Chapter 42
Asher
An hour later my mind is reeling with everything she’s told me. Her dead boyfriend is alive and is her stepbrother, and his stepdad is married to Alyse’s runaway mother.
Both she and this guy have walked through hell and come out the other side. Different people, but they’ve come out nonetheless. It absolutely shreds me that she was pregnant with someone else’s baby, but I would be a hypocrite of epic proportions to ever think differently about her because of it.
As much as I’m seething inside with jealousy, I feel for the guy. He was put in a tough spot. The difference between us is that nothing would have kept me away from Alyse. Not a damn thing. Now I understand why Alyse has been so protective of her heart. Why she’s tried to keep me out.
“This is all a little unbelievable. Like a fucking soap opera or something,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my hair. Then I ask the question that I know without a doubt I do not want the answer to, but not knowing will eat my gut raw. It’s already bled far too much these past two weeks. “Do you…do you still love him?”
The way I saw him holding her makes complete sense now. He’s still in love with her. I didn’t have to see anything other than the tender way he held her in his arms, even in sleep, to know that. I have to know if she feels the same.
Fuck. I can hardly stand to hear her answer.
She reaches for my hand, and both her gesture and words settle me. “I think a part of me was still in love with the memory of him. I’ll always care about him because of our history, but I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with you, Asher. You. I was wrong to keep all this from you, but it was just too painful to even put a voice to it and after I saw him at the bar that night, I just…I didn’t know what to do. What to think. I had to understand what was happening first before I could even attempt to talk to you about it.”
“I get it, Alyse.” And I do. I don’t like it, but I do get it. “I understand how hard some things are to talk about.” I reach for her, needing her in my arms, my mouth on hers. She stops me.
“There’s one more thing I have to tell you.”
Her nervousness makes me nervous, too. “You can tell me anything, Alyse. Anything.”
She swallows hard. “When I lost the baby and I thought Beck had died, I went into a very deep depression.”
“Understandable,” I reply softly, aching to hold her to me, to ease her discomfort.
“I…I didn’t want to live. I felt like I’d lost everything and I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it. Neither Livia nor my father knew about Beck…or the baby. The pain was so vast and so deep; I felt completely and utterly lost. I would lie in bed at night and wish I were the one who had died instead of Beck, instead of our baby. I was in so much emotional pain, I literally couldn’t function. All I wanted was to be with Beck and my baby, even if it wasn’t in the flesh.”
She flashes a look of embarrassment before continuing. “The first time, I took an entire bottle of ibuprofen, but all I managed to do was make myself sick for three days. The second time, though, I got smarter. I took a handful of Cymbaltas and pain pills and as much whiskey as I could drink until I blessedly passed out.”
I literally cannot breathe when Alyse pauses, biting her lip. Her gaze shifts away again. This time I don’t give her a choice. I pull her into my lap and wrap my arms tightly around her, all the time thinking fuck fuck fuck! I could have lost her. Forever. The only woman who was meant for me could have been taken away before I even had her. I squeeze tighter, relishing in the warmth of her body bleeding into mine.
“Livia found me,” she tells me quietly. “I’d stopped breathing and she did CPR on me until the ambulance arrived. If she’d been even two minutes later I would have died. After three days in the hospital, my father admitted me to an inpatient psych ward where I spent the next thirty days in intense therapy and another year after that in outpatient care.”
My eyes prick as irrational guilt assaults me. None of this would have happened either if she were mine back then. If I’d never let her go.
“Jesus, Alyse. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you went through all of that by yourself. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“Asher, you have no reason to be sorry. It’s just…my path, I guess.”
“I should have never let you go. It is my fault.”
“Stop. It’s not. You don’t…think any less of me because I had a little psychotic break?” she asks tentatively.
“Christ, why would I, Alyse? I can’t even imagine what you were going through. I’m in no position to pass judgment on something that I can’t possibly understand. If anything I’m proud of you.”
“Proud of me?” she asks disbelievingly.
“Yes. I’m not sure I could have been as strong as you were to get through all of that.”
“I wasn’t strong. I was weak.”
“No, baby.” I tilt her face to mine. “A moment of weakness doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. You’re here and you’re an extraordinary woman. The strongest I know.”
Her smile is tired and sad. “After I recovered, that’s when I got the tattoo. To remind myself to believe in hope and life and me.”
“I figured it was something deep and meaningful,” I say, stroking her hair.
“Yeah.”
She looks away again, going silent. I have to wonder why she was so nervous to tell me something like this. As far as I’m concerned, the whole dead/not dead boyfriend is a far more important part of what shaped Alyse into the woman she is today.
“Your mother’s very wise, you know,” she finally says.
“Yes she is,” I numbly agree, unable to think about anything but the fact that I almost didn’t get the chance to sit here now with her. I could have missed the smell of vanilla in her hair or pressing my lips to her warm temple or the feather of her fingers down my spine as I rock inside of her. My arms tighten. She squeaks so I loosen them, but only slightly.
“She told me that life takes us where we’re supposed to be, even if that road is bumpy and there are detours. My road has been hard, but I know it’s led me back to you.”
“She did, huh?” I smile. My mom is one-of-a-kind incredible, always knowing the right thing to say at the right time. I hook a finger under her chin, tilting her head up. Her gorgeous, misty eyes meet mine. “I wish I had never let you go.”
“Don’t let me go now.”
“Never,” I whisper. “Never again.” As I stare into the eyes of the woman who single-handedly brought my heart back to life, I can’t keep the next words from leaving my mouth no matter how hard I try. I didn’t plan on doing this now, but I can’t imagine a more perfect time. “Marry me, Alyse.”
“What?” she murmurs in shock.
“Marry me,” I say with conviction, positioning her so she straddles my thighs. “It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or next month or even in six months, but I want nothing more than to be your husband. I want to spend every single day of the rest of my life worshipping you, taking care of you, loving you. I’ve never loved a single person more than I love you, Alyse, so marry me. Let me spend the rest of my days showing you just how much you are wanted, because no one will ever want you as much as I do.”
“Asher…” Her eyes swim with unshed tears.
“Don’t say anything unless it’s yes.”
“No ‘yes or no’ ultimatum this time?”
“No. Because all I want to hear is yes.”
“Okay.” A devilish smile spreads across her face, but I’m still waiting to hear only one word.
“Okay? Is that a yes, or is that just an okay?”
“Yes.”
“Yes it’s a yes, or yes it’s just an okay?”
She laughs, her smile bright and happy. Cupping my face, she sobers a bit. “Your proposal was more of a demand than a question. You’re very bossy.”
My lips curl. “You love it.”
“Yes.”
“Yes you love it or yes you’ll marry me.”
After a few beats, she answers, “Yes to both.”
“Alyse…” My eyes close briefly before opening and capturing hers. I find myself tumbling into her dark, fathomless pools. I plan on staying blessedly adrift there forever. “God, I love you.”
“Show me. Show me I’m yours.”
I stand, wrapping her legs around me, my cock pulsing, dying to slip into her wet heat after two nights away. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you. Over and over.”
My mouth latches onto hers as I carry her to our bedroom and gladly fulfill her every demand this time.