20. June
JUNE
The last time I saw Ashton Parker, before our world imploded, we were dancing on a beach two hundred miles away.
Over the last six months, I’ve thought of that night more than any other.
I’ve dreamt of soft, dark blonde hair through fingers, steely gray eyes that crinkle in the corners.
I’ve awoken, still feeling the scruff of his closely shaven beard against my cheek.
Warm lips that searched for mine in the dark, in the half-asleep morning, in the lazy afternoons sprawled out upon this yacht.
His kiss goodbye. The one that was supposed to last me the “couple of days he was needed in New York.”
The man before me isn’t in Burberry. His beard is longer, as is his hair. The lines around his eyes are deeper, the steel of gray desperate and cold.
The photos I’d seen, the glimpses of his life I’d had access to, had obscured something fundamental.
Ashton Parker is a broken man.
I can’t breathe. Suddenly, both greedy and desperate to find my husband in this man across the table.
Ashton looks back like he’s doing the exact same thing.
I take another step into the room.
Mark takes the opportunity to shuffle past, beelining toward a man I don’t recognize sitting at a table in the corner.
Ashton’s lawyer, I assume. At the far end of the next table, another woman is sitting with a notepad and an expression like stone.
The court-appointed observer, there to make sure every word spoken is by the book.
No touching. No evidence. No trial talk.
My next step seems to jolt Ashton into action. He’s on his feet in an instant, as though he’s going to come to me, then thinks better of it. Standing frozen as I close the distance between us.
When I sit, he sits.
The intensity of his stare is making my palms sweat. The thin line of his lips even more so. The erratic rise and fall of his chest make it seem like he’s just run a marathon.
I twist my fingers together and rest them on the table to buy myself time to compose myself. My outbreath is probably too loud, but I take the loss.
Neither of us speaks.
It’s just us, staring.
And it feels like the room narrows down to the span of the table between us, shrinking until all I can see is the man who has haunted my every moment since the second he left me behind.
“June.”
My name leaves his mouth, and the spell breaks.
I can hear the woman next to us scratching at her notepad. Can hear Mark’s familiar intonation as he mutters to his colleague, even if I can’t make out the words. The lights suddenly feel too bright, too loud as I scramble to concentrate on the task at hand.
“June.”
The second time is rougher, broken, and half-choked. It slices through me. I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood just to stop myself from crying.
I’m not going to cry.
I’m not going to vomit.
He leans forward, his hands twitching as if he wants to reach across the table. “I?—”
“No.” My voice is sharper than I expect, the kind that startles even me.
His mouth shuts instantly.
I close my eyes for a second, breathe in and out.
Six months of torture. Weeks of my own incarceration, months of Sophie freezing me out, half a year of Meredith watching me like I might break at any second.
Uncertainty and self-doubt and anger and pain and sleepless, endless nights.
Of smiling for Trent and worrying about Mom and letting Roland fuss and leaning on Eddie’s unyielding support.
Of Mark, even. The bastard. Of the first Christmas I’ve had with my family in fifteen years, and for those precious moments of not feeling so alone.
I’ve survived all of it. I can survive this too.
When I open my eyes, I look straight at him. I know what I have to do.
“I need you to answer one question. And you don’t get to sidestep, or explain, or… charm your way out of it. Just answer me.”
His throat bobs as he swallows. “Anything.”
“Was any part of our relationship real?”
The silence that follows feels like I’ve pulled the pin on a grenade and we’re just waiting for the explosion. Even the others have quietened their murmuring to listen in.
I don’t care. If anything, the witnesses only empower me more.
Ashton’s shoulders cave inward, his hands curl into fists on the table.
He stares at me, wide-eyed, devastated in a way that almost makes me look away.
His lips part, but nothing comes out. For a second, I think he might cry, and I hate myself for noticing that part of me wants him to.
Wants proof that I wasn’t the only one who loved.
“I…” His voice falters, reaching for something eloquent, something clever.
“Don’t.” I cut across him like a blade. “Don’t give me speeches. Don’t dress it up. Just yes or no.”
His eyes squeeze shut, his jaw tightens. For a heartbeat, he looks like a stranger. A man grieving something I shouldn’t be privy to.
When he finally forces the word out, it’s so small I almost miss it.
“Yes.”
I let it settle in me, let it press against my ribs and lodge in my lungs. Let it come out in a slow, controlled breath.
Yes. Real.
I can do this.
“How much of it?”
He recoils. Recoils.
“I love you,” Ashton says.
I can’t do this.
I swallow. “I said yes or–”
“Stop this.” The words aren’t broken this time; they’re fierce and urgent, like they’ve been clawing at his chest waiting to get out.
“June, I love you. None of this, none of it, should have happened. I would never, never have dragged you into this. You have to know that. You should never have been involved. You have to know I would have carried it all myself if I could. I came back as soon as I knew that they’d taken you, they needed someone to blame, I should have been–”
“Mister Parker.”
The warning is clear and absolute, but Ashton doesn’t spare the observer a single glance. Too busy searching my face for a crack, something to latch on to.
“You are the most important person in my life,” he finally settles on.
It’s eloquent. It’s desperate and honest. It reminds me of the day oh so long ago when he confessed to trying to impress me. The kind of words that would have melted me once, before all of this.
But I sit there, spine straight, hands folded tight on the table.
“How much of it?” I repeat, calm, measured.
His expression collapses. Like I’ve kicked the air out of him.
“You don’t believe me.”
It’s not a question. It’s an accusation. So I don’t respond.
He stares at me as comprehension begins to dawn on him, the desperation withering away into something far more defeated. “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’ve already made up your mind.”
“No,” I say, sharper than I intend. “I’m just looking for the answers I deserve. How much of it?”
Ashton pulls his hands through his hair. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for months. I’ve been so desperate to see you, June. I thought this was–”
“What, some messed-up conjugal visit?” I hiss back. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been advised not to do this? How many people told me to stay away, to wash my hands of it? Do you know how many hoops we’ve had to jump through?”
“You think I haven’t been trying to do the same?”
“I fought for this conversation. I fought for you. So don’t tell me I’ve made up my mind,” my throat tightens, but I push through.
“I want the truth, Ashton. From you. Not from the prosecution, or those assholes over there. I don’t want to read about it in gossip columns or opinion pieces.
I want you to tell me how much of our relationship was real. ”
My chest heaves with the effort to stay in my seat, to hold on to the frayed edges of my half-exploded anger. I can feel the dampness in my eyes that I desperately blink away. Vision blurring enough that I miss the moment Ashton changes.
I miss the moment he switches to playing offense.
But it’s there in his shoulders as my vision clears. The recoil from earlier was just an appetizer for his physical dissociation.
“You really think so little of me?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“No, really, June. You seriously think I’m capable of faking everything we went through? You think I’d go through the humiliation of asking you to marry me all for what, some elaborate scheme?”
Whatever clutch I had on my anger slips through my frozen fingers. “I’m sorry I was such an embarrassment!”
“See? You’re doing it again now!” Ashton’s laugh is a bitter, cruel thing. “You never made anything easy for me. You fought me on every turn, and all I did, all I ever did was try to win your trust. Help you solve your problems, help you deal with your insane family.”
“Don’t talk about my family,” I snap viciously.
Ashton shakes his head in disbelief. “So it’s only okay when you say it, right?”
I’m on my feet before I can think it through. The chair scrapes across the floor loud enough for us all to flinch.
There’s a cautious, “June,” from across the room.
I point at Mark without looking away from Ashton. “You can shut the hell up.”
“So it’s not just me then,” Ashton’s smirk is awful. “You just treat everyone like this.”
I place two hands on the table, grounding myself.
Breathing out. Breathing in. “I don’t know what to tell you, Ash.
Perhaps you should have gotten to know me better before you married me.
I’d say I’m sorry, because you clearly didn’t know what you were signing up for.
But all things considered, I’d say we’re more than a little even. ”
His eyes find mine again. “If you need to hate me to survive this, then hate me.”
Something flickers through his expression then, so quick I almost miss it. A flash of guilt, or pain, or maybe just exhaustion. But it’s enough to make my heart lurch.
“But I never lied about loving you.”
My heart leaps into my throat. Pounding relentlessly, choking the breath from my lungs. And God do I want to believe him.
I want to reach out. Cross the infinite chasm between us. I want to shake him, kiss him, scream at him. Anything. Anything. Please, I’d give anything. Please. Just this once. Please, this time. I need… I need… I need…
“You promised me you’d stay.”
It’s a child’s voice, a childish whim.
But the pain and regret are instant.
“I’m sorry, June. Listen to me, I’m sorry.”
I swallow, my bottom lip shaking.
“How can I believe you?”
The broken promise, finally laid out before us.
The heartbreak of it all is affecting him just as much as it is me, his throat working overtime as the reality of our situation settles across our shoulders. The weight of it unwelcome and suffocating.
There’s no answer he can give, and we both know it.
It’s almost ironic that the observer chooses that moment to clear her throat.
“Time.”
Ashton doesn’t move. Neither do I. We just look at each other, suspended in that narrow space between words we can’t say.
It takes his lawyer’s intervention to get him to move, and even then, Ashton’s eyes never leave mine. Drinking in the last precious moments of our time together. When he’s finally turned away, I watch his back as he’s led out of the room, the door shutting softly behind him.
The silence is ruinous.
Mark, at some point, stands, buttoning his jacket. His eyes flick to where I sit, entirely frozen in my chair, throat raw, heartbeat in my ears, and something in his expression falters.
“Come on,” he says quietly. “Let’s get you out of here.”
I rise on unsteady legs, nodding once. Neither of us speaks again as we leave the conference room. The court-appointed observer avoids my gaze.
The waiting room outside feels too bright. Too normal. The floor seems to waver under my feet. Mark puts a hand on my shoulder to steady me.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
I nod. Lie. “Yeah.”
Meredith is there a second later, swatting him away. Two hands on my shoulders as she tries to catch my eye.
I shake my head once, a small, broken movement, and that’s all it takes for her expression to crumble.
I’m crushed against her chest a second later.
I vaguely think this would be the moment that I should start crying. But the maneuvering and the jostling trigger something else instead.
I barely manage to pull away and mumble, “Bathroom,” before I’m running out into the corridor and crashing through the doors of the first one I find.
It hits the second I lock the door. Barely a second to consider my surroundings before I’m on my knees, retching until there’s nothing left.
Of all the things for Mark to be right about. He’s going to be insufferable about this.
When it’s over, I sit there on the cold tile, breathing hard, forehead pressed against the bowl. Working on the breathing. Trying to recall the conversation, but it’s all just a violent haze of white noise.
I don’t know how long I stay like that. Someone knocks once, twice, and I ignore it both times.
When I finally drag myself up, it’s a miracle I stay upright. I have to lean against the stall door another minute before I can summon the strength to use the sink.
I catch sight of my reflection. Eyes red. Makeup gone. Life over. I wash my face, dry it with shaking hands, and whisper to the mirror.
“You wanted closure. You wanted this.”
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
By the time I push open the door, the hallway is quiet, so I make my way back to the waiting room. A knot of guilt half-heatedly churns in the remains of my stomach about making Meredith and Mark wait for me.
They don’t notice when I enter.
They don’t notice because…
I stop dead.
Because I have to be hallucinating.
It’s the only rational explanation. The adrenaline of the day, the dizzy side effects of spewing my guts up, the bone-deep exhaustion of finally getting everything I’ve been wanting for months, but it just made everything worse.
But this might be worse, actually.
Because, for some reason, Meredith is kissing Mark.
It’s not angry. It’s not impulsive.
It’s slow. Familiar.
Her hand on his chest, his around her waist.
But then Meredith makes this tiny, helpless sound, and Mark’s hand moves to cradle her jaw like he’s done it a hundred times before.
And then something clicks, and all the white noise simply stops.
Because of course. Of course.
None of this was ever about me.
I take a step back, let the door close silently. Breathe. Take another step back. Breathe again. Then another.
The decision is easy, in the end.
“Meredith?” My voice is hoarse, helpfully masking the deceit of the inquiry.
I fumble back toward the door and push it open heavily.
They’ve, of course, sprung apart. Meredith is at my side in an instant.
“Are you–”
“Can we just go?” I blink up at her.
She nods, throwing an arm around my shoulder and tucking me into her side as she leads the way out of the building.
Content to play the martyr as I quietly let anger consume my grief.