Captivate, book I of the Love & Lust

by Miles, Amy

By the time Slade is a full thirty minutes late, an uncomfortable realization sinks in: Slade has stood her up.

  Embarrassed and furious with herself for even going through with this charade, Ashlyn rises with as much dignity as she can muster and heads for the elevator. As the doors close behind her, she pushes number four instead of her own floor.

  Her mind screams that she is insane to confront him when she’s angry. Logic tells her to wait until she’s thinking rationally before she expresses her frustrations, but the temptation to lay into him is just too strong.

  When the elevator opens wide, she steps out and heads directly down the left wing. She knows where his room is because it’s exactly right below hers.

  Her ankles threaten to buckle as she hurries down the carpeted hall. She considers pausing to remove her heels but comes to an abrupt halt when she realizes she’s already arrived outside his door.

  Nervous tension roils through her belly as she tries to figure out exactly what she should say. Should she tell him how hurt she is? How she knew letting him in was a mistake?

  She lifts her hand to knock but pulls back when she hears voices from within the room. Not just voices… laughter. Ashlyn’s chest clenches when she realizes there is a woman in Slade’s room, and it sounds like she’s having fun

  Numbness falls over her as her hand drops to her side. How could she have been so foolish? She knew who Slade was and still she dared to hope that maybe, just maybe he would try to overcome his playboy ways.

  “You’re a fool, Ashlyn,” she whispers as a tear slips from her cheek and splatters against her chest.

  She turns and heads back toward the elevator, her shoulders sagging. As she pushes the button for her own floor, Ashlyn leans her head back against the wall. “So this is what it feels like to be rejected.”

  A mother’s rejection is something she knows all too well, but this… this is why she never let herself get too close to a guy. She clutches her chest, sickened by the pain chipping away at her. Betrayal is like a poison, slowly eating away until there is nothing left.

  The loss of hope is far worse.

  Her steps feel weighted as she turns down the hall to her room and lets herself in. She doesn’t glance at her laptop or even have the desire to change out of her dress. Ashlyn slips under the covers and curls into a ball. She reaches behind her and grasps a pillow to hug close as her tears come.

  It takes several hours before her tears finally dry up, and when they do, she falls into a restless sleep. She tosses and turns, tormenting herself with thoughts of seeing Slade the next day at the book signing. It’s the last one in the States. The last one close to home.

  As Ashlyn rises with the sun, she goes through the motions of prepping for the day but doesn’t really have any memory of doing so. She sinks into her chair after she’s fully dress and pulls her legs up to her chest. She rests her head on her knees, fighting against another round of tears.

  She doesn’t want to cry over Slade anymore. She wants to get back to work. Work never hurts her. Work never abandons her. Work never lies.

  But looking over at her laptop, Ashlyn can’t bring herself to do anything. The lethargy of her pain slowly weaves into razor-sharp anger.

  He knew what he was doing, a voice whispers in her mind—that cynical side of her that has remained silent until now. It was all just a game for him.

  No. She shakes her head, unwilling to think of him like that. True, he is perfectly capable of having his moments where he comes across like a true English wanker. But it’s not who he really is… is it?

  Surging to her feet, she grabs her door key and rushes out. She can’t stand this emotional upheaval. She stabs at the level-four button and taps her foot, waiting impatiently for the doors to open. When they do, she practically charges down the hall to confront Slade.

  She hammers on his door, not caring in the least that it is barely 6:00 a.m. “Slade!”

  The logical side of her mind tells her that she’s going to wake up the entire floor. The emotional side couldn’t give a crap.

  She knocks three more times before she hears the lock on the door shift. She steps back and crosses her arms over her chest, fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind.

  When the door cracks open, she sees Slade’s bare chest first, followed by his unruly hair that looks achingly gorgeous. His dark-blue boxers leave little to the imagination as he wipes his sleep-filled eyes. “Ashlyn?”

  “Where were you?”

  Her demand catches him off guard. He blinks, suddenly appearing to be wide-awake. “I left you a message at your room. Didn’t you get that?”

  Ashlyn’s mouth opens and closes without a sound escaping. Had she checked her messages last night? She is vaguely aware of a blinking red light on her phone.

  Chewing on her lip, she can feel some of her anger melting away. “I don’t really recall…”

  Slade leans against the doorframe. “I should have known you would take it like this. I swear I didn’t mean to stand you up. I had to…”

  “Slade?” Ashlyn rises onto her toes to see Tamsin rising from the bed. She clutches the sheet to her chest. “What’s going on?”

  Ashlyn goes cold, her mouth dropping open in disbelief. Her gaze lowers to his boxers and her anger boils over. “You lying son of a—”

  “Now hold on right there, Ash.” He lifts his hands to stop her. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “I thought you were better than this.” A sob catches in her throat as she looks beyond him to see Tamsin’s clothes strewn about his bedroom floor. “Don’t ever call me Ash again.”

  She turns and flees down the hall. The numbness sweeps back in to steal away her anger. He chose Tamsin over you, repeats on a maddening circuit in her mind.

  Slade’s bare feet slap against the carpeted floor as he races out the door and charges after her. “Ash, please! Wait up!”

  Her hair tangles in her long eyelashes as she races down the hall. All that matters is that she gets away, far away.

  She was fool to think Slade might actually be able to care about someone other than himself.

  Blinded by tears that she wishes she could seal away, she stumbles down the hallway. Her hands skim the golden wallpaper for support as she sprints for the elevator.

  “Sorry!” Ducking her head, she mutters her apologies as she rushes past an older woman walking her poodle in the hall. Its leg is cocked and ready. The selected ornamental shrub has already begun to show signs of browning just above the roots. Obviously, this has been a regular occurrence while the woman has been staying at the hotel.

  “Ash!”

  Fueled by the nearness of his call, Ashlyn races around the woman and her prissy poodle and jabs her finger on the up button. She bounces on her toes, begging the doors to open.

  “Come on!”

  Ashlyn can tell that her eyes have grown puffy by the way her nose drips incessantly. She has always been a messy crier.

  When she hears the older woman’s tsk of disapproval, she risks a glance behind her.

  “Go back to bed, Slade. I’m not interested in your excuses.” She tries to be inconspicuous about cleaning her nose with her sleeve but fails miserably as a damp patch appears on her arm. She stuffs her hands deep into her pockets and glares at Slade.

  “It’s not what you think,” he says, holding out his hand as if to try to stop her from leaving. His other hand clutches to a bed sheet that he wrapped haphazardly about his waist before dashing out the door. She does her best to keep her eyes focused above his neck as he steps forward, his bare feet plodding on the hallway runner. “If you had listened to my message, you would already know that Tamsin was drunk last night and I couldn’t just leave her. She was a mess.”

  “How noble of you,” the elderly woman says as she sniffs indignantly in the air and tugs her dog away from the bush. She turns her back sharply on Slade and offers Ashlyn a consoling smile as she passes. Her white poodle prances at her side, nose high with simila
r disdain.

  “This is none of your concern,” Slade shouts after the woman. He grunts in frustration as she merely waves him off and slams the door to her suite behind her.

  “Look, I get what that must have looked like back there, but you are taking this way too personal, Ash. Nothing happened. I swear it!”

  Ashlyn nibbles on her lower lip, suddenly gripped with indecision. What if he really is telling the truth? What if what she walked in on was as innocent as he claims?

  “She was naked in your bed, Slade. And you’re not exactly dressed much better yourself right now. What am I supposed to believe happened?”

  “I don’t know? Maybe you could try doing something radical for a change… like actually trusting me for once.”

  The door at the end of the hall opens and a very hung-over Tamsin leans out into the hall. She grips the doorframe tightly to keep from spilling over. Her fiery mane is lopsided, pressed flat on one side and wild on the other. “Slade? Aren’t you coming back to bed?”

  Slade’s mouth drops open as Ashlyn drills him with an accusing glare. “You can pick up your check at the concierge desk when you leave.”

  “Wait? What?” His brow furrows in confusion. Ashlyn nearly cries out in relief when the elevator doors finally open. She leaps inside and repeatedly presses the close button.

  Leaning back against the wall, she closes her eyes, praying he will just let her go. It would be so much easier if he would.

  As the doors begin to shut, he shoves his arm through and her hopes sink. His jaw is rigid when he pushes the door back open. “You can’t just fire me. I’m under contract.”

  Ashlyn’s anger and pain simmer in one large melting pot of highly explosive emotions. “I wrote your contract and I can break it whenever I want. You are done, Slade. Pack your things and go home.”

  She jams her finger on the close button and shoves his chest with just enough force to remove him from the elevator. He stumbles back but doesn’t try to stop her again as the door finally seals him out.

  The last emotion she saw on his face wasn’t anger. It was regret.

  Ashlyn collapses back against the wall, hugging herself as she lets the tears come.

  Twenty-Five

  Slade doesn’t return to his room. He can’t stand to face Tamsin, knowing that he would more than likely tear into her as well. It wasn’t really her fault. He should have gone to speak to Ashlyn in person instead of relying on the phone. That was his first mistake. The second was assuming that Ashlyn would give him the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping onto his case at the first sign of trouble.

  Having Tamsin naked in his bed certainly didn’t do him any favors, but it was completely innocent. Yes, Tamsin had tried to coerce him into sleeping with her, but he wasn’t interested in anything she had to offer.

  She didn’t take his rejection too well.

  A week ago, he probably would have jumped at the chance to have some more fun with her. Of all the women he’s ever been with, she was the most adventurous and enthusiastic, but last night it felt all wrong.

  Tamsin was looking for someone to share her bed and he was the only one around. That doesn’t exactly do much to set the mood.

  But that wasn’t even the real reason he rejected her advances. He really was upset about missing his dinner with Ashlyn. The thought of upsetting her continues to gnaw at him as he tucks his sheet around his waist like a toga and hunts down a bellman to find him some clothes.

  Once fully dressed, Slade heads out the front doors and walks the streets of New York. They aren’t all unlike being back home: a single mob of people moving in unison. He is one of the few who tries to go against the flow.

  He is jostled about as he heads away from the hotel. He doesn’t know where he’s going, only that he needs time to think. At first, he walks around the block, afraid to wander too far from the hotel, but eventually he just needs to move.

  He begins at a jog, but the tennis shoes the bellman loaned him crimp his toes awfully. The jeans are a decent fit, but the shirt is baggy, billowing in the wind.

  He can’t stop thinking about how the accusing look in Ashlyn’s eye stung far more than he would have thought. It wasn’t just the accusation, because he obviously deserves a portion of that blame, but it was the pain buried beneath it.

  He told her he wouldn’t hurt her and he did. He put himself in her world, gave her a reason to trust him, and he blew it.

  Slade knows that her threat to fire him stemmed from that pain, but that makes it no less real. He pauses at the corner of a busy intersection about four blocks from the hotel. What if she wasn’t bluffing? Does Ashlyn really have the power to fire me?

  Worried that he may be stranded in New York with no job, Slade turns and jogs back to the hotel. By the time he arrives, he’s hobbling with toe cramps, but he doesn’t wait for the elevator to arrive. Instead, he shoves through the stairwell door and takes the steps two at a time.

  He is panting by the time he reaches the fourth floor. He forces himself to slow to a walk as he approaches a young couple pushing a baby in a pram. “Morning,” he says as he waits for them to pass. The new parents look exhausted. No doubt this baby was the one he heard wailing through much of last night.

  “Bollocks,” he mutters as he searches the pockets of his jeans. He left without grabbing his room key.

  “Tamsin!” He pounds on the door. He waits a minute and shouts again.

  On the third knock, she finally answers. “What do you want?”

  She yawns, using one hand to cover her mouth and the other to clutch the sheet. He’s been gone well over an hour and she has yet to get dressed. “You’re in my suite, remember?”

  Her eyes widen as she looks around for the first time. “Huh. Guess that explains why it’s so clean.”

  She steps back to allow him to enter. He brushes past and heads straight for the bedroom. Sinking onto the edge of the bed, he reaches for his satchel.

  “We don’t have to be at the signing for a couple more hours,” Tamsin says as she walks into the room.

  “Um-hmm.” He agrees absently. He pulls out the notebooks, pens, and files inside his satchel and begins sifting through them. He knows he has a copy of his contract here somewhere.

  Movement before him catches his attention and he looks up to find himself staring at Tamsin’s bare abdomen. His stomach clenches as he tries to focus on her pierced belly button instead of anything above or below that.

  When the temptation to look up grows too great, he closes his eyes. “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Oh, really?” She leans down and moves his papers aside. Before he can protest, she shoves him back onto the bed and straddles his waist.

  “Bloody hell, Tamsin.” Slade groans as he clenches his hands into a fist over his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She leans over and nuzzles his neck. Her hair tickles his chest as she slips her hands up under his shirt. The muscles in his abdomen clench under her touch, and he fights to resist as she nibbles on his ear. “I think you know exactly what I’m doing,” she purrs.

  “This is not going to happen,” he says, turning away from her touch.

  “Are you sure about that?” Her hand slips into the waistband of his pants, and he grabs her hand, his eyes open wide.

  “I said no.” He bucks her off and rolls to the side. He swoops down and grasps the sheet, holding it out behind him. “Put this on. Your clothes are in the bathroom. You can get cleaned up and then head back to your room.”

  Tamsin snatches the sheet from his hand. The scowl he finds on her face when he turns around would make any man’s blood run cold. “This is about her, isn’t it?”

  Slade moves out of her way as she heads to the bathroom. “Ashlyn won’t have you now, you know? Not after she hears what we did.”

  His anger begins to build as he grits his teeth. “Leave Ash out of this.”

  Tamsin smirks, swaying her hips as she walks into the bathroom. “I
t’s not Ash that I would be worrying about, Slade. When Sophie hears how naughty you’ve been, you are finished.”

  “Is that really what this is all about?” he asks, disgusted by it all. “Was I just some toy that you could play with and toss aside?”

  Tamsin’s smile is filled with mock pity. “Just now learning that, huh?”

  Slade feels ill as Tamsin closes the door behind her. How could he have been so blind not to see that she was using him all along?

  He wanted her in the beginning and she knew it. She used his desire for her own purposes and made him into a fool for the entire world to see. For Ashlyn to see.

  Sinking down onto the bed, Slade buries his head in his hands. Ashlyn tried to warn him about how cutthroat this industry is. She had known that Tamsin would do whatever it took to get ahead, and now he feels like a right wanker.

  He should have listened to Ashlyn. She’s the only person who has ever tried to help him, and what did he give her back in return? Broken trust.

  “What have I done?” He lies back on his bed, feeling a sickness begin in his soul. It coils around in his stomach, making him want to curl up and wallow in self-loathing. He is sorely tempted to do just that, but he can’t. He needs to find Ashlyn and get this sorted out.

  As he rolls onto his side, he notices the edge of his contract sticking out from the pile Tamsin shoved onto the floor. He picks it up and feels only numbness as he realizes that it isn’t Ashlyn’s signature on the bottom of the page, but Tamsin’s.

  He still has a job, but he’s no longer sure he even wants it.

  Twenty-Six

  Ashlyn snatches her razors from the shower wall and tosses them at her toiletry bag. She grabs her soaps and lotions and adds them on top before bending to retrieve her slippers. Her bag bulges from the top with a disorganized array of supplies, but she doesn’t care how it looks, only that she can leave. She gives the bathroom a final onceover before she turns off the light and zips up her bag.

  She walks into the main room of her suite and stares at the queen bed, the pillow still damp from her tears. The comforter has been straightened and the throw pillows neatly placed. The curtains have been drawn back to let in the morning light, but it does nothing to brighten her spirits.