“So, yeah,” Felicity’s unnaturally loud voice—as if she was alerting us—sounded on the other side of the door. The door swung open.
A path of light beamed from the opening and onto the two of us.
Colin released me.
“So, like, yeah, the Chinese food is pretty good at Chan’s, but…”
Felicity came to a halt, and the security guy bumped into her back.
An apology scrunched her face.
Shame lashed through me. He’s rejecting you, Ashlyn. Keep your pride and go drown your bruised ego in some spiked punch. I crossed to the door, passing the security guy and nearly tripped down the steep flight of stairs.
“Oh, man.” Felicity stayed at my heels. “I tried to keep him from going out there, but he wasn’t buying my conversation skills. Sorry.
What happened?”
“I feel like an idiot.”
“Oh, jeez,” Felicity said. “Details?”
“Ash.” Colin.
I stalled outside my bedroom door, turned and found him two feet away. Oh, no. Had he heard me?
“We need to talk,” he said. “After the party.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat, panicked that he’d overheard Felicity and me, but I managed to nod.
The warmth from his jacket was gone now, and I slipped the garment off my shoulders and held it out for him. He hesitated a moment, then took it, holding me in a pointed gaze for a second more before he hurried down the stairs, slipping it back on.
I went to my bedroom and Felicity followed, shutting the door at her back. I was ready to buckle in a sob, but I drew in a deep breath instead. “I… asked him to dance with me and he… refused.”
“Oh, yikes. That’s harsh.”
“I made a fool out of myself,” I said. “He sees me a job. That’s it.”
“Not necessarily. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have stopped you and told you he wanted to talk later.”
“What if he heard us?” I fell onto the bed. “How humiliating. My life since he got here has been one humiliation after another.”
“Your life has always been humiliating. Nothing’s changed except that he’s here, witnessing it.”
“Thanks.”
“Get up.” She pulled me upright. “You need to be dazzling. You can’t hide up here, moping. Like they say, ‘nothing’s more irresistible to a man that a woman he can’t have.’”
“But he can have me. I want him to have me.”
“I’m talking about right here and now. Go down there and have fun. Be irresistible.”
She had a point. “But they’re all way old.”
“Maybe some new meat has arrived. Come on.” Felicity urged me to my feet.
“Aged meat.”
“Beef jerky,” Felicity snorted.
We shared a laugh. “I swear Mother and Daddy don’t invite anyone young into the house just to make sure I never get a chance to meet anybody.”
“That has a sort of twisted logic where your Dad is concerned,”
Felicity commented. “Doesn’t matter. Colin’s here.”
He’s who I want.
Felicity and I ventured to the music room. Daddy was on one end, Mother on the other, entertaining guests. When we entered, Daddy looked over. I often wondered if he had a sixth sense about me; his ability to feel my presence had always been keen. Uncanny.
He excused himself from his guests and crossed the wood floor with the confident grace of a man in complete control. “Princess, where have you been? I want you to play now.”
I left Felicity and accompanied Daddy to the shiny black grand piano. He waved a hand at the DJ and the room went quiet.
“Attention everyone,” Daddy’s voice silenced the room. “Ashlyn is going to share one of her compositions with us.”
Whispers wound their way to where I sat, ready. I forced a smile, barely noticing the hovering quiet—my thoughts on Colin.
Was he in the room somewhere?
My hands trembled. I pinched my eyes closed, forcing disappointment to disappear. Once my fingertips touched the cool ivory keys, I sighed and began to play Colin’s song. The sweet melody filled the corners of the room, silencing whispers. In my mind, I saw him leaning over the piano, watching me, his smile alight with admiration. The way his lips moved when he said my name. That night after Ninety-Nine, when his arms had wrapped around me—I felt his embrace afresh, strong and warm as if it had just happened.
The tune flowed from my head and filled the room. Haunting, powerful, leaving its echo to ebb off the walls.
Shrilling applause ripped through the air. I looked up from the keys and into the faces around me. The crowd smiled graciously.
I searched for Colin—saw his dark head of hair near the back, where he stood—his expression indecipherable. He wasn’t smiling.
Just watching. His serious expression sent a shiver of the unknown through me.
I stood and bowed.
Daddy hugged me—claiming ownership of everything I was.
Guests clamored to us. “Marvelous.”
“How talented she is, Charles!”
“She’s blossomed since last year.”
Daddy’s look at me held then, like he was contemplating the
‘blossomed’ comment, searching for himself what his colleague had noticed. My face warmed. Had I changed? The thought that someone had noticed thrilled me.
“So proud of you, darling.” Mother kissed my cheek and embraced me. I loved seeing her genuinely pleased and proud of me.
After she bragged with shameless adoration to the guests standing nearby, she took my hand. “Are you and Felicity having a good time?”
I nodded. “It’s a beautiful party, Mother.”
“Do you think?” She glanced around, her gaze lighting on Colin.
“Excuse me, darling.” Then she was gone, weaving through her friends to Colin.
The DJ started up again, and Mother took Colin onto the dance floor. A tight awkwardness jilted the atmosphere from party to floor show. Next to me, Daddy stiffened, his steely gaze locked on Mother, coaxing an obviously reluctant and very red Colin to dance with her.
“Come now, dance with me,” Mother cooed over the music.
No one dared step onto the center spot—which had cleared—
making way for them, or was it keeping away from them? I wasn’t sure. But Daddy’s face squared with displeasure.
Colin glanced over at Daddy, then me, and his discomfort was so squirmy, I ached. I laid my hand on Daddy’s arm and was shocked to find his bicep rock hard.
Felicity stole to my other side and leaned close. “Um. What is your mother doing?”
“I… don’t know,” I whispered.
“Maybe you should do something.”
Did I dare with my earlier rejection? Yet it was clear that Mother was completely clueless her actions were causing eyebrows to raise and gossip to be traded in shady whispers around the room.
Either that or she adored flaunting Colin so much that she didn’t care about how inane she looked or how her behavior reflected on Daddy.
I took in a breath, and crossed the empty floor to where Mother swayed with a very stiff Colin. Mother’s smiling radiance dimmed when she saw me.
The moment I was close, Colin released her.
“Mother, Daddy wants a dance,” I said. Mother caught sight of Daddy’s tense demeanor and quickly excused herself with the graciousness honed from years of practice.
“You can dance with Mother and not me?” I whispered.
“About that,” Colin said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d be dancing at all tonight.”
Colin took me in the traditional dance stance: one arm extended, the other around my back. Sweat beaded in a light film on his tense jaw. His hand was cold and clammy.
Discomfort evaporated from the room and the dance floor filled in with chattering guests. The DJ played an upbeat tune. I didn’t dare look at Mother, but Daddy’s marble demeanor was sti
ll wintry, his attention on her as they whispered back and forth.
Colin’s fingers tightened at my waist and around my hand. “And, it’s not that I didn’t want to dance with you. I work for your father.
Never mix business with pleasure.”
So we would never be anything as long as he worked for Daddy?
Is that what I was forced to accept? A sting burrowed into my heart.
We continued to sway, but he pulled me closer, his body against me from breast to knee. I tried to read what I thought I saw: a silent message that seemed to say this move, this moment, meant more than words could verbalize.
The townhouse was like the inside of a shaken snow globe: littered with the confetti of leftovers from a successful party.
Daddy paid a cab driver to take Felicity home. She left after the last of the guests. I changed out of my dress, hung it on the back of my closet door, and then I dipped into the bath, too wound up to luxuriate in bubbles, heat, and fragrance. I couldn’t get Colin’s face out of my mind, or the way he’d pulled me against him. Had he really been trying to say something to me? Something real?
I hated that my repertoire of experience was fictional and could be found between the paperback flaps of romance fiction.
I laughed. Right. He worked for Daddy. We’d never be lovers, or anything else if he followed that ‘no mixing business with pleasure’
rule. I was pleased he chose to live a standard I wasn’t even sure my own father kept. Mother, clearly, didn’t care.
I dressed in my pajamas and decided to seek Colin and feel out how he felt about what had happened tonight.
I slipped my robe over my pajamas. In the hall, I heard the snapping of my parents’ voices from the main floor. I took the stairs down. They were arguing in Daddy’s office, the doors cracked. I stopped near the bottom stair.
“Don’t ever do that to me again.” Daddy.
“You’re hurting me,” Mother whimpered.
“Good.”
Good? Dad’s cold comment stabbed an icicle into my heart.
A clattering followed a thud. I took the stairs back up, and was about to cross the hall into the safety of my bedroom to digest the argument, but I saw Colin standing at the top of the third flight of stairs. His sober expression indicated he, too, had overheard Mother and Daddy. The compassion on his face seemed to invite me toward him, so I took the final flight up. Mother’s sniffling, and her heels on the marble stairs caused both Colin and I to duck into the shadows of the third floor hall. My heart pattered. What if Mother didn’t go directly to her room? What if I was discovered with Colin?
Daddy’s office doors slammed. A tense silence burrowed into the townhouse. Colin turned and his eyes carried a slant of sadness.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. This may have been the first time he’d heard them argue, but their marriage had been fraught with ugly fights—
escalating recently—like a body consumed with cancer cells.
The doors to Daddy’s office clamored open and I scampered with nowhere to go. Daddy’s heavy footfalls sounded on the stairs.
Colin snatched me into his bedroom. He pointed at the closet. I darted over, crouched down beneath the hanging clothes and closed the door.
“Charles.”
“Can I have a word?” Daddy’s agitated tone ground to a slow growl.
“Yes, of course.”
I could tell they’d moved into Colin’s room. The proximity of their voices neared. Nerves skittered beneath my skin. I reached up and grabbed hold of the sleeve of Colin’s coat so I wouldn’t lose my balance.
“I apologize for Fiona’s behavior tonight. She had too much to drink. I realize her actions put you in a compromising position. I wouldn’t blame you if you found my employ no longer acceptable.”
“No. It’s fine.”
A pause followed. Colin’s response calmed me.
“Do you want some time to consider this?”
“Charles, no harm was done.”
“I’m going out of town for a few days. You have my cell phone.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door closed and I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out, and with a deep breath took in Colin’s scent worn into the fabric of his clothes surrounding me. Colin opened the closet door and extended his hand. I took it and he gently pulled me to my feet.
My nerves ticked. “Are you sure you don’t want to quit?” I asked.
I wanted to see his eyes when he gave me his answer.
“I’m not quitting, Ash.” He looked at me for a long moment, with something grave that caused my stomach to turn over as if I needed to vomit.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
He bowed his head a moment and I couldn’t see his face. When his eyes met mine, his brows cinched. “It’s late. You should get some sleep.”
I wasn’t tired. Not when I was with him. He, on the other hand, had wilted. Dark smudges surfaced beneath his gaze. Something—
perhaps the bizarre event on the dance floor with Mother—
weighed him down. I wanted to touch his sore eyes, kiss them.
I stepped closer, reached up, and his gaze suddenly became brighter. My arms slipped around him and I hugged him. “Good night.”
One of his arms wove around my waist. I waited to feel his muscles pull away with the message I’m done, but the firmness in his core didn’t shift at all. He held me close. I closed my eyes. I could sleep in his arms. I could wake in his arms. His embrace was not threatening, but assuring. Not caging, but empowering.
When his body finally moved, I gripped him harder for an impulsive instant. His hands remained on my shoulders for two seconds before he drew back. He stepped away, as if finally realizing he was touching me.
“Goodnight,” he whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A thick haze hung inside the townhouse the next day, as if the previous night’s nasty gossip still slinked the halls and rooms like ghouls. Even daylight streaming through the windows couldn’t break through the miasma.
A cleaning crew came in early to take care of the aftermath. I heard a vacuum somewhere. I dressed in jeans and a shirt before venturing down stairs to the kitchen, sure I’d find the house filled with strangers.
Colin stood in the entry. My heart lifted a few octaves in my chest. He was speaking Spanish to a worker, but his calming voice stopped when his gaze found me. Then he finished his instructions to the nodding maid and she went on her way.
He met me at the bottom stair. His jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt accentuated his casual stride.
“Hey,” I said.
“Morning.”
“You’re up early,” I observed.
“Early?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s eleven. Taking care of the cleaning crew.”
“Where’s Mother?”
“I haven’t seen her yet. Charles called me early this morning and gave me instructions for the cleaning staff.” He waved a hand, indicating the sparkling townhouse. The scent of orange spritzed the air.
Mother was probably holing up in her room, or sleeping off her yearly post-Christmas party hangover. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Last night. Today.”
“Aren’t they done yet?” Mother’s voice sounded like an old car engine barely able to shift into first gear. She navigated down the stairs with the care of the blind through a mine field. Usually, she slept off her post-party hangover. She wore black from head to toe—silk sweats and running jacket. Her auburn hair poked up on end. Her bug-eye black sunglasses covered her eyes.
“Ashlyn. Rockstar,” Mother snapped.
I bristled, but didn’t move. Mother continued her cautious decline. “Ash-lyn.”
Blowing out a silent breath, I crossed to the kitchen. I could still hear their conversation.
“Ashlyn, get one for Colin!” Mother shouted.
“No,” Colin called. Then louder, “No thank you.”<
br />
I grabbed a Rockstar from Mother’s stash and hurried back into the entry.
“No vices, dear boy?” Mother tilted her head at him.
I shoved the cold can at Mother. “Quit coming onto him like a cougar.”