I’d dropped out of college just to keep my little brother out of foster care and to keep the little house Mom had left us from foreclosure. Most days we scrape even, if we’re lucky, and I have about as much chance of finishing off my college degree as winning the lottery.
Now I also have to deal with Ben acting out.
“He still giving the kids at school knuckle sandwiches?” Randy asks, clearing Ben’s plate and turning to me with a sympathetic grimace.
“Not since he’s been forced into homework detention. At least his grades are better,” I mutter, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. “I left your money in the middle drawer, and I bought you those pencils you need for that art class. Bye, Rand!”
I make it to the bus with not a second to spare, my clothes so wet I leave a puddle trailing behind me as I take a seat and clench my teeth against the shivers wracking me.
By the time I make it to the Jasper building, I look like a drowned rat and I’m sneezing so much I know I’m going to get a cold. Shit, just what I need right now, getting sick on top of my work schedule and trying to keep Ben from Juvie.
I make it to the locker room—a small closet with two lockers for our stuff—and change quickly, pulling my hair back into a severe, drenched bun before rushing out with my cart to get started.
Two hours later I am sniffling and miserable, but blessedly done for now. I’ve never felt this shitty, and one look in the tiny mirror hanging from my locker tells me I look as bad as I feel.
My long, light brown hair is frizzing around my head, thanks to the fever sweats I’ve had for the last hour, and my nose is red as a tomato. My light gray eyes, though, are what tell the true story. They’re glassy and drooping with fatigue.
And I still have to go back to the diner.
“I want that fucking information tonight, or you can pack your shit and get the fuck out of my company.”
I hear the growling voice through the door I’m passing on my way to the elevator and pause. The clipped tone of that voice…not to mention that highbrow English accent…where have I heard that before?
“Do you not like your job, Isaac?” I hear, wrenching back when I realize I’ve stopped and have my ear pressed firmly to the dark wood panel by the door.
I can’t hear the answer, so I assume whoever this man is so harshly lambasting is either too cowed to speak up or is on the other side of a phone line.
Whatever, I’m just glad I’m not the one on the receiving end of that icy snarl. I’m about to turn away and head for the elevator, not wanting to be later for work than I already am thanks to the slowness my cold has brought on, when I feel a wave of dizziness overcome me.
The assault has dark spots blinking before my eyes, and I feel my legs weaken precariously and wobble before I can blink the spell away. The vertigo, along with the sudden nausea, dumps me flat on my ass before I can catch myself, and I end up on the floor, facedown with my ass sticking high in the air, swallowing through the bile lining my throat.
My descent must have made some sort of noise because when I blink my eyes again, regaining some of my senses, I’m cradled against the heat of a strong, muscled chest.
“Jesus, you’re burning up.”
That voice does something weird to my insides, and I shiver, pushing closer to his heat, needing to get as close as humanly possible for some inexplicable reason.
I can’t smell him, thanks to my stuffy nose, so I do the next best thing and shove my leaky nose into the smooth skin at his neck. The feeling I get from that small connection leaves me reeling as he easily carries me into his office—I’m short but in no way lacking in some weight—and lays me down on the sofa.
He straightens, pulling his heat and strength away, and I mewl, wanting to follow but so tired suddenly I can’t lift so much as a finger. When he’s upright and towering over me I get a good look at my rescuer and gasp, frozen to the spot by his hard beauty.
His hair is the color of burnt caramel, long enough to reach his collar but short enough that it lacks that bad boy look most men go for these days. Not that he needs anything as dumb as hair to give him that aura, I think dazedly. He’s already got that shit down in spades.
His eyes, though, those penetrating aqua eyes, are what get me.
“Oh my God. An angel.” I blame my overheated, mushy brain for that idiocy.
A round of deep masculine chuckles echo around my fever-soaked brain, and I flinch, becoming very aware that there are four other men in the office, all staring down at me with deeply amused gazes. And that I’ve said that aloud.
Embarrassment.
“She must be really feverish if she’s thinking you’re that good, Luc.”
I turn my head—well, it bobbles in the direction of that deeply amused voice—to see a blonde Adonis staring down at me with a look of mirth lining his face.
“Get out.”
“Luc, the poor girl’s obviously sick and in need of medical attention. Let me—”
“Get out.”
Two words, barked so savagely I feel my jellified muscles tense, ready to take my sick ass running through the door—but no, he must have said it to the others because we’re left alone in the space of mere seconds, the door slamming shut amidst grumbles and what sounds like regret.
For some reason, something I can’t explain, I feel myself bolt up off the sofa, my body all of a sudden wanting flight as those cold, hard eyes stay focused on me, doing strange things to my insides.
“Uh, thanks…um, for helping me? I need to get going,” I breathe, keeping my eyes fixed on his coiled body as I inch my way toward the door.
For whatever reason, embarrassment notwithstanding, because yeah, I’m still vain enough to know that while this man, this…perfect specimen looks like a walking GQ ad, I look like absolute crap—I feel the stirrings of fear and the need to run and keep running till I’m completely clear of him.
I can’t say why, not really, but as I scuttle covertly toward the exit I know, deep down, where my feminine instincts reside, that if I don’t get the hell out of here soon, I’m going to be in way over my head with this guy.
“Stop.”
That one word freezes the blood in my veins, but I fight through the feeling and my continuing dizziness in an effort to get out of here before I do something stupid like tell him how startlingly attractive he is.
That would be…terrible, because, while I’m not a dog, I am definitely just a plain Jane type of woman and so not even close to his league.
“Um, I need to go,” I breathe, feeling my adrenaline spike when my hand closes over the door handle and pushes down. “I have to get to back to work.”
I want to say I manage to turn the handle gracefully and make an elegant escape. Nope. What happens is, I fumble with the handle under my sweaty pam and all but fall out of that office, stumbling to the empty elevator on liquefied legs.
It’s only as I ride the car down, slowing my breaths enough to ease the pounding in my aching skull, that I know why I’ve run so fast. I recognize those startling, penetrating eyes.
They belong to an event in my past that almost destroyed my young heart, an event that set me on the path to self-preservation and the need to keep myself separate from anyone or anything that can hurt me.
Those eyes belong to Lucian Jasper, the love of my girlhood and the same boy—man, who’d broken my heart so callously I still feel the sting of tears when I think of it.
Chapter Two
“Oh my God! What the heck!”
Yeah, I think, dragging my apron over my pounding head and slinking my way to the kitchen door, wishing like hell I can just go home and fall into bed.
At this point I feel like only a good three-day coma can take care of the vile sickness tearing its way through me. After the shocking revelation of exactly who I’d been faced with had finally calmed enough for me to make my stumbling way to my next bus, I’d made the half-assed decision to call Mel, my supervisor at Jasper’s—how could I not k
now, not even suspect that the company I cleaned for belonged to him? —and quit.
Yeah, so now, on top of being sick as hell, I’m short a source of much needed income and really not feeling it as far as tonight’s shift goes. But I can’t afford to let Bill fire my ass, so instead of going home, I’m dying over the flat top, praying for the next two hours to speed by.
“Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”
I turn to my potbellied boss and give him the stink eye while keeping an eye on the burger I’m grilling.
“I had to run to work in the rain. I think I caught a cold.”
“That quick?” he asks skeptically. “You’re not on the rag?”
I hear a muttered curse from the counter and grit my teeth. Bill, the archaic fool, thinks that any time a woman gets sick it’s due to ‘the monthly bleeding curse’—his words, not mine.
He’s a real prick about a chick getting her period and seems to think that if you’re in ‘that condition’, you shouldn’t be handling food.
“Yeah,” I mutter, disguising a giggle behind a hacking cough when I see his eyes bug so hard I wonder how he keeps them in his head.
Why didn’t I think of this earlier? I could have saved myself the bus fare up here and already been in bed.
“When?” he croaks, making me wheeze on a laugh.
Fucking chauvinistic moron.
“When I left work.”
“Okay, okay,” he mutters, running a hand through his thinning hair. “You…go home. I’ll handle this.” He groans, getting rid of the burger I’d been frying and grabbing a fresh patty.
Five minutes later I’m smiling as I grab a bus and fall into the plastic seat, hoping to get home and medicated before my brains start leaking outta my ear.
No such luck. The minute I shuffle into the door I hear Ben yelling some seriously vile obscenities for a kid his age, and I walk in in time to see him hurl my mother’s ceramic cat at Randy.
Why this shocks me, after everything the little snot has done lately—
“Hold it!” I yell, grabbing his arm before he can volley another of the precious cats at Randy, who is now cowering behind the sofa. “What the fu—hell are you doing!”
Ben’s young and a lot smaller than me, but I’ve learned in the last few weeks that with this all-consuming anger he’s got bottled up inside, he’s freakishly strong.
I’m just barely a match for him on a good day, but tonight, being so sick—I can’t even say why it’s hitting me so harshly, except that I’ve been tired for weeks—I am no match for his tantrums.
I’m on the ground and protecting my head before I can blink. Ben going wild on top of me, his little fists flying as he yells that he hates us all, me most of all.
I let him keep at it, my mind frozen with shock, chanting one thing over and over. Never show him negative emotion. The therapist had drummed that into me the first day after seeing the way my baby brother treated me.
Admittedly, she’d only given me that long speech after seeing my face twist. Yeah, I have a temper. One I can’t allow free rein every time the little brat starts his crap.
When the pounding stops—thank you, Jesus, because my entire body hurts—I lower my arms to see the little demon hanging from the fist of the one man I never wanted to see ever again.
“Stop it!”
He doesn’t yell, just hisses the words in that cold voice he’d used on the grown men in his office, but we all hear the restrained violence in his tone.
Ben stops immediately, his dark gray eyes stretching wide.
“Oh, thank God!”
That’s Randy, poking her head up over the sofa to check everything out before jumping to her feet and scampering my way, her brown eyes wide and glistening as she helps me up and steadies my shaking legs.
“Ash, I know you’re not…I can’t deal with this shit anymore,” she says tearfully, casting a wary glance at Ben.
That look gives me the idea that his little escapades aren’t just a rare occurrence like I thought they were.
“He’s done this before? A lot?” I ask, risking a peek at the behemoth male currently holding my brother like a dirty garbage bag.
I can see he’s in no way hurting him, but still, I hate the way he’s glaring at him as if he’s something unwelcome, like a bad smell or something.
“He’s been bad lately, Ash. Tonight’s the first time he went this nuts, but…I’m not willing to stick around for this, no matter how much I love the kid.”
I can’t blame her as she pats my arm and grabs her bag before walking out without a backward glance. Not even knowing that her abandonment is going to make Ben’s issues so much worse.
The truth is that my baby has been struggling with his grief and loss for two years without much help. After Dad split I’d been so busy working and trying to keep things afloat that I hadn’t noticed his need until it was too late. Now I’m paying the price for being a shitty parent, no matter that I’m not really his parent, or to blame for any of the stuff that’s gone down in the last years.
Maybe that’s why instead of thanking Lucian for his impromptu rescue I level a hard stare at him.
“Put him down.”
The look I get for my efforts is a cross between scorn and amusement, and he gives Ben a little shake before lowering him to his feet.
“Get upstairs and into bed, Benjamin.”
Just like that.
Six words are all it takes for Ben to get the message and bolt.
“Sit down before you collapse.”
I want to argue, especially given that sneering tone, but my body slumps of its own accord and I fall onto the sofa, so drained I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry.
I want to laugh at the irony of this situation. I’ve been avoiding even a thought about Lucian for years, since he’d taken his sexy ass back ‘over the pond’ and ignored every email or text I’d sent him.
It hadn’t been great, not with the fact that I’d been head over heels for a guy who lived on another continent and who seemed to have forgotten me the moment he walked onto the plane all those years ago.
Now here I am, with that same cold-hearted prick standing in my living room, glaring down at me as if I have anything to feel guilty about instead of the other way around.
“What the hell is wrong with that boy?”
I take great offense to that, and not because Ben doesn’t deserve it but because…well, because I freaking hate Lucian for breaking my heart, and I refuse to give him any sort of loyalty.
“Please leave.” At least, that’s what I try to say. It comes out more of a ‘pweave weave’.
And then I start coughing so hard I double over, somewhat afraid to look at my hand afterward in case one of my lungs have made a break for it.
I hear a sigh, one of those resigned types of sounds where someone—him, the ass—is obviously practicing patience. As if I need his shit right now. With that thought comes the reminder that I’m out of a job and in a lot of crap where Ben’s concerned.
The therapist had been clear. If I can’t get him under control, measures are gonna have to be taken to assure he gets ‘help’.
I don’t know exactly what measures she was talking about, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good, not from the way she’d looked at me.
“Ashley!” he snaps, and I jerk back to reality when a set of hard hands lands on my shoulders, shaking me back to awareness. “I asked you a bloody question, woman.”
Oh.
“Nothing. His mom died, and then his father ran away.”
That’s about the long and short of it. Oh, and I’ve been a total asshole in the sister department.
“Christ. Your mother…I’m so sorry, Ashley.”
“Yeah.” I shrug.
What else is there to say? My mom’s six feet under, my shit for brains old man split, and I’ve managed to mess everything else up so royally I definitely want to cry.
“Your father?”
I look up at this p
oint and have to steel myself against the compassion I see there. It’s hard, looking at him, seeing the softness I’d missed all these years, a softness he’d only shown me while whispering secrets to me late at night when we lay in the yard watching the stars sparkle up above.
I have to force myself to remember that he’s the same boy—man —who’d whispered his love to me and then walked away as if I meant nothing. I still can’t understand how that had even happened. Part of me is convinced I invented that long summer, that the lonely exchange student hadn’t existed.
But he did, does, is currently standing over me where I’m slumped on the sofa, his strangely penetrating eyes glaring at me in a way I can’t decipher.
“Ashley!”
What? Oh yeah. He’d asked about Wesley, the man I refuse to call my father despite all the time he’d been exactly that.
“After Mom died,” I shrug, wiping my dripping nose across the wet sleeve of my sweater. “He just left, okay. One day he was here and the next he was gone.”
Leaving me to raise a five-year-old who didn’t understand where Mommy went or why his father didn’t love him enough to stick around.
And here comes the anger again, that slow, creeping fire that never fails to heat my blood whenever I think of him. If I had my way, if that asshole was standing in front of me right now, I’d kick him in the balls so hard he’d walk funny for the rest of his miserable life.
Instead I’m stuck here with Mr Britain, waiting for him to get to the point of whatever reason he’s decided to plague my life again.
“So you’ve been looking after Benjamin alone?”
Why he sounds so angry is beyond me, but I’m just tired enough, and feeling sick enough to boot, not to give a crap about his issues right now. All I want is for him to leave so I can strip out of my wet clothes and fall into bed.
Tomorrow’s not gonna wait on my ass, and I’d like at least a few hours of sleep before having to deal with Ben and the fact that I need to find another job.
“Could you please leave?” I huff, feeling my eyelids droop with the fever gripping my body. “I want to go to bed.”
Wyatt (Lane Brothers #1) Page 52