Settling Ashes: A New Adult/College Romance (The Ashes Series Book 2)

by Gardin, Diana

  Gillian rolled her eyes drastically. “So, I’ll plan for two more hours or so?”

  Paige gave them all a wave, her hair falling across her eye like it always did. Only now, she brushed it back behind her ear without a hint of self-consciousness. She caught me eyeing her, and quirked an eyebrow in question.

  “You used to like to hide the scar from the fire,” I mused. “What changed?”

  I took her hand as we strolled down the sidewalk toward the parking lot.

  “I guess I did,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “Now that I have you, I have no reason to feel a lack of confidence. It’s weird. But I like the feeling.”

  “Me too,” I said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

  I opened her car door and hoisted her up in her seat, letting my hands cup her cute little backside in the process. Shaking my head to clear it of my inappropriate thoughts, I then walked around to my side of the car. As I got in and started the engine, she reached over and clasped my hand tightly in hers.

  “Don’t be nervous,” I said, smiling at her. “My parents are going to love you. And they have more pressing issues to worry about right now, anyway. Let’s go talk about my defense.”

  She twisted her hands in her lap the entire ride. I kept one hand on her leg to keep her calm, and she kept glancing over at me to shoot me an anxious smile.

  When we pulled up to the Marriott, where my parents were staying, I cut the engine and turned to face her.

  “What exactly are you so worried about?” I asked gently.

  “Why didn’t you tell the investigators about me?” she asked. “I just don’t want to be blindsided with information in front of your parents.”

  I winced. I’d forgotten about the information I was holding back from her. Should I tell her? The last thing I wanted her to do was worry. I also didn’t want her to become overly committed to telling the whole truth, either. Paige was nothing if she wasn’t honest, and I needed to protect her.

  “If I tell you, will you promise not to freak out?” I asked her cautiously. “I’m going to protect you. Do you trust me?”

  “I promise not to freak out, and I trust you implicitly,” she said. She looked steadily into my eyes, and as I stared into hers I believed her.

  “Okay,” I said with a deep breath. “I never told them anything about you because I didn’t want them to look for you and start asking you questions about that night. Because we were both the last people to see Hannah alive.”

  Paige’s wheels were turning; this wasn’t new information to her. She nodded, so I continued.

  “The police found a hair in the house that didn’t belong to Hannah. A female hair.”

  She sucked in a breath, and I gripped her hand tightly in mine.

  “I don’t want you to worry,” I said quickly.

  “Is it my hair?” Her voice was almost inaudible.

  “Not sure. Doesn’t matter. They don’t know whose it is, because the person’s DNA isn’t on record. We’re keeping you out of this. I’m going to let you meet my parents, but I haven’t told my lawyer anything about you. I don’t want him getting any funny ideas.”

  She took a deep, trembling breath. Then she narrowed her eyes on me. I barely stifled a sigh, because that determined look was entirely too familiar.

  “Okay. We’ll play this your way for now. I’m not freaking out. But if there is a chance that you’re going to land in prison for this, I’m telling them that I was there, too. I’ll tell them what I know.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen,” I said confidently. “Ready to go inside?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  I hurried around the car and opened the door for her, lifting her down to stand in front of me. I let my hands settle on her hips and stared down into her bejeweled eyes.

  “I missed you so much,” I whispered, letting my fingers trail down her cheekbone. It wasn’t lost on me that just a few hours ago she was still gone from my life. Having her standing in front of me like this was a freaking miracle.

  She leaned up on her tiptoes to press her lips against mine. I let her warmth envelope me. There were nights while she was gone that I battled nightmares about never feeling this again. I would wake up sweating and cursing, shivering in the dark loneliness of my bedroom.

  I savored her closeness now, breathing in her vanilla scent and letting the frigid breeze blow strands of her hair against my chin.

  She pulled back too soon, and I immediately grew cold, standing outside in the winter air without her contact to warm me.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said, my voice thick. “I can’t wait to get you home tonight.”

  She smiled and took my hand. “Truer words…”

  We entered the marble-floored lobby and I checked my phone as we entered the elevator to check the text my dad sent earlier with their room number. We stepped in the enclosed space when the doors opened, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  I turned and grabbed Paige under her thighs, pulling her up against me and pulling her as close as humanly possible. I couldn’t handle having her next to me and not touching as many pieces of her as possible for another second. She sighed, her lips opened to say something, and I overtook her mouth with mine. I kissed her with every single emotion I had surging inside of me, and I felt her gasp as her back hit the elevator wall. She raked her fingers through my hair, and the light scratches she left behind left a trail of fire burning in their wake as they traveled further down my back. This girl…I couldn’t get enough. I’d never get enough.

  But I’d have to, because the elevator dinged, indicating we’d reached our floor. I slowly released her, and her legs slid back down my body. Staring into her eyes, with her lips puffy and her hair mused from that brief encounter, the tightening in my jeans almost made the decision for me to cancel with my parents.

  She tilted her head to the side as if reading my thoughts, and then smiled dangerously. The girl was going to kill me. She tugged me out of the elevator.

  We walked down the plush carpeted hallway lined with doors as I searched for my parent’s suite. We stopped outside the door marked six-two-two, and I paused, taking Paige’s hand in mine.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “Yep. Totally ready.”

  “Liar,” I smiled as I knocked.

  The door whipped open almost immediately, and my lawyer, Dechlan Shepherd smiled royally out at us.

  “Welcome,” he said. “I was informed you were bringing a guest. We have a lot to talk about.”

  Seven

  Paige

  I wasn’t sure what this meant, but judging by Clay’s face it wasn’t anything good.

  We stepped inside the suite at the beckoning of the man who opened the door, and my already-stunned eyes landed on another man and a woman were seated inside the room.

  The man seated on the couch was an older version of Clay. There was no better way to describe it. He was extremely well dressed in a dark suit and tie, and his full head of hair was dark, with streaks of gray at his temples. He was handsome, or he would have been if he’d been smiling.

  The woman was seated in a chair by the window. She was also dressed in a suit, a silvery concoction with a knee-length skirt and a fitted jacket. The collar of her white blouse underneath was crisp and tight, and her perfectly applied make-up added to the flawless look she captured. Her blond hair was piled high on top of her head, and her blue eyes, Clay’s blue eyes, were aimed directly at me in a haughty glare.

  She was the epitome of the title “Ice Queen.”

  Clay said his parents would like me. Had he met these parents? Because, judging from the razor-sharp glare his mother was leveling in my direction, she would not be buying us matching aprons any time soon. We hadn’t even completed introductions and I already knew this was going to be torture.

  “Dad,” Clay greeted his father.

  His dad reached out a hand and shook Clay’s, his face breaking into a smile for the first time. I breathed a
small sigh of relief at the sight of it.

  “Son,” he said, patting him on the back. “It’s good to see you. I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  “Me, too,” Clay answered. “Dad, I want you to meet the girl I was telling you about. This is Paige”.

  He pulled me closer by the hand still gripped tightly in his and I glided over to stand beside him.

  “Hello, Governor Forbes,” I greeted him. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Paige,” his father said, warmer than I’d expected. “You’re lovely. Clay was telling the truth, wasn’t he? It’s nice to meet you as well.”

  Clay turned cautiously toward his mother, who hadn’t moved from the window.

  “Mom?” he said.

  I could hear the trepidation in his voice, and I remembered him telling me what a tumultuous relationship he had with his mother. The tumultuous relationship his whole family, including his father, had with her.

  “This is Paige.”

  She finally pushed off the wall and came forward, ignoring me completely and sweeping Clay into her arms. I wasn’t sure how a woman that stiff and cold could manage to fold her son so completely into her embrace, but she was clearly a pro at doing so. Clay was unable to escape, and his hand was ripped from mine.

  “Darling,” she simpered. “My son. I’m so sorry you’re going through this madness. We asked Dechlan to come and talk strategy with us this evening.”

  “Mom,” he said firmly. “I’m trying to introduce you to someone.” He extracted himself and grabbed me up beside him. “This is Paige. My girlfriend.”

  She sighed, her shoulders moving the slightest millimeter with the movement. Finally, she turned those icy blue eyes on me. How her and Clay’s eyes could be the exact same color, but opposite ends of the spectrum of warmth was baffling.

  “Paige, is it?” she said. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” I replied, leaning closer to Clay. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Forbes.”

  “I’m sure it is,” she said sweetly. “It always means something when a boy allows you to meet his parents, doesn’t it? Although, it didn’t seem to mean much for poor Hannah.”

  “Maria,” Clay’s father said sharply as Clay opened his mouth angrily to reply. “That’s enough.”

  Dechlan cleared his throat behind us. “Shall we get started?”

  We sat surrounding a round table in the living room.

  “ I wasn’t aware you were going to be here today, Dechlan,” Clay said through gritted teeth. “I wouldn’t have asked Paige to sit through all of this boring legal stuff.”

  He stared at his mother and father, silently asking what they had been thinking when they’d invited Mr. Shepherd.

  “Well,” Mr. Forbes said, clearing his throat. “We thought it would be good to go ahead and get started with…things. I’ve been keeping in touch with Dechlan from Ohio, you know, but I’ve been feeling a little out of the loop. I had some things to handle with the press there, and my press secretary thought it was a good idea not to fly down here until everything was more settled.”

  “Of course,” Clay answered tersely. “But still, I don’t really want Paige involved in all of this.”

  “Clay,” I said quietly, placing a hand on his arm. I felt his muscle tense beneath his gray thermal sweater, and I squeezed reassuringly. Maria’s eyes zeroed in on my hand, a frown cemented on her beautiful, snowy face.

  “Well, I agree with him, Paige,” she said snidely. “I don’t think you should be here, either.”

  She turned to address Mr. Forbes. “Why is she here, Christopher?”

  “Mom!” Clay hissed, at the same time his dad snapped, “Maria!”

  “It’s okay,” I insisted. “I want to be a part of this. Plus, your lawyer needs to know everything in order to be able to give you the best defense, right?”

  Clay stared at me pointedly, the alarm in his eyes evident. He shook his head the slightest bit, and the waves of anxiety rolling off of him hit me with force. I didn’t want to perpetuate that feeling for him, but I wanted to help him with this. I was a hindrance to this investigation by being away from him for the past month. I would be one no longer.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Dechlan said, not unkindly. “You were in Hannah’s house that night, too.”

  I nodded, and Clay groaned inwardly. “Yes. I was.”

  I explained the night of Hannah’s scheme to the room. Dechlan took notes on an iPad, and Christopher and Maria’s eyes grew larger and larger with every word I said.

  “I didn’t kill her,” I said quickly when the story was finished. “The way I felt about her that night, though, I could have.”

  “No you couldn’t,” Clay reassured me, scooting his chair closer to mine so he could wrap a comforting arm around my shoulders. “You could never hurt anyone. You were there that night because she wanted to hurt you. So don’t say that, Paige. You would have never hurt her. That’s why I didn’t even want you to be a part of this.”

  “Let’s see,” Christopher said thoughtfully. “It could have been Paige’s hair they found in the house. But it may not have been. I mean, Hannah was a young girl, and she had many young girlfriends. It could have been any number of theirs.”

  He ran his hand over his hair as he thought, a gesture very familiar to me because it was the same one his son used when he was thoughtful or frustrated.

  “I have another idea, ”Dechlan said.

  Everyone’s eyes jetted to his face, and he relished the attention, pausing for effect before he spoke.

  “My investigator found something,” he announced.

  “What?” Maria said, her voice rising just a bit from the cool level of calm she had been exhibiting thus far.

  “Well,” Dechlan said. “Apparently, the police department and the Prosecutor’s office really feel like they have this case in the bag. Which is silly, because you’re a politician’s son.”

  “What’d the investigator find?” Clay asked, leaning over the table and squeezing one of my hands in his.

  “A witness,” he said calmly. “A student was walking by that night. She saw an unconscious girl being dragged from the house by an unidentified female. It was quite the spectacle, because the woman was having quite the time getting the girl from the house to the car waiting in the front yard. But it was done, the girl was placed in the backseat, and the woman drove away.”

  “Holy shit,” Clay breathed. “Unconscious? So that doesn’t prove whether or not Hannah was alive when she left the house?”

  “Not exactly,” Dechlan said slowly. “But we don’t need to prove that. The police already know that Hannah was killed where her body was found, not at her house. There was no blood at her house.”

  “That’s true,” Clay said. “But still, this is good news, right?”

  “Why haven’t you shared it with the police?” Christopher asked. “Hell, why hasn’t the witness shared this with the police?”

  “We only found this witness today,” Dechlan said. “It’s one student, and he was most likely drunk that night. So he won’t be very credible. He isn’t very willing to become involved with this investigation in any form. He isn’t overjoyed that we found him at all, actually. Becoming a witness in a murder investigation, combined with letting the police know you were drunk and underage…not a pretty picture Also, we don’t exactly want the police to know what we’re working with. Especially now that I’ve met Paige.” He smiled wryly at me.

  “What does Paige have to do with it?” Clay asked, suspicion clouding his features.

  “Unidentified woman? Isn’t Paige an unidentified woman? Especially since we have now confirmed she was there that night?”

  “Damn,” Clay said. He stood abruptly. “You have to keep this to yourself, Dechlan.”

  Dechlan held out his hands to Clay, entreating him to take his seat again. Clay did, but his back was ramrod straight and he aimed a gaze as steely as his mother’s at his attorney.

  “If
they bring Paige in for this, I’ll confess,” he said with severity.

  Maria gasped, grabbing her throat. “Don’t be absurd, Clay!”

  Christopher reached out and clasped Clay’s shoulder. “Calm down, son. It won’t come to that.”

  “You’re damn right it won’t come to that!” screamed Maria. “What are you thinking? You are not going to throw your future away for some little slut!”

  “Mother,” Clay said, standing again. This time, he tugged my hand with him. “I’m not going to sit here and let you talk about Paige like that. I won’t subject her to you and your abuse. You got that? Come on, Paige. We’re leaving.”

  “Wait,” I told him gently. “Just wait a minute.”

  I turned to Maria, spreading my arms wide in a sign of peace. “I can see how protective you are of your son, Mrs. Forbes. Trust me, I’m just as protective of him. I’ve been without him for the past month and it nearly killed me. I don’t plan on being apart from him again, ever. So there is no way in hell I am going to let him sacrifice himself for me. I want to help fix this, not make the problem worse.”

  Clay’s jaw was flexing tensely at my speech, but there was also awe in his expression as he met my gaze. The combination was so endearing, I needed to feel him beneath my fingers. I reached up and placed my arms around his neck, squeezing him tightly.

  “I’m not letting you go to prison for this, Clay,” I said fiercely.

  He looked at his mother over my shoulder as he hugged me tightly. “Are you happy now?”

  When I turned to look at her, she actually didn’t look happy at all. She seemed, if anything, more upset by the speech I’d just made. Christopher, on the other hand, was beaming.

  “Lucky man, my son,” he said to Dechlan conspiratorially.

  “Immensely,” Dechlan agreed, his tone dry.

  Clay

  “You meant all of that stuff you said to my mom, didn’t you?” I asked Paige, back in my car again as we drove toward her apartment. I kept my hands off of her in the elevator this time, with the exception of keeping her pulled up close to my side. There were too many thoughts and emotions swirling around in my head.