Chapter 20
Ash
I’d come to terms with never seeing her again, convinced myself I didn’t need to see her again, but Belle’s the reason I’ve rejected the touch of every other woman in the last six years. I hadn’t wanted to erase the fingerprints she left on my skin, or the memory of her mouth against mine.
Every emotion I thought I’d buried rises up from the grave and breathes new life into me. Not to mention my iron-hard cock as Belle grinds against me. I don’t much care that we’re on the public highway. But I care enough.
I wind her ponytail around my fist and pull her head back. “You taste of whiskey.”
There’s a flash of guilt in her eyes. “Might explain my hangover.”
I trail my tongue over the seam of her mouth. “You always tasted of whiskey,” I whisper. “I could never get enough of it.”
She trails a hand along my jawline, her fingers exploring the bristles covering my chin. “Ash, we can’t go back. Too much has changed.”
I ignore the seriousness of her tone. “If it’s the beard, I could shave it off.”
“It’s not the beard.” Belle tries to smile. “It’s everything else.”
“Tell me what you want, Belle. Tell me what you need.”
“I need you to leave me alone.”
I look down to where her thighs bracket my body, her ankles locked behind me. “That might be where your head is at, sweetheart but your body says different.”
She loosens her hold and drops her legs, but she doesn’t push me away. Not yet.
“Say you’re going to leave him,” I insist. It’s the bare minimum of what I’m willing to accept.
Belle trails a finger over the contours of my face and follows with her gaze. “The arrangement with Barrett was always going to come to an end. It was simply a matter of when.”
Not good enough. “End it now.”
She glares, but there’s no anger left behind those deep blue eyes. “I’ll end it soon.”
“Does he know?”
“He’s expecting it.”
I cover my hand over hers where it rests on my cheek.
“He won’t make it easy for you. I don’t think you have any idea what kind of tricks that man would pull to keep you,” I warn.
I don’t know where to begin unpacking all the lies Barrett’s told her, or even if I know them all.
“He’s been pursuing you for a very long time.
You were the reason he approached your dad about investing in the distillery. ”
She shrugs it off. “If he was out to impress me, he didn’t try very hard. He ignored all my emails after dad died.” Her eyes bounce between mine. Suspicion knits her brow. “Did you know he’d been looking to invest? Was that why you showed up? Was it all part of your vendetta against him?”
My jaw clenches beneath her fingertips.
“No, Belle, I didn’t know about your connection with him,” I tell her. “And there was never a vendetta, not back then. Barrett had only just taken over his dad’s empire, and I was yet to discover his penchant for taking over struggling businesses so he could squash them into the ground.”
I leave a pause, hoping Belle will join the dots. She has to see that it’s no coincidence that certain small businesses had failed once Barrett took an interest in them. The distillery. The food processing factory where Ethan died…
“And that’s what he was going to do to Maddie’s paper mill,” she says.
It’s not the leap I wanted, but it’s progress.
“I take it Ray sent the video.”
“Unfortunately,” she says, going a little green at the memory.
“It was played at the chapel to stop Maddie from marrying Barrett,” I explain. “And now the paper mill’s thriving. That’s how I deal with failing businesses. It’s what I’d wanted to do with the distillery.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I remember,” she says. “And I also remember that some of your dealings weren’t with small businesses.”
And that was a big problem for her. It’s the wedge that drove us apart. It’s the wedge that might keep us apart, but I won’t keep anything from her. “It’s fair to say that some of the partnerships I formed are… complicated.”
“The word you’re looking for is criminal, Ash.”
Fair point. “Griffin Corps has grown exponentially in the last few years, and for the most part, I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.
My brothers and I don’t just save companies, Belle.
We protect people’s jobs and keep communities alive,” I say, starting with the more palatable aspects of the empire my brothers and I have built.
“The work we do for the McConkeys still provides some of the funds we need so we can help others, but these days, we only focus on their legitimate ventures.”
“Except when you’re not in the middle of a turf war,” she reminds me.
“Except when we’re not being drawn into a turf war because Barrett picked the wrong side,” I correct her.
Before I can explain more, there’s the sound of an approaching vehicle in the distance. It won’t look good if Barrett’s wife and Katarina’s soon-to-be fiancé are spotted in a compromising position.
Forced to take a step back, I hold Belle’s hand as she slides off the hood. “I need to get back,” she says, straightening her dress.
I nod reluctantly, and we’re both back in the car by the time the truck passes. She taps a message into her cell phone before she turns to me.
“Barrett’s in New York all week, but I’m going to ask him for a divorce this weekend,” she says.
The sigh of relief I’m about to release gets trapped in my throat when she quickly adds, “But I’m not going to move in with you, Ash.
It’s going to be confusing enough for Piper.
And me too. There’s a lot to make sense of. ”
“If you’re going to make sense of it, you’re going to need to know everything.
And as shocked as you were by that video, it’s not the worst of it, Belle,” I say, trying to ignore the fact that she’s still refusing to accept my protection.
“But if I have the working week to help you unravel everything, I can work with that.” It also gives me time to initiate a plan to make Katarina disappear along with all the problems associated with the Barkovs.
“Why do I have a horrible feeling that I’m going to be the one unravelling by the end of it all?” Belle asks.
There’s only one way I want to unravel Belle, and I fight a smile when she realizes what she’s said and blushes.
“I meant mentally,” she clarifies.
“Sure you did,” I say, willing my cock to stand down. I take a breath. “I promised you the ugly truth, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get, but first, I need two things from you. I need you to give me access to Ethan’s emails.”
Her mouth falls open in shock. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because we need to look under every stone to see what comes crawling out,” I say. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. I promise it’s not to get some sick thrill out of digging up your dead husband’s past.”
She shakes her head, but it’s not a refusal. “I dread to think what the other thing is.”
“Four hours of your time.”
Her sigh reverberates through her chest. She’s trying to act nonchalant, when she says, “To talk?”
I reach across and cup her jaw, my fingers tracing her pulse point. Her heart is racing like a jackhammer. “If there’s anything else you want, you only have to ask. You used to be good at that.”
She pushes my hand away and starts the engine. “There’s nothing I want worth considering,” she mutters.
“Unblock my damn number, and we can agree a day and time,” I say. And because I feel obliged to clarify, I add, “So we can talk.”
It only takes ten minutes to reach the Emerson estate, and I’m fighting a smug smile the entire time. She’s going to leave Barrett. That’s all I can think about, but my smile vanishes the second the gates come into view.
“What the…?” I say. Or at least I try to say. No words are able to escape because my throat has closed up with too much emotion.
Belle brings the car to a stop a hundred yards from the two figures standing on the opposite side of the gates. “You’ll need to get out here so the cameras don’t pick you up.”
I know my eyes are glassy when I look at her, but there are tears in her eyes too. “You planned this?”
“It’s not much…” she says croakily. “I’m sorry.”
I stare back as the gates start to open, giving me a clear line of sight to Belle’s friend with purple hair. Next to her is a little girl with dark brown locks and eyes the color of whiskey, just like her father’s.
“Thank you,” I whisper with what’s left of the breath crushed from my lungs.
I climb out of the BMW, and I’m not sure how my legs keep me up. I’ve been in plenty of highly-stress situations, but I’ve never felt this level of shock before. My toes and fingers tingle as an immovable band tightens around my chest.
“Hey, Piper,” I say, even though she can’t hear me. Maybe it’s better that she can’t because I can just come out and say what I need to say. “I’m your dad. And I love you so much.”
Piper jumps up and down, clapping her hands as Belle drives towards them. When the BMW is on the other side of the gates, Belle gets out and sweeps Piper into her arms. Our daughter is resting on her hip as her mom whispers something in her ear. She turns and looks at me.
My daughter looks at me, and she waves. Something magical bursts to life in my chest. I do have a fucking heart after all.