Chapter 22
Belle
As we land in a pasture, chopper blades stir up the long grass. It ripples in waves towards a patch of flattened earth that has the vague outline of the home I shared with Dad, and briefly with Ash. And now it’s gone.
I wait for Ash to open the door for me, and he helps me out. I hold onto the sides of my dress until the wind settles and the helicopter falls silent. Ash traces the edge of my dress from the neck, through the valley between my breasts, to the tie refastened at my side.
“This is the dress you wore when we conceived Piper.”
“It is,” I say. “And apparently now you want to return to the scene of the crime.”
Our exchange sounds light, but it’s weighed down with more emotion than either of us dare to share.
I don’t know what Ash is planning to tell me, or how it might change my view of him, but I won’t change my mind in one respect.
We can’t go back. The us he’s searching for vanished along with the house.
Ash takes my hand. “Come on, we have a lot to discuss.”
I’d been too focused on the flattened site of my old home to give much notice to the barn.
And if I’m honest, I’m still too scared to look.
The last time I was here, it had already been gutted, turned into the empty husk of a dream I once had.
That husk has had to weather years of storms and neglect. I don’t know if I can do it.
I keep my gaze fixed on the ground as Ash leads the way. Long grass gives way to a dirt path and the wider expanse of what was once my backyard. I’ve trodden this path so many times, and my heart tugs as I step beneath the familiar shadow of the barn.
Ash lets go of my hand, and positions himself behind me. A strong arm wraps around my waist to pull me against him, the other cupping my chin, forcing me to lift my gaze.
My back flattens against his chest as the shock sends me reeling. The old barn is the same blood oxide red, and the doors and windows framed in white look freshly painted. The timbers are as solid as ever, and from what I can see of the roof, it looks sound.
“It hasn’t changed. Not one bit.” I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
He kisses the top of my head. “I wish I could say the interior hasn’t either, but the old bones of the distillery are here. It’s a start.”
I twist to look at him. “What do you mean, a start?”
“I already own four distilleries, Belle. If you wanted to add a fifth…” He shrugs.
“Don’t…” I warn hoarsely, pushing him away. “Don’t dangle that dream in front of me again. I don’t think my heart could take it.” Ash goes to follow me, but I shake my head, extending the distance between us. “I made peace with what I’d lost. You reminding me, isn’t helping.”
Ash undoes his cuffs and starts rolling up his sleeves.
“Belle, we’re going to go inside the barn and I’m going to tell you things that will be difficult for you to hear.
” He takes a step towards me. “I’m going to turn your world upside down so you won’t know which way is up and which way is down, and it’s going to feel like you’re spinning out of control.
” Another step. “It’s going to be disorienting, and I just wanted to give you a pinpoint in the future you could focus on.
” He’s right in front of me, and the inked images on his forearms undulate as he flexes his hands.
“If you’re trying to scare me, it’s working. I’m almost certain I don’t want to go inside now.”
He grabs my hand and starts pulling me towards the barn doors.
“Ash! I just said I didn’t want to go in there!”
“You said ‘almost,’ Belle. For future reference, don’t give me the option to push you into doing something, because I will take it,” he says gruffly. “Get inside. We both need to get this over and done with.”
I yank my hand free from Ash’s grasp as soon as we’re inside.
The air in the barn is cool and crisp, and I inhale deeply through my nose.
The air has a musty smell, laced with the scent of engine oil.
From the muddy tracks across the timber floor, there’s been a tractor in here recently, but the old still room is empty except for a small stack of wooden crates.
I stalk across the wide expanse, moving from one sunbeam to the next. I scrutinize the floor, spotting boards that are replacements for the ones that had been cut to access the distillery’s pipework and cabling when it was decommissioned.
Some of the original boards have scars where heavy machinery had been bolted down. The fermentation tank and control panels. And the copper stills. I’m already rebuilding the distillery in my mind. This is too tempting, and it feels like a trap. And then I remember. It is.
I’m standing in the center of the room while Ash remains guarding the door.
I hunch my shoulders and release a breath. “OK, tell me your earth-shattering secrets.”
Ash shoves his hands in his pockets. “They’re not my secrets, Belle. They’re Barrett’s.”
“But I’ve already told you I’m going to divorce him. I don’t care what he did or didn’t do.”
Ash begins walking around the perimeter of the room. “I care,” he says. “Because everything that happened to us – to you – changed the course of our lives. And Piper’s. That course needs correcting, and to do that we need to go right back to the beginning.”
I turn on the spot, following Ash’s progress. “You want to hear about my college years with Barrett?”
He shakes his head. “Quinn told me that stuff,” he says. “Good to know you didn’t fall for his dubious charm, but Barrett fell for you, Belle.”
“I told him we could only ever be friends.”
“Because you weren’t impressed by his wealth. Or his kiss apparently.”
“Are you sure you didn’t record my conversation with Quinn?” I ask, trying to be flippant even though my heart thuds a warning in my chest. Where is this leading?
Ash huffs. He really doesn’t like me questioning his integrity. “We can presume Barrett wanted to invest in the distillery so he could wheedle his way into your life, but when your dad died, he opted for a different approach.”
“You mean ghosting me?”
Ash stops in his tracks, and fixes me with his gaze. “Haunting you more like,” he says. “Instead of putting money into your business, he thought it would be more effective to drain money out of it.”
I give a half laugh. He can’t be serious. “That’s not possible. You saw the books. I accounted for every dime.”
“And most of those dimes were used to cover the interest on the bank loans your dad took out.”
If Ash is looking to wield a knife through my memories, that’s the first cut. I hadn’t known at the time that Dad remortgaged the distillery to fund my very expensive college education, for all the use I’ve put it to.
“What does that have to do with Barrett?” I ask, but Ash doesn’t need to reply. He can see the moment the answer hits me, and I stagger back. “The bank that took over our debt. That was him?”
He nods solemnly. “When did Barrett find out I was helping you?”
I close my eyes as I try to remember, but I feel myself sway.
I have to open them again, and it’s the sight of Ash that grounds me.
“We swapped a couple of emails while you were in Las Vegas. He was apologizing for not getting in touch, and I told him it was OK, that I had a new investor. The bank foreclosed on our loan days later.” I can hardly voice the next realization. “He deliberately ruined me.”
How many times had I insisted Barrett was a good man? Ash was right to warn me that this conversation would turn my world upside down.
“I’d told him Griffin Corps were involved. Was he punishing me because of you?”
“I’m sure that was a factor, but no, it was about you long before it was about me,” Ash says. “He wanted you penniless and vulnerable, so he drowned the distillery in debt.” He starts walking again, head down. “And when it was dead in the water, what did he do next, Belle?”
I press a hand to my chest. I’m breathing so fast I’m making myself dizzy. “When you came back from Vegas, I never gave him a thought. There was too much else going on.”
“You already suspected you were pregnant.”
It’s more information he’s gleaned from Quinn, but I’m glad he knows. “I think I would have told you, but you left before I had the chance to do a test.”
“And while I was back home, Barrett made his move,” Ash says, moving the conversation on. “He would have known I’d be with Dad. We might have been estranged, but both sides of the family tended to know what the other was doing,” he says, then adds. “Although we clearly didn’t know everything.”
“He wanted to know if there was anything he could do,” I say, picturing the day he’d turned up unexpectedly.
“I don’t know how he had the nerve to look me in the eye and tell me how sorry he was for not helping sooner.
” I shake my head. He must have thought me so stupid to fall for his false concern.
“He figured out for himself that we’d been more than just potential business partners, and I came so close to telling him I was pregnant. ”
My strength leaves me and I fold in two, resting my hands on my knees. My ponytail falls over my shoulder as I take slow, mindful breaths. I can’t see Ash, but I hear his footsteps, slow and measured, drawing closer.
“The only reason I didn’t was because he’d told me you were related, and I was worried it would get back to you.” I bite down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him.”
As I stare at the floor and will it to open up and swallow me whole, Ash’s feet appear in front of me. He crouches down, and sweeps my ponytail to the side so he can see my face. “It was me you didn’t trust,” he finishes.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice quavering.
“We both know I didn’t help my case,” he says. His eyes are soft. There’s no judgement, only sympathy. “And neither of us knew what Barrett was up to, or how tenacious he would be in his pursuit of you.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
He takes me by the elbows and helps me straighten. “You need to sit down.”