Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
ASPEN
T hirty-five.
Thirty-six.
Thirty-seven.
Thirty-eight.
I spun the foreign piece of metal around my finger in time with the elevator climbing each level.
When it reached forty, I clenched my fist to keep from ripping it off. Almost a week later, and I wondered if I’d ever get used to the choking tightness around my skin. And whenever I entered the office, I swore I heard it ticking like a time bomb, waiting for someone to notice the brilliant diamond and deal with the exploding fallout.
I held my breath as the doors slid open, hoping and praying I didn’t run into anyone that would pay too close attention. Thankfully, the holiday weekend led to a large chunk of the employees taking time off and offering quiet with fewer prying eyes. Including my dad, who was currently on a golf trip.
I’d made it this far. All I needed to do was make it to my office, and I could hide away without anyone?—
My breath rushed from my lungs when I came face-to-face with bright teal-gray eyes and a riotous crown of curls.
“Hey, girl,” she greeted with a smile.
I swallowed the lump of panic rising up my throat and curled my left hand under my right arm, barely breathing a response. “Shiloh.”
Upon observing my frozen stance and unblinking stare, her smile slipped. “Are you okay?” she asked, stepping between the elevator doors to hold them open.
Am I okay?
Bubbles of panic rise and pop into my chest, higher and higher until I have to pinch my lips shut in fear of releasing a manic laugh because no, I was not okay.
I’d moved around the office all week looking over my shoulder to make sure no one popped out and caught me with my hand swinging free and saw the ring. The anticipation of having to tell someone that I agreed to marry the man I fight with at almost every meeting built tension along my spine until I thought it would crack under the pressure.
I was not okay.
And trying to avoid Shiloh while she stood right in front of me was too much. My muscles clenched, bracing to flee, yet I couldn’t make my legs move.
“Aspen?” she asked.
Her caution snapped something inside me, and I did what made me successful in business. I made a gut decision and ran with it. No second guessing.
Her eyes widened when I moved without warning, hooking my hand around her arm and dragging her with me. I ignored her sputtered protests and questions all the way to her office. I considered mine, but hers was closer, and I didn’t know how long my fortitude would last.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked as soon as the door latched closed behind us.
She straightened the sleeve of her shirt and faced me with furrowed brows before finally answering. “Uh, yes. Anything, duh.”
“You hesitated,” I accused.
She laughed. “Who wouldn’t hesitate? And not because I’m not ready to hear anything,” she explained before I could interrupt. “But because my mind fumbled over forming words while it was busy concocting a million things that you could possibly need to tell me after yanking me halfway across the office and acting like a madwoman.”
I studied her with narrowed eyes before confirming. “But I can tell you anything, correct?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, some of the million possibilities my mind came up with, and I still said yes, ranged from needing help to hide a body, finding out you’re actually an alien, hoping that you’re being kidnapped to a world of sexy fairies, and you want me to come with you, to something as simple as you stubbed your toe.” She stopped and laughed like she had an inside secret with herself. “Or maybe you slept with Lucian.”
My stomach bottomed out, and my eyes shot wide. How the fuck had she guessed? Did I have ‘I’ve done sexual acts with Lucian Daire’ stamped on my back and not know about it? Or did…
Did she not know and laughed because she thought me being an alien was a bigger possibility than sleeping with Lucian—let alone agreeing to marry him? Shit. I struggled to school my features into a neutral expression, and before I could, she caught my original look, and her laugh evaporated. Now I wasn’t the only one with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
“What the fuck, Aspen?” she asked slowly. “You slept with Mr. Dark and Douchy?”
Strangled noises escaped my throat before I managed a squeaky ramble. “Yes. But just once. Mostly we’ve done other things. But that’s not what I needed to tell you.”
Her face scrunched, and she shook her head. “What?” she screeched, blinking and looking around like something would pop out to help everything make sense. When it didn’t, she shook her head again. “Wait. What?”
I licked my trembling lips and swallowed. With a deep breath, I held her gaze and raised my left hand. Her gaze immediately locked on to the large, impossible to miss, sparkling diamond.
Besides her jaw dropping, she didn’t react. She stood so still I worried she went into shock and froze in place.
“Shiloh?” I asked with a squeak.
Finally, she at least blinked. I think she attempted to speak, but all that escaped were incomplete stutters before she managed a hoarse, “Who?”
As if she didn’t know. I pinched my lips and glared, refusing to say it out loud as if that would soften the reality.
The hope that it might be someone else slipped away, and she went back to her dropped jaw and frozen posture. This time with added incredulous blinks. She could blink all she wanted; the ring wouldn’t disappear.
I’d tried almost every time I glanced at it.
The silence dragged, tugging at my skin until I thought I would snap. Imagining her reprimand and calling me crazy and pointing out all the flaws in my plan and everything in between left me off balance and waiting for the ground to come up and smack me in the face. “Say something.”
Her mouth opened and closed, and I pleaded with wide eyes for her to put me out of my misery.
“I was really hoping for sexy fairies.”
The breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding whooshed from my lungs, pulling an incredulous laugh with it. The tension cracked apart, leading to more manic giggles until she joined in, laughing with me.
We struggled to catch our breaths and gasped half words like, crazy, how, what, insane, I can’t, oh my god—none of it making sense.
Soon, the laughter faded, and reality crept back in. I took a deep breath and fell back onto her couch, running my hands along the dark teal velvet fabric. “If it makes you feel any better, I wish it were sexy fairies, too.”
“Okay.” She sighed, plopping beside me and pulling one leg onto the cushion to face me. “First of all, what the fuck? Second of all, start from the beginning.”
I groaned, but did as she requested. I skimmed over some of the details, like him finding me in the middle of the panic attack, and that first time I went to ask him to spank me. Okay, I skimmed over a lot of that and summarized it as seeking an outlet for sexual exploration and us being compatible. I tried to skim over some of the experiences, but she claimed if she had to listen to the crazy, then I better reward her with the wild.
My shoulders worked their way back up my neck until, by the end, they almost touched my ears and the knot between my shoulder blades twisted so tight I worried I’d never relax again.
Any release from the laughing vanished, along with the hope that talking it out with Shiloh would help ease the doubt threatening to overflow.
“Okay,” Shiloh repeated with another sigh. “I’m still going with what the fuck, but less extreme.”
“I guess I’ll take that as a win,” I said with a forced smile.
She paused, and I held my breath, biting back words to defend my situation and attempt to cut into the objections I saw brewing in her thoughts. But I told her for a reason, and part of that was to hear more than my own voice.
“It just seems like an extreme choice in response to your dad’s stipulations. I mean, do you really think you wouldn’t be able to obtain the funds for the final five percent?”
“I don’t know. I ran the numbers and predictions about market value with an accountant to confirm what Lucian said about how much it would cost in five years to buy my way into majority shares. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right,” I grumbled. “And the way we fight day in and day out, I wouldn’t put it past him to be a spiteful asshole and change the name of this company— my company.”
“So, you decided to marry the spiteful asshole?” she asked slowly, with narrowed eyes.
“It’s only five years,” I defended. “And…”
Shiloh smirked. “And the sexual exploration.”
“And the sexual exploration,” I agreed.
“That hasn’t included sex.”
“Other than once.”
Another sigh, that left me with the same feeling I had with my dad who I always managed to make sigh, too. “I’m just worried about you. It sounds like the reason your father wanted you to wait five years to take on the company was so you had the opportunity to explore life and make sure this is what you really want. Tying yourself to a man you don’t even like seems to be the complete opposite of that. And not that I agree with the way he did it, but you’re young and haven’t worked anywhere else. Hell, while most kids spent their summers exploring and working part time, you spent more than forty hours demanding to be my intern. While most kids went on spring break in college, you shadowed your dad. You’re only twenty-five, and I wonder how much you’ve experienced.”
Anger reignited from when Dad first surprised me with his retirement. The way he sold part of the shares to a stranger without even consulting me came as a sucker punch that stole my breath all over again. The way he demanded I needed to go on some self-discovery made me doubt how much he knew me.
“I don’t need to gain drunken experiences with a bunch of frat boys at a beach to know who I am and what I want. I don’t need to work at a new place each summer to know that this company is where I want to be. I know myself,” I claimed confidently despite the whispered doubt that never faded. The one that asked if I knew myself so well, then why was I learning a whole new side with Lucian? I shook the thought aside. “This company is everything I’ve worked for because it has been my foundation that has never failed to ground me when life was a shit show. This company has been my constant. This company has been my success, my determination, and my future. I never imagined anything else, because I didn’t want to. And there isn’t anything wrong with that.”
“There isn’t,” she confirmed. “I might not have been a teenage intern, but music has always been my constant and, since I lacked music creativity and talent, being on the business side has been everything I wanted and more. I may have worked at McDonalds first, but as soon as I went to college and discovered the other jobs, I knew it was what I wanted. I get it, but I can also understand a father looking out for his daughter. I know mine did things that pissed me off when he thought he knew best.”
I hate this. I hate this feeling of uncertainty. Where once I could clearly picture my future, now all I see are murky images in darkness. But I guess at least I have that. Before this arrangement with Lucian, I felt like I was fumbling through darkness, constantly turned around and unable to see what came next. I guess when he asked, I latched on to the first thing that felt solid beneath my searching hands—something to ground me and guide me in the dark. Something that offered the slightest hint of control in where I stepped next. Something that illuminated the darkness enough for me to start creating a new image of my future. Even if it is blurry and misshapen as hell. “Ugh,” I groaned, tossing my hands and letting them flop back to the cushions. “Why can’t he just trust me? Why couldn’t he have talked to me first?”
“Have you talked to him?” she asked cautiously. “About finding an alternative to the contract? Maybe you could come to a compromise that ensures you gain the five percent without the possibility of losing it?”
“No,” I muttered with a side eye. “Where do you think I get my stubbornness from? He won’t change his mind. And despite what Mr. Dumb-dumb thinks, I’ve earned my position here. Dad would have it no other way. He knew how privileged we were and ensured I worked hard because he refused to let me grow up to be an entitled snot,” I explained with air quotes.
Shiloh snorted. “How nice of him.”
“He’s not wrong,” I begrudgingly admitted.
“Soooo… Have you told him about the engagement?”
I whipped my gaze to hers. “No. I haven’t told anyone.”
“How has no one noticed that rock you’re flashing around?”
“I haven’t been flashing it around. I’ve been hiding it in a mostly empty office.”
“How much longer do you think you can pull that off?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Lucian? What has he said about all of this? Doesn’t he plan on telling people?”
“We…didn’t really get a chance to talk about it.” Her brows shot up, and I rushed to explain. “After I agreed,”—i.e., he finished eating me out on his coffee table—“he got a call that pulled him away. Then he had a trip to California, and I’ve taken that time to avoid his phone calls so I could continue hiding.”
“Wow.” She blinked. “You never hide.”
“I know,” I said with a glare. “And I don’t like it, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than the impending chaos for whenever he returns.”
She winced. “Well, spoiler alert, but he’s here today.”
“Sweet,” I deadpanned.
“So, what’s the plan now?”
“Keep hiding the ring until I can buy myself time to talk to him about the details of how we plan to tell people. Ooo!” An idea hits, and I perk upright. “Or maybe I can ask him to keep it all a secret and no one will ever have to know a thing. Especially my dad.”
Shiloh just stared.
“I know.” I fell back against the couch again. “You don’t have to be mean about it.”
She huffed a laugh and laid her hand atop mine. “Unfortunately, I can’t offer much beyond listening and supporting you through whatever decision you make. I’m always here.”
I turned my hand to clasp hers. “Thanks.”
“I’ll also offer unsolicited advice because I’m your friend. You need to be sure to tell your dad before he finds out from someone else. If you take control of anything, make sure you take control of that.”
“I will. I just need to talk to Lucian first.”
“I would get on that. Today,” she clarified with a no bullshit look.
“Fine, Mom.”
“Also, I’m sorry about his godfather. As much as I’m questioning him after his petty asshole ways and kind of hate him for even suggesting this wild engagement, I hate that he’s losing someone.”
“Me too,” I agreed softly. I hated Lucian for a multitude of reasons, but I also understood his reasoning. I understood what it was like to watch the person you love slowly die and be willing to do anything to make it easier on them. I would have done anything to make my mom smile at the end. “I guess it’s time to go back out into the office.”
“Yup.”
“Are you sure I can’t just hide in here until forever?”
“Hah. Yeah, right. I have meetings, and you need to remember that you’re Aspen Quinn, and Aspen fucking Quinn doesn’t hide.”
With that last boost of encouragement and reminder of who I was, I nodded and walked out with my head held high.
And my hand securely stuffed under my right arm.