25. Imogen
Imogen
Ashton’s standing in Bex’s doorway asking to come in and tell me the truth, all of it, and I should say no. Every smart part of me lines up to say no, take the apology, wave him goodbye, call it square.
“Okay,” I hear myself say instead. “Then come in and start.”
He doesn’t move at first, like he’s waiting to be sure I mean it. Then I step back from the door, and he comes in.
“Sit. You look like you haven’t slept since I left.”
He sits, not on the couch but on the edge of the armchair, forearms on his knees, like he hasn’t earned the whole seat yet. I stay standing, because one of us should keep an advantage and it isn’t going to be him tonight.
“You wanted to talk,” I say. “So talk.”
“I ran a check on you the night I hired you. Your name came back as Rutledge. I knew before I made the offer.”
“I figured that part out at dinner.”
“I know. I’m not telling you to be forgiven for it.” He keeps his eyes on me. “I’m telling you because you asked me to start with the truth, and that’s where it starts.”
“Keep going.”
“Every night after the kitchen, I knew. Every time you mentioned your dad and I said nothing. I let you think you were the only one keeping a secret in that house.” His jaw works. “You weren’t. I was carrying a bigger one and I let you do all the worrying.”
I wait for the next part, the one I know is coming, where he tells me why all of it was actually fine and I should understand.
“You want a reason, I’ve got one, but I won’t pretend it’s an excuse.
” He drags a hand down his face. “Luke got pulled from three schools before I found you. Bit one nanny, locked himself in a supply closet at another place and wouldn’t come out for anybody.
Every tutor before you lasted a week, sometimes less.
He wouldn’t let a single one of them near him. ”
I already know most of this. I’ve seen what’s left of it every day, but I let him keep going anyway.
“Then you got on my floor and had him laughing in ninety seconds. First time I’d heard that sound in months.
” His eyes come up to mine. “So when the background check came back, I had two options. Send you away to keep faith with your father, or keep the one person who could reach my kid. I chose Luke. I’d choose him again. ”
“You could’ve just told me.”
“I’d have risked anything to keep you in that house.
My word to your father. The board. The whole company, if it came to it.
I put all of it behind Luke without blinking.
” His jaw tightens. “And I let you stand right in the middle of it without knowing you were there. That’s the part I can’t take back. ”
The strange thing, the thing I wasn’t braced for, is that it’s survivable. Him telling me the truth at two in the morning, and me still standing here in one piece. But I won’t let my guard down, not when there’s still so much he didn’t tell me.
“What else do you know about me?” I demand. “From the check. What came back?”
“Imogen.”
“No, I want the whole list. My mom’s name.
My defense in March, did you have the date for that too?
My grades, my landlord, who I dated in college?
” My voice keeps climbing. “You said it yourself, you checked me out like you’d check out some contractor.
So tell me what came up. I’d love to know everything you’ve been sitting on that I never actually told you. ”
“It was a background check,” he says. “I run one on everybody who gets near Luke. The nannies, the tutors, the woman who cleans twice a week. All of them.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s supposed to make you understand it wasn’t about you.
” He doesn’t move from the chair. “I’m worth a number that gets printed in magazines, Imogen.
That makes my kid a target. There are people who’d take a six-year-old off the street and wait by a phone for me to pay whatever they asked.
I’m not being dramatic, my lawyer keeps a file on the threats.
So no, I don’t let anybody near my son until I know exactly who they are. I checked you the same as everyone.”
I open my mouth, but he’s not finished.
“The part I did wrong wasn’t running the check. It was what I did after. I knew who you were and I kept it, and that’s the line I crossed, not the search.”
It’s a good answer. That’s the problem. It’s a really good answer, and I can’t tell if it’s true or just well-built, and not being able to tell is what tips me over.
So I do the only thing I know how to do when I’m this scared, which is grab the cruelest thing I can reach and throw it at his head.
“Remember what your ex told me? Fraser men don’t love, they collect.” I watch it leave my mouth and I don’t stop it. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe you can’t even tell anymore. Maybe there’s no real you under there to find. Just a guy with a file and a nice suit, picking out the next thing to keep.”
It’s a horrible thing to say, and I watch it hit, watch his shoulders take the weight of it.
Then I brace, because here comes the part I’ve known by heart my whole life.
Now he chases. Now he talks me out of it, fixes it, follows me into the hall with a better line, keeps going right over my no, because that’s what they all do.
They hear me say no and treat it like the first move in a fight they plan to win.
He stands and picks his coat up off the arm of the chair.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay?”
“You’re scared, and you’ve got every reason to be, because I’m the reason. If I stand here and argue you out of it, I prove every word you just threw at me.” He gets one arm into the coat, then the other. “So I’m not doing that. I’m not going to handle you out of this one.”
My mouth’s open with the next round already loaded, but there’s nothing left to fire it at.
“That’s it?” I say. “You’re just leaving?”
“I said what I came to say. The rest of it’s yours.”
I don’t have anything to put against that.
“When you want to talk, I’m around.” He straightens the collar, the old habit, except it isn’t armor going on this time, it’s just a man getting ready for the cold. “Not to fix anything. Just so you’re not doing it alone.”
Then he goes to the door, stops with his hand on the frame and looks back at me once. There’s nothing in his face but tired, and sorry, and a man deciding to leave when staying would’ve been easier. Then he goes.
Bex appears in her bedroom doorway. “That’s it? He left?”
“He did.”
“Without arguing?”
“Without arguing.”
She looks at the door for a second. “Huh,” she says, and goes back to bed.
My hand goes to the flat of my stomach where there’s nothing to feel yet and everything to feel anyway. I press my palm down and wait for the fear to do its job, to name itself and point at him, handing me a reason to keep the door bolted for good.
It won’t. The fear’s there, but it isn’t pointed at him. It’s pointed at me.
It was never that I can’t trust him.
It’s that I’m not sure I can trust myself to stay whole while I do.