Undeniably Asher (The Colloway Brothers Book 2)

by Kreig, K. L.

  “Did you drive?”

  “I’m not that stupid, Alyse.”

  “Asher,” I lay my hand on his waist and he flinches so I remove it, trying not to let it hurt as much as it does. “Please. Tell me what’s going on here.”

  “I saw you.” His voice cracks. I can tell he’s one rung away from falling into an inky black void where I won’t be able to reach him.

  “You saw me what? You aren’t making any sense. Please, let’s talk when you’re sober.”

  I start to move away, to let him leave when he slams his body into mine. My back hits the door hard and then his mouth is on mine. It’s rough and bruising and not in a mutually I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off way, but in an I’m-so-fucking-pissed-off-at-you-I’m-going-to-make-you-bleed way.

  This is not Asher. Asher is not physical or violent. He’s demanding and sometimes rough, but he’s never done anything that I didn’t like or want. I try to push him back, but he doesn’t give an inch, taking, taking, until I’m scared he’s going to take something he’ll later regret when the alcohol haze wears off. He finally breaks his mouth from mine, and bites his way down my neck, asking me “why” in between hard, painful nips. It hurts…and it’s meant to.

  “Asher, stop. Please, stop. Please,” I beg over and over, my voice shaking more with each escalating plea. It must finally get through, because he does. Leaning his head against the maple wood, his chest heaves and he pulls me to him, squeezing so hard, I almost can’t breathe.

  His shoulders begin to shake and I realize he’s crying. It breaks my heart in pieces to think something has brought this strong man to such a place of despair. His pain is so unbearable it physically hurts me. I stroke his hair with one hand, holding him close with the other.

  Air is overrated anyway.

  “I love you, Asher. I love you. Only you. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I love you so fucking much, Alyse. I know I love you, because I’ve never felt soul-tearing agony like I did last night when I saw you in his arms. Why would you do that to me? To us? You’re my everything and now I have nothing.” The last few words are rumbled on a sob.

  Oh shit. Now it’s all making sense.

  I was emotionally and physically exhausted last night and accidentally fell asleep on the couch with Beck. Something woke me shortly after midnight and I asked him to leave, which he did immediately. And Beck and Cooper look so much alike…

  He sags against me, his hard body completely pinning mine.

  Okay, maybe air isn’t overrated.

  “Asher, baby, listen to me. Can we go to your office where we can sit down and I can explain? It’s not what you think.”

  “Never is. Always me,” he mutters, not making a lick of sense. I wonder how much he’s had to drink and how long he’s been doing it. And I wonder why he didn’t just confront me last night instead of leaving, angry and hurt.

  Suddenly I’m petrified that I may lose him, all because I was too afraid to confess my secrets earlier.

  Tears threaten. This is all my fault. Had I just been up front with him from the very beginning, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. Once again, I have fucked up big time. But I push those baby-bitch tears and the emotion down, because right now Asher needs me. I can’t help him if I’m a blubbering mess.

  He lets me push him back. I manage to get us away from the door enough to open it. I look out into the hall to ensure no one is loitering. Would probably be a bad idea for Asher’s employees to see him smashed at four o’clock in the afternoon, even if it is New Year’s Eve.

  Tucking an arm around his waist, I walk him the short distance to his office and sit him on the couch. His eyes are now heavy and unfocused and he’s having a hard time keeping them open, even though he’s giving it his best college try.

  “Can I have your phone?” I ask quietly, sitting next to him. He reaches into his jeans pocket and produces it. I quickly find the contact I’m looking for and dial. On the fourth ring he answers.

  “Hi. It’s Alyse. I need your help.”

  Chapter 41

  Asher

  I crack open my eyes and blink, trying to make objects come into focus, trying to remember where in the hell I am and how I got there. It takes me a few seconds, but slowly, events from the last twenty-four hours come rushing back. I wish they fucking hadn’t.

  I realize I’m in my own bedroom, fully clothed, sans shoes, just like I’d left this afternoon when I went into the office to confront Alyse. I wasn’t as drunk as Alyse thought, but I wasn’t exactly sober either, so I remember every word spoken. Unfortunately I also remember how rough I was with her. Regret eats at me for the way I treated her. No matter what, she did not deserve that from me. I went there with the intent of fighting for her, but things quickly escalated out of my control. Hurt easily commandeered the reins from common sense.

  I sit up, taking stock of how I feel. I lost count of how many Bloody Marys I had throughout the day. Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. I spent hours stewing over Conn’s advice, reliving every single memory I’ve ever had with Alyse. I ached with the thought of giving that up. Of giving her up. It was excruciating to think of a life without her.

  It still is.

  Looking at the clock, I see it’s almost eleven o’clock. I think I passed out from exhaustion more than the alcohol and had been sleeping for almost seven hours. With the way my body feels, I think I need about seven more, but the need to find Alyse is far more urgent than drifting back into my restless dreamland.

  After a pit stop in the bathroom and a quick brush of my teeth, I leave my bedroom and hear soft voices in the living room. Rounding the corner, I see Conn and Alyse sitting on the couch, each with a glass of wine in their hand, quietly talking. The TV is on in the background. With the millions of tons of confetti floating through the air it looks like the east coast is celebrating a brand new year, while I’ll be nursing a hangover here shortly. This is not at all what I had in mind for ringing in the year that I had planned to make Alyse my wife.

  “Do you think I should check on him again?” she asks, worry threading her tone. At least she still gives a fuck after the way I treated her earlier. That’s something.

  “Nah. Give him another half hour. Then we can,” Conn answers.

  “You can go, you know.”

  “Alyse, I’m not leaving. You and Asher belong together and sometimes he’s his own worst enemy. Besides, he needs a good tongue-lashing for the shit he pulled today and that’s what brothers are for.”

  Her smile pulls me forward. I take a few more steps when Alyse spots me and stops mid-sentence.

  “I’m glad he—”

  Conn cranks his neck following Alyse’s line of sight. His lips thin in fury, directed entirely at me, but I don’t care. He’s right. I deserve it. I quickly shift my attention back to Alyse, drinking the sight of her in, lifting my hand to rub the pain in my chest.

  God, I love her. So damn much.

  I can’t lose her.

  “Hi,” she says quietly, making no attempt to move. “How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty much like an asshole.”

  “You should. You are an asshole,” Conn grates. “Did you not listen to a fucking word I said earlier?”

  “I did.” I listened. I just took a little self-pity detour first.

  “You owe me,” he says, standing and walking into the kitchen to set his glass down. I brace myself for the “tongue-lashing” he’s about to deliver. “Big time. I had to sneak your drunk ass down the stairs and out the back entrance and you cost me a fan-fucking-tastic lay tonight. On New Year’s Eve of all nights, thank you very much. All because you were wallowing when you should have been getting the fucking truth like I told you to. Honestly, if I were Alyse, I’d kick your jealous, overreacting ass to the curb. I have no idea what’s wrong with my brothers. Book smart, business shrewd, relationship incompetent,” he mumbles the last part under his breath.

  I ignore the last part. Like he�
�s a damn expert at relationships. “Good thing you’re not Alyse then.”

  Our eyes haven’t left each other’s and, at this point, I don’t know what to think, what to believe, but I know this: I’m going to give her a chance to explain, because I don’t just want her, I need her. Desperately. And if there’s somebody else, as ego bruising as it will be, I’m going to fight for her.

  I want her to choose me.

  Conn walks back over to Alyse and kisses her on the cheek. “I’ll be just a phone call away if you need anything else, okay? I can be up here in a flash.” He glares at me when saying the last part. Then he walks to the door, but before he closes it, he drops a bomb that stabs me in the gut like a hot poker. “You do anything to her in anger again and you and I will have a big problem.”

  I start to ask him what the hell he’s talking about when I see Alyse’s hand cover the right side of her neck. A wave of nausea hits me fast. I think back to how fury lit my blood on fire when I saw bruises on her arm from Finn. I feel absolutely sick. I am no better than that fucking loser.

  “Fuck, Alyse. I’m…Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m fine. Conn’s making it a bigger deal than it is.”

  Sitting down next to her, I take the wine and reach behind me, setting it down. When I turn back, I gently remove her hand to inspect the damage I caused. My stomach rolls at the tiny bruises I already see forming. My eyes lift to see her watching me carefully.

  “I’m—”

  She places a finger to my lips. “Stop. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

  My eyes search hers. I can’t possibly be mistaken at the love and affection I see. “Pick me, Alyse,” I beg, unable to stop myself. I’ll get down on my knees and stay there for all my days if I need to. I’ll swallow an ocean full of salty pride if it would persuade her to be mine. “Choose me. I don’t know how to live without you anymore. I don’t want to.”

  “Asher,” she breathes with a voice that’s beseeching. “There never was a choice.” I must look confused because she adds, “There is no one else. There’s only you. I’m in love with you. I want only you.”

  “But I saw you with him. Last night.”

  She takes a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. I hate that her eyes shift from mine briefly. “I have a lot of things I need to tell you. Are you up for it now, because it’s not a short conversation.”

  I nod, but I’m not at all sure I’m ready to hear something that could turn my entire world on its axis again.

  “Do you remember the accident I was in when I was eighteen?”

  “Yes,” I reply wondering what in the hell that has to do with the fact that I saw her in another man’s arms last night.

  “And you remember that the driver died?”

  I nod.

  Another big breath. I can tell this is hard for her. “He didn’t die.”

  “Okay…” I stretch the word out, getting more confused by the second. “What do you mean he didn’t die? And what does any of this have to do with last night?”

  “The guy you saw me with last night wasn’t Cooper. His name is Beck Mercado. He’s Cooper’s cousin. He was the driver in that accident. He was my boyfriend.” Her eyes sweep down briefly before delivering the killing blow.

  “And the father of my baby.”

  Chapter 42

  Asher

  An hour later my mind is reeling with everything she’s told me. Her dead boyfriend is alive and is her stepbrother, and his stepdad is married to Alyse’s runaway mother.

  Both she and this guy have walked through hell and come out the other side. Different people, but they’ve come out nonetheless. It absolutely shreds me that she was pregnant with someone else’s baby, but I would be a hypocrite of epic proportions to ever think differently about her because of it.

  As much as I’m seething inside with jealousy, I feel for the guy. He was put in a tough spot. The difference between us is that nothing would have kept me away from Alyse. Not a damn thing. Now I understand why Alyse has been so protective of her heart. Why she’s tried to keep me out.

  “This is all a little unbelievable. Like a fucking soap opera or something,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my hair. Then I ask the question that I know without a doubt I do not want the answer to, but not knowing will eat my gut raw. It’s already bled far too much these past two weeks. “Do you…do you still love him?”

  The way I saw him holding her makes complete sense now. He’s still in love with her. I didn’t have to see anything other than the tender way he held her in his arms, even in sleep, to know that. I have to know if she feels the same.

  Fuck. I can hardly stand to hear her answer.

  She reaches for my hand, and both her gesture and words settle me. “I think a part of me was still in love with the memory of him. I’ll always care about him because of our history, but I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with you, Asher. You. I was wrong to keep all this from you, but it was just too painful to even put a voice to it and after I saw him at the bar that night, I just…I didn’t know what to do. What to think. I had to understand what was happening first before I could even attempt to talk to you about it.”

  “I get it, Alyse.” And I do. I don’t like it, but I do get it. “I understand how hard some things are to talk about.” I reach for her, needing her in my arms, my mouth on hers. She stops me.

  “There’s one more thing I have to tell you.”

  Her nervousness makes me nervous, too. “You can tell me anything, Alyse. Anything.”

  She swallows hard. “When I lost the baby and I thought Beck had died, I went into a very deep depression.”

  “Understandable,” I reply softly, aching to hold her to me, to ease her discomfort.

  “I…I didn’t want to live. I felt like I’d lost everything and I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it. Neither Livia nor my father knew about Beck…or the baby. The pain was so vast and so deep; I felt completely and utterly lost. I would lie in bed at night and wish I were the one who had died instead of Beck, instead of our baby. I was in so much emotional pain, I literally couldn’t function. All I wanted was to be with Beck and my baby, even if it wasn’t in the flesh.”

  She flashes a look of embarrassment before continuing. “The first time, I took an entire bottle of ibuprofen, but all I managed to do was make myself sick for three days. The second time, though, I got smarter. I took a handful of Cymbaltas and pain pills and as much whiskey as I could drink until I blessedly passed out.”

  I literally cannot breathe when Alyse pauses, biting her lip. Her gaze shifts away again. This time I don’t give her a choice. I pull her into my lap and wrap my arms tightly around her, all the time thinking fuck fuck fuck! I could have lost her. Forever. The only woman who was meant for me could have been taken away before I even had her. I squeeze tighter, relishing in the warmth of her body bleeding into mine.

  “Livia found me,” she tells me quietly. “I’d stopped breathing and she did CPR on me until the ambulance arrived. If she’d been even two minutes later I would have died. After three days in the hospital, my father admitted me to an inpatient psych ward where I spent the next thirty days in intense therapy and another year after that in outpatient care.”

  My eyes prick as irrational guilt assaults me. None of this would have happened either if she were mine back then. If I’d never let her go.

  “Jesus, Alyse. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you went through all of that by yourself. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

  “Asher, you have no reason to be sorry. It’s just…my path, I guess.”

  “I should have never let you go. It is my fault.”

  “Stop. It’s not. You don’t…think any less of me because I had a little psychotic break?” she asks tentatively.

  “Christ, why would I, Alyse? I can’t even imagine what you were going through. I’m in no position to pass judgment on something that I can’t possibly understand. If anything I’m proud of you.”

&
nbsp; “Proud of me?” she asks disbelievingly.

  “Yes. I’m not sure I could have been as strong as you were to get through all of that.”

  “I wasn’t strong. I was weak.”

  “No, baby.” I tilt her face to mine. “A moment of weakness doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. You’re here and you’re an extraordinary woman. The strongest I know.”

  Her smile is tired and sad. “After I recovered, that’s when I got the tattoo. To remind myself to believe in hope and life and me.”

  “I figured it was something deep and meaningful,” I say, stroking her hair.

  “Yeah.”

  She looks away again, going silent. I have to wonder why she was so nervous to tell me something like this. As far as I’m concerned, the whole dead/not dead boyfriend is a far more important part of what shaped Alyse into the woman she is today.

  “Your mother’s very wise, you know,” she finally says.

  “Yes she is,” I numbly agree, unable to think about anything but the fact that I almost didn’t get the chance to sit here now with her. I could have missed the smell of vanilla in her hair or pressing my lips to her warm temple or the feather of her fingers down my spine as I rock inside of her. My arms tighten. She squeaks so I loosen them, but only slightly.

  “She told me that life takes us where we’re supposed to be, even if that road is bumpy and there are detours. My road has been hard, but I know it’s led me back to you.”

  “She did, huh?” I smile. My mom is one-of-a-kind incredible, always knowing the right thing to say at the right time. I hook a finger under her chin, tilting her head up. Her gorgeous, misty eyes meet mine. “I wish I had never let you go.”

  “Don’t let me go now.”

  “Never,” I whisper. “Never again.” As I stare into the eyes of the woman who single-handedly brought my heart back to life, I can’t keep the next words from leaving my mouth no matter how hard I try. I didn’t plan on doing this now, but I can’t imagine a more perfect time. “Marry me, Alyse.”