by Kreig, K. L.
“Oh, Beck. It wouldn’t have mattered. Not to me.”
“I know that now, Alyse. But at the time I couldn’t make sense of anything. It took me years to physically and mentally get back to where I was before the accident. To actually want to live again. Depression makes you look at things very differently.”
“I know,” I reply softly.
His eyes are full of sorrow and understanding. “Jesus, I loved you so much. I wanted to marry you, and for weeks I’d been trying to figure a way out of the fucking mess I’d created. To tell you the truth, wipe the slate clean so I could be the man you deserved. But every scenario I came up with ended badly. I needed to tell you the truth to keep you, but the truth would drive you away, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that.
“And when you told me about the baby…for a split second, I can’t even describe how happy I was, but then reality crashed into me and I felt the bottom drop out. I felt like I’d lost everything before I even had it. I panicked. I drove recklessly and almost cost us our lives. I cost our baby its life and that torments me every fucking day, Alyse. Every. Fucking. Day.”
Next thing I know, Beck is beside me, my wet face in his palms. His eyes are wild with torment. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. About the accident. About the baby. About not coming back for you. About everything. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I am so very sorry, Alyse.”
“I forgive you,” I whisper. “I forgive you, Beck.”
Then his mouth is on mine, his need for me evident. His lips are soft and warm, as I remember. His kiss burns with longing and love as it always did. But this time I also taste regret.
When I saw Beck across the street last week, the feelings that washed through me were love, among so many others, but I couldn’t deny one of them was definitely love. But as I feel his mouth on mine now, I know it’s not the kind of love that forevers are made of. That kind of forever is with another man.
“Beck,” I mumble, placing my hands on his chest, pushing. “Beck, stop.”
Hands still frame my face as his forehead touches mine, chest heaving. “It’s too late, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
His sharp intake of breath cuts me to the quick. “It’s him, isn’t it? The guy at the bar?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
“Very much.”
He presses his lips to my temple, letting them linger. “I feel like I’m losing you all over again.”
His pain seeps into me, battering my heart. “Beck, I—I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m sorry. I know that’s not fair. I’ll always love you, Alyse. Always.”
“So will I. Just…not in the same way as I once did.” I just didn’t fully realize that until now. Those chains I’ve had locked tightly around my heart suddenly break, each link severing permanently from the link before it. For the first time in twenty-five years, I feel whole. Repaired. Worthy.
My mom wanted me.
Beck wanted me.
Asher wants me.
“Can I hold you? Please?”
I may not be in love with Beck, but I still care about him immensely. We have a history that can never be erased. I need this for closure, even though I hope that maybe we can be friends somehow. “I’d like that.”
Beck pulls me to him, tucking me under his arm and we relax against the back of the couch.
“Jesus, I have missed you.”
“Me too.”
“I’ve thought about you every day for the last eight years, Alyse.”
“Me too,” I confess. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“So am I. Took me a while to get there, but…yeah.”
“How did you know about the baby?”
“I saw the marker along the side of the road.”
I tilt my head up as he bends his down. “You went to the crash site?”
His eyes soften and the agony I see churning makes me swallow back my tears again. “Many times. Going back there was part of the healing process for me and then…then I just wanted to be close to you and our baby and I didn’t know any other way.”
“Beck…” I feel immense guilt for all the bad things I’ve thought about him over the years when he’s suffered so much. We sit there in silence, neither able to break away from the other, both of us remembering.
He clears his throat. “So, this guy…”
“Asher,” I smile. “Asher Colloway.”
“Asher. You’re in love with him, huh?”
I nod and his mouth turns down slightly. It tugs hard on my heart.
“Does he know about me? Us?”
“Not yet,” I reply softly. But I need to fix that.
“You going to marry him?”
“Yes,” I answer with no hesitation. Because now I know there is none. Hesitation, I mean. I want to tell Asher everything. Everything. Barb Colloway was right. Forgiveness is freeing. Even through this horrible scenario, I feel lighter. Happier. Finally…finally ready to move on.
“I’m glad. I mean, I’m jealous as hell, but you deserve to be happy, Alyse.”
“Yes. I do.” I grin again and he laughs, squeezing me tighter. “Tell me about my mom.”
So he does. He talks and talks and talks until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.
Chapter 38
Asher
I stand there, unable to make my mind work through what I’m seeing.
Bob Everley called me at eight to tell me he was dropping the lawsuit. I gathered through my discussions with Patty, his financial advisor, that Bob’s been asking her out for quite some time. She’s refused. He trumped up some bogus charges to try to scare her into changing her mind. Needless to say, we won’t be doing business with Bob Everley any longer. He can take his twenty mil and have some other firm manage it. Motherfucker.
Even before I ended that call, I was walking to my car, overnight bag in hand. I couldn’t stand to be away from Alyse for another second if I didn’t have to. No matter that I haven’t had but two hours of shut-eye over the last two days. I settled in for the four-hour drive home just so I could sleep with her in my arms. Seems like I can’t do anything as basic as sleeping anymore without her.
It’s now a little after midnight and I let myself into Alyse’s place, knowing that’s where she would be. But what I never expected was to see her lying asleep in the arms of another man. The room is dark, but I can make out that it’s the fucking photographer.
The words she said in her office that day when I caught Aaron trying to kiss her come rushing back. I believed her then. I don’t now.
“I may have a lot of personality flaws, Asher, but adulterer is not one of them. I have never cheated on a man in my entire life. I wouldn’t do it.”
Turns out Alyse wasn’t any better than Natalie and I was right. I have never experienced debilitating pain before today.
My anguish is bone deep and soul crushing. Never mind they’re fully clothed instead of naked, writhing on each other. Never mind they’re on the couch instead of the bed. The way he’s holding her is more intimate than any sex act.
I turn and walk out as quietly as I came, leaving my beating heart on the floor at their feet, bloody and broken, eternal darkness taking up the empty space it left.
Chapter 39
Asher
“Hey, you can use the house tonight if you want. My plans changed.”
“What do you mean they changed?” Conn asks, skepticism in his voice. I’ve wanted that fucking house every year for the last five years and now that I have it, I’m giving it up. Yeah, he knows something’s up. I’m glad I’m having this conversation over the phone. It would be much harder to lie to his face.
“Just what I said. Something’s come up.”
I hear rustling in the background and a few seconds later, it sounds like his breathing’s picked up. Wow, starting early, huh? “Asher, what did you do?”
That pisses me off. “Oh, what? Because I would be the o
ne to do something, right? Not her.”
“Well, yeah.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“And you’re probably jumping to conclusions, as usual. Jesus, Asher, do you have to sabotage every good thing you have?”
“I’m done with this conversation. Take the house if you want it. If not, fuck off.”
I no sooner hang up on him than I hear pounding on my door.
Asshole.
“What?” I growl, opening the door before I walk back to the couch, where I sit with a nice, strong, mostly vodka Bloody Mary. Who the piss cares if it’s only nine o’clock in the morning? Maybe this will help me pass the fuck out, because God knows I didn’t get even a wink last night as I lay wide-eyed in my bed wondering how this could have happened to me yet again.
This time, however, I will not recover. Pain lances every cell of my body this morning even worse than last night. I’m finding it hard to breathe. To think. To give a fuck about anything but numbing my heartbreak.
“Tell me what happened.”
“No.”
“I’m not leaving until you do.” He eyes my Bloody Mary and then snatches it from my hand before I have a chance to react.
“Prick,” I snip.
“Grow the fuck up. What happened?” Conn takes a seat in the loveseat across from me, resting an ankle on his opposite knee.
I stay silent, having no intention of divulging my stupidity over a woman once again to my twin. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, well…I don’t even know what to do with that. What I do know is there won’t be a third fucking time. I’m strictly a hit-it and quit-it guy from now on.
“Do you love her?” he asks.
“This isn’t about love.”
He nods. “I’ll take that as a yes. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Probably still in the arms of that fucking photographer I caught her with a few hours ago.”
Conn’s unable to contain his reaction before masking it. “Cooper Jensen?”
“The one and only.”
“What were they doing?”
“Sleeping.”
“Naked?”
“No,” I reply, shaking my head. It was so much worse than that.
“There has to be an explanation,” he retorts. His optimism just pisses me the hell off sometimes.
“You always think there’s an explanation, Conn. I stood there quite a long fucking time staring at him holding my woman as they slept trying to figure out if my warped mind was playing tricks on me, but after about ten minutes it finally sank in that it wasn’t a goddamn hallucination and I left.”
“Without confronting them? Getting answers?”
“No, I didn’t confront them. They looked pretty fucking cozy. It’s simple, as it always is, brother. I was played. Again.”
He’s silent for a few minutes. Guess that shut him up.
“Did you ever cheat on Natalie?” he finally asks.
Or not.
“How are you turning this around on me?”
“Just answer the question. You ever cheat on her?”
“No.”
“She’s convinced you did. She says that’s the only reason she turned to this guy was because she thought you were sleeping with someone else and she wanted to hurt you like you’d hurt her.”
“I was one hundred percent faithful to her for the entire time we were together, even though she obviously didn’t deserve it. I never gave her any reason to think I was cheating. So I guess that’s on her then.”
“You’re missing the point.”
Sighing heavily, I play along even though that’s the last thing I want right now. I want to drink. I want to forget. I want to figure out how the hell I’m going to move one step ahead, let alone an entire lifetime without the woman who has herself buried so deep inside me I know I’ll never be free of her. “What is the point, Conn?”
“Assumption. The whole point is she assumed something that wasn’t true was. And she’s regretted it ever since. Don’t make the same mistake, Asher. Don’t assume you know what you saw. It could be entirely innocent. Talk to Alyse. She doesn’t seem like the cheating kind to me and I think you know that.”
He rises and hands back my cocktail before clasping me on the shoulder. “In our entire lives, I’ve never known you to quit on anything. For years, you even fought for that doomed relationship you had with Natalie. Don’t quit now. Fight like the tenacious bastard I know you are. You are meant to marry this woman, brother. I feel it. I see it every time I watch you two together. So swallow your goddamn pride and fight for her. Even if there is something going on with this guy, which I doubt, then fight for her anyway. If you fuck this up because you let your pride get in the way, you’ll live the rest of your life under nothing but a mountain of regret. And trust me, that’s no way to live.”
Then he leaves me alone with my hard liquor and a crushed heart to mull over his words.
Chapter 40
Alyse
My eyes shift from my computer screen to the clock on the wall once again. Five minutes past three. My door is open and I can hear the few people on this floor making their way to the elevator in anticipation of partying the night away. I suddenly wonder what I’ll be doing; the prospect of being by myself in a lonely apartment doesn’t sound appealing in the least.
I haven’t heard from Asher all day. I’ve texted him three times and called twice, but each call went to voice mail. Each text remained unanswered. I’m sure he’s knee-deep with this lawsuit, but I can’t help but worry. It’s not like him to not at least respond with a quick flirty or dirty message.
Out of my peripheral, I see someone standing in my doorway and my heart speeds up hoping it’s Asher, but as I spin around I see it’s Tara. “Alyse, I’m taking off. Did you need anything?”
“Uh, no. I’ll see you next week then, right? You’re taking Friday off?”
“Yep. Have a good holiday.” She winks.
“Say, have you heard from Asher today?”
“Yeah, about a couple hours ago. He said he’d be in later to get a few files.”
“Oh.” I try not to let my face fall, but apparently I fail, because she quickly responds. “He said he’s been really busy, so I wouldn’t worry about it if you’ve been trying to reach him.” Ever the good assistant…trying to cover up for her boss.
“Oh. No, I’m fine. I…just wanted to run a couple of things by him is all.” For being so proficient at lying, I’m failing miserably right now.
“I’ll see you later.”
“Yep,” I mumble, but she’s already gone.
I return to my report. Even with my mind elsewhere, it’s been a very productive week with Asher gone. I’m practically jumping up and down about telling him what I’ve found so far. Although I’m not done completely with the audit, I finally have enough documentation to at least suspend the suspect, pending further investigation. I’ve gone through all the charities and suppliers and found one charity and two suppliers that are not only suspicious, they’re just plain bogus. Well, the businesses are legit, the invoices aren’t.
The CFO, Edward Reigen, requested all three to be set up. Asher will be less than happy when I tell him the charity approval for Feed My Starving Children even has his signature. In the June board of directors meeting minutes, a hundred thousand-dollar donation was approved, which the new supplier notes indicate, but the money never made it to Feed My Starving Children. Instead, it made it to the bank account of Mr. Reigen. In fact, the invoices for the other suppliers also made it into Mr. Reigen’s bank account, which he just opened in February of this year.
No matter how small or large a company is, one thing is the same across them all. The grapevine. It’s surprising how much gossip people want to spread about the misery of others. Mr. Reigen, the CFO of CFC for over five years now, has apparently been going through a very nasty divorce and is being put through the ringer by his ex for outrageous child and alimony support. Amanda freely offered that
little tidbit up at the coffee pot last week, so I was less than surprised this morning to find that he also owned the bank account that the false invoices were being paid to.
I feel his presence before I see him and lift my head just as he walks through my door. He looks troubled, angry, and something else that I can’t quite place. The anticipation that I’d had at seeing him quickly changes to unease.
“Hi,” I say. “I was worried about you. I haven’t heard from you all day.”
Without a word, he shuts the door and sits down across from me.
“What’s wrong?”
He starts talking. Slow, deliberate. “I’m going to ask you this one time only, Alyse, and I expect the truth, no matter how painful it may be to say it.”
My brows furrow, not liking his insinuation at all. “Ask me what? Asher, what’s going on?”
“Are you having an affair with that fucking photographer?”
“What?” I half snort, half laugh. “Who? Cooper? That’s ridiculous. Of course not.”
“Wrong answer,” he says. Rising he starts walking to the door but I jump up and rush over, standing in front of it before he can make it all the way there. He stops right in front of me. His presence is imposing. I’ve never seen him like this and I have to admit I’m a little scared.
“What the hell is going here?” I demand, arms crossed.
“I think that’s my question.”
“I don’t hear from you all day and then you walk in here accusing me of having some imaginary affair with a friend? What the hell, Asher? You really have a problem, you know that?”
From this close distance, I smell the alcohol wafting off him like he’s been dunked in a vat and soaked for a few hours. It’s steaming from his pores with such potency, I can almost see it rising like hot vapor on blacktop.
“You’re drunk,” I accuse.
“Not nearly enough.”
