Don't Hate Me (My Secret Boyfriend Book 2)

by S Doyle

Nearly hopeless.

  Nearly.

  16

  Fort Dix

  Two weeks after the wedding

  Marc

  “I told George to tell you that you didn’t have to come.”

  Ash tilted her head like what I’d said confused her.

  “Of course, I have to be here. I have to see you. Every other week. That’s my deal.”

  “That’s your deal with Evan. Not with me. I don’t like you seeing me in here. In this fucking orange jumpsuit. It shames me. Can you understand that?”

  We were sitting at a table in the visitor’s room on Sunday. I was allowed one visitor a week, outside of legal counsel, and Ash and George had decided to take turns. This was Ash’s first visit, and it burned in a way I hadn’t expected.

  It hadn’t bothered me when Entwhistle had visited, which he had once, just to check in with me. Or George last week. But sitting across the table from Ash seemed sacrilegious. Like her breathing the contagious, toxic air around here would send her into an asthmatic fit.

  “No,” she said, stubbornly leaning forward but careful not to reach for my hand. There was no touching allowed during the visit. A hug at the beginning and end of the visit only. Anything else, guards got suspicious contraband was being passed.

  Not that I needed anything. Ash made sure I had access to all the money the commissary would let me keep in my account. The second I used it to buy anything, it was replenished.

  I bought cigarettes, even though I didn’t smoke, just to have jail currency. Not that I needed it. There wasn’t anyone in this place scarier than I was. Given my surly attitude and the anger I walked around with daily, I was probably the most badass of the criminal suits.

  Most of the men in here looked lost. Wandering around trying to overcome their cell phone withdrawal. Talking only about how they were going to recover the money as soon as they got out.

  Hell, I was getting more tips for investments from inside jail than I had working at Landen’s hedge fund.

  “No?” I repeated. Like that was some kind of an answer.

  “You can’t be ashamed because you did nothing wrong.”

  “I took two thousand dollars out of an account,” I reminded her. To what end? Our marriage, according to Sanderson, was null and void. Now she was married to that bastard and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “It was your money. You earned it and you know it. Besides, you did it to save me.”

  “Yeah, how is that working out for you?”

  I winced at my tone. I sounded bitter and angry, which I was. But while I was serving my time with a bunch of white collar criminals who couldn’t hurt me if they tried, she was serving her time with someone I knew was violent with her.

  Although he’d lied to me about wanting to fuck her. It was the first thing Ash had assured me of in her letter. He had no sexual interest in her at all. The marriage was nothing more than cover for him.

  But a cover for what?

  “You don’t have to do this,” I told her. “It’s not like they can do anything worse to me in here. The guys I’m serving time with wouldn’t know how to make a shank if their lives depended on it. Call his bluff, divorce his ass and get the hell out of there.”

  She shook her head, her gaze looking toward the windows on the one side of the visitor room. “I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think any of this would have been worth the effort if it was that simple.”

  I barked out sharp laugh. “Or it’s just that simple, Ash. Your father was in deep shit financially, and Sanderson knew it. He had control over your father. Which, in turn, made him think he had control over you. They both needed a scapegoat. I offered myself up to your father and became an easy target. Nothing too complicated about that. That’s what I’m saying. We don’t have to play their game. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  Her face changed in that moment. Stilled. It was like I didn’t know her, and that wasn’t possible because Ash was the only person I did know. Fully, completely, intimately.

  But this woman, sitting across from me, knew something about life I didn’t. Something about her life I didn’t understand.

  “I don’t think Evan is used to people telling him no,” she said, as if speaking to herself and not me. As if she was trying to work out in her own head how big the threat was. “He’s told me before, if I run, he’ll find me and bring me back. I believe him. I also believe if I push him to that point, he’ll soon find me expendable.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to reject what she was saying. This wasn’t fucking happening. Not to her. Not to me. A couple years ago we were two fucking teenagers planning our futures, learning how to drive, thinking about getting accepted into Princeton. Wanting a normal life. And now we were caught in this drama because of her sick fucking father and that psychopath Sanderson.

  “Ash…” I started, then stopped myself. I wanted to ask her if she truly believed she was in danger. If she actually thought this guy was going to hurt her. But there was no point in asking the question. I knew the answer.

  “It’s that simple. I’ll start by breaking every finger on her right hand, and if that isn’t enough to convince you, I’ll cut one off and bring it in here to show you.”

  I’d also believed him.

  “You do what you have to do to survive,” I said with some urgency. “You understand me?”

  She nodded. “That’s what I’m doing. You’ll survive this, too. This isn’t going to end us, Marc. Right? Tell me you don’t hate me for this. Tell me you’re not sitting there resenting the shit out of me and that’s really why you don’t want me to come visit. Because you can’t stand to look at me.”

  Fuck the guards. I reached for her hand and linked our fingers together. “Look, I’m not going to let this asshole Sanderson, or your father, ruin your life. Our life. We’re going to find a way out.”

  She nodded again, and when the guard started in our direction, she pulled her hand back and placed both of them in her lap as if to show what a well-behaved woman she was.

  “I should go,” she said. “There’s a function I have to attend tonight. Our first as a couple. You might see things on the news or read things. I don’t know what you have access to in here, but you know not to believe anything, right? Don’t believe anything you don’t hear directly from me.”

  “I won’t.”

  Her expression suddenly became more grave, more urgent. “I’m serious about this Marc. Nothing. You believe nothing, from anyone, unless I’m the one telling you it’s true.”

  “Ash, what do you think I’m going to believe?” I asked.

  She slumped in her chair. “The worst. I think you’re going to believe the worst.”

  I lifted my chin. “Not going to happen. Now go to your function. I’ve got about a hundred books in my cell I’m looking forward to reading. I keep trying to tell myself this is just a long vacation after busting my hump for so long to get ahead.”

  I hadn’t fooled her. She knew there was nothing about this experience I was enjoying. That every day was an effort to get through, but I was going to do it for another fifteen months.

  She smiled, though, and the look and feel of it did something to my soul.

  Fed it with some light when there had been only dark.

  She stood and I stood, walking around the table we slowly, but thoughtfully, hugged each other. She clung so tight I worried for my breath for a second, but then I could feel her pulling away.

  It was a sensation I didn’t like, but I had to let go.

  “Be careful,” I told her.

  She nodded but said nothing. She simply gathered up her things and left.

  Fort Dix

  6 weeks after the wedding

  Marc

  I sat at the table waiting. Looking up at the clock mounted on the wall, I could see it was ten minutes after two. She’d never been late before. The door leading to the area where the visitors were cleared opened, and I could see a flash of blond h
air.

  Instantly, I stood and waited for her to make her way toward me. Something was off, though. Her head was ducked down, and she was wearing a scarf around her face, almost covering her completely.

  When she made it to me, she hugged me, pressing her face against my chest so I couldn’t see her, but I could feel how erratic her breathing was.

  “Slow it down, Ash. Easy in, and out. Breathe with me.”

  I showed her how to do it. Carefully taking in each breath, and releasing it until I could feel her calm down. Then I pushed her away and pulled off the scarf so I could see her face.

  “That motherfucker,” I growled. I couldn’t touch her. The guards would take issue with that. Instead, I threw myself into the seat at the table, my fists pounding on the table as hard as I could.

  “Calm down. It looks worse than it,” she said, sitting across from me.

  It was a fucking black eye. A scratch as well, where something he must have been wearing, a ring maybe, took a chunk out of her skin.

  “I’m going to kill him. When I get out of here, I’m going to find a way to do it and I’m going to end him.”

  Ash shook her head. “No, you’re going to ruin him. It’s legal and much more satisfying.”

  “What happened?” I wanted to know.

  Again, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I made him angry, and he reacted. It’s nothing. I thought about canceling today, but I had to see you.”

  “You need to leave him. Now. Today.”

  Another shake of her head.

  “Damn it!” I barked at her. “Don’t tell me no. I can’t do this. I can’t stay in this place knowing you’re living in his house. Knowing he can touch you, hurt you at will.”

  “Marc. Do you love me?”

  The question took me off guard. Did I love her? We were talking about her face. We were talking about Sanderson. We were talking about murder.

  Did I love her?

  No. Love was supposed to be this simple, happy, joyful emotion. It was never simple with Ash. Everything was always so damn complicated with her. Besides, I’d told her I would never say it. Never let those words ever come out of my mouth again.

  It was as if she could read my thoughts. I watched her slump, seemingly defeated. It bothered me, but not enough to cough up the words, even if I knew they were what she wanted to hear.

  “I know it’s hard for you,” she said. “Because of your mother. You should find her. When you get out. Find out what happened to her. Get some closure.”

  “What are you talking about? My mother is most likely dead.”

  “But you don’t know that. Not for sure. It could help you. Maybe if you found her, talked to her, you could put the past behind you and really move on.”

  “That’s never going to happen,” I said, emphatically.

  My mother? The heroin addict who’d left me time and time again. Who couldn’t fucking stay clean long enough to regain custody of me. Because if she had, then, there would have been no George, no estate in Harborview, no Ash and no…prison.

  Shit. Was it happening? Was I starting to resent everything about Ash because I was stuck in this place? While she was out there in the world with that monster who hurt her.

  “I don’t know why we’re talking about my mother,” I said, pulling myself out of those thoughts. Me being in here wasn’t Ash’s fault. “Tell me what that fucker did to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, looking away from me. Toward the windows that overlooked the grounds where we were allowed to walk a couple hours each day.

  I focused on her bruised flesh. The yellow and purple colors of it. Her skin was normally so pale. Her body always a little fragile. How could anyone think about hurting someone who could so easily break?

  “Ash, look at me. Talk to me.”

  She turned to me and smiled. It might have even cost her some pain to do it. “I do love you. I have since you drank that grape soda I offered you. You were the world to me, and I wanted to be so much for you, but it all fell apart. If I’d known what kind of bastard my father was, I would have told you to run away. Run as far away as you could from me. I promise I didn’t know it would end like this. Because if I had, I would have pushed you away instead of constantly trying to hold onto you.”

  “Ash, what the fuck are you talking about? What end? Are you saying you’re leaving him? That’s good. Get the fuck away. Take some of his damn money and head for the south of France or some fancy place like that. Somewhere he can’t find you.”

  She smiled again, but this time it was much sadder.

  “I’m so sorry. For everything. Just know that. At least, that. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, not understanding any of what she was saying.

  Then she lifted her hands as if to suggest the very room we were sitting in was all her fault.

  It wasn’t. It was her father’s. It was Sanderson’s.

  What if you hadn’t gone to work for Landen? What if you’d minded your own business and let Ash stay in Switzerland?

  Thoughts I’d had before came back, but again I pushed them away. There was no changing the past. There was only seeing our way forward. I already had a month and a half behind me.

  “Ash, you’re hurting and you’re sad, but you need to stop talking like we’ve lost.” Because it sounded wrong. Ash was always positive. Always hopeful. Always the one trying to change my mood, my attitude. She didn’t give up. Ever.

  So why did it feel like she was now?

  She stood and arranged her scarf around her face, covering up the black eye as best she could. We still had twenty minutes left of visiting time, but she was leaving early. I stood as if to stop her, but she held her hand up, signaling me to stay back.

  “I can’t. I can’t make this any harder on myself. I have to…I have to protect myself. I’m sorry, Marc. For everything. Please know I will never stop loving you. In my heart, I will never leave you.”

  “Ash, you’re not making any sense to me. What the hell is happening here?”

  “Goodbye.”

  Before I could tell her to stop or wait, she was weaving through the other tables and visitors in the room, and scrambling out the door. Out the door, out of the prison. Away. Where she knew I couldn’t follow her.

  I sank heavily into the seat, and, for the first time, wondered if I was ever going to see Ashleigh again. It was unthinkable. She would come back. She wouldn’t be able to stay away. She said she would never stop loving me. Those were her words. No, I couldn’t return them. But it didn’t matter.

  It had never mattered to her. She loved me. It was constant. It was steady. It was a damn nuisance, too, but it was always there. Which meant she wasn’t going anywhere. And that goodbye wasn’t the last one.

  I refused to believe it.

  I refused to believe it until the following week.

  Fort Dix

  Seven weeks after the wedding

  Marc

  I sat at the same table where I’d been with Ash last week. The sense of dread in my stomach was making me nauseous. It wasn’t her week to visit. I knew that, but still, part of me wanted so bad to see the visitor door open. To see the flash of blond hair. To know last week hadn’t been as final as she’d made it sound.

  George would give me an update. Even though he was no longer working for Landen, he still kept tabs on Ash. They would have had lunch together at some point this week. He’d probably been just as furious over the bruise as I was.

  Together we could plan. We could figure out a way to convince Ash she needed to leave that asshole before he did some serious damage to her.

  That helped push the dread away. Having a plan of attack. Feeling like there was some control.

  The door to the visitor room opened and I could see George enter. I lifted my hand to show him where I was. His shoulders were slumped, and it felt like each time I saw him he was getting grayer and more broken down. When had George become an old man? />
  He’d probably kick my ass for even suggesting he was old, and, as he sat, I thought about making a joke about Grecian Hair Formula for Men, when his expression stopped me.

  “What?”

  His head bowed and his shoulders shook. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. Ashleigh…Ashleigh’s gone.”

  “Gone? You mean she left Sanderson? That’s awesome news. Why are you so broken up about that?”

  George shook his head. He pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket and used it to blow his nose.

  “No. She’s missing. The police suspect…the evidence indicates… God, Marc, she could be dead.”

  Dead. It was almost like the word had no meaning. What was dead? Was it an adjective, a noun, a verb? What was this word and what power did it have?

  “Her car…found…side of the road. Her purse…credit card…stolen. Some…struggle…blood. They’re…searching…body…Hamptons it’s all marsh and inlets...”

  “Stop,” I barked. I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. It wasn’t making sense. It was like only every other word was penetrating, and the picture wasn’t forming in my head.

  George stopped talking and waited patiently. Then I played back what he said, and my heart started to pound in my chest.

  “Sanderson did it. Sanderson killed her.”

  That’s what she knew last week. She knew his threats were getting more serious, and she was afraid this would happen.

  “I have to protect myself.”

  George shook his head. “It wasn’t him. He was in the city at an event, surrounded by hundreds of people. They have a suspect on video. At a convenience store a couple miles from where they found her car. He used her credit card. They’re looking for him, but, so far, they haven’t found him.”

  “Say it again. Say again what happened.” Because there was something wrong in this story. Something that I was missing. This hadn’t happened. Not to Ash.

  “She was driving to Sanderson’s house in the Hamptons. The gas gauge was empty, so she must have run out. Someone pulled over and robbed her. Hurt her. There was blood in the car. They’re doing a DNA test, but the blood type matches hers. Like I said, her credit card has been used. They’ve got video, but I’m told it’s vague.”