Wicked Sinner

by Stacey Kennedy

  “Bossy much?” she growled.

  He gave her an answering grin that made her belly flutter. “No one’s perfect.” She glared at that damn irritating smile while he grabbed the clothes off the chair. Kinsley had set them out last night when Remy dove under the sheet still in her wedding dress. “Come on. Up you get.”

  She gave him the finger.

  Asher’s mouth twitched and then he gave her a level look. “You’ve got two seconds to rethink your decision before I’m putting you in there myself.”

  He didn’t bluff. Ever. Asher would deposit her in the bath, dress and all. Years of dating him had taught her that, and truthfully, that was probably the cop in Asher too. All he wanted to do was help, and he knew her better than anyone. Baths put her mind back together every time. Of course, he knew that. Asher thought things out. He didn’t act rashly. He’d probably considered his steps a thousand times before coming into her bedroom today. But that had also been one of their issues back in the day too. He took charge of everything, all the time, including when he decided to move away without including her in that decision.

  Regardless that she didn’t want to follow his way, she did want to keep her dignity and realized she had to stop mopping and clear these negative thoughts from her mind. She shoved off the bed and stormed into the bathroom. “I’m doing this for me, not because you told me to, just so we’re clear.”

  “We’re all clear, Remy,” he said behind her.

  She scowled at how she warmed at hearing her name from his mouth. He said it with all the history they had between them, thousands of memories and moments that linked their souls together. When she reached her small bathroom with a claw-foot bathtub, she realized something. She nearly turned around, but Asher was there, right behind her.

  “I’ll help you,” he said gently.

  Surely, she should feel nothing, but when his fingers brushed across her back as he began unlacing the corset of her dress, seemingly lingering longer than necessary, heat tingled through her and spiraled low in her belly.

  She shut her eyes, forcing herself to forget how warm and safe Asher’s touch had always been. That was what took the longest to get over. No one touched her like Asher. No one kissed her like Asher. No one held her like Asher. No one loved her the way he loved her.

  Until he broke her heart into a million pieces, of course.

  The memory of that touch remained, even though she knew Damon was the best next choice. Until, again, he wasn’t.

  The dress slowly fell away to pool on the floor, revealing her bridle lingerie that was meant for Damon, not Asher. And somehow, as the dress fell, it felt like her guards fell with it. All the walls she’d kept up against Asher since he’d come back home were suddenly gone. She felt bared. As if Asher knew it, he quickly wrapped a towel around her. There was a long pause, and then Asher said softly behind her, “You’re going to be all right, Remy.”

  Something came over her then, an emotion she couldn’t really place. She turned around and said before she thought about it, “I know. I’m always all right. That’s what I do. I survive. But I’m so damn tired of surviving. I thought for once I was going to be happy. Truly happy.”

  Sadness darkened Asher’s eyes, his expression turning to stone. His second signature move. He never expressed anything. He never said anything. He’d never apologized for breaking her heart. He simply came back.

  And then he did his last signature move. The one he excelled at doing. He walked away, shutting the door behind him.

  She did what she was good at. She grabbed some banishing bath salts out of the small metal container on the wicker shelf and tossed them into the hot water. She might not have her shop, a husband, or her sanity at the moment, but she’d always have her magic.

  Magic never lied, never hurt, and never broke promises.

  Chapter 3

  The pipes groaned and complained, taking the water from Remy’s bath away, while Asher sat on the end of her bed. He rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the closed bathroom door, trying to not inhale the disgusting aroma coming from the incense on the bedside table. He should feel terrible for what happened yesterday, but he finally felt like he was doing right by Remy. Once, he’d failed her terribly. He’d never fail her again, not if he could help it. He’d made mistakes. Big ones. And he couldn’t help but feel at fault now. He should have never left, should have stayed and not run like some coward. When he realized that, the damage had been done and there was no going back. But watching her fall for someone else this past year made him realize something worse than his own fears. He could lose her. Really lose her.

  He had this one chance again to get this all right. He hadn’t helped his mother when she’d most needed him. He’d never let Remy fall into another depression, not if he could help it. Asher was well aware now that one wrong move and Remy would cut him loose permanently, but he wouldn’t make a wrong move. Not this time. Not with her happiness on the line. And not when he knew this woman and what made her heart tick. She’d recover from this, and he’d be there alongside her. Until he’d fixed his mistakes.

  He owed Remy that. He owed her so much.

  When the bathroom door finally opened, Remy exited wearing a T-shirt and black leggings, her wet hair around her fresh face. He couldn’t find a spot of the black mascara that darkened her eyes when he’d arrived.

  Damn.

  She looked more beautiful than ever. When he’d left all those years ago, she’d been a girl. When he’d come back home, she’d turned into a woman with curves in all the right places—curves he couldn’t ignore.

  “Who called you to come here?” she asked, walking past him with her wedding dress in her arms.

  “Who do think?”

  Without looking back at him, she said, “Kinsley.”

  There was a hint of annoyance in her voice. Of course, he understood. “She’s worried about you, Remy. Everyone is worried about you.”

  Remy grabbed a metal garbage bin from next to her vintage whitewashed bedside table and stuffed the wedding dress inside before she took something else out of the drawer. She opened the balcony door and headed out. Confusion racked Asher as he followed her out, leaning against the door frame, studying her as she placed the garbage can on the metal floor. “What are you doing?”

  She dodged his question. “Let me guess: Kinsley called in backup to drag my ass out of bed by someone who would literally do it.”

  Asher watched her closely, considering his next move. He wisely said, “There’s no answer that won’t paint me into a corner.”

  “That’s probably true,” she replied with little emotion in her voice.

  When she knelt in front of the garbage bin, he clenched his fingers, tempted to drag his hand through those soft strands and then bring her into his arms to make her feel all better. Yeah, he was no saint—he still wanted her, even if he knew she’d never give him her heart again. And he agreed with her 100 percent. With her body, Asher knew what he was doing. With her heart, he’d always fail her. But they could do friends. If he helped her get her life straight again, he hoped that would lead to forgiveness. Trying to understand her headspace, he asked gently, “Do you hate me for objecting at the wedding yesterday?”

  She fiddled with something in her hands. “Hate, no. I’m just…mad, and not at you specifically, just the entire situation.”

  “Anyone would be, Remy,” he said in relief. He could work with mad. “I realize there were subtler ways of stopping the wedding than arresting him, but Damon was going to hurt you. That’s all I saw, and my only thought was protecting you.”

  “Yeah, well, men hurting me seems to be my forte in life, so you’re off the hook.” She rose then, stepping away from the garbage bin, right as it went up in flames.

  Asher deserved the dig and let it roll right off him. He had hurt her. He’d made promises to her. He was her first kiss, her first everything. He said they’d be together forever. Then he’d abandoned her. Her life had once been
happy and easy and free. Her soul had been that way too. He’d heard from just about everyone over the years after he left Stoney Creek, including Boone and Rhett, that nothing was easy for Remy after Asher left. Asher knew Remy’s anger toward him wasn’t only about his breaking things off with her, but it was about how his leaving her set off a chain of events that slowly made her world fall apart.

  For the past five years, Asher had been trying to rectify that. The path had been slow and torturous, and he deserved every single bit of wrath she threw at him.

  With a heavy sigh, he took in the flames, black smoke and odd scent similar to burning leaves coming up from the garbage bin. He arched an eyebrow and gestured at her burning wedding dress. “Should I be worried about you?” She seemed stable enough, but perhaps she’d been pushed over the line, and the next step would be setting her loft on fire.

  “Nope, I’m good.” She crossed her arms, shutting her eyes and lifting her face to the sky. “First of all, I don’t need the dress, so why keep it? And second, to rid myself of the dark energy Damon created, I need to spiritually cleanse myself.” She lowered her head again, obviously finished with her prayer to Mother Earth, and then pointed at the flames. “Burning the dress is an effective cleansing.”

  While he understood, he also didn’t want the fire department getting a call. “How about we keep you in your landlord’s good graces and not burn the place down.” He quickly returned to her bathroom, grabbed a large glass off her sink, and filled it to the top with water. When he returned, he tossed the water into the garbage bin, dousing the flames, sending thick, black smooth billowing in the air. He kicked the garbage bin, making sure the fire was all the way out, and then turned to face Remy, finding her gone.

  When he reentered her bedroom, he spotted the big lump under the sheets again. “Remy,” he said gently, placing the glass on her dresser and then taking a seat on the bed next to her.

  “How could I be so stupid?” she asked beneath the blanket. “How did I not see the signs that this guy was just after my money?”

  Asher pulled away the sheet, meeting her sad eyes. “Because you’ve got a big heart. You don’t see that darkness.”

  “But you must have, since obviously you were investigating him?”

  Asher gave a slow nod. He hated the prick from the second he met Damon, and not just because Remy had fallen for him. “Something seemed…off. No one has all the right answers all the time. But he fed you all the right lines and seemed very rehearsed to me.”

  She glanced up at her ceiling and let out a long, slow breath before addressing him again. “When did you start suspecting something was up?”

  “The moment I met him.”

  “Seriously?” She placed her hands on her bright red face, though the heat rose equally into her ears. “Right away?”

  Asher could sugarcoat all this, but he’d been a coward in the face of hard times before when he’d left Remy. He couldn’t give her everything she wanted, but he could give her the truth. “My instincts—”

  “Are never wrong,” she finished for him, finally dropping her hands.

  “Not usually,” he agreed.

  Another sigh and then she began twirling her hair around her finger, her one tell that she was contemplating heavy things. “Damon said his groomsmen were old college buddies. I take it that’s a lie.”

  “From what we’ve learned, they were paid actors.”

  Her eyes went huge and a deeper flush crept across her cheeks before she yanked the sheet back over her head. “Just kill me.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he told her seriously, staring at the lump beneath the sheets. She’d recover from this. He’d see to that himself, even if he didn’t quite know yet exactly how he’d help her.

  When she didn’t remove the blanket, he gently tugged it away again. Her gorgeous eyes—so much more guarded than he ever remembered—held his.

  “There is something wrong with me,” she eventually said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.” No, she was perfect, only he kept his mouth shut, afraid if he told her that, he’d scare her away. One step at a time and he’d inch his way closer to being a memory for her that wasn’t drenched in pain.

  “Oh yeah?” she retorted sharply, her fingers clenching the bedsheet tight. “I almost married a con man who was going to drain my bank account.”

  “You’re the fourth woman he’s done this to,” Asher countered. “Damon was clever and cruel and chose sweet women who didn’t deserve this.”

  Remy considered this a moment, then shook her head slowly. “I don’t even get how he knew about my inheritance. I never told him.”

  “I doubt we’ll ever know that answer unless Damon tells us himself.”

  “God.” She released the sheet and her hands curled around her middle, all the color draining from her face. “I just feel so stupid. You know this is going to end up in the newspaper, all over town.”

  That was the shit-end of living in a small town: Everyone knew everyone’s business, but Asher had already considered this and thought up a good next step. It occurred to him that this was how he could help Remy move forward. From his years spent with the FBI, he’d honed his skills of thinking outside of the box and always being one step ahead of the media and criminals. Remy needed to turn this situation on its head, and he happened to know exactly how to do that. “The way I see it,” Asher explained, “you have two ways of handling this. One, hide away in your bed and hope that everyone just forgets this and moves on. Two, take control of the narrative and give the town something to talk about. Let everyone know that you’re not a victim.”

  She went still. “How exactly do I do that?”

  Asher gave slow smile, hoping to send his confidence her way. “Face him. Let the town talk about that.”

  “Face him?” she repeated, tilting her head to the side, obviously mulling over the idea.

  “Go to the police station. Let the townsfolk see you out and about. Word will spread, you know this. Give them something to talk about.”

  A twinkle lightened her eyes. “I’ve got to say, I don’t hate this idea, but I also can’t go in there unarmed.” She shoved off the blanket and grabbed a perfume bottle and sprayed herself. “It’s a homemade protective and purifying blend featuring patchouli, frankincense, and dragon’s blood, which all help to feel grounded and prepared.”

  It smelled good, that much he knew. He rose from the bed, and he watched her pupils dilate a little as he ended up right in front of her, very little space between them. “You ready?”

  “Ready.” She gave a firm nod, looking a little like the Remy he used to know.

  “Good.” He smiled softly. “When this is all said and done, we’ll see about that wine you wanted.”

  She smiled back. “Well, I’d much rather Damon’s nuts served on a platter, but hey, wine will work too.”

  * * *

  The walk of shame was so much better than the walk of embarrassment. Remy hadn’t quite figured out why Asher was there by her side, totally cool and calm walking down Stoney Creek’s historic Main Street, but she was glad to not have to do this alone. They left her loft and then grabbed coffee at a shop a block away from the station, and the entire way, Remy had to fight to keep her chin up. Boutique shops lined the skinny road where cars were parked, and mature trees hugged the road. Burnt orange and dark red leaves scattered the sidewalks as autumn had settled into town. She wrapped her sweater tighter, telling herself that was from the chill in the air, not from insecurity. The last thing she wanted was to allow Damon to make her feel shamed in her hometown.

  “Oh, my dear, Remy.”

  Remy cringed at the soft, sweet voice. “God, please, no.”

  Asher chuckled and hastily turned to face Heather Longfield, their old principal from Stoney Creek’s high school. “Hello, Mrs. Longfield, how are things?” he asked gently.

  “Doing just fine,” she said to Asher. Then to Remy, she gave sad, pitiful eyes. “I
was so very sorry to hear what happened. That Damon is just an awful man.” She turned back to Asher and her lip curled. “I hope you will ensure he is punished to the full extent of the law.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will,” Asher said with a firm nod.

  Mrs. Longfield’s brow wrinkled as she reached out to touch Remy’s arm. “If there’s anything—”

  “I’m really sorry to interrupt you,” Asher interjected softly, taking Remy’s arm and tugging her forward, “but I’m afraid we’re on our way to the station and are already late.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Mrs. Longfield said, taking a step back. “You must have things to do.”

  Remy booked it forward, never taking her gaze off the police station up ahead, wishing she could blink and get there. When they were a few feet away from Mrs. Longfield, Remy said, “Thank you for that. I don’t think I could handle her pitiful looks for another minute.”

  “She always was a bit dramatic,” Asher said with a smile, finally releasing his grip on her arm.

  Maybe another day that would’ve made Remy smile too. Or maybe she’d think about how her tummy filled with butterflies at Asher’s touch. But now she didn’t want to think about anything or draw more attention to herself, so she kept her head down and didn’t give anyone else eye contact.

  A few minutes later, when they entered the station, Remy sipped her coffee. Every single police officer, dispatch, detective…everyone…turned their curious gazes onto her before quickly looking away. A glance up revealed the reason. Asher had upped his glare game. She sighed away the tension in her shoulders and fell into the feeling of weightlessness that stole away the dread in her chest. One thing Asher did well was protect her. She’d always felt safe with him. Until he broke her trust.

  She followed him into his office, and he gestured to the client chair in front of his desk. “Give me a minute. Let me see where we’re at with Damon.”

  “Okay,” she said, and then promptly dropped down into the hard plastic chair. Voices and chatter sounded behind her from the cubicles in the middle of the police station. She scanned the plain office with the dull pale blue walls and just the bare necessities on the desk, trying to keep herself busy. When that didn’t work to ease the nerves, she crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, and finally sighed, trying to slow her heart rate.