Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (7 page)

Ridiculous because I knew it wouldn’t work, and Ash was cocksure and pushing through with the whole thing.
 

And ridiculous, because I thought in the back of my mind that it could be real, that it could work. And I barely knew this man.

I walk up the path, framed by azalea bushes, bursting with whites and pinks and reds at this time of year. My mother is at the door, waiting to greet me, like she somehow knew I’d need her after a day like today. When I reach the door and she takes me in her arms, I’m sure this is home.
 

“Well, I’ll be damned. Back again?” She ushers me inside and sits me down in the empty lobby of her bed and breakfast. It seems like it’s been empty since the day I returned, just like Bianca’s bar. My mother bustles around and brings me a plate of biscuits, and I sit back on the worn pink sofa and take some. They’re hot, with butter and fig jam, like she knew I’d be coming by.
 

“Yeah,” I sigh, through a mouthful of buttery warmth. It occurs to me that I left the damn grits back on the bar. A waste of money, and Ash didn’t even pay for me anyway. “I guess the apartment just feels lonely right now.”

Mom paces around, back and forth, like she’s nervous too. She stops right in front of me as I shove a bite of biscuit into my mouth. “You’re flushed, baby.” She puts her cool, dry hand against my forehead. “You got a fever? You always did get a fever on the first day of school. Always so excited to do something new—something unexpected. Seems like that might be what’s happening with the first day of your residency. I am so proud of you. I was telling Bianca—”

“No, Mama. I’m fine.” I look up at her and put my hand over hers, holding it against my cheek. The last time I saw her, she seemed ten years younger. Now there are deep worry lines at the corners of her mouth and in between her brows.
 

“You don’t sound fine. It’s like you’re stirred up. I thought you’d come on over here after work. Just a feeling I had. You’ve been flitting about like a little bird ever since you’ve been back.”
 

“Just lots of things to sort out at work. I did a lot of sutures today, one appendectomy. Helped a couple of people with a stomach virus.”

“That’s really something, baby. I bet you’re just tired.” She pats me on my shoulder and goes to straighten the stack of papers by her register. It’s the second time she’s done it in the five minutes I’ve been here. “That boy came around here—”

“What boy?” I look up and shove some more biscuit in my mouth. I have a feeling I know very well what boy. Probably the same one I couldn’t get rid of today.

“Not a boy, I guess.” She picks up her Swiffer duster and dusts around the bookshelves behind the sofa. “A man. Real good looking, red hair. He’s come by a couple times since you left, always very respectful. First time, he acted like I should know who he was. Said his name was Jeffrey—or—something like that.” She’s dusting around behind me, so I can’t see her face. “Lots of muscles. Back in my day—I’d have—well, you get my point. He came around looking for you, yesterday evening. You know who I’m talking about.”

I sigh heavily. After years of thinking he was long gone, that I’d have to file for divorce by myself and get him declared dead or missing, he’s been
here
. “Jonathan. He’s an old friend, I guess.”

“An old friend? Not the reason you can’t seem to sit still since you’ve been home?”
 

“No, Mom, it’s not like that.” She passes by me, nodding.
 

“How come you think he acted like I should know him? He’s got an accent like he’s from up North, can’t quite place where...” Her voice trails off like she’s expecting more information, but it’s not coming. What am I supposed to tell her?
 

Mom, I married this criminal a few years ago, and now it seems he’s on the up and up and lives here in town. I might still want him. I might have loved him. I might still love him, but I don’t know. He was a real asshole to me when I left, Mama.
 

Somehow I don’t think that would go over so well.

“I just knew him a long time ago. Maybe he thought I mentioned him.” I glance at her, and I can tell she’s trying to read me. “Are there any guests in the Island House? I might stay there a few days.”

“Not a lot of guests these days. You do what you want, sweetheart.” She tosses me a key and leans in to give me a kiss goodnight. As disconcerting as things were at the hospital, things don’t exactly seem right
here
either. It’s summer—the inn should be teeming with people, and she should she preparing for her busiest month yet. Instead, she’s dusting and serving me biscuits. The place is eerily empty.

“Night Mom.”

“Night, baby.” She pauses at the foot of the stairs and looks back at me. “That young man said he’d be glad to see you when he could. Did he come see you yet?”
 

“No, Mama. Not yet.”
 

She walks up the stairs and I take the key back to the Island House, where I can be alone with my thoughts. I don’t even turn on the light. Instead, I fall straight into bed, jeans and all, and I lie in the dark for a long time, looking up at the ceiling and watching the moonlight play through the blinds.
 

I remember the first days after I left for Syria, sleeping doubled up with some other doctor in a tent, dust rolling in at night, strange noises keeping me awake. I remember the cold of the plains in the Ukraine, Russian words slipping over people’s tongues as I strained to understand them. Hands numb from suturing in the icy cold. Most of all, though, I remember Ash.

In my job, I was on autopilot, especially that first year. While I was performing minor surgeries, I went deep into my zone, and my thoughts concentrated on the redheaded man with the scars, the one who put his body between me and Cullen, who defended my aunt and made a plan to get us both out of dodge. I thought of his body then, too, much like I’m doing now.
 

And I loved him then, utterly, totally, completely. Fucking helplessly. When he appeared in front of me again—it wasn’t hate I felt, not really. It was more the lingering sadness that comes with love lost.
 

He’s still
perfect
. He’s still
sex on a damn stick
. When I look at him, when I sit next to him, even when I’m pulling away, I’m unquestionably drawn to his arms.
 

I can’t let him see it—and I shouldn’t give in. No, I shouldn’t.

A man that leaves me alone in the middle of New York with cruel words and crueler loneliness—he doesn’t deserve a chance.

But when I look at him, I
forget
.
 

It’s so dangerous. And it’s so true.
 

It’s hard to concentrate on my loneliness, on the crushing sadness I felt when I boarded that plane, and when I woke up alone in that hospital in Syria.

Instead of that, I think of the length of his jawline, the fire in his eyes, the long-forgotten feeling of his legs pressed between mine, his hand holding my lower back, his tongue against my skin.
 

Insistent, unrelenting.
 

The time when all I wanted was him doesn’t seem so distant now. It feels heartbreakingly close, like a feeling distilled in time and dropped on my lap, spreading over me in waves.

I slip my hands over my body, imagining his strong fingers, and then lower, between my legs, until it seems right that all I’m thinking of is him, making me
his
, making me
beg
.

Three Years, Five Months Ago

After the bar, I end up at Cullen’s. I’m not on duty to watch Bianca or her minx of a niece, and I need to check in with the old bastard.
 

As long as he’s not building up to something with Bianca, everything is safe. Summer is
safe. For now.

But when I walk in, I can tell that something is massively
wrong
with Cullen—I haven’t seen him like this in years, stomping back and forth, grinding his teeth. The place is empty apart from the two of us.
 

I can’t help but think of Summer’s body against mine, how delicate and fragile she seemed.

And suddenly, seeing Cullen like this makes the entire situation seem ten times more dangerous.

It hits me as I watch him. He’s got a screw loose—hair mussed, eyes unfocused, pacing back and forth over the polished floors.

This is
dangerous
.
 

“That fucking bitch has gone one step too far,” he says to me, barely looking me in the eye. Cullen rages around his basement bar, fists clenched tight. He’s got the look in his one eye—the one he gets before he launches into one of these families in the neighborhood. “You know she told me to go fuck myself? That she didn’t need my money to keep going? Bitch is too big for her britches.”

He looks the way he did before he terrorized that family a week ago.

The way he did before he manipulated my father into working for him.
 

I was ten, but I’ll always remember that look. That was when Cullen had two milky blue eyes. I think that might have made him twice as creepy.

“Cullen—” I start. But he keeps walking back and forth between his back room and the empty front room with its empty green poker tables.
 

“Ash, you stay out of this. Your only job is going to be to take care of the girl. I won’t get you to kill her—yet. But that bitch aunt of hers—well, I’ve been dealing with her for a
long
time. She used to work
with
me, you know. Until she got other ideas and disappeared to North Carolina for two goddamn years. She came back and bought that damn bar with some family money she got from somewhere, and she’s been a thorn in my side ever since.” Cullen puts a gun up on his bar and cleans it. Anyone watching him might think that he’d slip up and shoot the whole place up in his current emotional state, but his hands are as quick and methodical as ever, cleaning and checking each part of the damn thing.
 

Summer. What does he mean by taking care of her?
 

“The girl doesn’t have a part of this, Cullen.”
 

He gives me a blank stare. “Did the daughter of that restaurant owner have a damn thing to do with him not paying money?”

“No,” I say. I’m glad part of my dad’s deal with Cullen was keeping me out of the murder business, because Cullen had very recently proven he was not above casual executions to get what he wants.

And he’s escalating
.
 

White-haired, old as fuck. It all makes sense in a certain screwed up way. Hell’s Kitchen was all he ever wanted, and he wanted it
Irish
before he died.

“Wrong answer,” he replies, looking back down at the gun and putting it back together with a mechanical clicking sound. “Yes. She had everything to do with the restaurant owner. Because she was his family.
Family
is everything. We
honor
it in my house, and we
exploit
it outside of my fucking house. Do you understand, Jonny? Tell me you understand.”
 

Cullen grins a Cheshire grin, and I nod grimly.
 

“Tell me, Ash. Tell me you understand that Hell’s Kitchen
is
my house, and there’s
only
room for family here. If Bianca won’t pay the twenty thousand she owes, well, she doesn’t get to buy a spot in my family, does she? She can’t
afford
my good graces anymore, can she?”

“I understand that, Cullen—but you said she used to be like family to you. I’ve heard you say that before—”

He looks away and shrugs. I can’t read his expression—there’s something there that’s much deeper than a simple vendetta. And this is a man who does simple vendettas
very
well. “She made her decision to leave me a long time ago,” he says quietly. “She forfeited every right she had, and I’ve been far too kind since then. I don’t have much
time
. And before I die, I’ll take what’s
mine
.”

“Summer doesn’t belong mixed up in this.”

A wry smile appears on his face. “You like the girl, do you, Jonny?”
 

I stare at him, hoping not to give anything away. I certainly haven’t spoken up for one of Cullen’s victims before, and now was certainly
not
the time to start.