We reach a pull-out and he drives onto it, puts the truck in Park, then faces me. He leaves the engine running, and I’m glad, because it’s cold outside. Now that I have his full attention with no other distractions, I’m a bit disconcerted. It was easier to talk to him when he wasn’t looking at me full-on.
With his green eyes on mine, his magnetism pulls me towards him and I want to throw out talking point number two and fling myself into his arms. A blush rises on my cheeks at the thought, and I focus on my last question, which he has yet to answer. “So? What do you do outside of work?”
He stares at me a moment. “I like to work out.”
I have no doubt about that. Especially when I recall seeing his chiseled body. The memory brings a pulse of heat to my insides. “What else?” I say, frantic to think of something else.
He slowly smiles, like he knows the effect he’s having on me.
DRAKE
Ashley fidgets in her seat and I think about our intimate times together. I’d love to take her in my arms right now and kiss her until she melts into my arms, but I need to stay focused, so I mentally review what I’ve learned: She doesn’t want to work for me anymore, which is fine with me as I know that would be destined to fail. She doesn’t think I have a life outside of work, which may actually be true. And she sometimes thinks about the time we spent at the cabin.
I wonder how often she thinks about it. I know I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately—more often than I’d like to admit.
“What else?” she says now. “What else do you like to do besides work?”
“What about you?” I say, trying to turn the conversation away from my work-focused life. “What do you like to do?”
She smiles, which makes her whole face light up, and I want to reach across the bench seat and haul her against me. I look out the front windshield to distract myself, but her voice pulls me back to her.
“I love to go dancing,” she says.
Her statement calls to mind the interaction I witnessed the night before between her and Jonathan, and jealousy pierces me. “I like to dance too,” I say without thinking.
“We should go sometime,” she says, then her eyes widen and a soft blush blossoms on her cheeks.
I like that she accidentally said what she was really thinking, and I wish she would be more forthright.
What about you? Why aren’t you more forthright? I hold back a frown. I have my reasons why I want to play it close to the vest. Namely, because I don’t want to commit to something I can’t follow through on. That wouldn’t be fair to either one of us. “Yes,” I say. “We should.”
Smirking, like she’s about to give me a dare, she says, “What about this Friday?”
My eyebrows rise. “What? Go dancing?”
“Duh, Drake. That’s what we’re talking about.”
I don’t know why the idea brings on a mild feeling of panic, but I decide to respond with a comment that I hope will settle my nerves and put this back on her. “Are you asking me on a date, Ashley?”
Thirty-Six
ASHLEY
Is that what I’m doing? Emily will so kill me. I’m totally screwing up her talking points. Okay, I managed talking point number one, but that’s hardly a success. Points two and three are the critical ones.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “I guess I am.”
His lips turn up in a half-smile. “I accept. What time will you pick me up?”
I decide to play along. Besides, this is much more fun than worrying about how he feels towards me. “How about seven?”
“Yeah, that works for me.”
“Are you sure you won’t have an important meeting to get ready for or anything?”
His smile dims. “I might, but I’m sure I can get it done.”
“See,” I say. “You hardly have a life outside of work.”
He tilts his head to one side. “Why is working hard such a bad thing?”
I sigh. “It’s not. It’s just that you need to be well-rounded.”
“And what would make me well-rounded?”
Staring at him, I visualize him with a wife and children. Even if it’s not me that he ends up with, he deserves to be happy. My voice softens. “Don’t you want to have a family one day?”
He hesitates. “Sure. Of course.” But he doesn’t sound committed to the idea. “I’m only twenty-six though, Ashley. There will be time for that later.”
I don’t want to talk about his future wife anymore. “So, you never exactly said what you wanted to talk to me about. You know, why you insisted on bringing me on this drive.”
He gazes at me a moment. “I just . . . I guess I just needed to see you again after you quit. You know, to make sure you don’t hate me or anything.”
I’m surprised, yet pleased, to know that he cares so much about the way I feel towards him.
“I mean,” he says. “You made it clear how important it was to you to keep your job, so when you quit I wondered how you were doing, and, you know, if you blamed me for things not working out.”
Oh. So it’s not that he cares how I feel about him romantically, but rather how I feel about him as an employer? Confused, my eyebrows bunch. “No, I don’t blame you, Drake.”
He smiles, but it seems forced. “Good.”
We both look out the front window, then I remember the text he sent earlier. “What did you mean in that text?”
He looks at me. “What?”
I pull my phone out of my purse and find the text he sent. “You said, ‘I spoke to your roommate and she told me how you really feel. I hope she’s wrong.’” I look at him. “What did you mean? Wrong about what?”
His jaw tightens and he shifts in his seat.
Why does this make him so uncomfortable?
DRAKE
I wish I’d thought it through before revealing so much of my feelings in that text, but I’d been so angry and jealous at what Emily had said that I’d fired it off without thinking.
Nervousness settles over me as I see the expectant look on Ashley’s face, and I know I’m going to have to explain. “Well,” I begin, “she told me that you’re glad I’m out of your life.”
Ashley stares at me a moment. “She’s wrong.”
I take a moment to digest what that means. “You’re not glad I’m out of your life?”
She sighs, like she’s frustrated with me. “No, Drake. No. Okay? I don’t want you out of my life. I want you in my life.” She frowns, like she isn’t sure she should have told me. “There. I’ve said it. I’ve admitted the way I feel. Now you can throw my heart on the ground and stomp on it.”
I stare at her a moment. “Is that what you think I’ll do? Is that what you think of me? That I’m completely insensitive?” Then I think about the interactions we’ve had and realize that she has good reason to think that. I have been pretty insensitive to her. I’ve been a pretty big jerk.
First, I made her play housekeeper to keep Rachel happy. Then I became angry with her when Rachel found out the truth—as if it was her fault. Then I hired her to be my assistant when I knew from the start that it would be a mistake. Then I slept with her while she was in my employ. Yeah, I can understand her reticence in sharing her feelings with me.
What I don’t understand is why she would want to be with me at all. Especially when I think about all the things I’ve done to hurt her. “Never mind,” I say. “You’re probably right.”
“I am?”
“I told you the other day that I’m a selfish lowlife and I think I’ve proven that over and over.”
Her face softens. “Not always, Drake.”
“What do you mean? When have I not been?”
“You took me in and cared for me for days. You didn’t even know me, yet you let me into your home.”
I smile sardonically. “Well, I almost ran you over.”
“True. But you could have just taken me to a hospital or something. Or even back to town to stay at the motel.”
“I guess.�
��
“And you took the time to check on me when I was staying at that motel. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you insisted that I come back to your house where you knew I’d be safe, even though you knew it would interfere with your job.”
As she makes her list, I start to feel better about myself. “Okay.”
“You took time away from work—which I know now is so important to you—to show me how to build a snowman and how to have a snowball fight. You even took me snowmobiling.”
A genuine smile curves my mouth. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” The more she talks, the more I’m drawn to her. This is why I can’t get her out of my head. She makes me feel good about myself.
She makes me happy.
This is a revelation to me and I open my mouth to tell her how I feel, but before I can speak, she continues.
“But there are other times,” she says. “Times when you’re thoughtless and hurtful. Times when it feels like you don’t care about me at all.” She pauses. “That’s when I don’t want to have anything to do with you, Drake. That’s when I’m glad you’re out of my life.”
It’s like she’s slammed a two-by-four into my gut, and I don’t know what to do with it.
Thirty-Seven
ASHLEY
It feels so good to finally get that off of my chest. It’s not the same as telling him to go to hell, but at least I’ve laid out how I feel. I look at his face but I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“Okay,” he says, then he’s quiet for a moment. “Let me see if I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes you like me and sometimes you hate me. Do I have that right?”
At the look of displeasure on his face, I hesitate, but then say, “Pretty much. Yeah.”
He looks out his window for a moment, then turns back to me. “What am I supposed to do with that, Ashley?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to deal with someone who makes me feel this way.”
He laughs, but the sound lacks humor. Then he runs both hands through his hair. “I think you were put on that road during the snowstorm just to drive me insane.”
My lips part in confusion. I’m driving him insane? What about me? I nearly became a stalker when I moved to Reno all because of him. I even resorted to walking right in to his house when he wasn’t even home. That’s not me. “What do you mean?”
He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead with two fingers like he’s getting a headache, then he looks at me. “Ever since you came into my life I’ve felt like a ping pong ball in a game of table tennis.”
He stares at me, and I wonder if he’s about to reveal something important. My gaze is riveted to his face.
DRAKE
Do I really want to expose my feelings? I’m not sure, but this attempt to hide from them is becoming exhausting. When I look at Ashley, I see that she is hanging on my every word. I’ve never felt such acute and genuine interest from a woman before. It’s like she really wants to know me. Not the Drake who runs a consulting firm, or the Drake who’s amassed some wealth, or the Drake who’s always had women flock to him, but the real me.
I find it irresistible, yet I still try to resist. “Ashley, it’s not all me.”
Her eyebrows draw together in confusion. “What do you mean?”
I chuckle. “You’ve run hot and cold the whole time I’ve known you.” Her expression tells me she can’t deny this, and I press forward. “When I brought you to my cabin you made it clear you had a boyfriend—a fictitious boyfriend, as it turns out.” My voice softens. “Then after we made love, when you found out your car would have to go into the shop, you refused my offer to let you stay at my house.”
“I only refused,” she says, “because you seemed so eager for me to leave.”
I can’t argue with her. I had been eager for her to leave. “I had a lot of work to do.”
She smiles. “I know that now. It’s okay.”
She’s such a contradiction that I can’t help but laugh. “So now it’s okay that I work a lot?”
Frowning, she tilts her head. “What I meant was, I understand now why you weren’t eager for me to stay. I didn’t say I approve of it.”
“Oh.” My mouth turns up in a half-smile. “Anyway, after that psycho attacked you and you agreed to come back to my cabin, you pretty much ignored me until Rachel showed up. Then while you were playing housekeeper it seemed that you were trying to seduce me.”
She laughs. “I was just mad that you were making me pretend to be your housekeeper and I wanted to get under your skin.” Her smile turns into a smirk. “I guess it worked.”
Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been misreading all of her cues. “Okay. How about after Rachel left and we were in the jacuzzi? You sat as far away from me as possible, and don’t think I didn’t notice that when I moved over by you that you tried to scoot away. And if you hadn’t been blocked by that next bench in the jacuzzi, you would have succeeded.”
My voice lowers as I remember what happened next. “But you didn’t resist me that afternoon.”
ASHLEY
As I think about our last afternoon at his cabin, desire ripples through me. The facts as he is laying them out are true, but what he doesn’t understand is that I’d been trying to resist his magnetism all of those times when he thought I was running cold. But each and every time he’d broken through my resistance and I’d surrendered to his charms.
“What about when Rachel came back that night?” I say, trying to put it back on him. “You only told her the truth about me after I forced you to. If I hadn’t made you, you would have let her go on believing that I was nothing more than your housekeeper.” I stare at him, daring him to disagree.
He sighs. “Maybe. I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I’d been thinking of breaking things off with her before I even met you.”
“That doesn’t change anything. You were happy to let me play the part of housekeeper, yet you wanted to sleep with me when she wasn’t around.”
Frowning, he looks at his lap before looking back at me. “You’re right, Ashley.” His voice softens. “You’re right.”
Is that what I want? To be right? Or do I want to understand this man who’s had a hold on me since the day I met him? “I’m over it,” I say. Then I think about the stalkerish things I’ve done and my face reddens with shame. “I’m not perfect either,” I admit.
He smirks. “Really?”
“Ha, ha. No, I’m not.” A small smile lifts the corners of my mouth. “You might be surprised at what I’ve done recently.”
His eyebrows rise. “That sounds intriguing. What have you done?”
He’s being honest with me, so I decide to do the same, but when I open my mouth to speak, I have trouble getting the words out.
“What is it?” he says. “It can’t be that bad.”
I chew on my lip, then my words come out in a rush. “Right after I moved here I found out where you lived and I drove over there, then I went into your house when your cleaning people were there.”
His mouth falls open. “What?” Then he laughs. “How long were you there?”
Relieved he isn’t telling me to get out of his truck and walk home, I smile, though my face is hot with embarrassment. “Just for a second. The front door wasn’t shut all the way and I walked into the entry, but when I heard the vacuum turn off, I ran.”
He chuckles. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“I know.”
Then his eyes narrow. “Why did you do that?”
My voice is tinged with sheepishness “I just wanted to see you.”
“When was this?”
I stop and think for a moment. “It was two days after I got to Reno.”
He nods. “When did you apply for the job at my firm?”
“The day before that.”
“Why did you apply for a job at my firm, Ashley? Did you really want to work there, or did you have other reasons?”
/>
I squirm in my seat. Why is he making me admit all of this? “Well, I did need a job. But I was kind of hoping I’d get to see you again. I mean, we didn’t leave on the best of terms.”
He laughs. “I was certainly surprised when Barbara brought me your resume and said she wanted me to talk to you.”
“I was surprised when you hired me,” I say. “Why did you?”
“I did need an assistant.” A half-smile turns up his mouth. “And I need one again.” He gazes at me. “To tell you the truth, I couldn’t resist the idea of seeing you everyday, even though deep down I knew it couldn’t possibly work.”
“Hey, it lasted a week,” I say with a laugh.
“Yeah.” He frowns. “And I’m the one who blew it.” He pauses. “I’m sorry I couldn’t control myself.” He stares at his hands which are folded in his lap. “I’m sorry I’m such a selfish lowlife.” Then he looks at me with a gentle smile. “I understand why you quit. I don’t blame you. Not at all.”
He looks so forlorn that before I realize what I’m doing, I reach out and put my hands over his. Electricity jolts through me as our skin makes contact, and when our eyes meet, I know he feels it too. I pull my hands away, flustered. “It’s . . . It’s not all your fault,” I stammer as I look away from his face.
“Look at me,” he demands.
I lift my gaze to meet his and see my feelings reflected in his eyes.
He stares at me for a moment before speaking. “I’ve come to realize that I care about you. But I’ve been fighting it. That’s why I said what I did when you asked what was wrong the other day.” He pauses. “I’m sorry.”
Happiness blossoms within me. He cares about me. The idea that there could be a future for us fills me with joy, though I’m not certain exactly what he’s telling me.
Thirty-Eight
DRAKE
Drake and Ashley: The Complete Story Page 26
