by West, Harper
"And then something changed?"
I sighed again. "And then something changed. Or maybe... maybe it didn't. Maybe she was just more than I expected her to be."
"She's what you want," Eve offered with a smile.
"I suppose she is. But she's very angry with me right now."
"With good reason." She gave a sad little sigh. "I'll admit, I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to a session today."
I frowned at her. "We can still have one."
She rolled her eyes. "No, we can't, Killian. You're wonderful, but I think Ash might be right about you being an idiot." She looked like she was nervous to say something like that to me, and I smiled to reassure her. "If you want her, digging the hole deeper isn't going to help."
"It's fine. She's off with her new man right now, anyway. I'm sure they're in the throes of vanilla passion as we speak."
"Killian, come on. I've seen the way she looks at you. I've seen the way she orbits around you. She wants you just as much."
"I think that's wishful thinking."
"On your part, sure. But it doesn't really make things easier for me if that's the case, so you know I'm saying it because I think it's true. And if you want her to be exclusive with you, then you have to do the same for her. It's only right."
Eve was correct, of course. The women in my life were much smarter than me when it came to things like this, and as much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew I had to change if I wanted to be able to have the things I wanted.
Namely Ash.
I had no idea if she was even going to be willing to listen to me or make things work, but I supposed I owed it to her to find out. And I owed it to her to try.
Things had to be balanced if they were going to work.
"You're right," I said finally. "You're right."
Eve beamed at me. "I know I am. I'm going to miss you, Killian."
"Don't be a stranger. I can still help you find others to play with. You don't have to disappear from our lives."
"Okay, good. Because I like both of you, and it would be weird to pretend otherwise."
"If this doesn't work out the way I want it to, I'll need a friend," I pointed out. "And Ash likes you, even if she's too weirded out by the things we do to admit it."
She smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. So... what are you going to do?"
It was a good question, and I didn't have an answer to it. I didn't have a plan. This wasn't like a scene where I could set up one thing after the other and let them build together to make a whole thing.
For one, I had no idea where to start. As far as I knew, Ash and her precious Simon were all over each other, curled up in bed, fucking, doing whatever it was they did. She probably wasn't even thinking about me, and that hurt more than I wanted to admit.
But if I didn't do something then I wouldn't have a leg to stand on when it came to seeing her again. Because I would have to see her again. There were still five or so months left in our contract and we couldn't spend that time not seeing each other.
Honestly, I was upset that things had turned out the way they had. When I'd first found her and put the contract together, I'd assumed we wouldn't get along much at all. Ash would dread her time with me, I'd get bored with her, but at the end of a year, we'd both be rich enough that we could honestly say it had been worth it, and we could go on about our business.
But that hadn't been the case.
It had started out that way, but then she'd gone and been charming and eager in her own way, and somehow, I'd come to crave her.
I just didn't know how to put that into words that made sense and weren't demanding that she only spend time with me. I'd already made that mistake.
And I couldn't promise her anything. I wasn't offering love or even a real relationship at the moment. I just wanted to be with her.
I had no frame of reference for things like that. I had nowhere to start and nothing to fall back on. All I knew was that I had to say something.
I couldn't tell Eve enough of the real story to get her advice, either, and since we weren't going to have a session, she wished me luck and took her leave.
I considered calling Ash. I thought about going to her place. I thought about texting her or sending her an email or a million other ways to reach out.
And every time I thought about it, I saw her and Simon getting her things out of my car and the way he looked at her and the way it made me furious with him for even daring to think he could touch her, so I did nothing and let the week pass me by day by day.
'I'll do it tomorrow', I kept telling myself.
It was just easier not to do it at all.
Chapter 16
Ashlyn
The drive I'd felt on Sunday to go over and give Killian a piece of my mind had sort of melted into mild dread by Monday.
I got up and went to class and then went to work, and it was in the back of my head the whole time.
I knew I needed to do something about it. I needed to talk to him, to finish the argument we'd been having at the cabin. To do something to put a bow on this whole thing one way or another, but I just didn't know how to.
I didn't want to go to his place and start shouting at him because that wasn't productive, however much he might have deserved it, and I didn't know what else to do, so I did nothing.
I worked my shift, I went home. And then I did the same thing on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday.
By Thursday, I hadn't seen or heard from Killian, which was weird. Usually he came by the coffee shop or texted me to make plans for Friday by Thursday afternoon, but as the last of the after-lunch rush died down, I was left standing there, wondering if maybe he wasn't going to contact me because he didn't want to see me.
It was odd, but I didn't know how to feel about that.
Amanda, of course, picked up on it. She was nothing like the soft-spoken Laura, who would have just let me stew in my feelings without saying anything, and she came over and plunked a cup down in front of me.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Latte I fucked up," she said. "You look like you could use the caffeine."
She wasn't wrong, so I picked up the drink and sipped at it. Vanilla caramel, heavy on the syrup. Sweet, but not too bad.
"So," Amanda said, folding her arms. "Trouble in paradise?"
"I don't know what you mean," I muttered, keeping my eyes on the paper cup in my hand.
"Uh huh, sure. Right. Because you definitely don't look longingly at the door every time someone walks by it, and you haven't been obsessively checking your phone every time there's a lull."
Goddammit, she was too observant for her own good. I'd thought I was being subtle about the way I was looking to see if Killian was coming and keeping an eye on my texts just in case he contacted me.
I wanted to be ready, in my defense. If he came in, I needed the heads up to make sure I looked as nonchalant as possible so he wouldn't know how affected I was by the crap going on between us.
And if he texted me, I didn't want him to think I was ignoring him. It was a whole thing.
Amanda didn't look impressed by my attempts to deflect her attention away from the matter at hand, and I sighed finally, putting the cup down.
"There's just some tension," I said. "We're going to work it out."
"Between you and the guy with the glasses or you and the suit?" Amanda wanted to know.
"Suit," I replied. "Well... both, I guess."
She snorted. "I knew it. You talked such a big game about how they were just friends, but here you are in some kinda love triangle."
"There's no triangle," I assured her. Maybe there had been for a bit there, but it was definitely over now and she didn't have to know about the existence of it.
"Can we not do this?" I asked her, and I could hear for myself how exhausted I sounded. I was just tired of all of it, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do or why it had all fallen in my lap.
Amanda relented with a little shrug. "Okay, sorry. Do
you wanna... talk about it? Like, you look like you've been dragging it out."
She wasn't wrong. "Yeah, that's fair. It's just dumb. Suit guy is all in his feelings, but he won't talk about them with me, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it."
"Is he jealous of glasses guy?"
I nodded, not even bothering to hide the truth. I was in it now, and maybe having an outside perspective would help shed some light on what the hell I was supposed to do to fix it.
"Figured," she said. "He seems like the type. Possessive, prone to fits of jealousy."
I kept nodding because she was right on the money. "He is. He definitely is. Only here's the thing. We're not exclusive, so it's not like he has any right to be."
She hummed and considered that. "Well, the way I see it, you've got two options." She held up one finger. "Tell him to fuck off and go off with glasses guy." Another finger went up. "Tell him to fuck off and then try to work it out."
It was a good thing there weren't many customers inside to hear her swearing, but Amanda was truly the sort of person who just didn't care about things like that. Sometimes I envied her.
"It's not going to work with glasses guy," I said, still being honest.
"So option two, then. Or option one but be alone. Your choice."
And what a choice it was. Either way, I had to address the issue with Killian because I couldn't spend the next five months ignoring him and then show up at the end of the year ready to collect my money. That wouldn't work at all.
"Okay," I said. "So, let's say I decided to try to work it out. How do I do that?"
"Hell if I know," she replied, shrugging. "I don't know him. He seems like the type to play games, though. Keep people off balance. And I guess you can either play his game or you can take matters into your own hands and make him play yours."
It was good advice. I'd been doing a lot of waiting, and it hadn't gotten me anywhere.
Luckily the door chimed and a group of people I recognized from working in the office building up the road came in for their afternoon fix, and we had to get back to work before we could dive any deeper into talking about my personal business.
But the awkwardness aside, it had been nice to get it out there and get another opinion.
I could give Killian until the end of the day to contact me and see what he wanted to do.
When Saturday rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from him, I knew what I had to.
Amanda was right. If Killian wanted to play hard to get or whatever he was doing, then I could beat him at his own game, or I could take matters into my own hands.
If he didn't want to contact me because he was mad or whatever, that was fine, but he wasn't getting off that easily. We couldn't just ignore each other for the next five or so months, and for once, the contract was actually on my side.
We were supposed to see each other every weekend, and it was the weekend, so Killian didn't have anything to hide behind.
I was going over to his place and we were going to have this out once and for all. I wasn't putting up with his deflecting and whatever else he wanted to do.
If that was how he wanted to play it, then it would tell me what I needed to know.
Just because things weren't going to work with Simon didn't mean things had to work with Killian. I could be alone. I was fine with being alone.
I'd been alone and in a much worse spot before Killian had come along and changed things, so going back to that wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to.
He'd have to break the contract, which would fuck over his plans, too, and then we'd both be back at square one.
Of course, the thought of him having a contract like the one we had with someone else made my blood boil, so I put that out of my head.
I stopped thinking altogether because if I thought too much, I was either going to get angry or lose my nerve, and I didn't want to do either of those things. I wanted a level head so it didn't immediately turn into a fight.
I kept telling myself that as I drove to his apartment, repeating it over and over again under my breath like a mantra. Keep a level head. Keep a level head.
He was going to try to rile me up because that was just how he was, but that didn't mean I had to let him. I could keep my cool and put my arguments forth in a calm manner and then let the chips fall where they may.
When I got to his place, I hit the buzzer and waited, hoping he was home. It was a Saturday, and he usually was in on Saturday, but then that was because I was usually with him. I had no idea what he did when I wasn't there.
The thought that maybe he was at the club or with Eve entered into my head, but I pushed it out, not willing to think about that, either.
"Yes?" he answered after a second, and I let out a little breath of relief.
"It's me," I replied. "Let me in."
He was quiet for a second, and I wondered if it was out of irritation or surprise.
"What are you doing here?" he asked after a bit.
"I came to talk to you," I said. "Let me in."
Maybe it was the repetition that did it, or maybe he'd been waiting for me subconsciously, but he sighed and the door clicked open, letting me into the building.
For some reason, my heart was pounding as I went to the elevator and hit the button for the penthouse.
I wasn't nervous about what I'd come to say, not really. I knew it had to be said and that we couldn't move forward until something was resolved, but there was no way to know how Killian would react to it.
He kept his persona so carefully cultivated, that it was hard to know what was the real him and what was the act he put on.
I thought the anger was real, the jealousy. Those were real emotions, and it was obvious that he didn't really know what to do with them.
I could understand that, and I wasn't going to berate him for feeling, just for the way he'd handled it.
The elevator door dinged open, and I made my way down the hall to his door, knocking and sucking in a breath.
Killian answered it quickly, standing there in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, looking like he had no plans to go anywhere or see anyone, but still unfairly attractive. His hair was even messy, but it still looked good on him, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes in his face because that wasn't a good start to anything.
"Hi," I said. "Can I come in?"
He looked me up and down, no expression on his face. "You don't have to be here," he said, and his tone was flat. "I know you don't want to be."
"You don't know anything," I replied, keeping my tone light.
He just sighed and stepped back to let me inside.
Judging from his posture, he was ready for a fight. He looked like he'd been hoping I wouldn't show up, and that was too damned bad. He'd told me before that he liked that I was fiery and not a pushover, and he was about to find out just how true that was.
Once I was inside, I turned to face him, folding my arms.
"It's Saturday," I pointed out.
"Yes, I know that," he replied, looking confused.
"We're supposed to get dinner on Friday. You never contacted me."
His brows knitted together in a frown. "I didn't think you'd want me to. And I figured you would be busy." There was bitterness in his tone, and I knew what he'd figured. I could easily tell him he didn't need to worry about that, but I didn't. Because the real issue wasn't with Simon.
The real issue was with the two of us, and we had to work through that first.
"My Fridays are always clear for dinner because that's in the contract. It was the agreement," I said.
"You hate the contract."
"I hate when you throw it in my face to make me do something I don't want to do."
He rolled his eyes and sighed, dragging fingers through his hair. My eyes followed the motion and then snapped back to his face. I was there for a reason.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I told you. We need to talk. About what happened at the cabin and
how things are going to work going forward. Because I don't know about you, but I'm not going to throw away the last six and a half months just because you're jealous."
He cringed at the word, but I didn't take it back. It was jealousy, plain and simple, and it deserved to be called what it was. If he had an issue with that, then it was too damned bad.
"Fine," he said. "Say what you came to say."
I bristled at his tone and the implication that I was the only one who had something they wanted to say. Clearly there were things he was feeling, too, but he was being too pigheaded and stubborn to say them, as always.
I didn't know what to do with him. Half the time I wanted to punch him the face, and the other half I wanted to kiss him senseless. He was so incredibly frustrating, but he made me feel things unlike anyone else I'd ever been with.
I decided to start there. "You drive me nuts, do you know that?" I asked. "It's like pulling teeth with you if you can't be in control of things. This isn't a scene, Killian. You don't have to be in charge. You can just tell me how you feel."
"Right now, I feel annoyed because you've barged into my home to yell at me," he snapped. "And I could honestly do without it."
I rolled my eyes flat out. "Oh please. What were you doing before I got here? Planning to go out to the club, thinking of inviting Eve over? Moping? I'm really curious to know."
He let out a harsh breath and turned away from me. "I'm not getting into this with you."
"Yes, you are," I snapped. "We're doing this and we're doing it now. I don't understand why you have to be such a fucking coward about everything! You always act like you have it all together and nothing can touch you, but the minute you have to talk about how you feel, it all falls apart."
"What did you call me?" he asked, whirling around to pin me with his glare.
“I called you a coward,” I said, leveling it right at him.
And then he started advancing on me, and I swallowed hard, wondering if I’d fucked up.
It wasn't fear I felt as I backed away from him, and I hated that a little. He was angry, eyes glittering with it, and my heart was racing, but I was definitely more excited than I was nervous.
