Chapter 6

Brock

Dammit. She had done it again. Here I was caught under her spell. One look at her and I was lost. I had been sure that after all this time I would be immune to her. I wasn’t. Despite the hurt she had caused me, I still wanted her. My body remembered all the little details about her. I remembered the way her face looked when she was in the midst of an orgasm, how her body felt under my own, and the way she tasted and smelled. Everything was burned into my very soul.

I had been in the middle of bringing a girl to an orgasm when my alarm had gone off, and I realized Ashley had been the star of my dream. Not the Ashley I’d met yesterday, but the Ashley Parks from years past. The two were one and the same in some ways but not all. My body longed to know the woman she was today, but my mind was holding on to the girl who had captured my heart when I was eighteen.

In my dream, she’d been naked beneath me. Her blond hair with that sexy little streak of pink had fanned out around her head, creating a halo effect. Only I knew she was no angel. The woman was a firecracker in bed. I remembered her yelling my name as her nails cut little half-moons into my back and shoulders when I fucked her good and hard. Her body had been built for mine; at least that was what I had always felt. We fit together perfectly, and our sexual needs were a match as well.

Back then, I could do no wrong. We had been happy. Too happy, apparently. She had always been far too eager to please me. Anything I had said or wanted, she’d agreed with. I laughed thinking about my only hang-up with her back in the day. Secretly, I’d hoped she would be a little more aggressive. I’d wanted her to argue with me, tell me to go to hell when I said or did something stupid. She’d gone out of her way to do nice things for me. I had fallen head over heels in love with her kindness.

I remembered her bringing me lunch on a whim or using her key to my apartment to let herself in so she could make me dinner. Sometimes she would be waiting for me naked in my bed. Those days had been so good. I wished I would have paid more attention and appreciated every minute I had with her back then. I missed her like crazy, and still, to this day, I longed to see her naked in my bed.

When I had asked her to marry me, she’d cried, and I had thought we would be together forever. Everyone had. I would never forget the day she shattered my heart into a million pieces. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about her and what she had done to me that day. I closed my eyes, blocking the image of her family staring at me with pity. She had fled. We had all stood out there in her dad’s field, thinking she was getting some last-minute fixes done to her dress. The minutes had stretched on, and soon enough, Leslie had gone to check on her. Ashley had fled out a back window so no one would see her.

“No,” I said aloud in the room. I couldn’t go down that road again.

I needed to go for a run, anything to get rid of the tension. The dream had stirred up some vivid memories that I wished to forget. I had taken up running about three years ago. It had been a last-ditch effort to exorcise the demon that haunted me: Ashley. I had been desperate. I’d even been prepared to hire a priest to bless me or something to make her go away. Running had been my saving grace.

I checked my phone app and saw it was already close to eighty before eight in the morning. It was probably too hot for a run, but I didn’t care. I needed the release, and a wet dream wasn’t going to do it for me. I laced up my shoes, rubbed on some sunscreen, and headed outside.

Damn. It was hot.

I set off, going at a slow pace, relishing the feel of the pavement under my feet. Every time a foot slammed against the pavement, it vibrated through my body, shaking the image of a naked and writhing Ashley out of my head. A good trail run was what I needed, but I didn’t have time for that. Maybe tomorrow. I cut my run short, not wanting to give myself a heatstroke, and headed home to shower and dress for the day.

As I drove through town, I checked my various signs, making sure they were all still up and free from graffiti. I wouldn’t put it past Ashley to take a can of spray paint and deface my signs.

“Good morning, Brock,” Helen said when I walked through the door.

“Good morning, Helen,” I said with a genuine smile.

She usually beat me to the office. Being my own boss, I could set my own hours. It was a perk that I took full advantage of. I wasn’t the kind of guy that liked to show up at six in the morning.

“I have a message for you—from your lawyer.” She added the last bit with a look on her face that told me it wasn’t good.

“What about?”

Helen cleared her throat. “The Parks farm.”

I nodded. It was expected. “What? Did Ashley call him directly, or does she have a lawyer?”

Helen shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to call him. He said he would be in until ten and then he had court. Did you want coffee this morning? It’s a bit warm.”

“No, thank you.” I shook my head.

I headed into my office and called my lawyer. As I suspected, Ashley had called, demanding answers and peppering him with questions. Thankfully, he was a good lawyer and fended her off. He assured me I was not breaking any laws. All I had to do was bide my time. The minute the loan went into default, the farm was mine. I had a month. I could wait a month. I knew there was no way Tanner Parks was going to scrape together the money he needed to save the farm. I would own the property next month.

After hanging up with my lawyer, I felt giddy. Ashley wasn’t going to win this one. I was. I spun around in my chair, laced my fingers behind my head, and stared up at the ceiling. Life was good. I didn’t have to worry about Ashley ruining my plans. I would buy the farm and she would go running back to New York, never to be seen again.

Ping!

Spinning my chair around, I looked at my email. There was a new message. The message line read, “Important information about Ashley Parks.”

I hesitated about half a second before I clicked the mouse to open the message. My stomach dropped when I read the single line of the email.

“Ask Ashley about her kid.”

I blinked and reread the email several times.

Ashley had a kid?

The twinge of jealousy and hurt I felt surprised me. Of course she had been with other men. I had been with other women. She had moved on. I hadn’t. I was the one who clearly had this weird hope that we would get back together one day. It was a fantasy, one I really didn’t even want to come to life. I couldn’t trust her. I certainly didn’t want to give her my heart so she could crush it again.

A kid. Why would the anonymous emailer tell me to ask her about the kid?

Oh shit.

The email gave me no information. I had no idea how old the kid was or even if the kid was a boy or girl. She wouldn’t do that to me, would she? No one in town had ever mentioned she had a kid. All I had ever heard was gossip about how well she was doing in the city and how she was some up-and-coming big shot in the photography world. I assumed all that information came through her family, but I couldn’t say for sure.

Googling her a time or two had provided a little information, but only about her photography. I had secretly been looking for information about who she was dating. I imagined her hooking up with some rich dude and becoming some big socialite. If she had a kid, though, that would explain why I never read about her partying or found photos of her on the arm of some hotshot rich guy. In my mind, I had conjured up a man who I had secretly competed with. It was what had driven me to become successful in real estate. I’d been competing with the men in New York I’d assumed she was hooking up with.

When I’d found out she was coming to town, I had wanted her to see how successful I was. I could compete with those men—almost. I wasn’t going to be buying an apartment at Trump Tower anytime soon, but I was getting closer.

A kid. What the hell?

Someone knew the truth and wanted me to know, too. There had to be a reason for that.

“Helen!” I called out, jumping out of my chair after slamming my laptop shut.

“What? Where are you going?” she questioned, clearly confused.

I walked out of my office and looked at her. “I’m going out. I’ll be back later. If anyone calls and needs to see a property, call my cell. I’ll be busy for the next hour or so,” I told her before heading out the door.

Climbing into my big Ford truck, I took a deep breath. She had a kid. Did that change how I felt about her? Did I still harbor that fantasy of marrying her and starting a life together? Could I love her and accept the child of another man?

So many questions. Sitting in my truck and staring at my office wasn’t going to get any of them answered. Deep down, I knew she would lie to me if I asked her. She would tell me it was none of my business. I needed to know if it was my business or not, and I didn’t trust her to tell me the truth. I had to see with my own two eyes.