American Queen

He’s still blinking, those eyelashes long and dark, those bottle-green eyes bright and aching behind them. “Greer, this doesn’t need to be…what good will it do—”

“I’m not the fucking public,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “I’m not a poll, I’m not a key demographic. Stop trying to spare my feelings and just tell me.” I pause, and then add because I think Ash needs to hear it. “Embry loves you, you know. He told me that too. He told me about the first time you were together, he told me that you were together after Jenny’s death. He thinks that you don’t love him back, and why wouldn’t he? With the awful way you’ve treated him?”

Ash freezes, his hand still fisting my hair, his arm still anchoring me down against him. “What?”

I’m simmering again, biting off words and not caring how they land. “You know what I’m talking about. He’s good enough until you meet a woman, right? You could fuck him until you met Jenny, and then you dropped him, and then after Jenny, you were back to using him again. Until you had me. Until you sent him to fetch me for you. How do you think that makes him feel? How could you?”

Ash’s lips part and close and then part again. “Greer, I asked Embry to marry me. Twice.”

I was all ready to continue with my excoriation on Embry’s behalf, but Ash’s words filter their way into my consciousness and stun me. “What?” I whisper.

“I asked him to be my husband. Twice. And do you know how many times he said no?”

I shake my head mutely.

“Twice,” Ash says.

“I can’t believe you asked him to marry you…he didn’t say anything about that…”

Ash makes a noise that could be called derisive—if it wasn’t so wounded. “No. I suppose he didn’t.”

“When did you propose?”

Ash loosens his grip in my hair, and unconsciously I reach back to make him tighten it again. This draws the first smile I’ve seen from him since I came in the room. But he stays on topic and answers my question.

“The first time was in Carpathia. We’d been dating for two years. He insisted we didn’t tell anyone, and I agreed because loved him. But I thought maybe if he saw how serious I was about him, how much I wanted to be with him, he wouldn’t be so intent on having a secret relationship. I had a buddy of mine buy a ring in Rome when he went there for leave and bring it back. I planned it so just the two of us would be out in Embry’s favorite valley by that base—you could stand at the top of this ridge and see for miles. I got down on one knee while we both had guns slung over our shoulders.”

Ash smiles at the memory, but then his smile falters. “Embry said no. It wasn’t legal then, you see, and I think—I don’t know. Maybe he was worried about our careers or maybe what his family wanted. He didn’t give me a reason. He just said no and told me we should stop seeing each other.”

Even now, seven or eight years later, I can hear the bitter heartache in his voice.

“Merlin introduced me to Jenny not long after, and we gradually fell in love. She wasn’t at all like Embry, she wasn’t at all like you, and maybe that felt safe to me. She wasn’t the strange girl who coaxed my darkest self to the surface, she wasn’t the man who’d faced death with me. She was…easy. Uncomplicated. She loved like normal people loved, she desired like normal people desired. With her, I was a different kind of man, a kind that didn’t have such twisted feelings inside. After I’d been wrapped up in you so long, only to have my first real relationship end like that…well, I guess I’m just trying to explain why I fell in love with Jenny when I was still in love with both of you.”

I turn that over in my mind for a minute. So many networks of love and heartbreak, so many deep folds and layers to a person’s heart. But it made a strange kind of sense to me, that he could love me and Embry and Jenny all at the same time. Not very many people love like Ash loves, as fiercely and fully, and maybe one person alone could never have born the brunt of him.

“And then you proposed to him again?” I ask, trying to figure out what happened next.

Ash lets go of my waist and rubs his forehead with his thumb. “After Jenny died. That night Morgan took me to the club and had me flog her, I left and I went straight to Embry. He gave me so much that night, more than any person should have to give another, because I unleashed it all on him. My grief, my pain, this new sister that was also his sister whom also I’d fucked…I was a tornado. And he welcomed me.”

I pull his hand away from his forehead so I can see his eyes. My touch stirs him; he shifts in the chair and meets my stare again. “He wanted to keep us secret again. Merlin wanted it to be secret. But it was legal now and I didn’t fucking care about the election—but I did care about him. Five months ago, I asked him to marry me again. I thought for sure this time…” He trails off and gives me a watery smile. “Well. The best laid plans and all that. And then I saw you in that church a few weeks later and it felt like fate. I wanted to see you, and the moment I told Embry about it, he volunteered to help me. I thought he wanted to make amends for rejecting my ring a second time…of course, now I know better. He wanted to see you.”

“Oh God, Ash,” I say, my chest hurting for him. This incredible man who’d been rejected twice by the person he loves.

“Greer, I’m—I’m not telling you this so that you feel like you were in any way a second choice. You know that I love you, that I’ve been obsessed with you for years. But I just want you to know that what I had with Embry was serious to me. It was the realest thing I’d ever felt until I finally had you. I didn’t kiss him because I wanted to hurt you, I kissed him because even though he’s broken my heart twice in ten years, I still think he looks beautiful in the winter moonlight. Because sometimes I think I might literally die from wanting to feel his lips on mine.”