“Don’t ruin this. Don’t bring him up. He’s the way he’s always been. In love with himself, his legacy, and Federal.”
“Then what do you want from me? I mean, Milly could’ve asked me. You talk with Mike, and that’s all hush-hush.”
“I want you. Not Mike. Not my dad. You.”
“It seems too coincidental. All these problems dogging you, and now you’re here. I’ve waited a long time for this day, and now it’s here and I don’t believe it.”
His lips came close, grazing my cheek as he whispered in my ear, “You need to allow yourself to believe it.”
I pulled away.
After all, I’d heard those words before.
Aston
I’d never been much of a liar, but the fibs started coming naturally a few years ago. They would roll off my tongue with ease when it came to my wife, Cass, currently my ex. Sadly, it never felt wrong.
Now, as I dropped breadcrumbs of little white lies with Bexley, it felt horrible.
There might have been a huge divide between us, financial and otherwise, but I’d always told her the truth. At one time, Bexley was like a truth serum for me. I craved that, wanted it back, that time when I could tell her anything and know she wouldn’t judge me.
“Remember when we first met? Christ, we were young.” I ran my hand through my hair, feeling it stick up at the ends. Cass would have sneered and told me I needed a haircut.
Bexley, who was standing right in front of me, didn’t say a word. We were facing each other, but she left enough space between us so I couldn’t touch her. My hand shook, wanting to close the divide.
“I was a kid then,” she said. “A foolish, smitten girl looking into a window of a world I knew better than to think I’d ever belong to.”
“Nah, you did belong. Do belong. The only foolish person was me. What I mean is, you were the first person I’d ever come clean to, been honest with, you know? I’d never really told anyone about my mom before and her antics. The endless lying in bed. The pining-away bullshit. At least, I thought it was bull, but she was the one who knew what was up. I chose to believe my dad, and that’s on me.”
“You can’t beat yourself up over that. Not your dad, but your mom. Each of them tried to pit you against the other.”
Bexley finally moved toward me and ran her hand down my arm. Her fingers ghosted over mine, and I grabbed hold of them before she could pull away. My grip might have been tighter than necessary, but the fear of her slipping out of my grasp attacked my heart.
“Look, I know he did us dirty, but back then, he held the keys to everything I wanted. Thought I wanted. Money, prestige, power. I’d been raised to think that’s what made life worth living, but I was wrong. And when he took you away from me, it was a loss like I’d never felt, a sacrifice I shouldn’t have had to make. Or you.”
A small tear formed in the corner of her eye. I waited for it to fall, but it floated on a precipice—like the current status of my life.
“I can’t go over all of it again. It hurt like hell then, and it still hurts now,” she said, sniffing back more tears. “I tried my best to move on, and that’s all I could do.”
“I know, but I hate that it happened. That I allowed it to happen at all. And to think I did this to you. My dad took you from me and me from you, and with the way he was, I thought you were better off. It’s no defense. Believe me.”
My heart and head pounded in synchronicity from the stress of dredging this all up. The fact I was here . . . with Bexley. It was all too much.
“I can’t. I said I can’t. Let’s not talk about it anymore,” she begged.
She moved back toward the couch and sat down, dropping her head in her hands. Her separation was an immediate shock to my system.
“I want a chance to make it right.” I knelt at her feet, my jeans cutting into the back of my knees, and I welcomed the pain. “Look at me. Please.”
This time, her tears fell heavy and hard. “Why now? I can’t believe this. What are you doing here? Now, of all times?”
“You can believe it. I’m here.” I brought a thumb to each cheek and wiped the wetness away.
“You’re probably going to go to prison. Then what? We’ll have our second chance with me visiting you behind bars? Oh, that’s so romantic, Aston.”
With my hands on either side of her head, I laughed. “I’m not going to go to prison, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Bex. I fucked up with us, but I’m not a criminal. I would never do what they’re saying. Although, I don’t think it’s going to be a cakewalk proving it. Good thing I’ve kept my own counsel over the last few years.”
“How can you sound so confident? I’ve spent the last two days poring over articles and information. Crying and obsessing and more crying.” She leaned back. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m admitting to that.”
“Sitting in front of you, I have to believe it. This is the best I’ve felt in fourteen years.”
“Don’t, Aston. Just don’t. I told you, we can’t play games. You have kids, and so do I. We have responsibilities and grown-up lives and a whole lifetime of baggage between us, and it’s not right. We can’t do it.”
I’m getting to her.
“I’m not playing any games,” I said. “This is what I’ve wanted for a long time. Cass was never right for me, and she knew it. More importantly, I knew it. My feelings for you haunted our relationship, and before you interrupt, I know it wasn’t fair. I tried. We had kids, bought a house, went to Orlando, drove the Amalfi coast, scheduled date nights, did all the shit we—you and I—should’ve done, and it was never enough. It didn’t work because she wasn’t you.”
My heart came back to life with each word leaving my mouth.
The truth will set me free.
Bexley looked up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I’ve spent every day since you left me wondering what we could’ve been like. I wanted you like a foolish schoolgirl. Do you understand that? I wasted the last fourteen years wishing for you, Aston! That’s the cold, hard truth. Seth was a poor replacement, a nice guy who wanted a wife and a family, and I took the position. Then I ruined him. Destroyed him. I filled an opening and fell short doing the easiest job ever. It was a role I couldn’t play because I was too hung up on you.”
There was no answer, no right response to Bexley’s honesty, so what did I do?
I leaned in and kissed the woman I’d waited a long fucking time to kiss again. When my lips touched hers, I was twenty-one all over again, hormones raging, my pants biting into me, and it felt fucking great.
I was soft at first, taking her lips in a gentle kiss, saying with my body what I couldn’t verbalize. Then I was on my knees, wedged in between her curvy, muscular thighs, and I kept her close.
She could have pulled back if she really wanted to, but she didn’t. Instead, she moaned into my mouth, and I swallowed her ecstasy like medicine for the soul. Becoming unglued, I threw all my tenderness out the fucking door and pushed her back on the couch. Lifting myself over her, I ground my hips into her, my tongue seeking immediate entry into her mouth.
With my weight braced on one elbow, I slid my free hand through her hair. Pulling her head back and exposing her neck, I ran my tongue over her creamy flesh, goose bumps rising in my wake.
“Slow,” she murmured. “We have to slow down, Aston. This is crazy.”
But her pelvis continued to lift to meet mine, seeking friction, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. My hand stilled her hip.
“Okay, Bex, but you’ve got to stop that grinding. I’m going to do something I’ve never done if you keep that up. I swear, I never even blew in my pants when I was a teen. Christ Almighty.” The last part was a whisper, but she eyed me anyway.
Her hand ran through the hair at the back of my neck, and she gathered me close for a closed-mouth, yet sensual kiss. It felt like a promise, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
&
nbsp; I’d made a lot of promises at one time too.
Bexley
Aston and I lay there together on my couch like his world wasn’t potentially crumbling. This was Nevada, and I’d read drug trafficking convictions came with a stiff sentence here. But in this moment, that harsh reality didn’t touch us.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew he could be taken away from me all over again, and this time I wouldn’t survive. Yet I shoved it way down, ignoring that possibility.
We were playing a dangerous game, or maybe only I was? In my mind, for this one fleeting moment, we were back together as if we’d never been separated, and all was good and right.
I knew none of it was reality, but I couldn’t let that permeate my brain. My heart was the stronger of the two organs.
Longing glances, gentle caresses, our fingers exploring, our lips tasting . . . our passion was still there, hanging heavily in the air.
Finally, we both stilled, taking in our surroundings, and I spoke first.
“This is surreal.”
Aston rested on his side, cramped in next to me on the couch. “Yes.”
“I’m not sure what’s happening, if there’s something even happening. It may not be such a good idea . . .”
He brought his lips to my neck, sliding my shirt away and kissing the top of my shoulder. The heat from his lips prickled against my chilled skin.
“It’s—” was all he said before his phone rang. “I’ve got to grab this.”
He rolled over me and stood up, swiping his finger across the phone. “What’s up, boo?”
His gaze glued to the carpet, his expression was serious as he walked back toward the front door. In a matter of seconds, his demeanor changed and his voice turned gruff.
“What? Put your mom on the phone.” A few seconds later, he stepped into the adjoining room, sputtering, “You’re kidding, Cass? You can’t be serious.”
I wasn’t sure what I should do. Should I stand and go to him, or hang back? Instinct begged me to wrap my arms around him, but experience told me to stay away. These were his kids and wife, his ex-wife, matters I wasn’t involved in.
“I have to go.”
Aston walked back into the family room, looking his usual nonplussed self in his dark-wash jeans and white oxford rolled up at the sleeves. He didn’t look rumpled or shocked or overwhelmed like me, didn’t appear to be stressed like I was.
“I’d like to come back, but I’m not sure how long this will take.”
I swallowed a cocktail of confusion and regret. I’d let him back into my life and my heart like nothing had ever happened, as if he hadn’t rocked my world in the worst way possible years ago. If we’d gone on a few more minutes, I probably would have been on the floor, carpet burn on my back. Crass but true.
Cass, his wife, ex or not, needed him, and he was going.
Cass, who came with all the trappings and the right family name.
Cass, who wasn’t me.
“I don’t think you should,” I told him. Protecting myself came first. “Come back, I mean.”
“Don’t do this, Bex. I have to go. This isn’t a choice. Someone pulled Mara’s hair at school and told her that her dad was a criminal. Cass is freaking out, and when she does that, she hits the bottle hard. I gotta go get my kids and make sure they’re okay.”
Shame washed over me. I didn’t even occur to me that the phone call could have been about his kids.
“I can’t leave Mara and Little A there.”
Mara and Aston Junior were his kids. I knew that much from Milly, one of the small morsels she’d fed me over the years. All this time, they’d seemed imaginary, but now when he said their names aloud, they felt real.
They were innocent souls, like my own kids, caught in a nasty web of bullshit and years of deceit. I couldn’t fault them or hold them accountable for ruining this moment.
“Is that okay, Bexley? Say it’s okay. I don’t want to leave, but I have to. Say you understand. I have to get my kids and see if Denise, the nanny, is at my dad’s house and can go watch them.” His expression softened, and he pleaded with me while his fingers lightly ran down my forearm. “Then I’ll come back.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. “But we can’t fall back into bed with each other like the last fourteen years haven’t happened. Like there isn’t this huge divide between us, and we didn’t both move on. There are a whole lot of other people involved now.”
He kissed my forehead, his lips lingering one second, then two. “Of course. I’m on your pace, your terms, whatever you want. And all those people are important, but none are as important as you. I know I haven’t shown you that in all these years, but give me a chance to prove it?”
I nodded, unable to form a response, and Aston hurried out.
Sliding down to the floor, my back against the couch, I whispered to myself, “I’m not even sure what I just agreed to.”
I was still in the same place, the seam of the sofa digging into my back as I stared down at my wrinkled tank and bare feet, when my phone rang. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I answered without looking at the screen. This wasn’t my real life.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Miller?”
“It’s Ms. Rivers now. Who’s this?”
“This is Doug Pyle. I work for Peter Prescott’s attorney. We’ve been keeping an eye on Aston for Mr. Prescott, and we noticed he paid you a visit this morning.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go. I don’t know what you want with me, but I don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Please, one second.”
“Does Aston know you’re watching him?” I asked, hearing the tension in my own voice.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then hang up the phone and stop, or I’m going to tell him.”
“Please don’t. Mr. Prescott thought the two of you could come to some arrangement. It’s what’s best for Aston.”
“Tell him he tried that once before, and I didn’t bite. I’m not going to this time either.”
“For Piper, even?”
I hit end call before I begged and pleaded for him to never mention her name.
Aston
Fucking Cass.
As expected, I found my hollow shell of an ex-wife laid out on her chaise, with a bottle of expensive vodka hanging from her hand and a glass of wine on the table next to her. Three freaking sheets to the wind, she stumbled over her words and tripped over her feelings.
“I won’t be embarrassed at the school like this. I mean, really? I d-d-don’t deserve that shit. Or at the club either,” she shouted, stuttering.
By embarrassed, she meant the accusations against me, both current and past. Plural. Not only the most recent one.
Ironically, she’d never considered her drinking and pill use to be cause for embarrassment.
“All I ever heard was about you and your wandering eye and cock,” she spat out. “Of c-c-course, your heart always belonged to that poor bitch, and now you’re free to run around sticking your dick in any willing hole. And you still fuck up.”
I didn’t bother to respond. Cass would eventually tap out. Or pass out. Whichever came first.
“I was a catch, came from a good family, the right kind of people. Your dad’s wife handpicked me,” Cass said, her arm thrown over her face, her voice slurred from the alcohol. “You had me and then let me go . . . and for what? A memory? Of a fucking good time on the golf course when you were a freaking kid?”
Against my better judgment, I said, “Cass, don’t talk about shit you don’t know anything about. Especially when you’re drunk.” I couldn’t let her disparage Bexley anymore.
She pulled her arm from her face to glare at me. “And now it comes out that you’re nothing but a coldhearted criminal. Ha!”
I didn’t answer this time. The kids had already packed a bag and were waiting at my car. They saw me as good, and that was all that mattered. I walked out on a half-passed-out Cass and gathered my two kids
in my arms and squeezed them tight before depositing them in my SUV.
I’d planned to take them to my dad’s, where Denise would take care of them. She’d raised my half siblings for Nan, and now she was a personal assistant of sorts to Nan, but she adored my kids and took any chance to be with them. Then I hoped to hurry back to Bexley.
Until I walked out of my dad’s house after leaving the kids with Denise and found Doug Pyle waiting outside in his car. As I made my way to my SUV, he got out of his car and approached.
“You can’t go back there,” he said.
“Where?” I played dumb. Who the hell did he think he was, my keeper? I paid people like him to do my bidding.
“You know the fuck where. Aston, you’re playing with fire.”
“Bullshit.” I stared him down, despite him having at least twenty pounds of muscle on me, and then I turned to go.
I was halfway into my SUV when he said, “Your dad knows all about your extracurricular activities. He’s watching you.”
Yeah, I figuring that out for myself, you dipshit.
Doug was a loyal employee of my dad’s, but also a longtime buddy of mine. We’d gone to camp together every summer as kids, until his dad lost everything in the stock market. Doug ended up doing grunt work for my dad after graduating from the police academy. My dad took him in with big promises and ended up exploiting his time and skills. Occasionally, Doug took pity on me.
“So, you know,” Doug said quickly before I could leave, “I called her and made her the same offer your dad did years ago. Maybe even sweetened it up a bit, considering the circumstances, but she didn’t accept.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I tried to tamp down my fury. “She didn’t the last time either. And she’s not going to—”
Fuck this. I didn’t have the time or patience for it. Jumping into the SUV, I cranked the engine and got the hell out of Dodge.
I didn’t make it back to Bexley’s until dusk. Her blinds were drawn, and her car wasn’t out front or in the carport.
I waited an hour, watching for any signs of her.
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