“We’re not talking about me.”
I face him. “Maybe we should be.”
“I’m not telling you we can’t talk about me, or my father. We can. But right now, we’re dealing with yours.”
“I think we’re dealing with yours, too.”
“No. The last thing we have to deal with is my father. We avoid each other. We were tricked into that encounter.”
“Because of Brandon.”
“Which is not your fault,” he assures me.
“What if this is Brandon at work again? What if he shows up?”
“Bring it,” Dash says. “I’ll be ready. The question is, will you? What if Brandon shows up?”
“I don’t think he will, not with my father present.”
“Unless that’s not your father.”
“You think it’s Brandon?”
“After what happened at that book signing, I’d be prepared for anything.”
My mind goes to the encounter between Tyler and Dash in the bar. That was intense and personal, I know, but isn’t this as well?
“I think we should just skip the meeting. Or I need to go alone.”
“I’d like to go,” Dash says simply. “I think we should go together. But this isn’t my decision to make. It’s yours.” He leans over and kisses me. “Think about it.”
The idea that he’s asked me rather than told me what should happen—and I sense he means this completely—matters to me. This is one of those moments when I love Dash all the more. He’s dominant, controlling, even a tad bit arrogant, but he saves these things for the right times, usually when we’re naked. Mostly. He has slips, but for the most part outside the bedroom, he’s tender, caring, grateful.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t be nearby, like right outside the door, if you need me,” he adds. “I told you, I’m protective, baby. I can’t be any other way with you.”
Another quality I like—no, love—about Dash. He really worries about me and while I know this partially comes from some of his deep-rooted pain and a history of loss, it still shows how much I mean to him.
“I need to call and deal with the pilot I have on standby to take us home,” he continues. “When do you want that to be?”
“Tuesday? I just need to talk to my boss here tomorrow. Or even late tomorrow night.”
“Tuesday morning,” he says. “I’ll arrange it. How about a workout and then lunch?”
“Only if there’s coffee first.”
“I’ll order it now.” He starts to get up.
I catch his arm. “What will you do if Brandon shows up?”
“I like control, Allie. Choosing to fight and randomly punching someone are two different things. He’s in my world. I’m not in his world.”
“He’ll try and ruin you.”
“Greater men, like my father, have tried and failed.”
“Your father tried to ruin you?”
“A story better told over booze and when we’re naked.” He softens his voice. “But I’ll tell you, Allie.” He strokes my cheek and stands up, walking toward the bedroom door.
I glance down at the message again and reread it: This is your father. I know you’re in the city. I think we should talk about Dash Black, among other things. I’ll be at that little coffee shop you like at three o’clock. It doesn’t sound like him and since I blocked his number, I can’t even be sure it is him. I pull up his real number and unblock it. I shoot him a text: Did you text me from another number about coffee today?
He doesn’t reply. I wait and wait. He still doesn’t reply.
Nothing about this feels right.
And I know, I just know, that Brandon isn’t done with us. I ran from him in the past. I know I did. But if there is one lesson I’ve learned this weekend, it’s that running doesn’t work. It just delays a problem and gives it time to grow bigger and bigger until it snowballs down the hill and crashes into you. I thought the crash had happened Saturday. But maybe that was just the start of a snowball. Trouble hasn’t come and gone, it’s still here.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I freshen up and throw on my workout leggings and a tank top before heading out to the living room and kitchen area of the hotel suite. I find Dash standing by the window, a coffee cup in hand, still naked from the waist up. My stomach does this fluttery thing at the sight of him. That never happened with Brandon. Ever. I live with Dash now and I feel that just walking into the same room. I’m not sure that feeling will ever outstay its welcome. But people trying to get between us—that will, that has. First Tyler at the bar. Then Brandon. Then Dash’s father. Now my father, or maybe it’s not my father. I have no idea who that message was from.
Brandon, I think.
It has to be Brandon.
Which proves how little he knew me if he thinks my father is the person who can lure me to coffee.
Seeming to sense my presence, Dash turns to face me, his eyes lighting on me as if I light up his world the way he does mine. I know this is true, but there is this part of me, this insecure part of me, that struggles to see this reality when I know he loves me. A damaged, broken part of me I’d like to blame on Brandon, but the truth is, that’s a lie I tell myself. I know, deep in my heart and soul, that I have to own how I allow myself to process life, how I allow events and people to affect me. I define my character. They do not.
“Coffee, at your service, cupcake,” Dash announces, motioning to the pot on the table.
If he’s upset over this thing with my father wanting to talk to me about him, he’s not showing it. He joins me on the couch and pours my coffee, doctoring it to just the perfect place. He knows how much cream, how much Splenda. He knows me well and he hasn’t known me long. Because he tries, I think. Dash actually wants to know what I like, so he puts in the effort to find out the little details that matter in ways I don’t think I even realized until him.
I sip the warm beverage and say, “This is good, but I miss that coffee we started making at the apartment.”
“You mean at home, baby?” he challenges softly.
My chest pinches with a kaleidoscope of emotion. “Yes. At home.”
“You didn’t want to call it that,” he accuses softly. “We’ll fix that, I swear, Allie.”
“Dash—”
“We’ll fix it.” He clicks a few buttons on his phone and moves away from the emotional topic to our current situation with my father. “I know how your father knows you’re in town and that we’re together,” he says, showing me an image of me and him together at the signing on what appears to be the Daily Report, a wildly popular news site with a celebrity section.
“My God, my hair is standing up,” I say, cringing.
He laughs. “You look beautiful, baby. The point here is he knew we went public. We just forgot the obvious when talking about that text from your father.”
“Or he’s talking to Brandon again. Or it’s Brandon himself texting me.” I set my cup down. “But whatever the case, Dash, I realize now that pushing them away, shutting them out, was me trying to shut out my problems and not deal with them. I was running, and look where it got me. Look where it got us.”
“No. You chose not to have them in your life, Allie. That’s not running. That’s a decision and one you were smart to make, considering what I now know.”
“No matter how right or logical it seems, my state of mind is what ultimately matters. I was running, Dash. I wanted a new life. Granted, publishing was not as fulfilling as I’d expected it to be, but even my new job is, at least to some degree, a way to distance myself from the past. Though it’s also an amazing opportunity and a place I’ve thrived.”
“I was going to talk to you about that.”
I twist around to face him. “I was going to talk to you about it, too.”
“You want me to go first, or you first?”
“You,” I say quickly, eager to know his point of view.
“Why don’t we look for a place to live here in New York.”
/> I blink. I mean, I know he referenced this in the past, but the idea that he would take action for me, uproot for me, blows me away. “You’d move for me?”
“Is that even a question?”
Last night, he told me to go home, and I’d thought he wanted me to go away. Now, he’s offering to uproot his life for me. I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. He captures me and drags me closer, kissing me well and good before he says, “I’d do anything for you, Allie.” His voice is low and rough with emotion. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
I believe him. Because yes, he went to fight last night, but it’s an addiction and he still left the fight for me. One day, it will be for him, too, I vow. I touch his face, love in that touch as I say, “I like being in Nashville.” I sit up. “I need to tell you something. I need to tell you a lot of things about last night, Dash.”
He arches a brow. “What about last night?”
“I called Tyler,” I say quickly, “just to see if he knew where you would go here and of course, he didn’t. I know you hate that and I’m sorry. I was worried. I was scared for you because of Brandon.”
His lashes lower, his jaw clenching before he looks at me again. “I know you were.”
That’s all he says, I know you were…
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I’m reminded of a quote I read once, though I can’t say where I read it: Honesty is the highest form of intimacy. Last night, I felt the bond between myself and Dash shift and change, the bonds that were newly formed growing stronger. I know he is not pleased that I went to Tyler, but I can’t allow that to stop me from speaking the words that linger on my tongue.
I’ve made the spur of the moment decision to tell Dash everything about last night, to protect him and us, and I’m not going to back down now. “I know you don’t want Tyler involved in your life or mine,” I quickly add, “but I also want honesty between us, Dash. I didn’t tell you about Brandon, which you know why, but that blew up in my face. So, there’s more to tell you and I’m just going to spit it out. When he couldn’t help, I could think of only one other person who might help. Only one other person I knew who made a habit of discretion. That was Mark Compton, one of the owners of Riptide. I’m close to his mother who has cancer and who I’d hoped to visit while we were here. She’s not up for it. But I know he’d help me because of how she feels about me. And I promised to connect his mother to my mother to talk about what they both are going through.” I press my hand to my head. “I’m really rambling, but I’m just going to keep going. It turns out that Mark bets on the fights. He knew how to get me to you. And he wants his role with the underground fighting private as well. He told me about his bets so that I could tell you, and so I, we, knew he wouldn’t burn you.” I pause for his thoughts, but he says nothing, so I just keep on keeping on. “He also told me he wanted loyalty in exchange for help, but that he was clear that you came first before the job. I proposed an idea to keep the role I have now for Hawk Legal, but work for Riptide. He seems open to it.”
Dash’s cellphone rings and he glances at the number. “I need to take this and get changed.” He stands up and he actually walks out of the room. I blink, confused first, and then concerned. I push to my feet and start to pace, not sure if I should follow him. He obviously wants a moment away from me. I walk to the window and stare out at the city I’d once thought a perfect place to live, but it was never the right place for me. I know that now.
My mind goes back to last night, and how perfect Dash’s response to my inhibitions, my confessions about my past. I don’t want him to feel betrayed by my actions when they were well-intentioned. I turn and race toward the bedroom. I find Dash at the window, much like I had been in the living room, his shoulders tensed. I don’t even think twice. I rush toward him and then in a minute, I’m pushing in between him and the window, his fingers are in my hair and he’s kissing me, a kiss that feels like ten thousand shades of torment.
“I’m sorry,” he says when his mouth parts from mine. “I should never have put you in that position last night.”
“I can’t apologize for coming after you, Dash. I love you and—”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “It won’t happen again, Allie. I’m done fighting.” He tilts my gaze to his. “I’m done fighting.”
“It’s not that easy, Dash. It’s an addiction. I know you know that.”
“I don’t need that. I need you,” he repeats. “I know I’ve said that before but you proved that to me last night. I thought I had to fight, and then you showed up, and I knew what a fool I was. Why was I there and not with you? It won’t happen again. If it’s between you and fighting, you win.”
“You need to do it for you, not me. You know that, right?”
“I’m doing it for both of us, baby.”
But as Dash kisses me again, backing me toward the bed and undressing me, I know that nothing about what happened last night is as simple as this moment in his arms. Nor is it as simple as him choosing not to fight. Dash is captive to the past, just as I have been, and the past wants to destroy us. I still like to believe love conquers all. Of course, that sounds like a fairytale, but no one said fairytales don’t include monsters.
It just means that in the end, the monsters are slain when a mighty battle is fought, but we survive.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dash and I are on the treadmills, side-by-side, when a realization comes to me. I halt and look over at him. He punches his pause button and turns to look at me, both of us breathing heavily. “What, baby?”
“You didn’t involve me in a solution last night and look where we ended up.”
“I told you that won’t happen again.”
“I know. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about me. I need to involve you in my solution. I want you to go with me to the coffee shop today.”
His hand covers my hand on the arm of my machine, and he says, “Good. I want to go with you, but I can sit outside or at another table and be close if you need me. That’s not excluding me, Allie. There’s no right or wrong answer to how you handle this. There’s just what feels like the best move and that has to come from your gut.”
“Yes,” I say. “Good advice. Thank you. Let’s run.”
He nods, and we both return to our workouts, my mind replaying so many moments in my past with my father. I never really gave him the chance to tell his side of the story, but then, he never really made an effort, either. And if that is him who’s been texting me, why won’t he answer his phone? I actually tried to call him on both numbers, the one he—or someone—texted me with, and the one I know to be his. A part of me prays my father is the one contacting me. The same part of me that wants him to show support for Dash after all that happened with Brandon. The little girl in me who still craves her father. If this is him, he is going to disappoint me again, but at least I will sit face-to-face with him and tell him how I feel. Something I was too cowardly to do in the past.
By the time I end my run and Dash does the same, I’ve made a decision. Dash and I step off our machines and I turn to look at him. “I’m done running. I’m really going to go to the coffee meeting, no matter who shows up.”
He touches my cheek. “I know, baby. I’m surprised you didn’t.”
There is a reason Dash and I were drawn to each other from the moment we met. We both look into the mirror and try not to see the truth, but when we look at each other, we see clearly. It’s funny how one person can shine a light on the darkness in our souls. I step forward and wrap my arms around Dash. “We can go early so you can write.”
“I was thinking more we could go get naked to work off your nerves.”
“We already did that,” I remind him, smiling. He makes me smile and I love that about Dash.
He arches a brow. “And?”
“You have a book to finish,” I chide. “You’re going to have me, Bella, and Ghost angry if you don’t finish it on time. Not to mention a legion of fans.”
&nb
sp; “You’re a slave driver, woman, but yes. I do have a book to write. And if you want to go early, we’ll go early. And together.”
“Yes,” I say softly. “That’s what I’m telling you, Dash. I don’t need you to sit outside the coffee shop or at another table. Together.”
He strokes my hair behind my ear, a gentle touch that swims through my senses, and says, “Always, Allie.”
“And if Brandon shows up instead of my father?”
“I’ll beat his ass, of course.”
My eyes go wide. “Dash—”
He laughs. “I told you. That’s not how I play this game.”
“Then how do you play it?”
“Like I’m Ghost.”
“You want to kill him.”
“Not literally, baby. But I have a plan.”
“And that plan is?”
“To sic Bella on him,” he laughs, scooping me up in his arms. “All other questions must be asked naked in the shower.”
In other words, no more questions, but I’m laughing as he carries me through a public gym. A woman snaps our pictures and murmurs something about Dash Black. Good Lord, I have bad hair again. And for a man who likes to keep a low profile, he’s not keeping a low profile.
But maybe the shower is exactly where I demand a promise that he doesn’t beat Brandon’s ass. Even if I wish he could.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dash and I dress warmly—me in blue jeans and a violet sweater, Dash in all black—before we walk to lunch. Another short walk and we arrive at the coffee shop. With two hours to spare before the meeting with my father, or perhaps Brandon, we order our coffees and open our MacBooks. It’s a familiar thing for us now, being beside each other, working, just being together.
“If Brandon shows up, don’t beat him up, Dash. He’ll try to provoke you.”
Dash’s lips curve. “Well, it’s nice to know you know how easily I could beat your ex’s ass, but that would be so easy that it wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Or very satisfying. I prefer to beat him at a different game.”
“Which is what?”
When I Say Yes Page 6