvent the rules that chained his heart around her.
Andrew balled his fists to keep the frustration from spinning out of control. He was doing this for her sake.
Carl flashed a smile at her and the irony of the situation elicited a laugh from him. Years ago, Carl’s expression had been the exact opposite of what it was now.
Andrew ironed out the kinks in his vertebrae, lengthening his posture to look more intimidating. “I distinctly remember telling you that we were divorced.”
“So what? Can I not invite her?” Carl frowned.
“You should have told me about it.”
“Would that have changed your decision to come here tonight?”
“Yes.”
The last thing Andrew wanted was to run into her. He was trying to block her out of his life, to save whatever shreds of sanity he had left after that incident at the café.
He’d deliberately humiliated her that day. It was the kind of action he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of, if he had not been devoured by jealousy. Possessiveness had never numbered among his vices, but where she was concerned, there was no floor on how low he could fall.
It had almost given him satisfaction to see her date leave.
Carl’s attention shifted from him to her. “I see you two have some issues to work out. I’ll leave you alone to get to it, then.”
Carl slid away to entertain the rest of his guests.
Andrew didn’t want to be backed into a corner with her. She was barely a foot away from him. Trying to regain control of the muscles that were turning liquid in her presence, he turned on his heel.
“Andrew, wait. We need to talk.” She seized his hand.
He shook her hand away, yet the awareness and the fire she had ignited in his veins remained. He cooled the heat by coiling his fingers around the glass of cold champagne.
“About what?”
Specks of light danced inside the pure blue of her irises, like she was struggling to make up her mind.
“About what happened the year I was ill.” Ashley sought refuge by looking at the polished, granite floor. “I didn’t know you paid my medical bills.”
“I didn’t want you to know. Who told you?” He scrunched his forehead, bringing his eyebrows together in a frown.
“Your father.”
“What’s gotten into him? He wasn’t this interested in you before.”
Carl was acting out of character.
“I want to pay you back. I have a job now, so I should.” Ashley said, reaching inside her clutch.
“No.”
Andrew impressed his black brogues on the hard floor, pressing deeper to push all the anger he was feeling onto the soles of his feet. He wasn’t going to allow her to strip away the last line of defense he had against his guilt, the last thing that made him feel human.
“What do you mean no?”
“I don’t want it back. You were my wife then. It was my duty to do that for you.”
“No, it wasn’t. We were already divorced.” She raised her volume ever so slightly. “I don’t want to be indebted to you.”
Her breasts rose and fell with the angry breaths that she snatched. Pushing against the slinky fabric, they rocked his lower body with unwanted arousal. She was walking sin tonight and her full, red lips promised him heaven.
A heaven he couldn’t have.
“You are not indebted to me. I haven’t forgotten that it was you who put food on the table for the year that we were married. Unless you accept repayment for that, the bills, the house and everything else, I can’t accept anything from you.”
“That was different! I had to do that for both of us. The house wasn’t going to run itself!” she exclaimed, then saw the loophole in her logic.
“Your medical bills were not going to pay themselves, either.” he said, coolly.
“It was my fault that I had no health insurance, so you should have let me pay the price.” she insisted.
“I wanted to have your back, at least once.”
Her arms fell to her sides and her expression softened. Her vermillion lips slowly mouthed a, “Thank you, anyway.”
“There is no need for thank you.” He waved his hand in denial.
“You had to borrow the money from Carl. I’m sure that wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“It had to be done. I couldn’t have gotten the money any other way. But don’t worry, it wasn’t as bad as you’re imagining.” His tie was starting to choke him, or maybe it was the lump in his throat.
Her gaze dangled on the large porcelain vase in the room, miles away from him.
“Andrew, did you love me back then?” Her bottom lip quivered, like she would break if he gave her the wrong answer.
“That is a rhetorical question. You know I did. I told you so many times.” He put his champagne glass on a table nearby. He couldn’t drink now, when his throat was being choked by emotions that shouldn’t be able to push past his chest.
“Then why did you leave me?” There was an inflection in her voice. She must be emotionally rattled inside, but trying not to let it on.
“You wanted me to leave you.”
The real reason was something he was too cowardly to admit. It would brand him as flawed and he could tolerate her hatred, but he couldn’t disappoint her again.
“I didn’t want you to leave me. I wanted you to stay with me. I wante
d you to hold me and hug me and scare away all the frightening thoughts.” There were no full-stops between the sentences. She didn’t pause, just rolled out the syllables in a continuous string.
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t let me. You shoved the papers at me and walked away.”
Regret washed all over him along with its more familiar cousin—guilt. Her words, like pieces of glass, lodged into all the corners of his ribcage. If only she knew how hard he had fought to even have those few moments with her so he could personally ask her for the divorce. If only she knew how excruciating the seven inhales he had taken while telling her to sign the papers had been.
“I’m sorry,” was the best he could muster.
Ashley took his hand in hers. “Do you still love me?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He couldn’t lie, so he had to avoid.
“Tell me. Tell me the truth.” The whisper felt like silk on his skin, undoing the tight knots of self-condemnation and control.
“The truth might make things hard for you.”
And it might make not kissing her right now almost impossible for him.
“You are scared of love, Ashley, so why are you doing this to yourself?”
“I’m scared to love again, but I’m even more scared to never be able to love again. I don’t want to forget how it feels to be in love with someone. I don’t want to be so afraid of getting hurt all the time that it paralyzes me.”
But I’m scared of hurting you again, he wanted to scream.
He shook free of her hand. There was no way he could tell her what he wanted to, while she was still clinging on to him and he was still letting her cling ono him. “That ‘someone’ you love doesn’t have to be me.”
“Can your ‘someone’ be someone other than me?” she asked, sharply.
“Yes,” he lied, looking right into her eyes and watching hope disappear.
Sometimes, it was imperative to make tough decisions. As a CEO, he knew all about that. So why did his chest pound with agony when her face fell?
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