Chapter 5 Selling It
SELLING IT
ASHLEY
“What do you mean, how do I want to do this? We’re here, aren’t we?”
Beckett dips his chin, watching me over the top of his aviators. “You do know your sister isn’t an idiot, don’t you?”
Something in his tone makes me pause. “You think she knows?”
He tilts his head. “I mean, you’re the one who said you didn’t want to ruin her big week.” His voice is calm, but there's an edge underneath. “But let’s be honest—she knows something’s off. Between us.”
Ah.
Right.
I catch my reflection in the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses.
How do I look so normal?
“She keeps pushing for us to spend time alone,” I mutter. “Acts like half the reason she planned this cruise was for us to—”
I stop myself.
Beckett’s brows lift, that smug little told-you-so expression tightening the air between us.
“If we’re gonna sell this, you can’t act like you hate me,” he says.
Not fair.
“Well what about you then? What was that earlier, when the photographer came over? You didn’t want to be in a picture with me?”
“It’s not that—”
“It totally was.” I swallow. “Is it because you’re already halfway out of this family?”
His mouth tightens. He rubs the back of his neck, then lets out a breath.
“I just… why would I do that? Do you hear yourself right now—” He cuts himself off, looking down at the pool deck, not at me. “You kicked me out of the house. I’m honestly surprised you’d want me in those pictures.”
Right.
But he’s also right about Luna.
She’s no fool. Just the opposite.
“Okay, Yeah, whatever.” I say, more to myself than to him. And then I exhale. “I suppose we need to try harder though… to look like we’re still in love.”
I pull the towel up over my legs and stomach like armor.
“Ash—”
“I mean, it’s not like we’ll be glued to each other's sides or anything. I’m booked solid, and I’m sure you have work to do as well.”
He’s quiet for a moment. And kind of grimaces.
“Don’t you?” I ask a little too brightly. “Keeping busy hasn’t exactly been a problem for you lately. Might as well use that to our advantage.”
His mouth twitches again. With those stupid glasses, I can’t tell what’s going on in that head of his.
When he does finally answer me, it’s not at all what I expect.
“I… lost my laptop,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “But I’m sure I can keep myself occupied. If that’s what you want.”
I bristle. “It is.”
Then the rest of what he says lands. “Wait. You… lost your laptop?”
“Yeah.” He says it easily—but his thumb drags along the hem of his shorts, like he’s smoothing something down.
I study him.
Beckett doesn’t lose his laptop.
For as long as I’ve known him—especially this last year—that thing has been glued to him. Meetings, trips, late nights on the couch. It’s been his constant companion. His best friend, his most trusted confidant. If I’m being honest, there have been times I’ve almost been jealous of it.
“Where?” I ask. “I mean… how?”
“Not sure.” Then he shrugs. “I guess I thought it was in my car.”
“That’s not like you,” I say carefully. “You don’t just misplace something like that.”
He exhales through his nose. “Maybe I’m trying something new. Forcing myself to slow down.”
It’s exactly what I’d begged him to do for months.
But he doesn’t expand on that.
So I let it go.
Whatever. He chose his secrets over me months ago. Nothing new.
“It’s a big ship,” I say, my voice flat, looking out at the water instead of him. “It’ll be pretty easy to avoid each other when we aren't on duty for the wedding party.”
He looks at me again, jaw tight. Present in a way he hasn’t been for a long time—so why now?
“I didn’t come on this boat to avoid you, Ash,” he says with a frustration I haven't heard in a long time. “I’m here because I’m trying to find a way back. I’m trying to be a man you actually want around.”
For a second, I see a flash of the man I married.
But then I remember the theme of Runaway Husbands.
The book was emphatic: when confronted with the consequences of their behavior, people will say anything.
But the truth is, they don’t fundamentally change; they just find more sophisticated ways to perform.
If I believe him now, I’m setting myself up for the same silence that nearly broke me a month ago.
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” I ask. And then I realize… he lost his laptop. He’s bored. Suddenly I’m interesting to him again. “That’s not why you came on this cruise. You’re here because it’s the right thing to do, that is, if you ever even cared about me and my family.”
“Of course I care. You think I’d let your sister walk down the aisle alone? You think I wouldn't be here for you?”
“You haven’t been here, Beckett. I’ve given you a million chances to clear things up. But you refused. Nothing’s really changed. So… you lost your laptop. Buy a new one.”
The silence after that is heavy.
“Right,” he finally says.
Somehow, that hurts more than if he’d argued.
If he’d argue, it would mean he wanted to fix things.
There was this moment, sometime last June, when something in him flipped. He became closed off, angry in a way I’d never seen him before.
The first time I noticed the shift, I was sitting at the kitchen table, paying bills the way I always did. And I was looking at his paystub.
No bonuses this month. Huh.
“Well this is just sad,” I’d said. “Aren’t you selling that Micro—PIPE stock anymore?”
He didn’t look up. Just muttered, “Nope.”
“Slacking off these days?” Teasing. I was only teasing.
I guess he wasn’t in the mood for that though.
He pushed back from the table, grabbed his keys, and just… walked out.
He’d never left without telling me where he was going, not even after our worst fights. We’d made a silent sort of pact about that…
Hours later, lying in bed alone, I stared at the ceiling, my phone conspicuously silent.
I kept telling myself it wasn’t a big deal. That I’d just happened to poke at something already bothering him, pricked his pride. Everything would smooth out the way it always did.
Still, my fingers kept twisting the edge of the sheet. My chest felt too small for my lungs, and beneath the worry was a slow simmer of anger—at him for walking out when he should have realized I had only been teasing.
All he had to do was actually talk to me. I’d have apologized.
When the garage door finally groaned open, my exhale almost hurt. Relief, stupid and shaky, flooded me.
The door clicked. And in the dark, I heard the rustling of him undressing.
I hadn’t decided whether to confront him or feign sleep when the mattress dipped under his weight.
But he made the decision for me.
He didn’t say a word—just reached for me in the dark.
And my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
His hand found my hip, and moved lower. My breath caught.
“Sorry,” he murmured, voice thick.
“I know.”
“I’m so damn sorry, Ash. I… God…”
In retrospect, I should’ve asked more questions—where were you, what’s wrong? Why are you shutting me out?—but instead, I let him pull me to him.
There was no more talking.
Just the heat of his mouth on mine—hard, desperate.
His hand slid lower, rough and certain. He knew my skin better than I did.
When he moved between my legs, I didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t stop him.
Didn’t want to.
One hard thrust—deep, claiming, so much and not enough. I clung to the back of his head and the bed creaked beneath us as he drove into me, again and again.
My hands tangled in his hair, my legs locked tight around his waist like I could hold him there, keep him from vanishing again.
And I remember… tears slipped from the corners of my eyes.
He kissed them as he moved—hips relentless.
We rocked together like it meant something.
Like this would fix what words couldn’t.
But when it was over, instead of curling up beside me, he rolled onto his back.
I stared at the ceiling, heart still racing, skin still flushed, hoping that this was one way to hold us together, to get through whatever this was.
It wasn’t.