Chapter Three
Ashley
“No, I… yes, that will be fine.”
I pinch my nose, needing a light reminder that this is the incompetent reality I inhabit. The woman on the other line—who purports to be Maurelli’s manager—tells me that she’ll make up for the missing vegetarian lasagna with a full refund on half the order, and have an additional dessert sent over from the restaurant.
The mishap doesn’t matter too much in the long run. All around me, the Pen and Quill Christmas party is in full swing: authors, agents, and editors mill about the lavish center table, too busy throwing back wine and talking animatedly with one another to fill their mouths with much else. There’s less than two hundred bodies in attendance, and I haven’t heard anything from a single disgruntled vegetarian yet, so I’m almost ready to call the evening a success.
Then Stewart arrives.
“Babe! Babe!”
Stewart waves at me from the doorway and manages to slosh the champagne he’s ferrying over onto the floor. He smiles sheepishly at me when he arrives and tries to pass the empty flute to me anyway.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” I hiss, looking around to see if anyone is watching. I’m so embarrassed. I snatch the other full flute from him and chug it down before Elektra looks my way. Thankfully, she appears preoccupied with a client and has completely missed my humiliation. Stewart offers a grin, oblivious to my mortification.
“Nope. I still feel out of place amid all your fancy publishing friends.”
That’s because you are out of place! I want to scream. I didn’t invite you! I didn’t want a plus one!
What I wanted was a moment alone with Daniel Stone, who still hasn’t shown his dead-sexy self as far as I know. What I wanted was to not be called babe in front of all my fancy publishing friends. Stewart’s smile straightens itself out a little when he finally notes what I hope is a dour look of disapproval, but there’s no coming back from how much he’s managed to put down in the first half hour of the party, and from what I suspect he imbibed the hour before.
Stewart Beecham is not my boyfriend. He is not my babe. He’s not even this annoying normally—at least, not in this overbearing, socially awkward way that I’m now forced to deal with. Stewart is a pathologist. He’s normally so clinical, so boring and specific… about everything. It’s structure without control; it’s lists upon lists of itemized ways to be intimate with one another, yet at the end of the day they’re all as bland as soft serve vanilla ice cream. No sprinkles, no Gummies, no chocolate or strawberry syrup. Just… boring.
“Well, why don’t you go try to talk to someone who isn’t me?” I grab Stewart by the shoulders and steer him toward the nearest conversation, broadcasting a psychic apology to the two women as I do so. “I need a break. I need… I need to find the bathroom.”
He nods as I thread my way through the revelers, sighing with relief. I need some fresh air. I need—
“I love you!” Stewart hollers.
Oh God. I stiffen with another bout of mortification as I dart from the room. Just outside the doorway in the hall, I realize that the heels I wore aren’t made for darting, and my left ankle buckles. I barely manage to catch my balance as I keep moving. I manage to make it out of the hallway and into my small office. I slam the door closed and lean against it, eyes closed, shaking my head.
I breathe a heavy sigh of relief into the cool, familiar darkness of my safe harbor. I took on way too much tonight, and what for? So I could try to impress a man who couldn’t even be bothered to show to his own company party? I try to muster some anger at Daniel Stone as I move to my desk and collapse down into the chair, but all I really feel is aching disappointment.
I let my mind drift to him now. I imagine him finding me here, alone in my office, sheathed in the bright red dress I had rented out for the evening—the one that sober Stewart had called outlandish. But I knew what I wanted. Red is the color that signals passion louder than all the rest. Daniel would know this. He wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes from me—or keep them from falling, lower, lower, even as he asked me what was wrong…
I open my laptop and have the Word document pulled up before I realize what I’m doing. The glow from the screen is comforting, my characters familiar, keeping me company. The hero would never skip a party when he knew the heroine would be in attendance. He would never be able to overlook her to begin with.
I’m halfway through a revision of an earlier scene—really an expansion into a passionate sex scene, the hero and heroine seizing a much-needed break in the plot’s drama to relieve the tension that’s built between them—when the door to my office eases open.
I know better than to freak out now like I did the last time. My fingers pause above the keyboard, and I raise my eyes to the intruder. Stewart enters and grabs the chair from Tory’s desk and pulls it closer to mine. He smells sweetly-sour, like the champagne he’s been drinking all evening. His eyes shimmer, but his expression is sober.
Uh-oh.
“What’s up, Stewart?” I push my laptop to the side, but leave it open to let him know he’s interrupting something I intend to finish. He gazes at me from beneath his shaggy brown hair, and I’m not sure he’s noticed my signal. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“I want to talk about us,” he says, point blank. “I think it’s time to put a name to what we are. I love you, Ash.”
“I… know that you’ve said that before.” I wince at my own indelicate response. “But I’m happy with what we are. I don’t see why we have to give it a name.”
“You’re avoiding having this conversation.” Stewart frowns.
My eyes narrow.
“Maybe because the depth of your feelings for me makes you uncomfortable? I know you’ve had relationships in the past, Ash, but how meaningful were they, really?”
I gaze at him in disbelief. “Yes. I’ve had relationships.” And maybe I thought they meant something at the time, but now I can see how hopelessly lacking they all were. That’s the whole reason I resisted becoming anything more with Stewart from the beginning. I thought I was finally waking up to what I wanted, but now I feel that Stewart is trying to lull me back to sleep. Complacency. I shake my head.
“I just want you to know it’s okay to feel like you want to settle down with me, Ash,” Stewart continues.
He leans across the desk and takes my hand in his. I let him. Usually I’m encouraged by any lead he decides to take, no matter how small. But not this time. I wait.
“So, let’s settle down together. I’m drunk, but you know what I mean. Let’s settle. Be boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Settle. Settle. Settle. The lone word echoes in my head, knocking against empty passages that should hold all the worthwhile memories I have of my time with Stewart. Why can’t I recall a single instance of feeling satisfied?
“You mean you want to make it official?” I finally ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Stewart grins. He’s handsome when he does that. Hell, he’s handsome most of the time.
“Yeah. Settled,” he agrees, or at least thinks he’s agreeing.
I yank my hand from his. “Stewart, how much more ‘settled’ can we get?” I ask, my voice ringing with frustration. I rise from my chair, and a belated moment later, he mirrors me. I square off with him from across my desk, bracing myself for the outpouring of words I’ve been meaning to say for so long. I gush it all out. “You make lists that have to do with foreplay! Don’t think I haven’t seen them. Spend no more than five minutes performing oral sex before confirming readiness for penetration. Really?”
“I read that in a journal!” he quickly defends. “Published in a prestigious paper! I thought it was sound advice. You seemed to like it at the time.”
How can I tell him I’d faked it? I resist the urge to tug my hair out in annoyance. I settle for grinding my teeth and pinching my nose for the umpteenth time this evening. “It’s the same thing over and over with you,” I continue, not unkindly. “I don’t want lists, Stewart, even of the things I like—and, by the way, that is way too brief a session of oral for any sexually mature individual to get anything worthwhile out of it. I want more than just clinical biology. I don’t want to be examined, or tested, or… or…” I wave a hand, mentally erasing what I just said. It doesn’t matter. He won’t get it. Trying to get him to see what I’m saying is a fruitless endeavor. A waste of breath. Stewart’s eyes narrow, but in anger. Like he’s considering something.
“You want more spontaneity?” he asks.
“Yes!”
“I can be spontaneous.”
Before I know it, Stewart rounds my desk and wraps me in his arms. I consider backing away, but the defiant part of me wants to see just how far he’ll go. It isn’t Daniel Stone bending me over my desk, but maybe, just maybe…
I gasp in alarm as his arms hug me a moment, and then he bends slightly, his arms now reaching around my waist. Stewart might be a pathologist who sits in a lab most of the day, but I know better than most that he’s actually pretty athletic. He puts his muscled arms to good use as he lifts me off the ground and slings me over his shoulder.
“Stewart!” I admonish, a little louder than I intended. “Put me down!” I try to grab onto the corner of my desk for balance. I miss and grab his ass instead.
He chortles. “This is what you wanted, Ash!”
Too late. I realize that I made a huge miscalculation by being upfront with him. Sober expression or not, Stewart is still drunk—and now he’s quite literally taken my life into his hands.
“Stewart! Put me down!” I command, pounding now on his ass as he carries me out into the hallway. No, no, no… this can’t be happening! I try to lift myself enough to shoot a glance over my shoulder to see where he’s heading, but it’s difficult to get my bearings bouncing on his shoulder. I think he’s taking me toward the elevator. His grip tightens over the swell of my ass in response to my insistence that he put me down. At that moment, I know it’s hopeless trying to negotiate with him when in such a vulnerable position. As soon as he puts me down, though, I’ll make him wish he’d never…
I gulp and scramble for purchase, trying to lift myself so I can balance my hands on his hips, but I start to slip. “Stewart! I’m slipping!” The reality of being dropped prompts me to freeze. “Stewart!” My voice rising in panic now. “I’m going to fall!”
“Relax babe, I would never—”
The bastard trips. He actually trips, stumbling over nothing but his own impaired reflexes, and my slinky dress might as well be butter in his hands. He scrambles to catch his balance and with his body off-kilter, I slide forward. Our legs tangle. I see myself falling ass over teakettle, but I manage to instinctively twist and barely manage to break my fall with my hands, lucky I didn’t break one of them in the process. I topple to the ground onto my right hip, my hands sliding forward so that I actually manage to land on my forearms. Unfortunately, Stewart slides to the side. In Stewart’s defense, he twists at the last second to avoid all of his weight from crashing down on me. In my defense, he decides to use the front of my dress as a handhold.
A horrendous tear of fabric accompanies the sound of the elevator door ding and the next moment, those doors slide open. I shake Stewart’s hands off me and manage to thrust myself upward onto my ass, arms braced behind me, my knees spread. I see movement and glance up.
Oh God.
Daniel Stone’s grass green eyes stare down at me.
His perfect, chiseled face uncomprehending for a moment while his gaze takes in the sight. His eyes widen slightly and his eyebrows lift. Oh God. I can’t speak; I can’t even breathe. Of every scene in which I hoped he would find me tonight, the unfolding nightmare in which I find myself trapped never even crossed my mind.
“Mister Stone!” I gasp, struggling out from beneath Stewart. I manage to scramble to my feet with only a modicum of dignity. I’m not sure what to do, what excuses to make. “I… we were just…”
The green eyes that pin me to the spot sink lower. And lower. Just like I imagined they would, I consider in bewilderment, until my own gaze drops to follow his. Daniel stares at the front of my dress—or where the front of my dress used to be. The tastefully plunging neckline is gone; in its place is skin, skin, and more naked skin. Stewart ripped my dress all the way down to the scalloped black crest of my push-up bra.
I instinctively cross my arms to cover myself, but it’s too late. I can almost see my reflection in Daniel Stone’s eyes; we’re standing that close. Did his pupils just dilate slightly? Am I imagining that? The look is there and gone before I can properly define what it might be.
“Excuse me,” I mumble, mortified—again. I turn away and make a beeline for the women’s restroom, leaving Stewart behind. As soon as the door swings shut behind me, I slide my back along the door and hunch down on the tiled floor and drop my head into my hands. Despair engulfs me. I’ve practically just bared my breasts in front of my crush, my boss. I’m humiliated, but I doubt that matters to a man like Daniel Stone. I’m going to have to face the music.
I rise and step to the sink and stare at myself in the mirror. A mess of tousled black hair and haunted brown eyes stare back at me. My pale complexion looks even more drained of color than usual, and for some reason my lipstick is smeared.
I rearrange my appearance as best I can. There’s no hope for the rental dress, which I realize now I’m going to have to pay for in full. Shit. I pull the clip from my up-do and shake my hair out, then use the clip to secure my ruined dress in place. Nice, I grimace. The top of my bra is still visible, but this is the best I can do until I could manage to escape downstairs to the coat check. I push my way out of the restroom to find Stewart waiting for me in the hallway.
“Stewart!” I glance around, but Daniel is nowhere in sight. I don’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed by the fact. “Where is Daniel… Mister Stone?”
“He’s waiting for you in your office. He wants to speak to you… alone.” Stewart looks put-out. Did Daniel say something to him? Then again, Stewart is the last person I need to be worrying about right now.
Daniel Stone wants to see me? Alone? In my office? Oh God.
“Stewart, I need you to go.”
Stewart looks ready to protest, until his eyes drops to the fists slowly clenching at my sides. The reality of the situation finally seems to cut through the fog of inebriation he’s been swimming in.
“… all right, Ash.”
“Call a cab,” I say. “I’ll text you tomorrow. Let’s both just hope I still have a job.”
He opens his mouth to say something, and by the look on his face, to apologize for being the cause of this fiasco. I don’t care. I shoulder by him and walk slowly toward my office, faltering more and more with each step.
Daniel Stone is waiting for me. In my office. I’m about to be severely reprimanded, I’m sure, if not fired. What must he think of me?
At the thought of Daniel alone in my office, I stop. My hand flies to my mouth. Before Stewart carried me out the door, I left my computer open. I left my manuscript document open.
Oh, shit.