26. Skylar #2
“Ashton, listen to me.” His furious gaze flicks back to mine. “He had his reasons. Whether or not they were valid…he was protecting me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?” I croak.
“Do you still have that sweatshirt?”
“Yeah, why—”
“Because I’m going to light it on fire and throw it at his fucking house, that’s why.” He starts pacing, looking under file folders and opening cabinets as if it’s going to materialize right here in my office.
“You realize I live there too, right?”
He turns around, slapping a hand on his forehead. “Shit.”
“Ashton.”
“Why, Skylar? I get you guys got caught up and the whole marriage thing happened, but why aren’t you pursuing an annulment?”
At this point, I’m in too deep. I might as well come clean about everything, so I do.
I tell him about my stepdad and the surgery, about my meeting with my dad’s lawyer, and the marriage stipulation in my trust. All of it.
He sits and listens, nodding at times, frowning at others.
When I’m finally done, his anger has softened, and now he just looks sad.
“I’m so sorry, Skylar. I can help. If you need money, I can get together—”
“No. This is why I didn’t want to tell you at first. I need to do this on my own. I know it’s not technically ethical or whatever, but he shouldn’t have tied my worth to marriage.”
Ashton nods in understanding. “You’re worth everything, you know that?”
I do that blush thing I do whenever someone compliments me. “I do now.”
Ash releases a long, drawn-out breath. “It’s all been fake? This whole time?”
“Yes. Well, yes.”
Ashton’s right eyebrow shoots up.
“Sort of? It was for a bit and then…”
“You slept with him again,” he finishes for me.
“Not exactly, but we have been… intimate.”
He crosses over to the doorway. “I think I’ve heard enough for today.
” He shakes his head as if trying to loosen the thought from his brain.
“Thanks for talking to me, Skylar. I mean it. I know it must have been hard to dredge all that up.” He looks at the door, then back at me. “I’m still going to kick his ass.”
“I’m sure you will. Hey, Ash?”
He turns around. “Yeah?”
“Was Declan with a lot of women? You know, in college and after?”
Declan’s words from the other night are still fresh in my mind.
Once I had you, I couldn’t even stand the thought of being with anyone else.
I couldn’t have heard him correctly, and yet, if anyone would know, it would be Ashton.
“Define a lot.”
Shaking my head, I log out of my computer. Clearly, nothing else productive is happening today. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
“For whatever it’s worth, he’s only ever looked at you like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re the only person in the room.”
I swallow the lump of emotion in my throat, and he gives me a small smile before he walks out.
It only takes ten minutes after Ashton leaves for my phone to start buzzing with messages in the girls’ group chat.
Allie invites Emory and me to have dinner “chef’s table” style at her restaurant, and even though I know Declan and I need to talk, I accept.
A few more hours of avoidance can’t hurt, right?
Emory and I sit in the kitchen like we did a few weeks ago, but this time Allie actually serves us small plates, each one more delicious than the last. The whole time Julian’s chopping or using tiny tweezers to place garnishes at his station, but he glances my way every so often.
There’s no way he can be interested in me after the emotional roller-coaster he witnessed at the bar, but his attention still makes me blush.
After the third or fourth course, I start to relax a little.
The atmosphere is light with Allie and Emory ribbing each other like they normally do, and it’s fun to watch Allie so in her element.
When she’s not serving us or chatting, she’s calling out orders and yelling at her staff, not in a mean way, but more like a big crazy family.
Allie offers us champagne, which I haven’t drunk since the night I married Declan.
I decline, but when she takes the wire off the top, my gaze catches on my naked ring finger, and my heart dips.
I have to excuse myself to use the restroom, and that’s when I notice the fading hickey on my neck.
It must have been from the night Declan took me to get my car because he hasn’t kissed me since.
Certainly not the last time we hooked up.
Suddenly, it all becomes too much. The champagne wire, Julian’s judgy eyes drifting over every so often, the hickey.
I splash some water on my face, head back to the kitchen and thank Allie for a great evening.
I say goodbye to Emory who has a knowing look in her eye, but she can’t possibly know what I’m thinking because even I don’t fully understand it.
All I know is that when I get back to Declan’s house, he’s already asleep.
I go into my room, open the drawer of my nightstand and slip the twisted piece of metal onto my finger.
Then before I can talk myself out of it, I change into an oversized T-shirt and pad down the hallway towards Declan’s room.
It’s dark, almost pitch black aside from a sliver of moonlight filtering in through a crack in the curtains.
It casts a line over his sleeping form, allowing me to see that he’s naked from the waist up.
There are shadows of ink scattered around his upper body, but I can’t make out what any of the tattoos are.
His chest rises and falls with each of his breaths, and it reminds me of my first kiss—the one I stole, the one he never knew about.
Climbing under the covers, I slowly move my body until my back is flush against his front.
He stirs, moving closer and putting his arm around me.
I look back to check, and he’s still fast asleep.
His warmth surrounds me, filling the ache in my chest like a balm, and for the first time in weeks, it takes only seconds for me to fall asleep.