“You’ve been quiet lately. Anything wrong? How has the fallout over Brittany’s defection been?”
Ash rolled his eyes. “Predictable.”
“Meaning what?”
Jace took a seat across from Ash and pinned him with an inquisitive stare.
“Oh, you know my dear old mother and father. Dad is too much of a spineless wimp to do or say much of anything. He just toes the line with Mom and whatever she says goes.”
“They been giving her shit?” Jace asked with a scowl.
“Well, they showed up at the apartment you’re letting her use. Ordered her home and told her to quit being a child. This is a thirty-year-old woman my mother was dressing down, mind you. When Brittany refused, Mom wanted to know how she afforded the apartment she was living in and how she was making it on her own. Brittany told her it was none of her business how she got the apartment and that she was making it like most people made it. By working.”
Jace chuckled. “Good for her. Wouldn’t have thought she had it in her to stand up to the wicked bitch of the east.”
“Me either to be honest,” Ash admitted. “But she seems determined to make a break from the family. I’m proud of her. Mom can be intimidating and you have to understand until recently Brittany has always done what Mom wanted her to. No questions asked.”
“Must be a hard adjustment for her,” Jace said in sympathy.
“I’m having dinner with her tonight. You and Bethany want to join us? I’d like Brittany to meet Bethany. Brittany hasn’t associated with the best female friends. They were never her real friends and Brittany knows that. When the chips are down, they aren’t riding to her rescue. They dropped her like a hot brick.”
“Sure. I’ll call Bethany and make sure we don’t have other plans.”
“Thanks. Will be nice to take my mind off other things.”
Too late he realized how telling that statement would be, and the last thing he wanted was to discuss it with Jace, who would most definitely latch on to it and wouldn’t let it go.
“Anything you need help with?” Jace asked, his brow wrinkled with concern.
“Nah. Not unless you have a way of making a woman acquiesce to your demands.”
At that Jace’s eyebrow lifted. “A woman? Do tell. This has to be worth the price of admission.”
“It’s complicated,” Ash muttered. “She’s being difficult.”
Jace laughed. “Show me one woman who isn’t!”
“Bethany,” Ash pointed out. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch to have her. She’d give you the moon and you know it.”
“So what’s the problem with your woman du jour?”
Ash scowled. “That’s just it. She’s not just any woman. I don’t know, man. She hits buttons that a woman has never pushed for me.”
“Oh shit. It’s happened,” Jace crowed. “The smug son of a bitch who gave me and Gabe so much grief has finally fallen hard and from the sounds of it she isn’t exactly reciprocating.”
Ash flipped up his middle finger. “It’s too early for that. She just intrigues me. I want her,” he said bluntly. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her in my bed. The problem is, she isn’t exactly tripping over herself to get there.”
“Now this is hilarious. Women kill themselves to get next to you. You’re the charming one. Not as hard-ass as Gabe and I are.”
Ash barely held back the snort. His friends were sadly mistaken on that score. He might give the appearance of being the easygoing, laid-back one, but when it came to women, what he wanted, what he needed? There was no charm, no being laid-back. It had been years since he’d let that part of himself go with a woman. He still remembered her fondly. He’d just turned thirty. She was a few years younger than him. They both wanted and enjoyed the same things and when he’d actually let her see him for what he was, she hadn’t balked.
He still thought of Cammie from time to time. Wondered where she was. If she was married with children. And wondered if she’d found a man to satisfy her submissive streak.
She and Ash had parted as friends. She’d wanted more than he could give her. At the time he was solidly married to his career, trying to make HCM into what it was today. She wanted to settle down, have a family, live the American dream. And Ash hadn’t been prepared to do that.
It wasn’t that he minded the idea of marriage to her. She was a beautiful woman, fun to be with. He could have grown to love her. He knew that. But he’d wanted to wait. He hadn’t wanted to marry her when he wasn’t absolutely certain he could provide for her every need.
Now? Marriage and commitment seemed to be the next logical step. Gabe and Jace had taken the plunge. They were all at a point in their careers where they could step back, relax, focus on things other than business.
But while Gabe and Jace had found that perfect woman, someone who embraced and accepted the kind of men they were and loved them in spite of their imperfections, Ash hadn’t yet met a woman who fulfilled the parts of his heart that weren’t satisfied by his career and good friends.
“She wants me,” Ash said. “She wants what I can give her, but as much as I can see that she wants it, she’s hesitant.”
“I know patience isn’t one of your virtues, but perhaps this is one time you need to get acquainted with the concept.”
The heavy amusement in Jace’s voice just made Ash grumpy. Patience? Definitely not one of his virtues. And he definitely wasn’t going to start getting up-close and personal with the idea now of all times. Not when he wanted something as badly as he wanted Josie.
And he still couldn’t explain it. Obsession. It was a word he’d associated with Jace when it came to Bethany, and Ash had come down hard on Jace for it. He hadn’t understood it. He’d even tried to talk Jace down, going as far as doing a background check on Bethany and then warning Jace off.
It wasn’t one of his better moves, because Bethany had been the best thing that had ever happened to Jace. It was a good thing his friend hadn’t listened to Ash’s advice, and now that Ash found himself in a similar predicament, he could well understand Jace’s uncharacteristic reaction to Bethany.
“Let me ask you something,” Ash said, his tone serious. “In the beginning with Bethany. Did you sit back and wait or did you move in, take charge and take over?”
Jace winced, his face contorting with a grimace.
“I tried at first to be patient, take things slow. But that lasted a very short period of time. I wanted to give her time to adjust. I mean, her circumstances were different than most. It made me crazy to think of her not having a place to sleep, and when I moved her into Mia’s old apartment it made me crazy because she wasn’t with me all the time even though we were together every day. But I wanted her in my apartment. As long as she was living somewhere else, I didn’t feel like she was completely mine. It sounds nuts but I wanted to know where she was every minute. It makes me sound like a fucking stalker, and maybe that’s what I was. Hell if I know. I just knew that I wanted her with me. Every day. In my apartment when I got home. In my bed every night. Not in another apartment where she could bolt at any time even though I had men on her.”
“Yeah, that didn’t work out too well if I remember right,” Ash said dryly. “Didn’t she bail on them and disappear for a few hours?”
“An entire day,” Jace muttered. “Hell, I thought she’d left me or walked out, but all she did was go find Jack, and I still get tense just thinking of all that could have happened to her in those few hours.”
“I didn’t get it then,” Ash admitted. “I thought you’d lost your mind. But I get it now, because I feel the same way about Josie. And it’s crazy. We’ve only seen each other a few times and had only one date where we actually spent more than a few minutes in each other’s company. I’m still kicking myself for not pressing her harder at dinner. She was so close to agreeing, but the dumbass that I am, I backed off because I didn’t want to overwhelm her, so I granted her wish for time to think. Well, that was a fucking week ago and I haven’t heard shit since our dinner.”
Jace’s face crinkled in sympathy. “So what are you going to do?”
“Well, I have plans tonight with Brittany, and you and Bethany if you can make it, but tomorrow I’m employing a full-court press. I’m done sitting back and being patient. If she’s going to tell me no, I at least want to hear it from her lips instead of enduring this prolonged silence.”
“Good luck man. I hope it works out for you. And at the risk of being a total hypocrite since I got in your face for checking up on Bethany, have you checked Josie out?”
Ash nodded. “Yeah, I did. After our first meeting in the park. No skeletons in her closet that I uncovered anyway.”
“Okay, well, if there’s anything I can do, you know you only have to ask. If you get her to agree, we’ll have to hook up, and when Gabe and Mia get back from their honeymoon, we can all get together. You can introduce Josie to Mia and Bethany. They have a good group of girlfriends, and I’ll tell you from experience, when they have their girls’ nights out?” He broke off and a shit-eating grin attacked his face.
Ash held up his hand with a groan. “I know, I know. You’ve already regaled me with the details of drunk, sexy women in fuck-me shoes wanting to be fucked in those fuck-me shoes. No need to torture me further.”
Jace laughed and then rose. “Let me go call Bethany. I’ll let you know about tonight. Where we eating and what time? I just need to give her a heads-up so she can be ready.”
“How about the Bryant Park Grill right after work?”
Jace nodded. “Sounds good. We’ll see you there.”
chapter nine
Brittany was noticeably nervous at dinner, though Bethany was a complete doll, easing the awkwardness and treating Brittany like a long-lost friend.
The Bryant Park Grill was hopping, as it was every day right after work hours. It was filled with suits, businessmen and women enjoying cocktails after a day at work. It was a popular after-work haunt, but that wasn’t why Ash chose it.
He’d chosen it because he thought he might see Josie there. But according to the man Ash had assigned to keep tabs on Josie, she hadn’t been out of her apartment at all for several days.
Maybe she was working furiously to finish a new piece of art for the gallery. Maybe she wasn’t giving his proposition a moment’s thought. He’d told Jace he’d give her until tomorrow, but he was only half paying attention to the dinner conversation because he was tempted to go to Josie’s apartment unannounced.
Patience. Jace had said to have patience. Ash nearly snorted over the hypocrisy of that statement, even if Jace had admitted it.
Their food was served, and Brittany had finally relaxed, even smiling in Ash’s direction. At one point she leaned toward him so only he would hear and said, “Thank you, Ash. You can’t know what this means to me. You’re the only family I have now. The others have cut all ties. They treat me like I’m some sort of traitor for wanting to have my own life. You understood what I wanted and needed and you didn’t judge me for it.”
Ash smiled. “Join the outcast club. It’s not so bad really. The longer you remain away from them, the more perspective you’ll gain and you’ll realize that this is something you would have been happier doing a lot sooner. But you’ve done it, and that’s all that counts. It’ll get easier. I promise.”
“Does it bother you?” she asked in an earnest voice. “I mean does it bother you that they treat you like an outsider? That they have such disdain for you and your success?”
Ash shrugged. “It did in the beginning I suppose. I haven’t given it much thought over the last few years. I have good friends and they’re my family. And now you.”
Her face lit up, the shadows chased from her eyes in a flash. “I’m glad we can be family, Ash. I really mean that. I’m not going to let you down. I know I didn’t get the job on my own, but I’m not going to make you regret giving it to me.”
They were interrupted by the ringing of Ash’s cell phone. He reached automatically for it, holding his breath without realizing at first that he was doing so. It could be Josie. He’d waited a damn week for something, anything from her.
But when he looked at the incoming name, he frowned. It wasn’t Josie. It was the man assigned to Josie.
“Excuse me, I have to take this,” Ash said as he rose, already pushing the button to accept the call.
He walked away from the table to a quieter area near the restrooms.
“Ash,” he said shortly.
“Mr. McIntyre, I know my reports have been much the same all week. Miss Carlysle hasn’t left her apartment until now and I knew you’d want to know what I saw.”
“What?” Ash demanded.
“She’s sporting one hell of a black eye. Split lip. Looks like someone took a shot at her. I could be wrong. It could have been an accident, but I doubt it. And it could be why she hasn’t left her apartment.”
Ash swore. “Where is she headed now? Are you on her?”
“Yeah, I’m following her now. Looks like she’s headed to the gallery. She had several canvases when she got into a cab. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Do that,” Ash murmured as he hung up.
He stood for a moment, his mind filled with rage at the idea that someone had abused Josie in some way. And then he cursed the fact that he hadn’t asked his man if Josie had been anywhere or if she’d had visitors. Surely he would have reported it if she had. But then he hadn’t had her shadow back on the job until two days after their dinner. He’d thought she would have contacted him by then and when she hadn’t, he’d put his man back on her to monitor her activities.
Obsessed? Yeah, that was one word for it. Demented was another. He was acting like a crazed stalker, the kind most women would do well to steer clear of. Only he wasn’t going to harm Josie. But he was kicking himself for not keeping his man on her, because someone had hurt her, or at the very least she’d been injured in some way.
Why hadn’t she called him? Why hadn’t she come to him for help? She had to know after their conversation that he would take care of her.
With a muttered curse he returned to the table where Brittany, Jace and Bethany all looked up at him. Concern immediately flashed in their eyes. His expression must have been grim for them to have picked up on his mood so quickly.