Chapter Eight
CRUMPLED ON THE FLOOR, Ashley was barely aware of anything.
Her mind was a blank haze, seeming disconnected from her body, so she only distantly registered Nico’s hands on her shoulders, warm and strong.
She recognised that he was holding her, his arms around her, her cheek pressed against her chest; and then he scooped her up into his arms, so he cradled her like a baby, and then finally deposited her gently on her bed.
Ashley felt all these things, and yet it was as if she couldn’t process them. Her mind was frozen, stuck and empty. She felt like a receptacle and nothing more, as if all the energy and emotion had been leached out of her. She couldn’t find it in herself to care…about anything.
She turned her face away to the wall, limply lifting one hand to brush her hair away from her face, and only then realising that her cheeks were damp with tears.
Even then she barely registered the fact that she’d been crying; not a single thought entered her mind as she lay there for what could have been minutes or hours, her eyes closed and her face turned away.
She heard Nico moving around the apartment, and at some point, he spoke in a low voice to someone on the phone, but she couldn’t make out the words, not that she even tried.
She heard the door open and close and, with an unsettling mixture of disappointment and relief, she thought that he must have left.
Eventually, without even realising it was happening, she fell asleep.
When Ashley awoke, the apartment was completely dark and the time on her clock read one in the morning. Her breath came out in a sudden rush and she lurched upright, the remnants of a dream she couldn’t remember trickling icily away, a fear clamping her insides that she couldn’t shake…
Slowly she came back to her senses, and a soft sigh escaped her. She was safe. She wasn’t even sure what from, but she was alone in her apartment, and no one could make her do anything any more, ever…
The sound of someone shifting on her sofa had a soft scream of pure terror slipping from lips.
‘It’s only me,’ Nico said quietly and, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ashley realised he was still there, seated just a few feet away from her, his body half-hidden in the darkness. He must have been there all the while she’d slept.
‘I… I thought you’d left,’ she whispered. Her voice sounded croaky.
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t leave you like that.’
His tone was grim, certain, and it made unease pool in Ashley’s stomach like acid. ‘Like…what?’ she asked uncertainly, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Even in the darkness, she saw, or maybe just sensed, his frown. ‘Do you not remember?’ he asked quietly.
The unease that had pooled in her stomach now crawled coldly up her spine, like some living thing slithering around her body, taking up all the space. It was an intensely vulnerable feeling, to have someone ask her that. To realise she didn’t know the answer. ‘Remember…what?’ she asked unsteadily.
‘Just…’ Nico paused. ‘How upset you were,’ he finally answered, and his tone was like nothing she’d ever heard from him before: gentle, even tender, and full of pity.
It made Ashley feel even uneasier, because why was Nico Galletti talking to her as if he felt sorry for her?
His pity felt as uncomfortable as his condemnation, she thought, if not more so.
She didn’t like either. She didn’t want anything from this man.
She certainly didn’t want to be beholden to him.
‘Upset…’ she repeated cautiously. Why couldn’t she remember what had happened?
Nico had brought the dresses, she’d been annoyed…
The rest, whatever it was, was a complete blank.
The realisation was incredibly unnerving.
Unless, Ashley thought, he was making it up.
Was this simply another way to disadvantage her? Another one of his petty power plays?
Except it didn’t feel like that. Nico had sounded so…concerned. And if he’d stayed here while she’d slept… Nothing added up.
Abruptly Ashley leaned over and switched on her bedside light.
Too late, she realised her bathrobe had fallen open and she yanked it closed as quickly as she could, but she was pretty sure Nico had got an eyeful.
She couldn’t even worry about that now, because there was too much else unsettling to deal with.
She glanced at him, seated on her sofa, looking so inscrutable, his narrowed gaze watching her, observing and assessing. She pulled her bathrobe right up to her throat.
‘I think I need a cup of tea,’ she announced, striving for a sense of normality.
‘I’ll make it,’ Nico told her. Now completely flummoxed, Ashley watched as he went to her little kitchen and filled the kettle at the sink. She glanced around her apartment, and realised the rack of dresses was gone. More strangeness.
‘What did you do with the dresses?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘I had them removed,’ Nico replied, his tone giving nothing away.
‘Removed?’ Ashley repeated. ‘Why?’
‘They were…clearly upsetting you.’ He switched on the kettle and turned to face her.
Ashley couldn’t make out the expression on his face in the half-shadow.
His hair was rumpled, his shirt creased and stubble darkened his lean jaw.
Somehow, all these elements made him seem even more appealing, more human.
Without his forbidding expression and tailored jacket, his aura of cold-hearted and calculating power, he seemed much more approachable.
Friendlier; someone she could like and maybe even trust.
Even if she knew he wasn’t. And, she was reluctantly compelled to notice, he was also insanely good-looking.
Even now, in the midst of her confusion and wariness, her mind noticed and her body responded.
She pulled her bathrobe even closer together, as if the act could ward off her own impossible feelings.
‘You can wear what you like to the gala tomorrow night,’ Nico told her abruptly, his arms folded as he leaned back against the worktop. His face was hidden in shadow, his expression impossible to read.
‘Okay…’ Ashley answered slowly, her mind whirling.
‘What happened to make you change your mind?’ She tried to sound wry but she feared she only sounded scared.
What had freaked Nico out so much, and why on earth couldn’t she remember it?
She knew there were parts of her past she’d forgotten, but it had been a deliberate choice…
or so she’d thought. She hadn’t wanted to dwell on those upsetting aspects of her personal history, because who would?
But she’d never had this kind of blankness in her brain before.
At least, she didn’t think she had… But now she found herself second-guessing everything.
It was seriously alarming to feel as if she didn’t know herself.
‘I was over-reaching,’ Nico replied tonelessly. ‘It’s a bad habit of mine.’
‘Nico…’ It was the first time she’d said his name, and she could tell he noticed, although his stance didn’t change. Something in his eyes, his mouth… It was as if she’d ignited a spark between them simply by saying his name out loud.
Somehow it had just slipped out, an intimacy that wasn’t warranted and yet bizarrely still felt right.
He had seen her sleep, after all. ‘You’re scaring me, you know,’ she confessed.
‘By everything you’re not saying. What did you mean, the dresses upset me?
I mean, yes, I was angry at you,’ she continued, her voice getting stronger.
Maybe there was no big mystery here, after all.
‘For over-reaching, as you said. I remember that. But… I wasn’t upset. ’
At least, not in the way his tone had implied—unreasonably and unsettlingly, as if she’d had some kind of breakdown. She hadn’t…had she?
She leaned forward, trying to make out his expression from across the room, craving some clue to what had happened, needing to fill in the blank space she was frighteningly aware still loomed in her mind.
Nico simply stared at her without saying anything.
The kettle started to whistle, and he turned round to make her tea.
Ashley leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. This felt like some surreal dream: the room cast in shadows and pools of light, a man she’d only met that morning making her tea at her own kitchen sink. And the dresses… Where were the dresses? Why had Nico had them removed?
He walked silently across the room and handed her a mug of tea. ‘Thank you,’ Ashley murmured, and took a sip. It was sweet and strong, like something she’d take for shock. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he sat back on the loveseat.
‘I feel like I should apologise,’ she ventured as she lowered her mug. ‘But I don’t know what for.’
Nico shook his head. ‘You don’t need to apologise.’
She tried to smile. ‘You know you’re just freaking me out even more when you say stuff like that?’
He smiled faintly at that, his eyes glinting in the darkness. ‘I don’t mean to.’
Ashley shook her head. ‘Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?’
He shrugged one powerful shoulder. ‘Maybe we just got off to a bad start.’
She managed a laugh at that. ‘As if. Nico, you came into my office this morning and told me you were destroying my company. You gave me five minutes to clear my desk. You told me I’d had a part in ruining your life.’
All of those were necessary reminders, because for a few minutes while she’d sipped the tea, and he sat there looking so approachable and relaxed, it almost felt as if they were getting along.
But they weren’t; they couldn’t be. Not if he was still intent on destroying her company and strong-arming her into presenting some kind of united front to boot, just so he could save face. ‘What’s changed?’ she asked.