Chapter 15
B y the time I made it to downtown Dallas, I was completely numb.
The doorman didn’t say anything, just hurried to the elevator to prepare it for me. If I looked like as much of a wreck as I had last Friday, he didn’t mention it, and I didn’t care to see. I just stepped onto the elevator with a weak nod because even parting my lips for a simple thanks nearly had me falling apart all over again.
“Where’ve you been?” Asher demanded as soon as I stepped off the elevator and into his apartment, never slowing on my way to where I could hear Kaia babbling to herself. “I’ve been call—Lainey?”
I caught sight of Kaia sitting on one of her blankets in the living room, surrounded by her toys, and felt my heart swell at the smile that crossed her face when she noticed me.
This...without a doubt, this was what I needed today. Every day.
I would figure out the rest. I had to. Because my family was depending on me too.
“Lainey . . .”
I lowered and turned my head away when Asher grabbed my arm with surprising gentleness, and managed to choke out, “I’m here. You can go.”
“No. What’s going on, and why weren’t you answering your phone?”
I reached for my back pocket, then searched my bag. Not fully understanding what I was looking for or what I was seeing as I stared at the screen for long seconds. “I, um...my phone. It’s on Do Not Disturb .” Something I’d only done because Jackson and his parents hadn’t stopped calling and texting after dinner last night, and I hadn’t been able to handle it. “I’m sorry. But you should go.”
“This is the second day you’ve shown up like this.” At the pathetic sounding laugh that left me, he reluctantly said, “I told you, if this is causing too much of a problem for you, I’ll understand. I’ll find someone else.”
“I don’t want—” I flinched when he reached for my chin and realized in the next second what he must’ve seen and what I’d inadvertently confirmed. The wall of shock, suspicion, and fury that slammed into me told me as much.
With that same staggering gentleness, Asher lifted my face until I was staring into wrath-filled darkness as he quickly took me in.
“Name,” he growled.
“Asher, please?—”
“Wrong name. Who did this?”
“It’s nothing,” I quickly lied and watched his jaw flex as something like disappointment and devastated understanding fell over his dangerously handsome expression.
But just when I thought he was going to call me out on the lie, Asher quietly demanded, “How’d you get the bruise last week?”
Disbelief and confusion flooded me so forcefully that I automatically brushed a hand across my bruised ribs because I wasn’t even sure how he’d known about those. He couldn’t have known.
But something about my involuntary reaction seemed to bring him up short because Asher’s brows drew close, that rage darkening to something truly terrifying as he shifted back just enough to reach for the bottom of my shirt.
And I froze.
Even when his eyes searched mine, silently asking for permission, I just stared at him in horror as excuses gathered on my tongue and got tangled with demands of how .
“How many are there?” he asked as he slowly started lifting my shirt, and my head began shaking.
Because even though Asher couldn’t have known, he somehow did, but he didn’t understand. “You don’t understand,” I said, nearly choking over the words as I reached for his trembling wrist to stop him.
Not that it mattered. He’d already stopped and was staring at the fading bruise on my ribs.
“You don’t understand,” I repeated, and his eyes snapped to mine. “It was an accident.”
A sneer of a laugh ripped from him. “Lainey, don’t?—”
“It was ,” I nearly cried. “Really, I know how that sounds, but that’s all it was. H-he grabbed my hand to stop me from leaving, and I hit the corner of a table when I sank back into the booth. That’s all . He didn’t mean to do this. He wouldn’t have.”
“You sure about that?” he challenged, his words an intriguing battle of wrath and protectiveness.
I knew how bad it sounded. I knew how much worse it looked. But I also knew Jackson. Unfortunately, from the way it looked like Asher was about to set fire to the world, I was only making it worse by trying to explain.
But all thoughts of Jackson and defending him fled my mind when Asher cradled my neck in one of his hands as if I was something to be cherished when every part of him was so set on destruction.
“You deserve better than him. You deserve better than this .”
As I stood there, trapped in his midnight eyes, I wondered if he could hear just how fiercely my heart was pounding. I wondered if I imagined the way he swayed closer as my head and my heart got all tangled up over this paradox of a man.
Chills swept across my body and forced a shuddering breath from my lungs when his thumb brushed over my sensitive jaw, and then he was gone. Stealing through the apartment, silent and vengeful as ever, leaving me standing in the wake of all that was Asher Briggs.
Despite hoping to avoid his observant eyes just minutes before and knowing the distance between us was necessary, I would’ve given anything to have him in front of me again, holding me the way he had been.
What was I saying? I would’ve given anything for our lives to be different so there wouldn’t be a need for the distance between us.
An excited shriek had my attention snapping to the side and, despite the horrible start to the morning, a smile tugged at my mouth. Then again, that cheesy grin and those big, dark eyes could have all worries and pains fading away.
“You,” I began in a soft, teasing tone as I made my way to where Kaia was rocking back and forth as if she might push off from her crawling position. “Goodness, I missed you.” Scooping her into my arms, I asked, “How about breakfast?”
At Kaia’s nonsensical, babbled response, I nodded and headed for the kitchen.
“Thought you might say that.”
Once she was in the highchair and jabbering happily to herself and me, I turned to start on her breakfast only to stop when I saw the new addition to the kitchen. An addition that was glaringly obvious because it was the only thing on Asher’s spotless counters, other than the fruit bowl.
My heart beat harder and harder with each step I took toward the stunning espresso machine in the far corner. Reaching out, I hesitantly lifted the top of the note that was taped to the front. And then it was all I could do to keep my traitorous heart in my chest when I saw the neat, masculine writing, clearly intended for me.
Check the pantry.
Use my kitchen. Eat my food.
Awe wound through me as I studied the machine for a few seconds longer before hurrying to the massive pantry. Like before, it only took a second before I found what he wanted me to because everything was so neat and had its own place, and this...this was all new.
Syrups and sauces and bags of espresso, all neatly arranged and with another note taped to the front of one of the bags.
Inside were the directions for how to make a caramel macchiato. At the bottom, he’d written, If it’s wrong, blame the guy at the coffee shop.
I wondered for only half a second how he knew what my favorite drink was before a stunned breath punched from my lungs as I realized just how closely Asher must’ve been paying attention when we’d met last year. But that also meant he remembered it in a way that suggested he thought about it...the encounter we weren’t supposed to talk about.
“About that . . .”
A scream ripped from me as I turned to find Peyton standing there, arms folded over her chest and scrutinizing me in a way that seemed solely specific to the Briggs siblings—with equal amounts intrigue, irritation, and intimidation.
“Hey—hi,” I stammered as my pulse tried to find a normal rhythm again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t expecting you to still be here.”
“I noticed,” she said with a lift of one of her eyebrows before glancing away. “I’m leaving for the airport in a minute, but I wanted to see this.”
I quickly took stock of the neat pantry before trying to peek outside it at whatever she was looking at. “This?—”
“You,” she said over me as her dark eyes snapped back to mine. “Your reaction to what he did for you.”
A bemused sound left me as I exited the pantry when she stepped away. “The espresso machine?” At Peyton’s confirming hum, I hurried to brush her assumption away. “This isn’t for me. He’s just letting me know I can use it.”
“You sure about that?”
No.
But I wasn’t about to say that when Asher’s sister was looking at me like I was the root of every problem in her life.
“Because this isn’t Ash,” she went on before I could respond, haphazardly pointing at the machine as she did, “and it’s bothering him that it’s here.”
My stomach sank.
With a handful of words, she’d taken the excitement of this unexpected gift and twisted it into worry and guilt. In a matter of seconds, I’d been pulled back to last week, watching as a fuming Asher told me to get rid of the things I’d added to his living room.
I understood now why that conversation happened at all. I understood that his cold, pristine apartment was a visual representation of how haunted he was by his past. But I’d unintentionally pushed him, bringing back all those demons. And now, he was making himself uncomfortable, forcing himself to live with the past all around him, just so I would use his apartment.
“I didn’t...I never asked for that,” I finally said, the words soft and low.
“Oh, I know,” Peyton said with that same intensity. “But it’s here. For you. The nanny .”
“That’s what I am,” I assured her.
“I’m sure.” She made a face, letting me know she in no way believed me. “A young, beautiful woman just happens to become the nanny for an ultra-successful, ultra-rich, handsome guy.” One of her shoulders lifted. “Because that’s how life works.”
“It does in this situation,” I maintained, a seed of anger blooming in my chest at her implication. When Kaia’s mindless chatter turned into a squeal of impatience, I glanced her way before hurrying through the kitchen, grabbing what I needed to make her breakfast.
“I didn’t know who I was gonna be working for,” I went on. “My great-aunt works for your brother—whom I’d never realized I’d met and had only been told how horribly grumpy and irritable he was over the years. She’s the one who called me. She’s the one who hired me—without Asher’s knowledge, mind you.” I placed a hand on my chest, nearly getting mashed banana all over my shirt when I faced Peyton again. “And I’m more than qualified for this job. I have my master’s in early childhood education. I have certifications needed for childcare—including infants.”
Peyton stared me down for long seconds before asking, “Wanted to get that off your chest for a while?”
My next breath left me in a rush as I whispered, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I just...I have a lot of people telling me why I shouldn’t be working here.”
She lifted her head in understanding but didn’t say anything until I had the banana mashed and added applesauce to it. “When had you met him?”
I paused on my way to the table, but only looked in her direction for a second before continuing to where Kaia was impatiently waiting.
“You said you hadn’t realized you’d met Asher. So, when’d you meet him?”
“Last year,” I admitted as I gave Kaia a bite, choosing my words carefully as I explained, “I ran into him at the coffee shop. He saw some guys put a tracker in my purse and said he was saving me from being kidnapped.” My eyes rolled, even though my expression was all excitement and joy for the little girl in front of me. “I still think that was an exaggeration.”
“It wasn’t.”
I slowed in scooping up the next bite, but didn’t ask Peyton to explain. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know because I preferred my version of that day.
Still, she said, “Ash is good at what he does, and he sees and understands things most people don’t. If he said you were about to be kidnapped, then you were, and you were lucky he was there.”
At her solemn words, my head dipped in acknowledgment and fear gripped at my chest. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t currently in danger or that the encounter happened nearly a year ago.
“Well,” she went on after nearly a minute had passed in strained silence and began walking out of the kitchen, stopping only when she was about to round the corner to meet my eye, “qualified or not, happenstance or not, my brother’s going out of his way to make you comfortable and happy when you’re supposed to be here for Kaia and Kaia alone.”
“I never?—”
“I heard you the first time,” she said over me, once again reminding me so much of Asher. Hesitation poured from her as something close to worry settled over her features. “Just don’t hurt him.”
Heat rose to my cheeks as my mind raced with the images I’d played out hundreds of times over the past year, negating my next words. “You’re really misunderstanding why I’m here,” I said gently. “He’s my boss; that’s it.”
A disbelieving sound left her as she slipped around the corner, out of sight.
With a shaky breath, I faced where Kaia had part of my hand in her tiny grasp, lifting it to her face in a terrible attempt at getting another bite of food.
“Sorry, sweet girl,” I whispered as I scooped another spoonful for her. “Here you go.”
But as Peyton left without so much as a goodbye, and I finished feeding Kaia and took her to the living room to play, my thoughts were a dangerous mixture of Peyton’s words and a brooding, terrifying man who continued surprising me in ways that had me falling for him a little more each day.
And for just a moment, I let myself believe that Peyton’s insinuations could be real.