by LK Farlow
“You are so very welcome. I could photograph your family every day and never grow bored. Really, we should probably schedule vow renewal photoshoots every five years.” I wink and she grins.
“Girl, you can take my picture any day. You’re a fucking wizard with that camera. Gah! I wish I’d have hired you to take my pictures when I submitted them to Virtual Kitty.”
My brows crinkle. “What’s that?”
Her grin turns wicked. “West’s porn app.”
It takes a lot to shock me speechless, but that’s exactly what Stacia’s done. “His what now?” I finally manage. “Seriously, I need more information.”
After we order—french toast and bacon for both of us—Stacia goes on to tell me all about submitting her X-rated pictures to her now-husband’s company.
“And you had no idea it was his company?”
“Truly! I just needed the money and knew they paid well.”
“This is amazing. Talk about a story to tell your grandkids. Uh…you know, when they’re grown.” We both dissolve into a fit of giggles.
Once our laughter subsides, Stacia turns solemn. “How are things with Colton?”
“Ugh.” I groan at the mention of his name. Honestly, I’m glad she brought him up, but still, he drives me half mad. “He is so pompous. So egotistical. So rude! He makes my—”
“Panties wet?” Stacia supplies, cutting me off.
“I was going to say head hurt.”
She shimmies her shoulders. “Something tells me it’s both.”
I bury my face in my hands.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she says, her voice softer than before. “There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to him.”
“It’s more than that,” I mumble, regretting the words as soon as they slip from my lips.
“What do you mean?”
“No, nothing. Forget it.”
“Ah, ah!” She wags her finger at me. “Not happening. You can’t say something like that and expect me to walk away.”
“No, really. It is so unprofessional for me to even talk to you like this.” Heat blossoms in my chest and tears sting my eyes. Colton’s right—I am unprofessional.
With my mini breakdown impossible to hide, Stacia pays the check and ushers me out the door. Linking her arm with mine, she sets off to glob-knows-where. And for some unknown reason, I let her guide me.
Five minutes later, we’re approaching what appears to be an old, converted factory building. “Where are we?” I ask.
“My friend AJ’s house.”
“She was your matron of honor, right?”
“Yup.”
I nod, following behind her physically but not quite following her mentally. “Okay, but why?”
“Honestly,” she says, worrying her lip between her teeth, “you look like you could use a friend or two.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her she’s wrong, but, deep down, she isn’t. Mallory is irreplaceable as my bestie, but I know expanding my tribe a little certainly couldn’t hurt. Especially with everything going on right now with Colton and Megan Grace.
“Thank you.”
“No worries.” She offers me a full-on smile as she punches the call button for the elevator. “Plus, AJ’s practically a married old maid; she’ll surely have some insight for you.”
Any trepidation I had about meeting AJ outside of a professional setting melted away when she answered the front door dressed in her husband’s boxer shorts, a crop top, and fuzzy slippers—at noon on a Thursday. Clearly the woman was my kind of people.
“Would you ladies like anything to drink?”
“Stop acting like Miss Manners and put on some coffee,” Stacia says, waltzing past her friend into the cozy, industrial-chic apartment.
“Whatever,” AJ sasses back, heading into the kitchen with the two of us hot on her heels.
Over several cups of coffee, Stacia and AJ drag everything out of me. From the psycho-bride and her vendetta against me to the asshole attorney who is meant to be my everything but wants jack-all to do with me.
I spill it all.
“Sounds like a witch hunt,” AJ says once I’m done.
“It so is,” Stacia agrees. “Homegirl is crazy. Ever since she attacked me on the picture you posted, I’ve been checking daily. She and her mean girl posse are dedicated to their cause.”
I shake my head. “Too bad they won’t use their powers for good instead of evil.”
“Enough about malicious Megan.” Stacia fixes me with indecipherable look. “Let’s talk about Colton.”
“What about him? The fact that he hates me?” I sigh. “Or maybe his refusal to work with me?”
“Or that you wanna take his uptight ass to bone town.” AJ looks pensive while Stacia cracks up at her own joke.
“Have you considered fucking him?”
Now I’m laughing. “Did you miss the part about him hating me? And I mean that literally.”
She waves her hand in the air as if swatting away a fly. “Hate sex can be a real game changer.”
Stacia snorts. “You’d know.”
“Damn straight,” she says to her best friend before focusing on me. “For real, though, if a good, sweaty, angry sheet sesh isn’t on the table, keep up the bribing.”
“You think? I actually had an idea, but it might be stupid.”
“Let’s hear it,” Stacia encourages.
“I snapped a picture of him and West at the wedding before you walked down the aisle. It’s…hang on.” I grab my phone from my bag and pull up the image before showing them my screen. “Here, look.”
The image shows the two men in a candid moment, with their arms around each other and their heads tipped back in laughter.
“Oh, wow,” Stacia breathes while AJ nods her agreement. “This is amazing.”
“What’s the idea?” AJ asks.
I lay it out for the vibrant women before me, and together, the three of us come up with what I’m hoping is a foolproof plan.
7
Colton
“I brought tacos!” West says as he steps into my office.
“Did we have plans today?” I ask, looking from my friend down to my calendar.
“Taco Tuesday.” He says it as if it is reason alone to barge into my office in the middle of a work day.
Still, a free meal… “You remember extra lime wedges?”
“Yes, your majesty.” He drops the paper bag down onto my desk and sniffs the air. “It smells different in here.”
Inwardly, I groan. Over the course of the last twelve days, Miss Murphy has sent two more bouquets, along with more baked goods than I could possibly ever consume—each one more enjoyable than the last. She also had coffee delivered on two different occasions.
The woman has an uncanny ability to anticipate my needs—that or she truly is stalking me. I admit I’m impressed with her persistence.
Opting to ignore West’s comment, I snatch up the bag and retrieve my food, my mouth watering already. I lift the delicious concoction to my mouth, ready to dig in, when he starts up again.
“Really, are you using a new air freshener?” he asks.
I sigh and let my food drop back to the wax paper wrapper on my desk, red cabbage spilling out. “No, I’m not using a new air freshener, or a candle, a plug-in, or potpourri.”
“What is it then? Stacia would love it.”
“Flowers,” I deadpan. “It’s fucking flowers.”
“Flowers, huh?” West’s eyes crinkle as he smiles. “Never took you as a flower kind of guy.”
“I’m not.” I rewrap my taco and take a bite. The pure rapture of the flavors busting across my tongue is almost enough to drown out my best friend’s pointless commentary. Unfortunately, he, too, is persistent.
“Really? Then why are there”—he pretends to look around the space and count— “three floral arrangements?” His keen gaze never wavers as he regards me.
Of course, he’s in on it. Why the fuck wouldn�
��t he be?
“I take it you’re a part of this?”
He whistles innocently. “Of what?”
I pin him with a glare. “Don’t play games with me.”
Like the happy-go-lucky dumbass he is, West bats his lashes. “Who, me? Never.”
I swallow the last bite of my taco and pinch the bridge of my nose, counting down from ten. When I hit one and still want to throttle him, I start over, this time at twenty.
Before I make it back to one, the door flies open as yet another unwanted visitor saunters in.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you’d be in a meeting,” Ashley says, shifting her grip on the kraft-paper-wrapped package she’s clutching to her chest. “I can come back later.”
“No worries, it’s not a meeting, just lunch between friends,” West says, ever the shit-stirrer.
“Are you sure?”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Why bother pretending to care?”
A hurt look crosses Ashley’s features. “I do care.”
I push away from my desk and stalk toward her. “Oh, you care? Really?”
She nods.
Wisely, West stays seated and silent, his blue eyes pinging between us like he’s courtside for a tennis match between Serena Williams and Karolina Pliskova.
“You have a strange way of showing it.” I press forward, stepping closer and closer until her back hits the wall and I’ve boxed her in.
Momentarily, that honeyed fragrance of hers distracts me. She smells good enough to eat. Before I can do something truly insane, like burying my face into her neck and licking her to see if she tastes as sweet as she smells, I come to my senses.
I pull my head back a fraction and glare at her. “You show up randomly with no appointment. You’re ceaseless in your attempts at bribery. Honestly, I find this whole thing tiring.”
Her lip quivers, but her eyes blaze, though she doesn’t try to defend herself.
“You’re bordering on pathetic.” The words feel wrong, even as I say them, though I’m not sure why. “Please, Miss Murphy, find a new hobby, because your time pestering me has come to an end. If you show up here uninvited again, there will be consequences.”
I expect her to cower and apologize. However, the slender spitfire wastes no time proving me wrong. She places her palms flat to my chest and shoves me back. “You know what? You’re right. I was trying to butter you up, bribe you, whatever. Stacia was adamant that you were the best. But as far as I can see, the only thing you’re good at is belittling those around you.”
Her words create an unfamiliar hollow feeling in my gut, but she doesn’t relent.
“You’re so quick to call me unprofessional and deluded and glob knows what else. But I’m done. Done! I’ve already got one hateful person trying to destroy my business and reputation—I don’t need another, fate be damned. Have a nice life, asshole.”
She shoves all the way past me, tossing a farewell to West just before breezing back out onto the sidewalk.
As the door closes, I notice she left behind the package she had been carrying. Not wanting her to have a reason to return, I grab it and run after her. “Miss Murphy!” I shout her name, and she spins to face me.
“What?”
“You forgot—”
“I didn’t forget anything, Mr. Banks. Consider it a token of my unprofessionalism.”
She turns her back to me and rushes across the street. I watch her, with something akin to guilt swirling within me, until she is safely behind the wheel of her garish orange Subaru.
Back inside, I waste no time tearing in the package she left behind. What I find beneath the pristine wrapping steals my breath away. Ashley Murphy is decidedly not a hack. She’s the real deal, with more talent in her index finger than most have in their entire being. She’s not just taking photos; she’s capturing memories and immortalizing them.
Looking at this print of West and myself, I’m hit with every single emotion I was feeling when it was taken.
Happiness and pride for my best friend, uncertainty for the future, and secret longing to have something similar. I’ll take the last two with me to the grave before speaking them out loud.
“It’s amazing, right?” West asks, looking at the canvas over my shoulder. “She has this ability to…stop time with her shutter.”
I nod, because he’s exactly right. She finds the exceptional in the ordinary and brings it to life with her camera. “She’s as talented as she is gorgeous—” When in the hell did I decide she was gorgeous?
“You wanna run that by me one more time?”
I shake my head. “Not particularly.”
West hums under his breath. “It sounds like you find Ashley attractive. Gorgeous…that’s what you said, right?”
“Enough,” I growl, not bothering to reply. We both know what I said, repeating myself will only give him more of a reason to gloat—the asshole’s ego is already at max capacity.
8
Ashley
The sound of my phone ringing pulls me from the land of dreams and back into the real world. The sun is high in the sky and shining through the slats of my blinds, causing me to blink rapidly as I check my phone to see who could possibly be calling me at the ungodly hour of—I squint and bring the phone closer—eleven o’clock in the morning.
Colton Banks, that’s who.
The question is why. Why is he calling me?
“Hello,” I yawn into the phone as I stretch across my mattress.
“Were you sleeping?” Disbelief weighs heavy in his tone.
“Mmm, yep.”
“You do realize it’s nearly time for lunch, right?”
“And you do realize,” I say, mimicking his snooty tone, “that my sleeping habits are none of your business?”
He sighs. “I didn’t call to fight.”
I shift and sit up against my upholstered headboard. “Then why did you call?”
“Several reasons.”
My eyes roll back far enough to see my own skull. “And would you like to share those reasons?”
“Right. First, I’d like to thank you for the canvas print of West and me. It’s phenomenal, and I’m man enough to admit I was wrong. Second, I would like to offer my services. It’s my opinion we should start with a cease and desist letter—”
“I’m going to go ahead and stop you. While I appreciate hearing you eat crow, I’m no longer in need of your representation in any way. Thank you for calling, though.”
“What do you mean?” His voice has a hardness that sets my teeth on edge. This is a post-coffee call if there ever was one.
“I meant what I said. I am meeting with another lawyer tomorrow.”
“Who?”
“Why does it matter?” I ask as I shuffle into the kitchen in search of caffeine.
“Do not test me.”
I huff out an exasperated sigh as I punch the brew button. “I’m not testing you. It’s just not really your business.”
“Ashley.” He softens his voice. “Please tell me.”
“If it means ending this conversation sooner rather than later, sure. I’m meeting with Danny Williams.”
“The fuck you are,” he growls, sounding nearly feral.
“Excuse me?”
“You are not going to meet with him.” He speaks as though he’s the final authority. Yeah-fucking-right.
“Last I checked, you aren’t my daddy. What are you gonna do? Take me over you knee and spank me?”
“There’s a thought,” he mutters.
My cheeks burn at the implication. Surely, he doesn’t mean—of course he doesn’t; he’s told me time and time again I’m not his type. Which royally sucks, seeing as he’s exactly mine. Soulmate, that is. Talk about a colossal fuck-up, Universe!
“Ashley, please. Danny is a snake. Meeting with him is a mistake.”
I shrug even though he can’t see me. “Mistakes are part of life. Maybe this will be one and maybe it won’t. Thanks for…looking out for me, thou
gh?” I phrase it like a question, because why in the hell would this man look out for me?
He groans, his aggravation coming through loud and clear. “He has a reputation—”
“Colton,” I cut him off. “You have made it abundantly clear, time and time again, that you have no desire to work with me. I pushed when I shouldn’t have, for my own selfish reasons. I think our best bet going forward is as…polite acquaintances.”
He scoffs.
“I’d say friends, but I don’t think you’d go for it.”
“You wanna be friends?” He asks it in such a way it feels more like a threat. “Then let’s be friends.”
“Uh. Sure.”
“Great. So, as a friend, I’m asking you not to meet Danny.”
Now I’m scoffing. “That’s not how friendships work, Colton. Now, I have a hot bath and an even hotter cup of coffee calling my name. Talk later.” I end the call before he can reply.
The following day, I’m heading out the door for my consultation with Mr. Williams. We’re meeting at a local Brazilian steakhouse, so even if our meeting is a bust, the food will be good.
I arrive ten minutes before the scheduled time to find him here and waiting—a good sign, I hope.
After brief introductions, where his handshake lingers a little too long for my preference, the hostess leads us to a table in the center of the restaurant. She lets us know our server will be along shortly and leaves us to look over the menus.
“Tell me about your little issue,” he asks, his eyes on my breasts rather than the menu.
“It’s actually a rather large issue. The bride is amping up her attacks against me daily. She has escalated from commenting on my posts to reporting my page and my ads. She has people emailing me hate mail and others calling, spewing unthinkably cruel words when I answer. I’m to the point now where I won’t pick up unless I know the number.”
“Uh huh.” His eyes flit to mine before dropping to my lips and then back down to my breasts. To say I feel uncomfortable is an understatement.
Maybe Colton was right about this guy…