“So, would now be an inappropriate time to ask if you have underwear on underneath those pants?”
She spun around and glared. “Don’t be crass, Aston. It’s beneath you, especially considering you’re the one with a criminal indictment. Your confidence and flirting may have worked on me when I was eighteen, but I’m a grown woman now.”
What did she expect? I’m a man staring at the woman of his fantasies, all lush and improved since the last time I laid eyes on her—in person.
Impatient, I forced myself to wait to speak.
“Yes,” she finally spit out.
“Yes, now would be inappropriate? Or yes, you’re wearing panties?”
“Aston, seriously, what do you want?” She leaned a butt cheek on the arm of her couch and crossed her arms over her chest.
Bad move on her part.
I chose to behave and not point that out. Instead, I skirted around her and sat down.
“Sit,” I said.
For some reason, she actually listened. She sat there, hands in her lap, dutifully on the other end of the couch.
“I’m in trouble.”
“I’ve seen.”
“I didn’t do it.”
She waved her hand back and forth. “I don’t want to know about any of that. I don’t want to get mixed up in this. Does your father know you’re here? How about your wife?”
I shook my head. “That would be a negative. And she’s my ex-wife.”
That got a reaction. Bexley’s shaky hand rose to shove her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Really?” I raised my left eyebrow . . . a move that used to make her wild, but she sat there unaffected, still and silent.
“You have kids, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “A girl and a boy. Honestly, they’re better off. It was never happy at home. I was never happy, and now when they see me, I’m at least halfway happy.”
“I guess it’s just sad when any home breaks up.”
“You? Are you happy?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Seth and I split over a year ago.”
“That’s too bad.” Lies spilled from my mouth like it was nothing.
“Honestly, it’s fine. For the best. I haven’t been happy in a long time.”
My hand physically hurt from me holding it back, keeping it from reaching out to her. A lifetime of feelings—most of them sadly negative and harsh—swirled around us, but I yearned to reach for the good stuff.
“I always wanted you to be happy, Bex.”
Bexley
“I always wanted you to be happy.”
God, the nerve of the man, sitting in my family room spewing lies.
“Don’t,” I said, interrupting him. “It’s not necessary to say that garbage. Meaningless words you know you don’t mean, just because you want to fill up the space between us. What do you really want? Why are you here?”
He inched closer until his thigh grazed mine, making me feel as if we were young lovers again. But we were a long way from that. Butterflies swarmed my belly and a cold sweat lined my neck. None of this could lead to anything good.
“I can’t explain it, Bex. I needed to see you. My life’s pretty much in the shitter, although I guess it always has been. Before you, it was, and definitely after. You were the only person who made me feel like . . . I wanted to get my shit together. Like my life could be better. As though I could leave my dad and all the doom and destruction he left in his wake. I didn’t, though. I had to get the business. Shitty excuse, I know, but—”
“But you didn’t . . . or couldn’t. Whatever you want to call it. Instead, you left your own path of destruction trailing behind you, starting and ending with me.”
When I looked closely, Aston seemed tired, as though he’d aged a few years in a couple of weeks. My hand trembled to smooth his hair back, to tuck a longer strand behind his ear. His curls were longer than usual, and there was a cowlick begging to be patted down.
“Please, Bex. I can’t go through this now. I need you. That’s all I know.”
“It’s been a long time, Aston. I’m not that person anymore. Not going to listen to your gripes and make them all better. I’m not the one, the one you idealized as being strong and capable. I’m no longer that woman. Haven’t been for a long time.”
I tried to form full sentences, but it wasn’t happening. My brain was overwhelmed, firing with fractured memories and thoughts. My mouth spewed whatever it could get out as self-defense mechanisms kicked in. I had to protect my heart, and my kids.
I didn’t confess how much time I’d spent over the years devoted to thinking about him, and what could have been or should have been. I didn’t say a word about the knots in my belly when he was arraigned. How I’d been trying not to obsess over the case . . . and failing. Horribly.
Obviously, I left out the part about how his memory broke up my marriage. Aston didn’t know how much Seth hated him, or at least the ghost he’d left behind.
I went on, standing up for myself, quite possibly for the first time when it came to Aston. “You can’t use me like that anymore, as your person. It was one thing when I was eighteen, and you were a slave to your mom’s ambitions and your dad’s disinterest, and well, we thought we were in love.”
“Not thought. We were in love,” he said stubbornly, and I rolled my eyes.
Shutting him down, I said, “Let’s not argue over it, ’kay? It’s in the past. Like us.”
Every therapist I’d seen over the years pointed one thing out to me. Beneath Aston Prescott’s hard and overly confident exterior shell, he was a hurt little boy, confused about what his parents really thought of
