Chapter 17 Ashton
ASHTON
I dig my hand into my pocket to find my watch, rubbing my thumb back and forth against the smooth copper surface.
It’s warm and sturdy, and the repetitive motions help to calm my erratic heartbeat.
I can still feel the stickiness beneath the scarf covering my other hand, making my stomach churn and my vision blur.
“Let me see,” a soft voice says. I didn’t even realize Allie was standing right next to me.
My first priority when I smashed open the front door with a rock and stuck my hand in to unlock it was to make sure she was unharmed.
The second was to get rid of that douchebag and ensure he wouldn’t try to pull anything else.
The fear of what almost happened…what I almost had to watch behind a locked door, mixed with the adrenaline of the confrontation, distracted me from my hand.
Now, all I can think about is the vital fluid slowly leaking from my veins.
Allie gently takes my hand, turning it over and unraveling the scarf. “Shit.”
“What? It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Um, y—” She freezes when she looks up at me. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Is there still glass in it?”
“Yeah.” When she speaks, I realize she’s still holding my hand, and something about the feel of her warm skin helps calm me down. “We should probably go to urgent care.”
The fact that she says “we” makes my heart soar, and suddenly I forget all about the glass and the cuts and my life’s essence leaving my body.
The truth is I tried to stay away from her.
After the day at her house when she was sick.
I told myself I would be professional. I would treat her like all of my other employees.
The dance we had been doing? It was dangerous, and it was messing with my heart.
I couldn’t do it anymore. I still spent hours watching her from my office when I should have been working.
I got myself off to the memory of her falling apart on my tongue.
Even tonight, I couldn’t stay away. I made it halfway home before I found myself right back at that glass door. The one that is now shattered.
“Ashton.” Her voice penetrates my thoughts. It sounds like it’s not the first time she’s tried to get my attention.
“Yes?”
“I said if you don’t want to go to urgent care, we can go to Em’s.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to bother her. She already works too hard for being six months pregnant. Urgent care is going to be a nightmare.” I take in her expression. Her brows are furrowed and her fist is pressed firmly against her thigh. “Are you squeamish?”
“Not as much as you, apparently,” she says, removing her fist and shaking it out. “I thought you were going to pass out on me a second ago.”
“I might still,” I admit. “I’m not a huge fan of blood.”
“Is that why you fainted when you had to dissect a frog in ninth grade?”
The second the words leave her mouth, Allie’s face falls.
She looks like she was just caught red-handed.
She clearly didn’t mean to say that. I’m not even mad at Skylar for telling her that mortifying story because it means that she not only remembered it, but she stored it.
It was ingrained in her subconscious enough that it came out without her even realizing it.
I can only imagine the dopey smile that’s plastered on my face right now. “The frog actually didn’t bleed that much,” I clarify. “It was more the anticipation of it.”
“Whatever.” She’s trying to feign indifference now. “I’ll do it. Is there a first-aid kit around?”
“In my office.”
“Great,” she says with her usual mock enthusiasm. It’s so easy to get caught up in Allie. In our back and forth. In the little pieces of herself she throws at me like she’s leaving out crumbs for a desperate puppy.
So easy that I almost forgot what I walked in on.
“Allie, wait.” She rears back around, her eyes wide. “Forget about my hand for a second. What just happened…”
“What almost happened,” she corrects me.
“Yeah,” I breathe out. “We can talk about it or we don’t have to…I just..he almost… ”
God, I’m fucking this up.
“Raped me?” Each word feels like she cut it out of an ice block. Chipped away until it was there and nowhere else. Until all the pretenses fell away. All the ways we like to dress up words so that they don’t feel like a burden to us. So that we—the bystanders—don’t feel uncomfortable.
“You can say it,” she murmurs, reading my mind. “Like I said before, I’m fine.”
I know she’s not, but I also know she needs time to process. So I let it go for now as I follow her retreating form into my office. She’s already found the first-aid kit and is rifling through it by the time I walk in.
“Sit,” she says, pointing to the chair in front of my desk, and I follow the order without hesitation.
She takes my hand in hers, flipping it so my palm is facing up, and begins picking out the pieces of glass with a pair of tweezers she just dumped rubbing alcohol on.
She tilts her head, her eyebrows drawing together in concentration as she picks up each shard and drops it on the desk.
Her eyes are on her task, while mine haven’t left hers.
How could I have been so naive as to think I could pretend she’s nothing but my employee?
“You’re good at that,” I note.
“I use them for garnishes sometimes,” she explains, taking another piece out and dropping the tweezers on the desk. “I think that’s it, but it’s hard to tell in this light. I really think you should go to urgent care in the morning.”
I don’t miss the way she says you this time instead of we.
“The cuts look pretty superficial. Not that I’m an expert or anything,” she goes on. “But there may be a shard embedded where I can’t see.”
“I’ll go in the morning.”
“Good.”
She puts some ointment on the cuts and wraps a compression bandage around my hand, but as soon as she makes the last pass over my palm, she stands up and huffs.
“Wha—”
“What the hell was that, Ashton?”
I look around the room as if something in here is going to tell me what happened in the span of the last ten seconds. She was just taking care of me, and now she’s livid. I go to open my mouth, but she doesn’t let me.
“I had it under control. You think I was going to let that bastard touch me? I. Had. It. Under. Control.”
“I kno—”
“You had to swoop in, right? I didn’t need your help. Did it look like I needed your help?” She’s walking back and forth in front of me now.
“Allie, listen.”
“No, you listen.” She stops her pacing and points a finger at me. “I don’t need you to save me.” She takes a step forward. “I don’t need you to make me soup and declarations of the feelings you had months ago.” Another step. “And I sure as hell don’t need you to pay my bills.”
She leans down and I inhale her scent—lavender and something else I can’t put my finger on.
When she puts her hands on either side of my chair, effectively trapping me in place, I look up at her.
Her anger has softened, but her eyes are still piercing.
Even behind those thick rims, I can see them swirling with intensity.
“Especially if you’re just going to go dark on me after,” she whispers, letting go of the chair and turning away.
Shit. That’s what this is about. She’s hurt.
I hurt her. I didn’t mean to. As much as the woman in front of me makes my sanity seem like a distant memory, as infuriating as she is, I never want her to hurt.
I’ve gotten in one physical fight in my entire life, and it was enough to make me realize that violence is not my thing.
But when I watched Craig put his hands on her…
When he shoved her down on the desk…
I wasn’t sure I would be able to let him leave this office breathing.
I’m still not sure it was the right move, but watching Allie defend herself against him made me realize that’s not what she would have wanted.
Still, I had to make sure he wouldn’t try to turn this around on her.
I know what happens in this town when a powerful man with money faces down a woman with nothing to her name.
It’s not fair, but it’s the world I was raised in.
After all that, though, I’m the one who ended up causing her pain.
“I’m so sor—”
“Don’t,” she says. “Lucky for you, I don’t care. I’m just letting you know for the future. You can’t do all that shit for a woman and then pretend like she’s nothing but a member of your staff. It sends mixed messages, and most women don’t like that.”
I bring the back of my good hand up to my mouth to hide my smile.
“Let me guess. You’re not most women?” I ask, already knowing the answer. She’s not even close.
“Of course I’m not, Ashton. You should know that by now.”
“So… you don’t care?”
“I don’t care,” she confirms.
“Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way then. I’ll be more careful… in the future.”
“Good,” she says, advancing toward the door. “I’m going to go home and wash this godforsaken day off me.”
Something clicks in my head when she says that, bringing me out of my Allie haze. “Wait. Do you think—I mean if you’re going to press charges…maybe you should wait to shower.” I don’t know why I can’t seem to get my words straight when talking to her about this.
“Ashton,” she says softly. “He didn’t actually do anything. He didn’t get the chance. There are no charges to be pressed. It doesn’t matter what you said. If I try to go up against someone like him in court, he’ll bury me. I’m smart enough to know that.”
“So you’re just going to let him get away with it?”
“Did I say that? Did he look like he was having a good time when he slinked out of here? Besides, I have other ways of making sure he never touches another woman without her consent.”
A wave of terror passes through me, even though her threat isn’t aimed at me.
“Okay,” I relent. “Let me drive you home at least.”
Allie quirks a brow, letting me know that was the wrong thing to say, so I put my hands up in surrender. “Never mind.”