chapter NINETEEN #2
Asher pushes off the island and runs his hand along the back of his neck. He paces a few steps and then turns back to me. His chest rises and falls with deep, hard breaths.
“I never once lied to you. I tell it like it is, I do what I want, but I never manipulate the truth.” He moves toward me, severe and snappish. “Don’t act so innocent. You have no idea what I have been though. I had no idea what your intentions—”
“My intentions?” I cut him off. This time, it’s my turn to push away from the island. “What exactly do you think I was doing in Italy? Tell me!” Outrage and resentment rise in my chest.
Asher looks back at me, his breath heavy, his words controlled. “You knew exactly what you were doing.” His voice is filled with accusation but his eyes—his eyes are filled with something else.
I turn away from him for fear if I look at him for one more second I’ll fall down the rabbit hole. I fought too hard to be brought back down. I rose from the bed. I lifted the fork to my mouth. I got on a plane and came here to make a new start for my new life.
I am the diamond. I cannot be broken.
“Why are you doing this?” I turn back to him, lifting my arms in exasperation.
“You know everything about me. You see this.” I hold up my hand revealing the scar that brandishes my skin.
“This is me. On January second, my boyfriend, who I thought I loved, broke up with me. He tore my heart apart. So my brother—my sweet, funny, wonderful brother—took me out. I asked him—no, I begged him to drive. I pleaded with him to take the pain away with the rush of an engine and that cost him his life. And this”—I hold up my hand higher, closer to his face—“this is all I have left!”
I pull my arms away and clench the tarnished skin in my other hand.
“But you know this. You know this because you looked me up. No one as untrusting as you would have gone near me without knowing everything. You know I lived to play the violin. You know what I was doing in Capri. And you know every single word I said to you on that island was true.”
“Emma—”
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t say anything except the one thing I need you to say.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say it!”
“Say what?”
My heart squeezes tight as I march toward him. “That you were wrong! I want you to—”
“I was wrong!” He speaks so loudly the room vibrates. “I was wrong. I knew I was wrong the next day.”
I let out a loud breath, expelling the weight that was sitting in my ribs. My heart continues to race, and now my mind is playing catch-up.
Did he just—?
Is he admitting that he—?
“Then why didn’t you come back for me?”
“I don’t know!” Asher spins around. His back widens as his arms rise and his hands run through his hair, pulling it at the ends.
“I don’t know. I just . . . That night when security called, saying Adam Reingold was looking into me, researching me—I was furious.
We pulled up anchor and got out of there.
I wanted, needed to believe you were like everyone else. ”
“I don’t want your money if that’s what you’re accusing me of.” I practically spit the words at him. “I don’t want anything from you. I liked you when I thought you had nothing.”
My words force him to turn around and face me. The look on his face is one of defeat and disappointment. “I know.”
His sullen posture and red-rimmed eyes take the bitterness away. He’s hurting too. “I don’t understand. When you first saw me at the school you were so mad. You have been so mad.”
With my words, Asher is quickly moving toward me.
When he reaches me, he places both hands gently on my arms. “I am mad. Hell, I’m fucking furious.
I don’t want you here. And, no, it’s not because I don’t want you.
I have been fighting the urge to come find you.
To go to you and apologize. I came close. ”
His forehead leans toward mine, his eyes full of something so sincere, I could swear I am standing on a stairwell in Capri. “But every time I thought about it, I couldn’t. I’m scared, Emma. I’m scared of what might happen if you turn out to be the woman I feared you were.”
My eyes close, and I try to process everything he’s saying. Asher wants me. He’s always wanted me. He knew he was wrong.
“How do you know I’m not that kind of woman? What’s changed?”
He rubs the back of his neck slightly, his head tilting to the side. “Everything. Nothing.”
Those eyes have turned to honey and the look of the man I fell for is back, right here in front of me, saying all the words I’ve wanted to hear.
There is one major problem. He still left and never came back. He lied in Italy and he is lying now. His words sound right, but they’re all wrong.
They’re empty. Like his heart.
I step back from him, attempting to distance myself from his hold on my body and my heart.
“I know why you left me. Even that next morning when I stood at the marina, looking for you, wondering why you left. I knew.” My fists clench tight, and I feel the searing pain rising from my hand all the way up my arm.
I use that pain as power. I use that pain as a reminder.
I use that pain to feel. “You’re a coward and a user.
I trusted you. By God, I let you into my heart when I had shut everyone else out.
I gave you a piece of me that was so sacred it can’t be given back. You take and take but you never give.”
When the pain of the words matches the pain of my hand, I release the clench and hold my hand up high to my chest, cradling it with care. Asher reaches for me again, his eyes carnal as he takes a step forward and grabs the injured hand with his and puts it up to his heart. “Emma—”
“I’m fine.” I try to pull my hand back but he pulls it toward him. His other hand inches up and rests on the side of my face, his fingers tangle in my hair. My chin rises but my eyes keep their concentration on the zipper of his jacket and the heavy rise and fall of his chest.
“No, you’re not. Neither of us are.” Asher’s thumb grazes my lip, and I let out a sigh at the feel of his touch. I recall the taste of his lips and the feel of his hands as they work their way along my body.
My body may want him but my heart is in pieces.
“I need you to leave.”
His body jolts against mine. “What?”
“Leave.”
My cheek feels an instant chill as his hand releases me. The pain in my right hand still burns, but when he releases it, it feels like its being crushed by four thousand pounds of metal again.
I hug my body tight and look up at him. His jaw is hollowed and his face is clenched. “Emma, I—I don’t know how to tell you. I’m trying to show you how I feel. I’m not good at this.”
I sniff back a tear and breathe deep into my gut. “You need to leave.”
My eyes clench shut, and I hold them still, waiting for him to move.
When I open them it is just in time to see him back away, rubbing the back of his neck.
He looks around the room one more time before gaining his full composure.
Right before my eyes I watch as the Asher Gutierrez I met in Italy becomes the Alexander Asher I know he really is.
The man who uses and takes. He didn’t get what he wanted so he is walking out the door.
I walk over to the window and watch him cross the street and climb on his motorcycle. He revs the engine and then just sits there idling, looking at my front door as if waiting for me to come out.
I must be a glutton for punishment because, for a brief moment, I consider going outside and going with him. Absolutely not. I have pride.
He’s forgetting he accused me of dishonesty and trickery. I can’t forget the way he made me feel, standing with my bare feet looking at a sea void of his presence. He left me. He disappeared.
And what did I do?
I followed him to New York.
“When you first took the job in New York I thought it was because he lived there. Like you needed to be near him or something.” Leah’s words echo in my head.
I lean down and let out a low scream at the fact she was absolutely right.
I didn’t know if he would be here. I didn’t know if I would ever see him again.
But I have to stop lying to myself and own up to the fact I wanted to see him.
And he’s here, looking devastatingly gorgeous and saying the right words and he wants me to follow him.
“There is a fire between us, Emma, and I know we’re gonna get burned.”
I walk over to the front door and slam it shut.