CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Why are we waiting?” Ashley asked the stewardess.
The stewardess looked at her, and smiled, but she didn’t answer her. She instead took the tray with the empty wine glass that Ashley had been drinking from, and headed back toward the stewardess station. It was as if she had been ordered NOT to give information, which, it seemed to Ashley, contradicted her very job description! But that was the least of Ashley’s worries.
She was too busy wondering why they were still waiting. It had been nearly half an hour since they touched down in Jersey, and there was no sign of a car, or a cab, or even an Uber to transport her to Monk. Nothing. Which probably meant Monk was coming himself and was running late.
Or, she thought horribly, he had changed his mind about bringing her there, and his flight crew was trying to figure out what to do with her.
She started to pull out her cell phone and tell Monk nobody was handling her like that. She’d get off of that plane and walk to her uncle’s hotel in New York before she let anybody handle her like that.
But as she thought about making that phone call, or at least going up there to the flight chief and demand that he tell her what the hold-up was, a bright red Mercedes sports car came speeding onto the tarmac. Ashley smiled at the prospect of it being Monk in that nice car.
To her pleasant surprise, it was Monk.
When he got out of that car and began running toward the plane, with his suit and hat making him look like some old-style gangster, Ashley still was having a hard time believing it. Was that her man now? Was that where this was headed? Monk Paletti was going to be hers? Her man? And she and couldn’t stop smiling. Because he came. Because he was simply late. That was the answer, she thought, as she couldn’t contain her excitement any longer and she got up from her seat and hurried off of the plane to greet him. That was the wonderful answer!
Monk couldn’t get to her fast enough when he saw her running down the steps of his plane. The very short, bright-colored, poodle skirt she wore was flaring-out in the wind, and her long, black hair was bouncing as she ran. And Monk was smiling too. So much so that every member of his flight crew, including his pilot, stood at the windows of the plane watching. And to a man and woman, they could hardly believe their eyes. Their boss went from not ever being seen with a woman in all the years they’d worked for him, to running to get to one?
Ashley had run down to the second-to-last step by the time Monk got to her, and he grabbed her and lifted her up and into his arms.
Ashley felt that protectiveness again, something she’d never felt with no other man, when Monk’s big arms flew around her. It was as if she was in a cocoon the way he held her, and she closed her eyes and melted in that protection.
Then he leaned his head back slightly, and looked at her. He was still smiling, and his big, kind eyes were dancing around as he looked from her eyes to her nose to her mouth and back to her eyes. One of his hands was still around her waist, holding her up, and the other hand was rubbing down her soft hair. “Sorry, I’m late,” he said. “It couldn’t be helped.”
Ashley smiled just hearing his heavily Jersey-accented voice again. “It’s okay,” she said.
“You weren’t worried I’d forgotten your ass?”
“Hell yeah, I was worried!” Ashley admitted. “I said to myself if his late behind isn’t here in one more minute flat, I’m going to book it out of here!”
Monk laughed.
“I’m kidding,” Ashley said, rubbing down his soft hair. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Monk loved when she said that. She wasn’t going anywhere. That was what his aching heart needed to hear somebody say in his life. And maybe that was why he chose Ashley. When others looked at her and saw problems and bad decisions, maybe he saw somebody capable of loyalty and willing to live life on her own terms regardless of who didn’t like it. And he was realizing, as they stood there, as he couldn’t stop rubbing her hair and looking into her beautiful eyes, that he saw in her what he needed most from a woman. And it wasn’t love. He needed somebody to stand by him.
Not that he didn’t need love too. He needed a woman’s love. He knew long ago he needed it probably worse than any human being alive needed it. But he knew he was never going to get it. Not even from Ashley. Why, then, would he risk his heart by falling for her? Monk knew the kind of man he was. Everything he did, he did hard. Too hard. And he knew like he knew his name, that if his heart was ever broken, there would be no mending it again. It would be over for him. And that was a risk he was never going to take.
Besides, expecting a woman to love a man like him was expecting too much.
And then he went to Maine of all places, and saw Ashley standing there while everybody else fawned over her kid sister. And for some reason, for some crazy reason, he saw something in her. He saw that she just might be what he needed most. That Ashley Sinatra just might be his ride or die.
He knew it was crazy for him to even think that a woman as carefree and wild as Ashley could be loyal on that level. But he felt what he felt and saw what he saw. And he saw in wild girl Ashley, for some unfathomable reason, just what he needed most.
“Come on, let’s get you to the hotel,” he said as he sat her on her feet, kept an arm around her waist, and began walking her toward his Mercedes. One of his crew members walked behind them, carrying Ashley’s luggage.
Ashley moved closer against him as they walked, as if she loved their closeness as much as he did, and he felt an elation just thinking about it.
But he also knew that just because she loved his nearness, didn’t mean she loved him. He was well aware of that. She could never love him because he didn’t deserve love. He’d been forced, his whole life, to be an intricate part of a crime syndicate that made him a verifiable bad man. A man who nobody could, should, or would ever love. He’d long ago accepted that.
But in Ashley’s case, her not loving him wasn’t what would break his heart. Him falling for her, and then she deciding she didn’t want him, was the risk. Her not wanting to be with him, and preferring to be with somebody else, would do the trick. It was his vulnerability. It was a secret he guarded as if it was the nuclear code. And love had nothing to do with it. Truth was, he just wanted somebody to want him, and to be there for him when life, as it happened today, was barely bearable.
He sat Ashley on the passenger seat of his car, buckled her seat belt for her, and then took her luggage from his crewman and placed it in the trunk. Then he walked around to the driver’s side of his sportscar and got in behind the wheel.
But Ashley was still wondering if she had heard him right. She looked at him. “Did you say you’re taking me to a hotel?” she asked him.
Monk looked at her. “I thought you’d be more comfortable at a hotel.”
But that made no sense to Ashley. “Rather than at your house with you?” she asked him.
Other than servants, very few people had ever been inside of Monk’s house. “I thought so, yes.”
“But I thought you brought me here to hang out with you.”
“I did.”
“Then why would you suggest a hotel?”
Monk was stumped. He’d never even thought about taking her home with him.
“Unless,” Ashley said, beginning to feel alarmed, “you don’t think I’m good enough to come to your house.”
Monk was stunned that she’d think that. “Whatta you talking? Are you kidding me? Not good enough? That’s not it at all!”
“Then what is it?”
Monk looked forward, thinking. What was it? He hadn’t allowed guests in his home since he and Teddy got into it in his theater room one day. But how could he tell her that he just didn’t like people in his house? Especially since she wasn’t just anybody. She was the one woman he desperately wanted to get to know better. And why would he want her in a hotel, instead of with him, if that was his goal? Was it because he thought that was where she would prefer to be? Or did he just didn�
��t want to deal with the terrifying thought that he was falling for somebody?
“It’s nothing,” he said to her. “That’s what it is. It’s nothing.”
“Does that mean I’m going home with you?”
Monk smiled. Ashley might have been a party girl, but there was an innocence to her too. “That’s what it means,” he said.
Ashley smiled that grand smile he adored and started pumping her hands in the air. “That’s what I’m saying!” she said. “And don’t worry. We’ll have a blast!”
Monk laughed. She would think that! And he put his car in gear, and was about to speed off.
“Wait!” she yelled.
Monk slammed on brakes. “What is it?”
“Put your top down,” Ashley said, and Monk smiled again and shook his head. And he pressed the overhead button that put down his electronically-controlled hard top. And then he sped off.
“Turn on some music,” Ashley said as she danced in her seat even before the music started, and popped her fingers as if she was having the time of her life.
Monk pressed a button and the music started playing. Although it was that old stuff again, like on his plane, at least it was Elton John singing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, and at least it wasn’t some slow drag.
“Oooh-hoo!
Nobody knows it.
When I was down,
I was your clown.
Right from the start,
I gave you my heart.
I gave you my heart.
So don’t go breaking my heart!”
Ashley was dancing and grinning and enjoying the fast beat. Even Monk found himself moving a little, too, which made Ashley laugh even harder. And he couldn’t believe it. He had this precious gem of a woman, this sweet, kind, fun-loving woman that always made him laugh, and his grand idea was to cart her off to some high-class hotel like she was some high-class prostitute? What was he thinking?!
But at least she gave him a chance to correct his error. And now they were headed in the right direction. He was actually looking forward to her being in his home.
Until he got to his home.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was on an isolated street all by itself, a dark, deserted-looking street, with nothing surrounding the dark house at the end of that street but high weeds masquerading as hedges. But as Monk drove up the three-car driveway, and Ashley got to see an unobstructed view of the big, imposing, Addams Family-looking house, Monk could tell, by the way she was looking, that all of that excitement she had held before had turned into dread. She wasn’t feeling this!
And immediately he felt regretful that he’d allowed himself to live in such dark spaces. His house didn’t always look that way. He used to have a beautiful home surrounded by a beautiful security fence with a guard station, and with plenty of household staff everywhere. But not long after Teddy and his girlfriend visited him at his house, he got rid of all of that. And shut it down to everybody but himself. And he purposely let the place go to seed.
But how in hell did he expect a cheerful, vibrant woman like Ashley to come into that kind of space and not be turned off? He could feel her dread. He reached over and took her hand. “You okay?” he asked her.
Ashley tried to smile it off. “Sure,” she said. But then she realized she couldn’t lie like that. “It looks so creepy,” she added.
“Well it’s not creepy,” Monk reassured her. “It’s just dark.”
“But why?” she asked and then looked at him. “Why do you like living in such a dark place?”
Monk knew why. It kept the people away. “That’s just me,” he said, as he drove up his driveway and stopped.
Ashley watched Monk as he walked around to the front of the car toward her side, and she wondered why was that just him. Who would want to live such an obviously lonely existence? She could tell it used to be a beautiful home, but now it looked uncared for, uninviting, and almost totally dilapidated. Even the grass had grown to heights nearly as tall as Ashley.
“Damn, Monk,” she said as he assisted her out of the car and was within an inch of her. She was still staring at his home. “It doesn’t even look like a house anymore. It looks like a mausoleum or something.” She looked at him. “What went wrong?”
Monk was taken aback by her loaded question. “Whatta you mean, ‘what went wrong?’”
“Just what I said.” Ashley looked more worried, he felt, than judgmental. “Why would you let your house get in this kind of state?”
Monk hesitated. And decided to just tell her the truth. “It keeps the people away,” he said.
Ashley frowned. “What people?”
“People. People bothering me with needing my muscle. Or my money. Or my time and attention. When I’m off the job, I don’t want all that shit in my home too. It’s already in my head. So I isolate myself.”
“You give yourself a break,” Ashley said.
Monk looked at her. He didn’t expect her to understand. But he was nodding. “Yeah. That’s it. I give myself a break. Something wrong with that?”
“No, Al Capone, there’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, and they both smiled. Then she looked at the house again. “It’s just an odd way to live, that’s all,” she said honestly.
Monk was pleased by her honesty. He was also so pleased that she didn’t judge him harshly for just being the odd person he was that he took her hand and escorted her, as if she were a queen, to his front door.
And when he opened that front door, and they walked inside, Ashley stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t believe it. She looked at him. “Monk,” she said. “It’s beautiful!”
And it was inside. The home was so elegant and well laid out that it reminded her of her Uncle Tommy’s house. “How could something so ugly outside,” she said, “be so beautiful inside?”
“Because in my book that’s where it counts,” Monk said. “The inside. Fuck the outside. Anybody can slap paint on a pig. I look in.”
Ashley smiled, and then she grinned. She was really digging that big lug. A lug, she reminded herself, with such sexy eyes!
She moved closer to him, and gave him a kiss on the lips.
She meant for it to be a little token of her appreciation. Just to show him that she really liked his oddness. But when Monk felt her lips on his lips, and tasted her, he couldn’t let her escape that easily. He pulled her closer, placed his arms around her, and began kissing her with a kind of desperate passion she didn’t think a man like him could have. But he had it. She could hardly believe her lucky stars: he had it!
And he wanted more. The longer he kissed her, the more he wanted to be with her. And when they stopped kissing, he smiled. “Come on, you!” he said happily, causing Ashley to laugh, as he lifted her into his arms and carried her across the big, open space, up the stairs, and down a hall that led to his bedroom.
But when he got to his bedroom door, and was about to take her across the threshold to give her all the loving he had to give, he hesitated.
Ashley, who had been lost in the fun of it all, realized his hesitation. And looked at him. He looked downright petrified. But she didn’t ask him what was wrong. She felt as if she knew what was wrong. She decided to play it off. “Am I your first time?” she asked him.
His eyes had been looking away from her, as if he was trying to figure out if he should go through with taking her across that threshold. But when she asked that question, he looked at her. Did he hear her right? “What?” he asked her.
“I said am I your first time? Is that why you’re hesitating?”
Monk frowned. “Get real!” he said, and Ashley grinned. And that was enough. Her laughter brought him back to earth. But it still felt strange to Monk.
Although she was joking around before, Ashley had already figured out why he was so hesitant to take her over that threshold. “I’m the first woman you had here at your house?” she asked him.
Monk loved that she got it. “You’re one of a precious few people who’
ve ever been in my house period. And yes, the only woman to ever sleep in my bed.”
Ashley smiled. “Well alright!” she said, and Monk couldn’t help but smile. And then he crossed that threshold easily.
She expected him to throw her on the bed, the way most guys did, and ravage her right then and there. And two minutes later, it would all be over.
But not Monk. He sat her on her feet, and removed her clothes and shoes, alright, but then he just stood there, his hands on her arms, staring at her.
She smiled. “Like what you see?” she asked him.
Monk looked away from her lower body and into her eyes. Ashley could tell that he was lusting after her, but she saw something else in his eyes too. Something that had nothing to do with lust. Something she could only describe as sympathy.
And she was right. When she first got naked, Monk couldn’t stop staring at her body, and lusting after it too. But when she asked if he liked what he saw, his heart sank. And he looked into her eyes, to see if her eyes reflected what he thought she meant. And they did. Because for most men, a lady asking if they liked what they saw meant she wanted them to believe that she was proud of her body. But he knew, with Ashley, it went deeper than that. She asked that question because she thought that was the question a man would want her to ask him. Because that was all she knew: how to please men. But Monk had the thought that it was high time somebody started pleasing Ashley.
He pulled back his bed coverings and motioned to her. “Get in,” he said, and she smiled and did just that. She gladly laid on his dark blue silk sheets. He smiled, looking down at her. “You look right at home,” he said. But she was still waiting for an answer.
When he pulled the coverings over her naked body, and there was still no answer, she decided to call him on it. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
He stared at her. “What question is that, Ashley?”
“Do you like what you see,” she said.
Monk stared at her again. She kept smiling, but he could tell she desperately needed him to answer her. To reaffirm what she thought was the only thing a man could want from her: her body. But Monk refused to take the bait. “I’ll shower and be right with you,” he said.
Monk Paletti: Taming Ashley Sinatra Page 11
