Captivate, book I of the Love & Lust (17 page)

Twenty-Five

Slade doesn’t return to his room. He can’t stand to face Tamsin, knowing that he would more than likely tear into her as well. It wasn’t really her fault. He should have gone to speak to Ashlyn in person instead of relying on the phone. That was his first mistake. The second was assuming that Ashlyn would give him the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping onto his case at the first sign of trouble.

Having Tamsin naked in his bed certainly didn’t do him any favors, but it was completely innocent. Yes, Tamsin had tried to coerce him into sleeping with her, but he wasn’t interested in anything she had to offer.

She didn’t take his rejection too well.

A week ago, he probably would have jumped at the chance to have some more fun with her. Of all the women he’s ever been with, she was the most adventurous and enthusiastic, but last night it felt all wrong.

Tamsin was looking for someone to share her bed and he was the only one around. That doesn’t exactly do much to set the mood.

But that wasn’t even the real reason he rejected her advances. He really was upset about missing his dinner with Ashlyn. The thought of upsetting her continues to gnaw at him as he tucks his sheet around his waist like a toga and hunts down a bellman to find him some clothes.

Once fully dressed, Slade heads out the front doors and walks the streets of New York. They aren’t all unlike being back home: a single mob of people moving in unison. He is one of the few who tries to go against the flow.

He is jostled about as he heads away from the hotel. He doesn’t know where he’s going, only that he needs time to think. At first, he walks around the block, afraid to wander too far from the hotel, but eventually he just needs to move.

He begins at a jog, but the tennis shoes the bellman loaned him crimp his toes awfully. The jeans are a decent fit, but the shirt is baggy, billowing in the wind.

He can’t stop thinking about how the accusing look in Ashlyn’s eye stung far more than he would have thought. It wasn’t just the accusation, because he obviously deserves a portion of that blame, but it was the pain buried beneath it.

He told her he wouldn’t hurt her and he did. He put himself in her world, gave her a reason to trust him, and he blew it.

Slade knows that her threat to fire him stemmed from that pain, but that makes it no less real. He pauses at the corner of a busy intersection about four blocks from the hotel.
What if she wasn’t bluffing? Does Ashlyn really have the power to fire me?

Worried that he may be stranded in New York with no job, Slade turns and jogs back to the hotel. By the time he arrives, he’s hobbling with toe cramps, but he doesn’t wait for the elevator to arrive. Instead, he shoves through the stairwell door and takes the steps two at a time.

He is panting by the time he reaches the fourth floor. He forces himself to slow to a walk as he approaches a young couple pushing a baby in a pram. “Morning,” he says as he waits for them to pass. The new parents look exhausted. No doubt this baby was the one he heard wailing through much of last night.

“Bollocks,” he mutters as he searches the pockets of his jeans. He left without grabbing his room key.

“Tamsin!” He pounds on the door. He waits a minute and shouts again.

On the third knock, she finally answers. “What do you want?”

She yawns, using one hand to cover her mouth and the other to clutch the sheet. He’s been gone well over an hour and she has yet to get dressed. “You’re in my suite, remember?”

Her eyes widen as she looks around for the first time. “Huh. Guess that explains why it’s so clean.”

She steps back to allow him to enter. He brushes past and heads straight for the bedroom. Sinking onto the edge of the bed, he reaches for his satchel.

“We don’t have to be at the signing for a couple more hours,” Tamsin says as she walks into the room.

“Um-hmm.” He agrees absently. He pulls out the notebooks, pens, and files inside his satchel and begins sifting through them. He knows he has a copy of his contract here somewhere.

Movement before him catches his attention and he looks up to find himself staring at Tamsin’s bare abdomen. His stomach clenches as he tries to focus on her pierced belly button instead of anything above or below that.

When the temptation to look up grows too great, he closes his eyes. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Oh, really?” She leans down and moves his papers aside. Before he can protest, she shoves him back onto the bed and straddles his waist.

“Bloody hell, Tamsin.” Slade groans as he clenches his hands into a fist over his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She leans over and nuzzles his neck. Her hair tickles his chest as she slips her hands up under his shirt. The muscles in his abdomen clench under her touch, and he fights to resist as she nibbles on his ear. “I think you know
exactly
what I’m doing,” she purrs.

“This is not going to happen,” he says, turning away from her touch.

“Are you sure about that?” Her hand slips into the waistband of his pants, and he grabs her hand, his eyes open wide.

“I said no.” He bucks her off and rolls to the side. He swoops down and grasps the sheet, holding it out behind him. “Put this on. Your clothes are in the bathroom. You can get cleaned up and then head back to your room.”

Tamsin snatches the sheet from his hand. The scowl he finds on her face when he turns around would make any man’s blood run cold. “This is about her, isn’t it?”

Slade moves out of her way as she heads to the bathroom. “Ashlyn won’t have you now, you know? Not after she hears what we did.”

His anger begins to build as he grits his teeth. “Leave Ash out of this.”

Tamsin smirks, swaying her hips as she walks into the bathroom. “It’s not
Ash
that I would be worrying about, Slade. When Sophie hears how naughty you’ve been, you are finished.”

“Is that really what this is all about?” he asks, disgusted by it all. “Was I just some toy that you could play with and toss aside?”

Tamsin’s smile is filled with mock pity. “Just now learning that, huh?”

Slade feels ill as Tamsin closes the door behind her. How could he have been so blind not to see that she was using him all along?

He wanted her in the beginning and she knew it. She used his desire for her own purposes and made him into a fool for the entire world to see. For Ashlyn to see.

Sinking down onto the bed, Slade buries his head in his hands. Ashlyn tried to warn him about how cutthroat this industry is. She had known that Tamsin would do whatever it took to get ahead, and now he feels like a right wanker.

 
He should have listened to Ashlyn. She’s the only person who has ever tried to help him, and what did he give her back in return? Broken trust.

“What have I done?” He lies back on his bed, feeling a sickness begin in his soul. It coils around in his stomach, making him want to curl up and wallow in self-loathing. He is sorely tempted to do just that, but he can’t. He needs to find Ashlyn and get this sorted out.

As he rolls onto his side, he notices the edge of his contract sticking out from the pile Tamsin shoved onto the floor. He picks it up and feels only numbness as he realizes that it isn’t Ashlyn’s signature on the bottom of the page, but Tamsin’s.

He still has a job, but he’s no longer sure he even wants it.

Twenty-Six

Ashlyn snatches her razors from the shower wall and tosses them at her toiletry bag. She grabs her soaps and lotions and adds them on top before bending to retrieve her slippers. Her bag bulges from the top with a disorganized array of supplies, but she doesn’t care how it looks, only that she can leave. She gives the bathroom a final onceover before she turns off the light and zips up her bag.

She walks into the main room of her suite and stares at the queen bed, the pillow still damp from her tears. The comforter has been straightened and the throw pillows neatly placed. The curtains have been drawn back to let in the morning light, but it does nothing to brighten her spirits.

The closet is empty and the shoe rack barren. Ashlyn’s hard-shell suitcase sits at the end of her bed, packed and ready to go. She tucks her toiletry case on top and leans over the case to try to zip it.

Her world has plummeted into chaos. She can’t think, at least not about anything other than the look on Slade’s face as the elevator doors closed.

Why did he have to look so sad? He was the one who betrayed her, not the other way around.

Sinking down onto the bed, she sighs, wishing she could stop crying. She doesn’t like to feel so weak. When her mother abandoned her as a child for a beer bottle, Ashlyn swore she would never let anyone make her cry again.

Slade was smart. He didn’t try to dynamite through her defenses. He chipped away at them slowly, with skilled precision.

He knew what he was doing and that’s what makes this hurt so much more.

Ashlyn closes her eyes and tries to snap herself out of it. “He’s just a guy. He’s hardly worth all of this childish blubbering.”

No amount of scolding has helped her so far, but she keeps trying. It’s all she knows to do.

Ashlyn kept herself separated from people in school, no close friends and zero leniencies when it came to boys. Sure, there had been plenty of interest on their part, but she just looked the other way. It was easier that way. She could stay focused on school and then college.

While the world passed her by, Ashlyn worked hard. There were countless late-night soda runs and more containers of ramen noodles than she would care to count, but she did it. She had a dream and she went for it, no holds barred.

Her roommate in college thought Ashlyn was a bit eccentric. Maybe she was, but she’s okay with that. She has managed to make it through twenty-two years of life with only one great betrayal. Not many people can say that.

But they can say they’ve lived,
a voice whispers in the back of her mind.

“What’s the use of living if it makes you feel like this?” She scowls at the empty room.

She was an expert at keeping people well beyond arm’s length, so what made Slade Collins so different? It wasn’t his looks. She’s certainly not shallow enough to be attracted to a guy only for that. It wasn’t his personality, because to be honest, he wasn’t exactly in top form when they first met.

No. It was his eyes. She saw something in him, something unique. Something he apparently didn’t even know existed.

He had told her that he’d been wearing a mask for so long that he didn’t really know who he was anymore. She’d hoped he was starting to discover himself again, but apparently she was wrong. Oh, so wrong.

She was a fool to let him destroy her perfect world. Now, instead of just being alone, she’s heartbroken too.

 
Her cell phone buzzes in her pocket and Ashlyn hesitates before answering. “Hey, Sophie.”

She wipes her nose with a tissue that she’d tucked into her pocket, knowing she probably sounds just as terrible as she looks.

“What the heck is going on up there in New York? I just got a call from Tamsin saying Slade has flipped out on her. She wants me to send his butt back to London and you haven’t been answering your phone.”

“Tamsin flipped out?” She can tell her voice sounds faraway and filled with confusion. And rightfully so. Why the heck would Slade flip out on Tamsin? Is he taking out his anger on her now?

 
“I’m almost done here in Miami with the press releases and then I’ll be heading up your way in an hour. When I get there, we can get this drama sorted out.”

“Don’t bother,” Ashlyn says, pulling up the handle of her suitcase. She rises and slings her purse over her shoulder. “I’m heading home.”

“What do you mean you’re going home?” The pitch of Sophie’s voice jumps an octave, but if Ashlyn were to guess, her blood pressure is on the rise much faster than her tone. “You can’t head home. We have New York today and then you’re heading back to London tomorrow.”

Ashlyn takes a deep breath, preparing herself. This isn’t going to go over well. It might even impact their working relationship, but it’s something she has to do. “Tamsin can handle it. And with you there to help her, I know everything will go smoothly.”

“Oh no.” The sound of Sophie’s heels tap-dancing against concrete increases in pace. “Don’t you dare do anything rash, Ashlyn. I’m heading your way now.”

“I’m serious, Sophie.” She can feel the tears starting to sting her eyes and she swallows roughly. “I want out.”

Sophie stops walking. “What did he do to you? I swear if Slade laid a single finger on you, I will tear him a new one.”

A tiny hint of a smile crosses Ashlyn’s lips as she pulls the door closed behind her. “I knew you’d be my knight in shining armor.”

“You’re darn right, but make sure it’s pink armor. Silver will make me look all washed out.”

Ashlyn laughs. It’s a small laugh, but it still counts. “I really am sorry to bail on you—”

“No.” Sophie breaks in. “Don’t even worry about it. I will get this mess sorted out. You just take care of you, okay?”

Ashlyn hits the down button and feels a small weight lift from her shoulders. “Why don’t you come see me when you’re done in London? Maybe we could go to a movie or something.”

Sophie’s breath catches. “Did you just…? You’re inviting me to your home?”