Chapter Eleven
ASHLEY FELT AS if she were walking into the lion’s den or even the very mouth of hell as she stepped into the lift that soared straight to Nico Galletti’s penthouse apartment in SoHo.
They’d barely spoken as they’d gone from hotel to limo to building; Ashley had asked whether they should make one last appearance for their guests, but Nico had dismissed the idea.
‘I think they’ve seen more than enough,’ he’d replied tersely, taking her elbow to steer her out to his waiting car.
On the ride downtown, with the limo sliding through darkened streets, Ashley had wondered if she was making a serious mistake. She didn’t trust Nico Galletti about anything, she knew that much, but she didn’t know much else…which was why she’d agreed to come back with him.
She needed to figure out why Nico was so suspicious of her.
Had she really met him back at that ball?
Those tumultuous years had blurred together in her mind, a kaleidoscope of images and emotions she’d longed only to forget, and had been grateful when it seemed as if she had.
But she hadn’t thought she’d forgotten that much… .
But what if she had? She’d managed to forget an entire episode from last night. Had she forgotten more than she realised? Or…was Nico messing with her mind, another one of his little power games? He had accused her of playing at something, and now Ashley was wondering if he was.
But if it really was some kind of simple misunderstanding…
Except nothing about this situation felt remotely simple, Ashley acknowledged, and she doubted a single conversation was going to clear anything up.
Maybe it would make things even more complicated, because whatever had happened between them back then seemed to have struck at their very hearts and souls…
and left scars. A few quick words of explanation—an apology, heartfelt or otherwise—wasn’t going to undo the damage. It might even make things worse.
But for the sake of her own conscience as well as sanity, as well as that of her employees, Ashley knew she needed to get to the bottom of whatever had driven Nico Galletti to initiate a hostile takeover of a company that shouldn’t mean anything to him.
‘Some place,’ she remarked dryly as she stepped into the soaring space of his penthouse apartment, everything sleek and modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides overlooking the southern tip of Manhattan. ‘Especially for a boy from Brooklyn.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ he replied in an even dryer tone as he shed his dinner jacket, the muscles of his shoulders and arm rippling under the smooth white fabric of his shirt. Ashley jerked her gaze away. She definitely did not need that distraction right now.
She moved through the open-plan living space.
Leather sofas and coffee tables that looked like sculpted pieces of modern art were scattered around to make the most of the view of the city stretched out far below them in a carpet of light.
A galley kitchen with a marble island stretched off to one side and a hallway led to bedrooms on the other.
‘I feel like I’m upside down,’ she remarked as she came to stand by the window. ‘And I’m looking at a sky full of stars.’
‘A lot of this evening has felt upside down,’ Nico replied, and she slowly turned to face him.
He hadn’t turned on any of the lamps, and the ambient light of the city below cast half his face into shadow, and half into light, which seemed fitting.
She really did not understand this man and his shifting moods… but maybe tonight she finally would.
‘So tell me about when we met,’ she said, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. She had the feeling he was restraining some powerful emotion that both intrigued and frightened her. What on earth had happened that night? ‘I wore this dress at the ball,’ she continued. ‘And we spoke, I presume?’
‘We did.’
‘About what?’
‘A few things.’
She shook her head, already exasperated. ‘You brought me here to talk about it, so why won’t you explain now?’
‘Because I still can’t decide whether you’re lying to me or not,’ Nico told her flatly. ‘And I have no intention of rehashing that night, which ranked as the worst of my life, simply for your amusement.’
Ashley blinked at that startling and scathing indictment ‘Nico,’ she said quietly, taking a step towards him, one hand instinctively outstretched.
She sensed so much pain beneath his anger, and it filled her with an emotion she had not felt for him before—a deep and abiding sympathy, along with a desire to comfort him.
Somehow to make it better. ‘Do you honestly think I’m that kind of person?
’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Who would…torment someone simply for her own amusement?’
‘You were,’ Nico replied, his steely gaze locked on hers, ‘That kind of person on that night.’
‘What…?’ The single word escaped her in a shocked breath as Ashley dropped her hand. ‘What are you saying? What did I do?’
He wheeled away from her, heading to a drinks table on the side of the room, where he poured himself a large whisky. ‘I just can’t believe you can’t remember,’ he muttered, half to himself.
‘To be fair,’ Ashley told him, a tremor in her voice, ‘Those years are kind of a blur to me. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised I’ve forgotten. I’ve tried to forget a lot of what happened back then, but I didn’t realise I’d blanked things out quite so completely.’
‘Oh?’ He turned round, his tumbler raised to his lips. ‘And why have you tried to forget?’
He wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to reveal the painful episodes of the past, Ashley reflected, but one of them was going to have to take that fearful, flying leap into vulnerability, and she supposed it might as well be her.
Someone had to go first. ‘Because back then I was very unhappy,’ she explained carefully.
‘And I suppose no one likes to dwell on times in their life when they were unhappy.’ To say the least.
Nico didn’t reply for a long moment. ‘There’s a difference between not dwelling,’ he said at last, before raising his glass to his lips and taking a long swallow. He lowered the glass, his silver stare skewering her once more. ‘And forgetting completely.’
‘That’s true,’ Ashley was compelled to agree. ‘Which is why this whole thing has taken me by surprise.’
‘Why did you keep that dress and none of the others?’
The abrupt switch had her blinking for a few seconds. ‘I… I don’t really know,’ she admitted slowly. ‘I gave away all my fancy clothes after my father went to prison. I didn’t need them any more, and so many of them had painful memories attached to them.’
‘Painful?’
She swallowed hard. ‘My father…chose my clothes and forced me to wear them. I know that doesn’t sound like anything much, but…
he could be cruel about it. It kept me on edge for a long time, because he’d be so charming one minute, telling me how I was his pretty…
p-princess…’ She stumbled slightly over the word, the memories making her throat tighten.
‘And the next he’d be…unkind.’ It was all she was willing to say about that, at least for now.
‘After my mother’s stroke, I was forced to act as his hostess, and I wasn’t very good at it, which… he didn’t like.’
She had to swallow again as she recalled the icy precision of her father’s rage, always hidden behind an easy smile in public, to be released in private, so that every social occasion had become a source of dread for what invariably came after.
‘I never liked parties,’ she explained, ‘Or socialising, or small talk, and back then I would have rather been—’
‘Up in your room with a book.’
Ashley’s gaze widened as she absorbed what Nico had said so knowledgeably. ‘Ye-es,’ she said slowly. ‘How did you…?’
‘You told me.’
For a second, Ashley felt as if the room were spinning. Memories suddenly whirled through her mind…snatches of ideas, emotions, words…and then were gone again, leaving a fathomless longing in their wake.
‘I… I think I need a drink,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Do you mind…?’
He gestured to the drinks table behind him. ‘Whisky?’
Ashley had never had whisky in her life, but she nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
Neither of them spoke as Nico poured her drink and then handed her the glass, his fingers brushing hers. He gestured to one of the sofas by the window, its cushions warmed by a spill of light from a building across the way.
‘Maybe we should sit,’ he suggested quietly. ‘You look a little shocked.’
‘I feel…’ She didn’t even know how she felt.
It was as though she’d fallen down a flight of stairs, mentally speaking.
She still didn’t know where she was, or how badly she hurt.
Ashley slowly walked over to one corner of the sofa and curled up in it, drawing her dress—the one that had started it all!
—around her ankles. She still hadn’t told him why she’d kept it, and she didn’t even know if she could.
She took a cautious sip of whisky, wincing at the taste, which drew a wry chuckle from Nico, who had sat on the opposite sofa.
‘Not your usual drink?’ he surmised.
‘No.’ She lowered her glass as she gazed at him, determined get to the truth of that evening. ‘So, we spoke that night. Significantly, it seems.’
‘Yes.’ He stared back steadily, but his expression was still impossible to read. It looked even, but she felt as if he was still holding himself in check.
‘What else did we talk about?’
‘Lots of things.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘Our favourite books, what we thought of the city, how we both felt like outsiders at the ball.’
Fascinated, Ashley shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I don’t remember all that.’ She felt as if she would surely remember a man like Nico entering her life even for a moment, especially at the impressionable age of eighteen.
‘That’s not actually the part I’d have expected you to remember,’ he replied, and she leaned forward, intrigued as well as apprehensive.