Chapter 21
Sophie
Ashton falls asleep.
I’ve never seen a more beautiful man in real life, at least not sitting beside me on the couch, lounging with his mouth half open and his face relaxed so that he looks almost childishly young.
The cheekbones that bring in the modelling contracts are still there, but the eyes are closed, so I can’t see the skeptical expression that he often wears.
The one where he looks almost annoyed with the world.
His resting grump face.
I never thought I could be attracted to someone like Ashton.
Am I attracted to Ashton?
I watch as his mouth twitches but doesn’t open his eyes. I hope he’s really asleep and not somehow looking at me under those eyelids. Those mascara-thick, unfair-for-a-man eyelashes.
Ashton has amazing eyelashes.
I’ve seen him walk the runway. I watched a few of his fashion shows that are posted on YouTube. I did that before I knew him.
I wouldn’t do it now, because that would seem like I was digging into a part of himself that he wants to keep hidden.
I wonder if I asked him, if he would tell me what it was like to do Fashion Week in Paris. If he would tell me what it’s like to race cars. To go so fast that your body is frozen in place, and you need your reflexes to keep you alive. I wonder what it would be like to drive that fast.
I read more of my book, shooting looks at him every once in a while to make sure he’s asleep. His foot is so close to mine.
I want to put my hand on his foot.
There’s a serious urge to touch the heavy cotton sock. To run my hand up his pant leg.
Shaking my head in disbelief at the thoughts—thoughts that aren’t me. I don’t think things like that. I don’t have a foot fetish. I don’t go ga-ga over a man’s calf.
Arms are a different story, but Ashton is always bundled into heavy sweaters, so there’s no way to get a sense of what may be underneath.
It’s the foot that’s drawing my attention like a bag of potato chips on a stressful day. Grey socks with black thread running through.
I wonder if they’re cashmere. I bet he has cashmere socks.
He’s a billionaire, so he probably sleeps in the stuff. It’s warm, it’s soft, it’s perfect for pyjamas.
Don’t think of Ashton in pyjamas.
It’s this foot. Just a simple stroke of his big toe to make sure this beautiful man sleeping on the couch beside me is real and not a figment of my imagination, addled by the pain meds.
But I only take them at night now.
I’d be willing to take more if the image of a sleeping Ashton would stay with me longer.
He looks so peaceful. Almost… nice. Not that Ashton isn’t nice, but he’d never be called Mr. Sunshine. There’s a bite to his words, a sharpness to his laugh. But I think underneath it all, there’s a softness that’s afraid to come out.
He’s different from what I expected. From what I knew of him before. He’s still grumpy. That frown is somehow etched onto his forehead, but there is laughter too. He can be funny.
Nice.
The one thing I remember about the accident is the expression on his face. That was not the expression of a man who is crusty all the way through.
Ashton is like a crème brulée—add a little sugar and his outside gets crunchy, but stays soft inside. Or like a freshly baked baguette; oh-so crispy just out of the oven and warm and soft inside, just waiting for a slash of butter.
Thinking about Ashton as food is making my stomach rumble.
The crush I had on Ashton before seems like the sort of interest that you have for a movie star, or one of the guys in One Direction. Someone who’s not real. Someone who you could never really believe would someday be sitting beside you.
With every stolen glance at Ashton’s foot, I realize that everything I thought I knew about him has changed. Nice is not a word that anyone would describe him as, but he is. He bought me paints. He wants to come to my bookclub.
He keeps coming back to see me. To visit, content to sit with me. Keeping me company.
Like he’s babysitting me.
It is nice, despite being babysat.
It’s guilt. It has to be guilt.
There’s no reason Ashton would be here for any other reason than guilt. He feels bad. He’s bored.
He doesn’t have a lot of friends in town other than Gunnar, who is always with Stella, and Basher, who would be off mooning over Mabel if he were here. Fenella has a busy schedule, and Silas—if they can be called friends—runs Coffee for the Sole.
There is nothing keeping Ashton in Battle Harbour. None of his friends are here, and it would be easy for Gunnar to fly him someplace in the world where it is warm and sunny and exciting, somewhere there is so much to do that no one ever thinks to ask what there is to do.
He has a group of fabulously rich friends, none of whom seem to have a job, and they all take amazing pictures every single time they’re together.
It’s guilt. He’s here because he feels bad. It’s a pity visit.
The rumble in my tummy sours.
I stop watching Ashton and focus on my book, reading silently to myself now.
It works—for a bit.
And then the warmth of the fire and the winter sun shining through the windows works its magic, like it did on Ashton, and I can no longer keep my eyes open to focus on the words before me.
I adjust my blanket, and Bono the cat who is curled up beside me, and I fall asleep.
When I wake up, the cat is gone, the blanket has slipped off me, and I’m leaning against Ashton.
I’m not sure how I end up leaning against him, because he wasn’t even close enough for me to touch his foot without reaching. It’s like he moved toward me in his sleep.
Or I did.
I use every one of my abdomen muscles to heave myself upright as quickly as possible. “Sorry,” I mutter, unable to meet his eyes, and hoping I didn’t drool. I rub the back of my hand against my mouth.
When I finally manage to look at him, Ashton has a smirk on his face.
Of course he does.
I shift down the couch, onto my own cushion. I did not mean to share a cushion with Ashton. I’m not sure why I would even want to share a cushion with him.
That’s a lie. There are many reasons I would want to share a cushion with Ashton, and each is more embarrassing than the last.
“Good sleep?” he asks like I wasn’t just leaning against him, using his taut torso like a pillow.
“Uh, huh.”
“Your hair smells nice.” And then he gets to his feet.
My… what? Smells what?
That simple compliment might have been more shocking than waking up beside him like that.
Ashton grabs the poker and stabs at the fire. He bends over and pokes it.
I watch him because… yeah.
Being preoccupied with Ashton’s foot is bad enough, so I refuse to glance at him bending over more than once.
Okay, many two. Three, max.
When Ashton turns, it’s with a smile, not a smirk. I give my stomach a little slap to stop it from flip-flopping. Because if Ashton is only here because he feels bad, there should be no flip-flopping stomachs.
He stretches, forcing his sweater to lift just enough for me to glimpse the bare skin underneath, and my stomach stops listening. “It’s so warm in here,” he says. “I didn’t think that was possible in this land of ice and snow.”
“You make it sound like a Game of Thrones book.”
Ashton gestures to my ereader. “Have you ever read those? Or watched the show?”
I shake my head, glad to talk about something else. Anything else.
“You need to. We’ll binge it.”
We’ll binge it. Not, you need to watch it. We, like Ashton plans to stick around for at least seven seasons.
This time, I can’t stop my stomach from flip-flopping. It even throws in a few cartwheels at the thought of Ashton staying.
With me.