American Queen

Ash gives me a sweetly sheepish look and tosses the stained bow-tie onto the ground. “Oops.”

“Oops?”

“Shh.” He crawls up next to me, sliding a hand under my stomach and turning me so that I’m facing into his chest and his strong arms are wrapped around me. “Stay here with me a moment.”

“My shoes are still on,” I protest. “And we’re sideways on the bed.”

“Don’t be so conformist. And about the shoes…” I hear a clunk followed by a second clunk as he toes off his dress shoes, and then he tugs off my high heels with his feet. “Better?”

I flex my toes. “Much better.”

“Good.” He pulls me tight, kissing my hair, and for a few moments we just hold each other and listen to the wind blowing off Lac Léman.

I press my lips to the exposed slice of skin near his collarbone. “What are we going to do?” I ask again, my whisper barely audible over the wind.

Ash’s hands rub my back, and when he speaks, he speaks slowly, like he’s still figuring it out for himself. “I don’t think we can decide that without Embry. Whatever happens next, it should be a decision between the three of us, something that the three of us can agree on and live with. If you’re still going to have me as a husband and I’m still going to have him as my Vice President, then we’re stuck together. We have to all be in agreement or we’re going to be miserable for a very long time. And I think until that conversation happens, we should make sure there’s nothing physical or even verbally sexual transacting between anyone other than the two of us. Embry is off limits until we sort this out.”

I nod against him. He’s right. He’s almost always right.

“Also—until we can find a time for all three of us to talk, I want the two of us to be honest with each other. I made the mistake of hiding and lying before, and I don’t want to do that again.”

“Honest like…?”

“Like when we’re thinking of him, we tell each other. No more hiding our feelings for him, even if it feels wrong to admit them out loud. Because really, who would understand better than me how you feel?”

I sigh-laugh. “I guess that is true.”

“I know it is.”

“Okay,” I agree. “I trust you, and I think you’re right. You and I will be honest and we’ll only be sexual with each other until we talk with Embry.” I chew on my lip. “Does that mean…after we talk, you want to be sexual with him?”

“Honestly? I want the three of us together. But I also want you all to myself. And I want him all to myself. My feelings are very intense and wildly inconsistent about this. All I know is that it’s not only up to me. And not only up to you or Embry. It has to be together or not at all.”

Tiredness hits my body all at once. There’s been so much to unpack tonight, so much that I’ll still be processing it for weeks to come, and there is so much work ahead. But if that work means the three of us could—

No. I refuse to entertain fantasies about it or about Embry until things are settled. I’m engaged to Ash, and even if we have a non-traditional dynamic beginning to flourish, I’m still determined to remain emotionally dedicated to him until we openly decide otherwise.

I yawn and Ash starts stroking my back again. “There’s one more thing,” he says, and he sounds as tired as I feel.

“What is it?” I ask over another yawn.

“I want you to be careful around Abilene.”

I definitely wasn’t expecting that. “Abilene?”

I can feel Ash hesitate next to me, his body going still as he searches for the right words. “She accosted me tonight at the dinner, after I’d spoken to Merlin. She…well, this is uncomfortable and awkward to say, but I think she has feelings for me. She tried to kiss me and she told me—it’s not important what she told me, actually, but it gave me the impression that she’s not going to look out for your best interests.”

Oh, Abilene. No wonder she seemed so nervous when I went to pick up my suitcase.

“What did she say?”

“Greer—”

“Please, Ash. She’s my cousin and my best friend and if she’s harassing you or disparaging me, I need to know.”

He relents with a sigh. “She said she’d make a better wife to me than you would. That she could make me happier. And I told her that simply wasn’t possible. You are the perfect woman, objectively speaking, and also the perfect woman for me, and I told Abilene that. She was understandably upset, and I’m guessing humiliated. She left me without another word.”

“Oh my God.” I roll away from Ash to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m so mortified. And I’m so sorry.”

“You had nothing to do with it.” Ash is still on his side, and he twirls a tendril of my hair around his finger. “And I am endeavoring to forget about it. But I thought you should know that she seems to harbor some deep resentment of you. I tried to make it unequivocally clear that I loved you and nothing would change that, but I don’t know if it will be enough.”

“I don’t know either,” I say, thinking of the way Abi has nursed her obsession with Ash through the years. “She can be quite determined when she wants to be.”

Ash’s lips are on my hair now, and then on my face, and then on my lips. “She’s not more determined than I am. Rest assured, she holds no allure for me.”