by Lexi Whitlow
It only takes a second for her face to change back to hard lines and cold eyes. “Ash, what’s your goal?” Her voice is stony, none of the emotion I heard in it before. “Is it because you can’t have me? Or what?”
“It’s because you’re mine, Sunshine. I won’t let it end like this.”
“You already let it end, Ash. A long time ago. It was good for the little while we were together. And then—”
“And then you were gone.”
“You know that’s not fair. The plan was to get me back to North Carolina. You promised you’d come with me. And you never came.”
I take her other hand and hold both of them in mine. “I know. I couldn’t come.”
“What in the hell do you mean, ‘couldn’t?’”
“Cullen told me that if I stayed in New York, he’d leave you alone for good. Your aunt too. And your mother.”
Her hands are still in mine, her skin clammy. “My mother?”
“He knows a lot more than you expect, Sunshine.”
“And now?”
“He’s retired. Told me the hit was off altogether.” I shrug. He also said I could see her again—Bianca said that too. But God bless her, she doesn’t know anything about those two and their sick little life.
Her shoulders hunch forward, like the wind’s been knocked out of her. “After all that time worrying—about you—about my aunt.”
“It’s over. It’s long over.”
“You didn’t come because you couldn’t.” She says it flatly. I sort of expected her to fall into my arms. “That’s some kind of bullshit, Ash. There’s always a choice. Don’t tell me it had to do with Cullen.” She crosses her arms and steps away from me, lower lip in a slight pout.
“It was because of Cullen, but not for the reason you think.”
“God, you with all these secrets. Just get out with it. I know you want to convince me of something here, and I still don’t know why.”
“I wanted to go with you more than anything, to start over.”
“Damian—your friend—that night at the bus station. He told me that you didn’t—” She can barely get the words out of her mouth. I full well know what I had Damian say that night she left. “He told me you never wanted me.”
I had him tell her I never loved her. And that was never true.
“Nothing he said that night was true.”
A shadow crosses over her face, and she sighs. “What changed? You were going to come with me, come hell or high water. You were going to leave and hope they didn’t find you. And you didn’t. You left me there with that mafia friend of yours. It was worse than being alone.”
“There’s more to the story, like I said. I’ll tell it if you grant me the separation. Time to sort things out—”
Her face goes red in an instant. “Holy shit, Ash. That’s extortion—”
I laugh. “Not really. More like a promise. With a condition.”
Her face is still red, her body nearly shaking with rage. But she’s curious, too. This is the one card I have to play, and I’ll keep it until she remembers that I’m the one she needs to be with. “Let me walk you home, Sunshine.”
The breeze whips her hair around her face, creating faint shadows and lines that play over her wide-set eyes and the gentle slope of her nose. She was beautiful when I first met her, yes. But now, she’s grown into a woman, far more than the adrenaline junkie girl she was in New York. I step to her and brush my hand against her neck, and she shudders in response. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of the taste of her skin.
“No, I don’t think—”
“You don’t think what? If you don’t want me, then there’s no reason you can’t let me walk with you.”
She pauses and looks at me with that thousand-yard death stare she used on me when I accosted her outside of the hospital. “I spent a long time thinking you didn’t want me enough to stay beside me, Ash. Why should I give you a chance now?”
“Because I want you. I always did. I want you so bad I can barely breathe when I look at you. Because I came here to find you and build a life. And a man that does that deserves a chance.”
“I won’t sleep with you,” she says, her voice haughty. Her arms are still crossed, but she shivers when I pull her in close. It has nothing to do with the cold because it’s June in North Carolina, and the air is fresh and warm and sweet.
“Whatever you say, Sunshine.” I lean in and brush a lock of hair away from her face. “But let me remind you that I can make our separation a little more enjoyable. That was never a part of our relationship that had any difficulty at all.”
“Just—” she starts, her voice a pale whisper. “Just keep your hands to yourself, and you can walk me home.”
I chuckle and stuff my hands in my pockets. “You’re my wife. It’ll be hard to keep my hands to myself with you looking like that.”
“You better,” she chirps and starts walking off down the sidewalk, angry and sexy all at the same time. She turns and looks at me. “You coming?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Three Years, Four Months Ago
It’s late when I get home, and my body is still on fire from Ash. I could say it was his touch that did it, the feeling of his fingertips as they found my sex and played me until I couldn’t bear anymore. But I’m beginning to think it’s more than that.
He makes me feel something I shouldn’t feel.
Decadent. Delicious. Sinful.
Surely, his body is made for sin. He proved that twice at the bar and said he’d have more to show me if I stayed the night.
But I can’t be doing things like this—palling around with mafia boys who won’t want me in the end. Because I feel myself falling into him, each touch establishing that he’s someone more than I thought he was.
I turn the key and jiggle the door handle, barely able to contain myself. There’s still alcohol coursing through my veins, and the touch of him is still hot on my skin. I giggle slightly and then cover my mouth.
I might like this guy. I might really like him.
So what if we’re different?
He uses his body. I use my brain. And hell, he’s got one hell of a nice—brain, too.
The door gasps as I open it. I can’t quite explain it, but the air in the bar feels different when I walk inside. It was probably a typical night. A typical lazy evening, with Bianca’s few remaining customers who remain loyal to her.
As I walk inside, I hear an unfamiliar sound—Bianca, sobbing in her office. Bianca isn’t a crier—usually, she handles her life with icy cold force.
But now she’s crying. Quietly, I step over to her door. She doesn’t move or look up. She just stays hunched over her phone.
“…says he’ll come for my employees, then—yes I’m sure he’s serious. You know why I did what I did twenty-five years ago. She doesn’t belong up here in this life—”
There’s a pause. Anxiety, like venom, takes hold of my body. Muscles seizing up, worry tensing and coiling inside me.
She’s probably talking to my mom. That’s okay. Linda will get her straightened out. It’s okay, Summer. She’s exaggerating.
“Well,” she starts again. I imagine my mother at the other end of the line, taking this all in as she sits in her cozy bed and breakfast at the beach. “I told Cullen to go fuck himself. I added in that I never loved him for good measure—I know that’s a lie.”
Jesus, Bianca. That can’t mean she—oh, God. Through the anxiety, I cringe. I don’t want to imagine those two having some kind of intimate relationship, even if it was a long-ass time ago when Cullen was supposedly somewhat less evil.
“No, she’ll be okay, Linda. He won’t hurt her. Not if I talk to him—I need to talk to him—I never wanted to drag her into this.” Her voice breaks again. “I just wanted her in my life for one year—”
In my pocket, my phone buzzes. Bianca turns and faces the door.
“Summer—if you are out there—go to bed.” I hear her hang up the
phone, but she doesn’t move. I start climbing the stairs to my room above the bar, the cozy little place I’ve called home for a year.
I have no idea what the hell Bianca is on about—she couldn’t have been referring to me? What role would I play in any of this? I’m a roommate. Not much more than that, when it comes down to it.
My phone buzzes again. I pick it up and notice that my hand is shaking. It’s Ash.
Get out of there. Come here.
No, I text back. I’m already home.
Suit yourself, Sunshine. Cullen is pissed at your aunt. I’m coming to get you tomorrow come hell or high water. You’re safe tonight, but not for long after that.
I swallow hard and think back to Bianca’s words. Was she right?
Stop with all the macho savior stuff, Ash. Everything is going to be fine.
You’re mine. I’m going to protect you, no matter what.
I put down the phone after that and fall into bed fully clothed.
I want to prove Ash wrong, show him I’m not scared.
But as I try to close my eyes, room spinning around me, it occurs to me that I’m in the middle of something that certainly isn’t a game. And I have a sneaking suspicion that my aunt is wrong when she said that that man won’t hurt me.
My sleep is full of frightful dreams, and I wake, wanting only one thing—the man who says he’ll protect me above all else.
Present Day
Lying, manipulative.
Fucking sexy and goddamn romantic.
That’s the Ash that appears in my dreams that night. All of the above, rolled into one. The dreams should be good, but they’re deeply conflicted.
And when I wake up, there’s pain. The old pain. The one from years ago, from the secret Ash doesn’t know, the thing that hurt me most.
The lower left side of my abdomen is pulsing.
Like it did in Damascus, the morning I woke up after surgery. It was my first month working with Doctors Without Borders, right after I left Ash to start over for good.
Might be rain that's making it pulse and hurt, or maybe it was the dream again. Sometimes it seems like anything will set it off, but Ash—Ash and his goddamned sideways grin—he might be the primary cause of my pain right now. As angry as I still am—as conflicted as he makes me feel—the spark of love I've always felt for him grows brighter and brighter each time we share the same breathing space.
I shift in bed and press my finger to the scar. An inch long, almost unnoticeable. But there's scar tissue below it, a mass of it. I can feel it sometimes when I walk. It's a signature of this type of emergency surgery, and the constant reminder of that day and every word the doctor said.
It's not likely that you'll be able to get pregnant on your own, and still, you may not be able to sustain a pregnancy after seven weeks. An ectopic pregnancy is far more likely when something like this has already happened once.
A rush of words in my head, and the pulsing starts again, like an invisible finger plucking a guitar string, right where my ovary used to be.
Do you have someone we can call? Your husband—we tried the number, and there was no answer. We were able to get it out laparoscopically, but it was a close call, Mrs. Ash.
I was still listed as Summer Ash then—I thought I'd change my name once Ash went to Syria with me, so it was plastered all over each and every Doctors Without Borders form I had to fill out.
The painful part wasn't hearing what the doctor had to say. I knew that endometriosis might lead to problems having a baby.
The painful part was everything that was missing.
My mother, my aunt, my country. And most of all, Ash wasn't there.
The cold depths of that hospital room were so much worse because I sat there, utterly alone, my name tangled up with the man who told me he had never loved me—that he never wanted me. There's an emptiness that comes with a loss like this, but it was far more profound in that moment, soul-crushing and stultifying.
I don't like to remember it, but the pain still haunts me. And try as I might to prevent it, Ash still brings it up.
He walked with me today, his body close to mine, our hands nearly touching. Every time he sees me, I see the blissful unawareness on his face. Why, after all, would he be to blame? He never said he loved me back then. He never said he wanted to stay with me, and when he agreed to go with me to Syria, the decision seemed forced.
When I speak to him, anger is all that comes out—but when I come home and close my eyes, I feel something entirely different. The love, the longing, pervasive and always with me. Even in my darkest moments, even spread out over three years, I never stopped loving him.
The thought hits me like a poisoned arrow, piercing my heart and sending a deeper ache throughout my body. The sensation starts to pound in time with the undying ache where the doctors in Damascus removed my left ovary, taking a piece of me away. I was so resigned to it then, because Ash had already removed something too, even if it wasn't tangible. The deep and horrible loss of my fertility seemed like a natural consequence.
Maybe it turned out I mourned the surgery more than I ever mourned the loss of Ash. When I saw him again today, it was like no time had passed at all. Old wounds tore open, and I felt like a bloody mess in his presence. The only defense I had was my irritation, the way I could cut him down with my words.
How dare he claim he'd contacted me? But the emails were all there, copied and dated. And the lawyer had shrugged like an idiot.
Just give me a chance.
I must be an idiot too. Because I want this chance too. I want that day to be all wrong. If I could erase it from my memory like it never happened, covered up with a second chance, then maybe these old scars would fade.
But there it is again, the interminable pulsing at the bottom left of my abdomen. It feels like a nail catching over and over again, like the worst day of my life is rewinding and repeating over and over again.
Outside, it starts to rain, gentle drops falling over the tin roof of my mother's inn. It's three in the morning, and I'm as alone as I always am.
It's stupid. It's foolish. But as the raindrops fall, I start to wonder what the harm is in letting Ash into my life again. As a friend, as a fantasy. Until the separation ends, at least.
Maybe I'll let him walk me home again tomorrow, too.
It couldn't do any harm.
CHAPTER NINE
Three Years, Four Months Ago
I still don’t have a plan, and the clock is ticking. I’ve been able to hold Cullen off bit by bit. And apparently Bianca saw to her own safety for another few weeks by paying up five thousand.
But things are desperate, and Summer is getting scared.
I lie awake, thinking, as she sleeps next to me. Since the night she saw her aunt crying, she’s been here. I’ve distracted her as well as I could with what I have to offer—but both of us know that Cullen’s vendetta against Bianca is coming to a head.
Before all of this, Summer thought it was all fun in a way—visiting the mafia man in his fucked up world, getting goosebumps while we watch her aunt’s bar. Not that she hasn’t been scared—any person in their right mind should be. But it’s like it hadn’t occurred to her that her life could contain actual danger.
I’ve told her Cullen is growing more and more impatient, that we need to figure out what happens next. We only have five more days, and he’ll be delivering on his threats—starting the process to reclaim the property he sees as his.
Summer stirs next to me, and moves to get up, like she can slip out of the bed without me noticing.
“Where you going, Sunshine? It’s three in the morning.” I catch her hand, and in the dark of my bedroom, she gasps. I keep my tone light, but my heart beats just a little faster.
If she’s leaving right now, she’s not going anywhere good. I bet it has something to do with protecting her ridiculous aunt—and that’d be all good and well if Cullen weren’t the threat lurking in the dark.
A ray of moonlight
hits her face. Her eyes are big, lips parted. In the dark, she looks sad and tired and vulnerable.
I’ve come to know this side of her too quickly. We should just be fucking, but something deeper has happened, driven by this mess we’re in.
And here I am, wanting to leap out of bed after her to protect her.
If I were just a normal guy and she were a normal woman, I might ask her out. Take her to dinner, wine and dine her, that kind of shit.
Instead, I’m going to somehow undermine my boss to save her—even if it means sacrificing myself. This aren’t the kind of thoughts I like to have about a woman, but the primal piece, deep inside of me, needs to protect Summer. The men in the Family talk about women belonging to them. I always thought it sounded like a bunch of pussy bullshit, but when I look at Summer now, I get it.
I want it.
And it means something deeper than having what’s between her legs—though, my God, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted—it means possessing her, protecting her, never letting anything bad happen to her.
She bites her lower lip, and I feel myself stiffen even as I fear losing her.
“I’ve got to go back and check on my aunt,” she whispers. “She said your men have been outside of the bar since midnight, and they forced her to close early.” She tries to maintain that haughty attitude she gets sometimes, but there’s real fear in her voice. Her phone flashes in her hand, illuminating her naked body for a second, rosy pink nipples and the curve of a perfect hip. The look on her face conjures a feeling of shame—and that’s not something I’m used to—a crushing sensation in my gut. After that brief flash, the room is dark again, and she pulls her hand away, pulling on her clothes over her round, high breasts and her alluring, pear-shaped ass.
When I first met Summer, I wanted to lose myself in her—to forget all the pain I’ve inflicted in my life as a mafia soldier. That’s all she was, a cheap hookup to forget. But with each time I see her, I see something new—the way she purses her lips when she’s thinking, that sharp, helpless intake of breath when I enter her, and last night, when she begged for me to come inside of her, face turned back to me, hair splayed over her shoulder. And I obliged—no woman has ever felt so good, and no woman has ever made me want to keep her, not like this.