Chapter Forty-Five
Ashland
I had never wanted a drink more. My desire to get shit-faced as strong as it had been when I’d wrecked my car.
No. Even stronger.
I’d had a taste of her. The life we might have, and all the hopeful possibility she personified. I’d had her in my arms, in my bed, wrapped up around me.
I turned from the door. I couldn’t look at it. I didn’t like what it represented.
A barrier between us. One of my own making.
I went to the table, pausing only a moment, but the moment buffeted me. Too many memories of meals spent with her there. I grabbed my sticks. Imagined the wood groaning in the tightness of my grip or maybe it was reality. It was hard to tell. My surroundings seemed insubstantial. The absence of her already haunted me. On the stairwell as I ascended it. On the roof as I spun around. She was there and yet not. For the moment, I avoided my kit where she’d so recently come as an emerald goddess to tempt me.
I stopped at the waist high wall of glass. I stared out at an ocean that used to bring me solace. I saw the waves. Good ones today. Barrels perfect hollow tubes, but I didn’t feel like surfing. The sun was stretching for its zenith, but even when it reached it, I knew it couldn’t replace her warmth. A breeze lifted my hair like her fingers sorting through the strands.
I turned away from the view. Abandoning it, sticks in my hand, I retraced my steps across the roof, down the stairs, through the apartment. At the charging station in the kitchen, I grabbed my phone and a key and headed for the studio. Maybe I’d find surcease from the memories there.
I certainly wasn’t going to find peace inside the apartment without her.
The penthouse no longer sufficed as a refuge, not when she had made it a home.
~ ~ ~
Fanny
I gazed out the window at the pink stucco walls and the lush tropical grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel, a sigh escaping. It was beautiful, but there was no ocean and no Ash. I dropped my hand from the heavy curtain and turned back to the small but elegantly appointed room finding myself missing a certain partially decorated master bedroom with a killer view.
I padded across the plush carpet and dropped onto the bed staring at the closed door. And yes, even that made me think of him.
So much for yoga settling my thoughts tonight.
Given the level of noise emanating from the other side of the door there wasn’t much peace for Hollie and her entourage, either.
She was in the process of restarting her LA life. She’d gotten a fresh haircut, a facial and a massage. Now she and her personal shopper were sorting through a rack of outfits trying to choose something for the press conference. I had stayed lending my support for as long as I could, but my mind was elsewhere.
I wondered what Ash was doing.
Was he missing me as much as I missed him?
I stretched my arm across the bed and snagged my only real memento of our time together. The yarn of the purple and gold cap was rough in my grip.
I brought it to the center of my chest. Squeezed my eyes shut and hit play on the reel in my mind.
One dimensional Ash on the posters in my old room at the mansion. Laying on my bed late at night hearing my mom and Samuel arguing down the hall. Turning up the music so I could only hear the Dogs. I had often stared at his picture until my lids had grown too heavy to keep open. His eyes had always seemed so troubled. Now I knew why. Loving someone and not being loved in return. I knew that feeling. I could identify with that lack of acceptance. In my case from the man who was supposed to be my father.
Maybe that was why Ash always stood far apart from the rest of the group in the photos. The drummer had almost been an outsider in his own band. His own choice, I suspected knowing him as I now did. He needed that separation. He had required it to maintain control. But he had let me in. And he was opening up more to his friends. Changing. Growing. Evolving. And wasn’t I doing the same?
I’d been withdrawn, too, or at least since my mom married Samuel. A shadowy memory surfaced. A man’s large hand engulfing my smaller one as we walked out onto the dock together. Sitting down at the end of it. Him pulling me onto his lap. His voice gruff as he’d hummed a soothing melody. I had buried my face in his soft shirt. He had smelled like wood smoke and ocean brine, and he had felt like…like love. He hadn’t spoken a single word, but somehow I’d known he was telling me goodbye.
Warm tears leaked from my eyes. I opened them. Why had this memory surfaced now when it had been submerged for so long?
Maybe because the acceptance and the sense of mattering to someone else I’d felt then was the same way I felt when I was with Ash now. Safe. Cared for. Loved.
I realized I had started to feel that from him the night I met him for real at the Oscars.
A feeling that strengthened each time he had rescued me.
By the time he had cracked open the door to his heart, I had known that I was his. Seeing his true self. Experiencing his love. There was no substitute, no alternative for me.
Ash was the beginning, the middle and the end.
A baby? One that was his and mine? My body swelling with his child, our child? Sure I wanted that. But not having that option wasn’t the end of the world. And I couldn’t imagine a world without him in it.
His arms around me. Smiling. Laughing. Singing. Surfing. Making love. Together.
~ ~ ~
The world beyond Ocean Beach seemed too harsh and too frenetic.
Or it certainly felt that way inside our suite. It was actually the bridal suite, but in my mind I’d renamed it Holliewood Central.
With the television blaring celebrity gossip, Olivia and Hollie hunched side by side over the agent’s iPad going over their battle plans. Strategy for the press conference. What reporters would be there. What questions would likely be asked. They had been at it for hours. I was familiar with the process. It brought back memories of how my life had been after I’d gotten the nomination for best song in a motion picture. The memories weren’t ones I relished. They were draped in the fog of grief that had enveloped me at that time and far too intertwined with ones of my stepfather. How had I missed how controlling he had become? How increasingly reproachful. Derogatory not just with me but in his dealings with Hollie as well.
The bell to the suite rang shrilly.
“I’ve got it.” I trudged across the plush cream carpeting teetering a bit on the way there. I wasn’t reacclimated to the high heels or the rest of the high fashion I currently wore. A Stella Clark original. Stylishly cut, the deep purple jacket and pencil skirt accentuated the soft curves I’d regained with Ash taking care of me. The outfit complemented my coloring, but I longed for the more comfortable beach themed yoga gear and my Chloé high-tops.
It’s him you really long for.
Yeah, I missed him, all right.
A glance through the peephole revealed who I suspected it would be. Andrew Hart. Cash was dutifully checking his ID. The bodyguard was taking his protection of us as seriously as he had when Ash had been in charge. Only now Hollie was his boss. She had regained complete control of her funds. Not because Samuel’s guardianship had expired, but because he was the one running scared now. His attorney had already received an outline of the charges Hollie and the other women were prepared to bring against him. He wanted to settle them out of court.
Good luck with that.
“Come in.” I opened the door, and the high-powered advocate in a suit that probably cost thousands more than my own swept inside.
“We’re ready for you both downstairs,” he announced.
“Alright,” Hollie stood, her agent doing the same. A team once more, they made quite a pair. Olivia with her grey hair pulled back in her usual chignon, her black and grey sweater ensemble making her appear to be my sister’s grandmother, albeit a formidable one. Hollie’s hunter green prep school inspired jumper made her look younger and vulnerable. All part of the roles we all might be playing for a good long while, whether in the court room or out in public. Hart had already warned us. The legal wrangling might take years.
Olivia stopped to speak with Hart at the door. Hollie paused beside me.
“How are you doing?” She peered up at me, her eyes subtly done up by the stylist, her long strawberry blonde hair loose. She looked beautiful.
“Hanging in there.” I squeezed her hand. “How about you?”
“The same. But this is my life now, you know.” She gestured to the stacks of paperwork strewn all over the marble coffee table. Job offers. Tons of them. The publicity surrounding us had sent her already rising star skyrocketing. It had done similar wonders for my business. Orders were brisk. My staff of five had handled things well in my absence. But if interest in my already developed line of products continued to grow at the current pace, I’d need to find a bigger space and do some more hiring. The problem was my heart wasn’t in San Bernardino anymore. I’d left it behind at the ocean.
“Let’s do this.” Grabbing Hollie’s hand, I followed the agent and the attorney out into the hall. Hart was representing me, too. I had never even entertained the idea to sue to get my rights back from Samuel, but I totally approved of the plan. Another way Ashland Keys had rescued me. Another part of him that was mine. Did he not see? He gave so much of himself away. There was so much to love. So much of value. I remembered his words to me about being a person worth saving. Well, so was he, if only he would recognize it.
~ ~ ~
Ashland
“Dude! What the fuck are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” I put my feet on the floor and sat up in my office chair, frowning at Diesel. I’d drifted off in my chair. I was catching some zzz’s. It’s my office after all.”
“Not that,” he chuckled, though I can guess why you’re worn out.” He came closer. “Boot up your computer. Your chick’s having a live press conference. I can’t believe you’re missing it. She saying all sorts of mushy shit about you rescuing her and you two having an arrangement.”
I swiveled my chair, wiggled my mouse to activate my computer screen, opened up a browser and typed Holliewood in the search bar. The first thing that came up was the conference. I clicked on the link, registering Diesel moving in to look over my shoulder, but only vaguely. My eyes were on her. To the right of her sister, she was fucking gorgeous in full designer finery. Gossamer lavender shirt. Purple suit hugging her tits. Professionally done makeup. Spine straight. Expression serious. Gorgeous but remote. Almost as phenomenal as she was in person. The cameras seemed unable to capture the true blinding essence of her beauty.
She only comes alive like that here, a faint voice inside my heart whispered. With you. In your arms. The same way you do with her.
“Fanny, it’s Stephanie Kokkinas. Music News Now.” I tensed as I refocused on the conference. I’d slept with that reporter once. A long time ago. It had not been an experience worth repeating. But she’d been hassling me whenever she had opportunity ever since. “My question is for you.” She narrowed beady eyes over the rim of her thick framed glasses. “So this ‘arrangement’ with the Dirt Dogs’ drummer, did it occur before or after he paid the significant retainer for your sister’s attorney?”
“Before,” Fanny replied.
“I see.” Insinuation laced Stephanie’s tone. Some of the reporters in the throng snickered.
Fanny flushed. She leaned forward toward her mic. “He’s Ashland Keys, lady. He doesn’t need to pay for women to sleep with him.”
“Celebrity Gossip Channel.” The camera focused on a handsome Latino man. “Arturo Holleran. We’re just all curious about you and Ashland Keys. You had him down on his knee, baby doll. That was one smokin’ kiss. Can’t you tell us a little bit more?”
“It was a hot kiss. The best I ever had. But he’s so much more than that. He’s kind. He took me and my sister in when he didn’t even know us. He’s protective. When I told him what happened to Hollie with my stepfather the first thing he did was look for legal representation for her, for us. He’s generous. Extravagantly so. And fiercely loyal to those he considers his friends, among which I count myself privileged to be.”
“You make him sound like he’s perfect.” Arturo fanned his face with a copy of the press conference agenda.
“He’s perfect for me. If he were up for love. I would love him. I would treasure every day in his company. I would never let him go.”
“Yes, well. I think it’s time we move on to the rest of the agenda.” Hollie leaned into her mic and the camera did a close up. “Only I feel I need to echo my sister’s sentiments before we take questions about the case. We both owe a debt of gratitude we can never repay to Ashland Keys and the Dirt Dogs. Fabulous musicians by the way. You should check out their music. They have a greatest hits coming out soon under the Outside label. Check out all of the artists on that label. And one last thing. While I was in Ocean Beach, I discovered the most fabulous shop with Roxy and Reef clothing. If you’re down there you should check it out. It’s called ‘Offshore’. Karen Grayson is the owner. Tell her Holliewood sent you.”
“Fuck,” Diesel said behind me.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Karen’s gonna be flooded with customers,” Diesel said. “That Hollie’s not such a bad kid.”
“She’s far from a kid.” I swiveled around to look at him. “Plus, she has a good heart to go with that solid head on her shoulders.” But I was partial to her sister. Partial meaning, she was the axis I wanted my world to revolve around.
I needed to show her. I needed to stop moping. It didn’t sound to me that the outcome was in doubt. And if that were the case I wanted to make it a reunion. One she would never forget.