Текст книги "Calling Me Away"
Автор книги: Louise Bay
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Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 8 страниц)
Published by Louise Bay 2015
Copyright © 2015 Louise Bay. All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.
ISBN – 978-1-910747-16-2
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Series Playlist
Acknowledgements
Other Books by Louise Bay
What the Lightning Sees
The Empire State Series
Hopeful
Faithful
Let’s Connect
Luke
Even though this was only the second morning of waking up with Ashleigh next to me, I knew it was something I could never tire of. Waking with that sweet, sexy smell of hers, the feel of her smooth, flawless skin heating mine supersized my hard-on. I groaned and moved to my side. Grabbing her, I pulled her toward me and buried my face in her hair.
“Morning, gorgeous.” I shifted her hips so she faced away from me then skirted my hand over her flat stomach. She relaxed and melted into my body. God, we fit perfectly. I hooked her leg up over mine and cupped my fingers over her sex.
“Luke,” she whispered, gently circling against my hand.
“Did I wake you?”
She shook her head, and I propped myself up so I could see her face. She didn’t look sleepy; she looked incredible, her hair fussy and her skin already starting to flush. I began to move my thumb over her clit.
“That’s not fair,” she said.
“Making you feel good isn’t fair? I know you like this. I’m coming to understand your body as well as I do the rest of you.”
She closed her eyes and sighed as if she was giving in, and I started to rock my hips against the cleft of her buttocks. Jesus, she felt good any way I could get her.
“Luke,” she whispered again.
“Ashleigh,” I replied in the same wistful tone.
I dipped my fingers into her folds, coating them in her slick softness. Jesus, she was more than ready. She widened her legs. “Yes, please.” She sighed.
“Yes?”
She reached behind and grabbed my hips, fingers digging into my ass.
“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you inside me, please.”
“Tell me more.” I loved her dirty words. They slipped from her as if they were just below the surface, ready to break free. They were a reminder of how the Ashleigh I’d known for so long wasn’t the whole girl. That the one lying beside me, begging for sex, was the entire package—in more ways than one.
“I want you to fuck me and never stop. I want to feel your dick in me. Please. Now.”
I slid inside her, right up to the hilt. That I’d managed to hold back so long was a miracle.
Her fingernails bit into my forearm, then receded as she got used to me. Blood rushed to my cock at the thought of being almost too big for her.
“Just like that,” she said.
I started to move behind her, pulling out slowly and then thrusting in hard, the way I knew she liked it. My thumb changed direction, circling over her clit, and she clasped my wrist.
“No, it’s too much; it’s too good. I’m too close, too soon.”
I groaned at the fact that I could make her body mine so quickly. I released my thumb. I needed a few more seconds like this, on the brink of climax. Feeling her come around me would send me over the edge.
She reached behind me, grasping at my ass, urging me deeper, harder. I pulled her leg open wider, wanting to get as far into her as I could. Fuck. This was the perfect way to wake up. Every day. Forever.
Her hand slid over her sex. I’d not seen her touch herself, and I closed my eyes, committing the image to memory. Her fingers, slick with lubrication, pulled at my balls, sending sparks of pleasure up my spine. Jesus, she was wicked. I began to thrust harder.
“I want to stay inside you forever.” It was an effort to speak. My mind was so focused on how I felt, how I was making her feel, that my words were labored.
Her hand covered mine and brought my fingers back to her sex. She was ready. I dipped my thumb over the nub of nerves, and she rocked against the pressure.
“Yes, God yes.” Her voice was husky, the way it got before she spiraled.
I picked up my rhythm, pushing into her, replacing my thumb with my fingers as she writhed beneath me. Sweat trickled down my back as I tried to pull out her orgasm before surrendering to mine. I wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer. I increased the pressure on her clit. She cried out and her body stiffened.
She reached for my head, and I bent and grazed my lips against hers in a sloppy half-kiss. I clasped her hips with my fingers and pushed into her again and again, allowing myself to drown in the remnants of her orgasm, stealing them, taking them as my pleasure. The feeling in my spine intensified, took me over, and I emptied into her.
I hadn’t even stopped moving in and out of her before I began to harden again. Once wasn’t enough with her.
“Again, baby?” she asked.
“Always. I never want to stop.”
“How do you make it so good?”
“It’s all about you. What your body does to me.” It was such a turn on that every part of her responded to me as if she needed me.
She shifted beneath me, and although I couldn’t bear the thought of not being inside her, the thought of her on all fours gave me the strength to move. She felt the urgency too as she flipped onto her stomach and drew herself up to her knees. Jesus, she was made to pose like that, as if she was just waiting for my dick.
“Put it back in, please,” she begged, and then I was over her, my chest against her back, right up to the hilt again.
“Is that good?” I asked, teasing her. I knew by her bent head and the sheets fisted in her hands that it was good. I stilled, waiting on an answer.
“Don’t stop,” she whimpered. “Please, never, yes.” I couldn’t hold back. I stabbed my hips against her ass.
Having her felt urgent, desperate, primal. My fingers pulled at her hips, my thumbs pressing into the delicate flesh of her ass. I banged against her again and again, deeper and deeper.
Jesus, yes, I wanted to stay just like this forever.
“Look at me, Ashleigh.” I needed to see her eyes, watch the effect of my cock on her face.
She turned her head slowly, as if it were made of lead. Her eyes were hooded and her mouth parted. She looked at me as her tongue circled her lips, leaving a glistening trail. I couldn’t stop the groan that ripped from my chest.
“I need you to get there,” I choked just as her back arched, and she screamed my name over and over.
My final thrusts pushed her over and into the mattress, and I collapsed on top of her, our breaths sharp and uneven.
Ashleigh had taken me over. She had given me a taste of something that I never knew existed.
Ashleigh
Luke and I managed to pull ourselves out of bed—a good thing, as I risked not being able to walk for a week if we didn’t—and arrived for Sunday night dinner with Haven and Jake. I could still feel the after effects of Luke between my thighs, across my skin as we made our way to their apartment.
Arriving together was unusual but not unheard of, so I didn’t expect Haven to be immediately suspicious. Still, I wanted to tell her what was going on. For one thing, I failed to keep anything a secret from her for long, and for another she’d be devastated if she put the pieces together herself and realized we’d kept it from her.
After a sleepless night of worry, and a morning of thought-erasing orgasms, I’d convinced Luke to let me tell her while he and Jake watched TV.
“Hey guys, good timing,” Haven said as she answered the door. “How are you doing?” she asked Luke. “Did you work things out?” Luke had texted Haven to say he wouldn’t be staying with them on Friday and Saturday night, but he hadn’t told her where he was going to be. She’d obviously assumed that he’d gone back to Emma. My stomach churned. Why had she been so quick to think that’s where he’d end up? Was that relationship as over as Luke seemed to think it was? Maybe Haven thought a reconciliation between Luke and Emma would be a good thing.
Luke deflected the question. “Where’s Jake?”
“I love your little bromance. Go see your friend. He’s in his study.”
Luke leaned toward me as if to kiss me. My horror must have shown on my face as he stopped himself and started to chuckle.
“Be quick,” he whispered.
“What?” Haven asked.
I shrugged.
I didn’t see any wine on the counter. “Haven’t you opened a bottle yet?” I asked as I looked inside the refrigerator.
“No, I was waiting for you. There should be a nice Oyster Bay in there.”
Shit, I was going to have to do this while we were sober.
I poured us a drink and settled on the barstool. Haven was grating cheese. So, this was my moment—before she started anything with the knives.
“So, I went to that awards thing with Luke on Friday,” I said.
“You shouldn’t torture yourself like that, you know. Let him find his own date.”
“I enjoyed myself, actually.”
“You did? That’s good. Sometimes those things can be okay. Depends who you sit next to and stuff.” She fiddled with a couple of switches on the oven.
How was I going to do this? I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I was going to get from her. I wanted her to be thrilled, but a niggling feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that that wasn’t going to be her response.
“Did I tell you I got that job for the Sunday Times?” she asked. Since Haven had gone freelance, her career had taken off. I was so proud of her.
“Holy hell, really? That’s awesome.” I stood up and gave her a hug. “I knew you could do it—that’s amazing. What’s that one about? The school thing?”
She nodded. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I still want to do the independent, online stuff, but who’s going to say no to the Sunday Times?”
“What’s going on over there?” Luke shouted from the sofa. We were hugging and grinning. Maybe he thought I’d told her already.
“Haven got an article for the Sunday Times,” I replied.
“Oh, yeah, I think she said.” Luke nodded.
Haven rolled her eyes. “Brothers, hey?”
This was it. A natural break in the conversation. I needed to say it now.
“So, you know on Friday—” I began.
“I think these are done,” she interrupted, glancing at the oven. “I’ve made cheese straws so the boys don’t start whining about being hungry.” She opened the oven door and took a baking tray out. “Guys, I’ve got snacks,” she shouted across the room.
Luke bounded over, briefly rubbing my lower back as he passed me, then headed to the refrigerator. A shiver ran through my body. We should have just stayed home today. It would have been less complicated.
“What’s going on over here?” he asked, fumbling for beers.
“We’re cooking, and I’m telling Ash about the Sunday Times since you don’t seem interested at all,” Haven said.
Luke looked at me and grinned, knowing I’d chickened out so far. “So did Ash tell you we kissed on Friday night?”
“Luke!” I said. “I was meant to ease her into that. Not just blurt it out.”
Haven looked at her brother, then at me and then back at her brother. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean we kissed, and did other stuff. I have feelings. She has feelings.” He shrugged. “We’re, you know . . .”
“Very smooth, Luke,” I said.
“What?” he asked. “At least I told her.”
“I was going to tell her. I was picking my moment.”
I looked at Haven as she stirred something in a pan as if her life depended on it.
“Haven?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to say.” To suggest she didn’t look pleased was an understatement.
“Are you upset I’ve not told you until now?” I asked. She looked as if she were about to cry.
“Why now?” she asked. Luke tried to put an arm ’round her, but she shrugged it off. “You’ve had years to get it together. What’s different?” It was a good question. What was different?
“Well, I was with Emma, and before that we were young—really young—and I didn’t realize how I felt until recently,” Luke said softly to his sister.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Haven,” I said. “Please be honest.” My stomach was churning. I hated to see her upset at the best of times, but this time I’d caused her unhappiness.
She turned off the stove and glanced between Luke and me. “I think we have a really good thing going here. We all love each other. We’re family and now you guys get pissed together and put all that in jeopardy.” She gave up stirring the pan and turned toward us. “Luke, you and Emma finished about five seconds ago and that was a serious, long-term thing. You can’t just get over it in twenty-four hours,” she said, pointing at Luke. “And you, you’ve loved this guy for forever, and I don’t want him to break your heart.” Her voice was getting higher and higher. “If you do, I’ll be forced to make a choice between which one of you I spend holidays with and stuff. It will be horrible.”
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Jake asked, as he wandered over and pulled Haven close to him.
“These fuckers.” She pointed at Luke and me.
“What’s happened?” Jake was looking at Luke.
“Ash and I. We kinda, we . . .” Luke frowned, a look of confusion on his face.
I clutched my forehead. What had I expected? That we would just slip into being the happiest couple on earth? “We haven’t even figured out what we’re doing, Luke. Maybe she’s right. You’re on the rebound. I have no judgment around you. We acted rashly—”
“No!” Luke shouted, as he strode over to me. He put his hands on either side of my face. “No,” he said, more softly. “We’ve known each other a lifetime. I would never treat your heart as anything other than the treasure it is. This is real. I’m not walking away, and I’m not letting you go anywhere.” He dropped a small kiss on my lips and rested his forehead against mine. “Be sure of me.”
I melted under his fingers. Had I always been so easily persuaded by him? Haven was right to be concerned. We should listen to her, but all I could see in Luke was the man I so desperately wanted him to be.
“Well, I think you’re just adorable,” Luke said. “Haven, this is good. This is two of your favorite people fornicating.” Jake and Luke started laughing, and I took the opportunity to take a playful swipe at Luke.
“Oh my God, have you done it?” Haven lifted her hands to her ears. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“I don’t understand what’s taken you so long. I thought your penis had shriveled up as you’ve been around this hottie your whole life and never made a move,” Jake said to Luke.
“Jake!” Haven and I screamed in unison.
“Don’t you want them to be happy?” Jake asked Haven.
“I do, but I don’t want either of them to get hurt, and I definitely don’t want to have to take sides if they break up.”
Nausea washed over me at the thought of losing Haven or Luke from my life.
“We’re not going to break up.”
Even though my heart fluttered at Luke’s words, Haven was right. It would be hard to ever go back to how things were. If Luke went back to Emma, or found someone else, it might just kill me. I wouldn’t be able to go to Sunday night dinner and watch him with his new girlfriend. It would break up our routine, our family.
“You can’t say we’re never going to break up,” I told Luke.
“Yes, I can. I’ve known you my whole life. This is it; I’m done.” He tried to grab my hand, but I pulled away from him and shook my head. As much as I wanted it to be true, I knew it could never be that simple. Life never was.
Ashleigh
The dull light pushing through the curtains told me it was sometime around five. Five was an acceptable time to get up for some people. Runners, rowers, workaholics, new mothers—there was surely a world awake at this time of the morning. I reached across to the bed stand and found my phone. 5:12 AM.
My doubt about our immediate coupledom, about Luke’s feelings for me and his motivations around what we were doing, had been circling me for the last twenty-four hours. Haven’s words of caution at our Sunday night dinner last night had ignited a sense of fear. Luke’s insistence that I was just “freaking out” as he described it and his assurances that everything would be okay had temporarily placated me. And with his hands on my face, the reassurance just free of his lips, I’d believed him.
So, we were good, right?
Having spent another sleepless night, his words dueling with my doubts, I knew we were not good. I was not good. It was all too easy, too convenient, too sudden. I couldn’t trust that he was ready. Only a few days ago, he and Emma had been talking about marriage. Whatever he felt now was almost certainly a reaction to suddenly finding himself single. Luke never dealt with change well, even in small ways, and in the last week his life had turned upside down. I couldn’t help thinking that clinging to me—I was familiar, after all—was a consequence of that. And although I’d waited a lifetime for Luke and I to be an us, I wasn’t ready to have my heart trampled on if he changed his mind again in few days.
Whatever there was between us felt thin and temporary and vulnerable. Risky. I couldn’t handle that, not when I’d loved him for so long. This was not going to happen, not now. There was too much that could go wrong. Too much to lose.
If I ended things now, I might miss out on the love of my life, but there was still a chance that I wouldn’t destroy my family, or my heart.
Perhaps when he was over Emma, and if he still felt the same way, maybe then I could let myself be with him, want him, love him. For now, we needed to end it for both our sakes. We needed time to make sure we were doing the right thing.
It would be better to be showered and dressed before I woke Luke to talk. I didn’t want to capitulate under his touch again. If I was ready, I could leave for work while he left my flat. It would be easier, for me anyway, if I didn’t have to be normal with him straight away.
On autopilot, I showered, dried my hair and dressed. Luke never moved an inch. Anyone else would have suspected he’d died in his sleep. Having known him for most of my life, I knew this was just how he was. As teenagers, and even until recently, Haven and I’d had little consideration for those around us when we woke early, desperate to giggle about boys, parties and alcohol-induced shame from the night before. Until Haven married Jake, we’d regularly stayed over at each other’s houses after nights out. Sometimes we’d even ended up in Luke’s guest room. Unless you were an alarm clock, it was impossible to wake Luke. He insisted his body was tuned into some frequency that meant he never slept through alarms. Sounded like weird, boy logic to me. But whatever.
Ready to leave—and ready to talk—I programmed the clock next to him and sat at the end of the bed, close but not touching, and waited for him to wake. My heart was hammering through my chest. I knew ending this, or at least pressing pause on whatever there was between us, was the right thing to do. But I needed to get it over with before I had second thoughts. I was giving up the thing I had wanted desperately, longed for even. Luke. And even though it was the right thing to do, it wasn’t going to be easy.
Luke’s body immediately came awake as the alarm clock began to blare. It was almost cartoon-like, how quickly it happened. As if someone had plugged him in and suddenly, he was working.
“Hey,” he said, turning as he caught sight of me from the corner of his eye. He started to grin and then, taking me in, the corners of his mouth settled back where they’d been. He knew me so well. Twisting, he sat upright, scrubbed his hands across his face and took a deep breath. He was so fucking beautiful, and right then it just didn’t seem fair that he got to wake up, roll over and floor me with his bed hair, stubbly jaw and golden skin that I knew felt as smooth and warm as it looked.
Damn him.
“You want to talk.” It wasn’t a question. He knew me better than that.
My focus sharpened and I nodded.
“We got this, Ashleigh. Please trust me.”
The sound of my full name curled around me. I didn’t hear it often. And only twice from Luke before whatever was between us started. Once, when my parents moved to Hong Kong, and he and Haven came with me to the airport to see them off, and then again at the awards dinner a few evenings ago.
I blinked and filled my lungs. “I need you to listen. Not reassure me, not try to convince me I’m wrong, that I actually feel differently. I need you to hear what I’m going to say.” I flicked my gaze toward him when he didn’t answer. He was staring right at me, his eyes tight, his brows pulled together in anxiety. His face held all his effort to stay silent, to give me what I wanted.
“We’ve moved too fast, Luke. You are literally hours out of a long-term relationship that looked like it was heading toward forever. I have been in love with you my whole life—I want this too much. I want you so much that, for the past few days, I’ve been content to be carried away with this.” I swirled my hand between us. The fear of what I was doing climbed up my spine and snatched my breath. I just had to get through the next few minutes and then it would be done.
“I need to be either nothing to you—”
“Ashleigh, you could never—”
I raised my hand at him, stopping him speaking.
“Nothing . . . or everything. And right now, I don’t think you’re in a position to be making decisions about what or who is everything to you. I need to know this isn’t about you holding on to me because you need something to hold on to. That it isn’t about you being uneasy about all the changes going on in your life right now.” I sank my thumbnail into my finger in the hope that it would distract me from the pain in my heart. “I know you, Luke, and you like things to be ordered and predictable. And I don’t want to be a security blanket for you. I want to be your lover, your partner, your best friend—the woman you can’t live without. Not because it’s easy, but because life would be less exciting without me, less joyous, less sweet. Not because you’re used to me; not because you know me and it’s comfortable.”
I smoothed my palms over my skirt. I’d said what I needed to.
Silence pulsed through the space between us, and I tilted my chin up to look at him, anxious about what I would find on his face. It was as if he’d frozen to the spot, still holding himself back.
I rose from the bed and his hand shot out, grabbing mine. “Can we not talk about this?” His tone was pleading. “I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t know what it means.” He linked his fingers through mine. “Are we done?”
“For now.” I tried to keep the tightness in my chest from escaping into sobs.
“What does that mean, for now? Fuck.” He pushed his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated.
“I just . . . I think you need some time—”
“I don’t need time. I need you.”
I took a deep breath. How long had I waited to hear that? Was I really going to walk away?
“Okay, I need time.”
“How long do you need?”
I knew if I gave Luke boundaries, our relationship would simply become a task on his list. If I told him what I needed, how long I needed, he’d diligently work through the to-dos I created and wait. It would be all about me, when I needed it to be about him. My worry wouldn’t dissolve in a set period of time. I needed him to experience life without me, work through the change, the uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty, get past it, enjoy it and then decide it was me that he wanted. Not as a cure, or a convenience, but because he was in love, with me.
“I need to know that you’ve sorted your life, and that you still pick me. That I’m not just convenient.”
“Ashleigh, you would never—”
I couldn’t listen to his counter arguments. “This is what I need. You asked me and I’m telling you. Make new friends, date. I don’t know, get a dog, a new car. Get on with your life. See what it’s like. Show me that I’m a conscious choice for you.”
“Date?”
My stomach cramped at his question. What was I thinking? This was going to be horrific. The last thing I wanted was for him to find someone else, but if he did, then at least I knew we weren’t meant to be. If I took what he was offering now, I would spend a lifetime wondering if he was ever really mine. I’d become insecure and needy—a shell of myself.
“Yeah, date.” I looked out my bedroom window. I needed to leave or I was going to buckle, tell him it was all a big joke. I squeezed his hand, consciously trying to capture the feel of his skin against mine so I could replay it later when I was lonely and longing for him. I pulled my fingers from his and headed toward the door. “I know this is hard.”
He jumped out of bed, pulling on his boxers. “Jesus, Ashleigh. Are you scared to be happy? Don’t you feel this between us? Why are you walking away as if we’re nothing?”
I couldn’t turn and look at him. “Luke, you are everything to me. That’s the point. We’ve so quickly slipped into this that it feels like it could be over tomorrow. And if I let myself fall any deeper, it might just kill me. This way it’s only been a few days and we won’t lose our friendship.”
“We’ll never lose that, Ashleigh. I promise you.” His voice cracked and the sound tore right through me.
“Don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep. I need this, Luke. Please.”
He sighed, and it took all my willpower not to turn and comfort him.
“If you need me to prove my feelings, then this is what I’ll do. Because you are what I want, Ashleigh. What I need. My feelings won’t change.”
My heart ached. I wanted to say me too. But something kept me from forming the words.
Luke
“So you didn’t go into the office?” Haven asked. She’d come home to find me staring into space. I’d left Ashleigh’s flat and headed back to Haven’s with the intention of jumping in the shower and heading to work. I hadn’t been able to face the day surrounded by Ashleigh’s scent, her words, her doubt. When I’d arrived, I’d sat on the bed, just for a second to gather my thoughts, and when I next looked at the clock half the day had gone.
I shook my head. “I called them. I’ve kept an eye on my emails. Things will wait.” I would have been a mess at work. Better to feign illness than to turn up and give my clients reason to sue me for negligence. My head felt like a pinball machine as I jumped from being angry at Ashleigh for having so little faith in me, in us, to planning how I was going to win her back, then jumping again to an overwhelming feeling of loss. Perhaps Haven could help me make sense of it.
Haven looked at me, concern in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be so down on your relationship yesterday. I just got spooked. Do you want me to speak to her?” She watched me fill the washing machine with laundry. I’d been able to do nothing all day but think of Ashleigh. I hoped that if I could no longer smell her on my clothes, it would clear my mind, and I could figure out a way to get her back.
Haven looked at me, sheepish and guilty.
“It’s not your fault. I knew she was likely to have a meltdown—I mean, come on, it’s Ashleigh—but I thought I could talk her through it. I thought I knew her.”
Haven narrowed her eyes. “Ashleigh?”
It took me a beat to realize what she was asking. “Yeah. That’s who she is to me.” Ashleigh had been right. My realization about her and my feelings for her had been sudden. In only a few days she had gone from being Ash—my sister’s best friend, the person I asked to be my plus one if I didn’t want to take my girlfriend, my family—to Ashleigh, someone who made me want to lobby Parliament to pass a law ensuring she had to be naked for the rest of her life. Someone who when she touched me, I felt the press of skin for hours afterward and yearned for it for hours beyond that. Someone I wanted to protect from the darkness, show the light. I wasn’t sure whether it was because we’d known each other for so long, but even though Ashleigh and I had only been together a few days, it felt different, deeper—more profound than anything I’d experienced with anyone else.
I thought she’d felt the same.
“Did she say anything? Has she called you?” I asked, desperate to know how I could make it all better.
“No, I’m sorry.” I could tell by how nice Haven was being that she was worried. Being with Jake had softened her edges, given her confidence, but it hadn’t made her a pushover. She was still capable of giving me a good hard arse-kicking when she felt the need arise.
“She said that she wants to know that she’s a conscious choice for me. But how can I do that if she’s not with me? She’s worried she’s just . . . I don’t know, available.”
“Is she right to be concerned?”
I’d been trying to answer that question all day. “Yes and no.”
“Fucking lawyers. Give me a straight answer.”
I scrubbed my hands across my face and squeezed my eyes shut. I wished I were having this conversation with Ashleigh. I wished she’d given me more time this morning. “She knows me, right. So yes, I like constancy in my life. I cling on to things that maybe I shouldn’t to create permanence. It was probably the reason I was with Emma for as long as I was.” There was a dull thud where my heartbeat should be, as if it were cloaked in fog. “But no, that’s not what my feelings, or should I say my change in feelings, toward Ashleigh are about. I don’t know, Haven. I feel like someone took my blinkers off and Ashleigh is a new person to me now. I mean she’s still Ash, but she’s mine now, too. Or she was.”
“So tell her that. She’s risking her family, being with you. You have to convince her you aren’t going to break her heart. But she’s right, you have to be sure she’s who you want.”
Ashleigh had been clear. She needed to see that she was my choice. “I’ve never been so sure. There’s no going back for me. I just need to provide her with some evidence. But that’s okay, because that’s what I do, right? I build cases, uncover and present the facts. I just don’t know how to do it yet. But I’ll get there.” I had to. Losing her forever wasn’t an option. “How did Jake win you back?”
