I look at my hands. How can I deny what she’s saying when I’ve thought the exact same thing?
“I told myself I didn’t care what you thought,” she says. “I told myself you could hate me if you wanted, but I deserved to marry the man I love. But I was lying to myself.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s in love with you now. You’re in love with him. Nothing else matters.”
“We both know that’s bullshit. We both know love is never enough.”
Her hand is tucked into the pools of satin around her. I find it and slide my fingers through hers. “It is if you let it be.”
She lifts her head to look at me. Tears have clotted in her lashes, and there’s a faint line of mascara down each cheek. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“I’m okay,” I whisper. Even if it’s not true just yet, there’s something blossoming inside me that believes some day it might be.
“No marriage is worth losing you. No man is worth that.”
“You aren’t going to lose me, Krys. I came home, remember?”
Her eyes leave my face and settle on our joined hands. She turns mine over and runs her fingers over the gauze at my wrist.
I snatch my hand away. “That was an accident.”
Her brows draw together. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you just couldn’t handle me and Will, you’d tell me?”
I take her face in my hands and wipe away her tears. “Of course,” I promise, but I don’t know if the lie is for her sake or mine.
Chapter Nine
Maggie
I haven’t been back to my studio since the accident, and I expect to find a bloody mess waiting for me, but someone’s been here in front of me. I know, without asking, that it was Will. He wouldn’t have wanted everyone else to see it, wouldn’t have wanted me to have to endure the questions.
I don’t let myself think about last Friday morning at all. Instead, I dive into my work. Or attempt to. With my left hand immobilized, there’s not much I can do but bust up some more glass.
There’s a knock outside my office, and I bring the mallet down one last time before I answer it—leaving crystal shards behind as I cross the tiny room.
When I open the door, I’m surprised to see Asher standing on the other side, hands tucked in his pockets, eyebrow quirked. He’s wearing jeans and a fitted gray t-shirt that pulls across his chest. Tattoos peek out from where the sleeves strain around his biceps, and I want to take a bite of him he looks so delicious.
“Sounds like a herd of elephants in a china shop in there,” he says.
“Something like that.” I cross my arms. He should probably be pissed at me after the way I kicked him out last week. Or about the fact that I never called to apologize.
But I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to remind myself that he knew.
“Are you going to invite me in or should I just make myself comfortable out here?”
I grin. I can’t help myself. “There’s hardly enough room for two, but come on in.”
He steps into the studio and I take a step back to give him space, but he follows me, backing me into a corner until he’s leaning over me, his hands pressed into the wall, the heat of his body warming mine.
His eyes are on my mouth, but something hard and angry ticks in his jaw.
“Okay,” I say, sighing dramatically. “I guess you can do me against the wall.”
That earns me a smile. “Tempting, but that’s not why I’m here.”
No shit, I think, but I say, “That’s disappointing.” I c**k my head. Pretending to be unaffected by his nearness is too damn hard. Asher is heat and passion and wicked indulgence. He makes me unsteady. “You wanted to help me work?”
He shoots a glance over his shoulder to my growing pile of broken glass and ceramic. “Is that what you were doing?” He steps away to examine my worktable. “What is this stuff?”
I catch my breath and find my footing. “Tesserae,” I explain. “I’ll use them to make mosaics.”
“Wow.” Glass tinkles as he sifts through the piles of raw material. “What kind of design are you going to make with all of this?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I only know there’s something beautiful there. I’ll find it.”
He studies a piece of pink-streaked crystal against the midday light coming in the window. It clatters as he settles it back onto the tray and turns to me. “When I found you at the river—”
I cut him off with the shake of my head. “I want you to forget about that day. Please.”
“You were wearing a ring. You were alone but you were wearing someone’s ring.” His gaze drops to my hand and his breath catches. “Jesus, Maggie. What happened?”
I lift my bandaged hand and shake my head. “It’s no big deal. I just had an accident with the glass.”
He takes my hand in his and examines the bandage. “Stitches?”
“A few.”
He nods, satisfied, then surprises me by bringing it to his mouth and pressing his lips against the bandage. This man looks so rough and continues to surprise me with his sweetness.
“Who is he?”
I blink, lost in my contemplation of Asher. “Who?”
“Whose ring were you wearing, Maggie?”
“Oh, we’re back on that.” I shake my head. “I’m not involved with anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It was that guy who married your sister.”
“They aren’t married. Engaged. The first wedding was botched, remember?”
“He was engaged to you first.” It’s not a question
I back into the wall, trying to get away from the conversation, from his frightening perceptiveness. “We were engaged last spring,” I admit. “Whirlwind romance between old friends followed by a brief engagement. I called off the wedding when…”
“Because of the miscarriage,” he says, piecing it together.
I don’t correct him.
“But he’s with your sister now.” In only two steps he’s against me again, but this time his leg is between my thighs, his hands at my waist.
“He’s with Krystal,” I manage, but I don’t want to think about Will or Krystal.
I want to think about the way Asher’s hands are curling into my ass, those eyes hot on me. I want to think about releasing him from his jeans and putting my mouth on him again. I want to think about him f**king me against this wall, hard and long, until I forget.
He presses closer, shifts my weight so it’s almost entirely against his thigh. My eyes nearly roll back in my head from that simple, delicious pressure.
“And what about you?” he asks. “Are you over him?” One hand snakes up my shirt to graze the underside of my breast, the other knots in my hair. He tilts my head up until my eyes connect with his.
There’s a quiet tap on the door, and I realize I’ve left it open at the same moment I see Will walk into the studio.
I push Asher’s hands from my shirt. He steps back, eyes narrow, jaw ticking.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Will runs his eyes over me, but he doesn’t look sorry at all.
Asher’s face has gone stony. Mine is hot, and my breathing is uneven.
“I wanted to check on you,” Will says. “How’s your hand?”
“Better. It’s making working difficult, but there’s plenty I can do with just my right hand.” That’s a lie. I can’t do shit with my right hand, but I don’t want him to worry.
Will nods and starts to leave, but he stops himself and turns back to us. “Maggie, take the internship.” His eyes flick to Asher then back to me. “I never would have had the courage to take the leap to start the gallery if you hadn’t given me permission to dream big.”
Asher slides his fingers through mine. “Of course she will.”
I blink at him.
Will nods, his jaw set in a tight line. “Great.” Then he backs out of the too-small studio.
Once we’re alone, I spin on Asher. “You don’t get to speak for me.”
“Do you want to work in the gallery?”
“Yes, but—”
“Take the internship. Don’t let them take your dream. Be part of it.”
My shoulders drop and I close my eyes. “It’s not that simple.”
“Because you still want him?”
My eyes fly open. “Why would you say that?”
“He still wants you,” Asher growls.
“He’s marrying my sister.”
He lifts a dark brow. “That doesn’t change the way he looks at you. Or the fact that he’d like to kill me.”
I step forward and grab a fistful of his shirt, pulling him toward me.
He leans down obediently, until his mouth is a breath from mine.
“I like you, Asher. But if we’re going to keep this up, whatever this is, you need to know my life is a little f**ked up. I’m f**ked up.”
His eyes search mine. “Then we’re a great match.”
***
Asher
She pushes me away before I can kiss her. “You don’t know what f**ked up is.” She turns to the window, and the sunlight splashes across her freckles, making her look as young as she is.
“Try me.”
She whips around and, for a second, I think she might tell me—something, anything other than the shit she shovels to everyone. But then she pastes that smile on her face and shrugs. “Nothing you couldn’t hear from the magpies down at the beauty shop.”
“And the story they’d tell me, does it involve your ex-fiancé?”
“Of course.” Her smile is so manufactured her face looks almost plastic. “A rush to the altar and a runaway bride? Does it get any better than that?”
“But would it be the truth?”
That clears away her smile.
My gaze drops to her bandaged hand and wrist. “Was that about him?”
“What?” She pulls her hand against her chest. “This was an accident.”
“Yeah?” I take her hand. She doesn’t protest, but she watches me with a tight jaw as I remove the splint to find the swollen, neatly stitched wound.
My heart pounds at the sight of the stitches that run from the base of her palm right onto her wrist. I want to scream, to rage, to punch the as**ole who drove her to this. Instead, I re-secure the splint.
“Someday,” I say softly, “you’ll tell me the whole story. I’ll wait.”
“When you know the whole story, you won’t want me anymore. I’m that kind of girl.”
“Don’t count on that.”
When I lift my eyes to her face, she’s watching me with something like wonder. “What?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t figure you out.”
“Good.” I cup her face in my palms and trace her bottom lip with my thumb. “Then maybe you won’t be able to figure out how to push me away.”
***
Maggie
I can’t create shit with my left hand immobilized, and the doctor wants me to keep the splint on any time I’m working until the wound has a chance to heal more. After Asher left, I was determined to lose myself in my work, making sense of little shards of glass and ceramic, but I’m so damn frustrated at my limited fine motor skills that I’m ready to throw something.
Whatever. I’m a mess anyway. There’s some mysterious flower growing outside my art studio window that doesn’t agree with my allergies, and at this point there’s nothing but a drugstore for some allergy meds in store for my evening.
I lock up my studio and I sneeze for the tenth time in as many seconds.
Asher wants me to open up. I get that. He wants to know me. With any other girl, it would be the logical thing to want, but he doesn’t understand what he’s asking from me. Not even Will knows the whole truth. He doesn’t understand that he doesn’t want to know the real me.
As I turn toward the exit, I smack right into Ethan Bauer.
We jump back simultaneously.
“Maggie.” His lips curve into a smile on my name.
Damn, damn, damn. I have no desire to talk to him.
“Ethan.”
His eyes skim over me, and the hot gaze that used to make me wildly reckless with need now only makes me feel disgusted.
“There are nubile undergrads to seduce down this hall today,” I say with my sweetest smile.
He winces. “I’m heading to the bathroom.”
“Well, there it is,” I say, pointing. Again. A smile.
“Nubile undergrads? You really think that little of me?”
Déjà vu.
“You really think that I don’t love you? With all my heart I love you. I want to be with you. I want to wake up next to you in the morning.”
All lies, of course.
I want to turn on my heel and leave, but I stand my ground.
“You never did have a very high opinion of me.” Then he disappears into the bathroom.
He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Once, I had a very high opinion of him. Too high.
The first time I posed nude for Dr. Ethan Bauer, I was so at ease, he’d asked me to return. So many models, he explained, were too modest to do some of the more earthy and sensual poses he’d been itching to capture on canvas. I would be perfect.
So I posed for him.
“I’m going to ask you to do some things, Maggie, to get you where I want you.”
“Okay.” I flashed him a daring smile. “I’m not modest, Bauer. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”
“I told myself I didn’t care what you thought,” she says. “I told myself you could hate me if you wanted, but I deserved to marry the man I love. But I was lying to myself.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s in love with you now. You’re in love with him. Nothing else matters.”
“We both know that’s bullshit. We both know love is never enough.”
Her hand is tucked into the pools of satin around her. I find it and slide my fingers through hers. “It is if you let it be.”
She lifts her head to look at me. Tears have clotted in her lashes, and there’s a faint line of mascara down each cheek. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“I’m okay,” I whisper. Even if it’s not true just yet, there’s something blossoming inside me that believes some day it might be.
“No marriage is worth losing you. No man is worth that.”
“You aren’t going to lose me, Krys. I came home, remember?”
Her eyes leave my face and settle on our joined hands. She turns mine over and runs her fingers over the gauze at my wrist.
I snatch my hand away. “That was an accident.”
Her brows draw together. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you just couldn’t handle me and Will, you’d tell me?”
I take her face in my hands and wipe away her tears. “Of course,” I promise, but I don’t know if the lie is for her sake or mine.
Chapter Nine
Maggie
I haven’t been back to my studio since the accident, and I expect to find a bloody mess waiting for me, but someone’s been here in front of me. I know, without asking, that it was Will. He wouldn’t have wanted everyone else to see it, wouldn’t have wanted me to have to endure the questions.
I don’t let myself think about last Friday morning at all. Instead, I dive into my work. Or attempt to. With my left hand immobilized, there’s not much I can do but bust up some more glass.
There’s a knock outside my office, and I bring the mallet down one last time before I answer it—leaving crystal shards behind as I cross the tiny room.
When I open the door, I’m surprised to see Asher standing on the other side, hands tucked in his pockets, eyebrow quirked. He’s wearing jeans and a fitted gray t-shirt that pulls across his chest. Tattoos peek out from where the sleeves strain around his biceps, and I want to take a bite of him he looks so delicious.
“Sounds like a herd of elephants in a china shop in there,” he says.
“Something like that.” I cross my arms. He should probably be pissed at me after the way I kicked him out last week. Or about the fact that I never called to apologize.
But I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to remind myself that he knew.
“Are you going to invite me in or should I just make myself comfortable out here?”
I grin. I can’t help myself. “There’s hardly enough room for two, but come on in.”
He steps into the studio and I take a step back to give him space, but he follows me, backing me into a corner until he’s leaning over me, his hands pressed into the wall, the heat of his body warming mine.
His eyes are on my mouth, but something hard and angry ticks in his jaw.
“Okay,” I say, sighing dramatically. “I guess you can do me against the wall.”
That earns me a smile. “Tempting, but that’s not why I’m here.”
No shit, I think, but I say, “That’s disappointing.” I c**k my head. Pretending to be unaffected by his nearness is too damn hard. Asher is heat and passion and wicked indulgence. He makes me unsteady. “You wanted to help me work?”
He shoots a glance over his shoulder to my growing pile of broken glass and ceramic. “Is that what you were doing?” He steps away to examine my worktable. “What is this stuff?”
I catch my breath and find my footing. “Tesserae,” I explain. “I’ll use them to make mosaics.”
“Wow.” Glass tinkles as he sifts through the piles of raw material. “What kind of design are you going to make with all of this?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I only know there’s something beautiful there. I’ll find it.”
He studies a piece of pink-streaked crystal against the midday light coming in the window. It clatters as he settles it back onto the tray and turns to me. “When I found you at the river—”
I cut him off with the shake of my head. “I want you to forget about that day. Please.”
“You were wearing a ring. You were alone but you were wearing someone’s ring.” His gaze drops to my hand and his breath catches. “Jesus, Maggie. What happened?”
I lift my bandaged hand and shake my head. “It’s no big deal. I just had an accident with the glass.”
He takes my hand in his and examines the bandage. “Stitches?”
“A few.”
He nods, satisfied, then surprises me by bringing it to his mouth and pressing his lips against the bandage. This man looks so rough and continues to surprise me with his sweetness.
“Who is he?”
I blink, lost in my contemplation of Asher. “Who?”
“Whose ring were you wearing, Maggie?”
“Oh, we’re back on that.” I shake my head. “I’m not involved with anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It was that guy who married your sister.”
“They aren’t married. Engaged. The first wedding was botched, remember?”
“He was engaged to you first.” It’s not a question
I back into the wall, trying to get away from the conversation, from his frightening perceptiveness. “We were engaged last spring,” I admit. “Whirlwind romance between old friends followed by a brief engagement. I called off the wedding when…”
“Because of the miscarriage,” he says, piecing it together.
I don’t correct him.
“But he’s with your sister now.” In only two steps he’s against me again, but this time his leg is between my thighs, his hands at my waist.
“He’s with Krystal,” I manage, but I don’t want to think about Will or Krystal.
I want to think about the way Asher’s hands are curling into my ass, those eyes hot on me. I want to think about releasing him from his jeans and putting my mouth on him again. I want to think about him f**king me against this wall, hard and long, until I forget.
He presses closer, shifts my weight so it’s almost entirely against his thigh. My eyes nearly roll back in my head from that simple, delicious pressure.
“And what about you?” he asks. “Are you over him?” One hand snakes up my shirt to graze the underside of my breast, the other knots in my hair. He tilts my head up until my eyes connect with his.
There’s a quiet tap on the door, and I realize I’ve left it open at the same moment I see Will walk into the studio.
I push Asher’s hands from my shirt. He steps back, eyes narrow, jaw ticking.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Will runs his eyes over me, but he doesn’t look sorry at all.
Asher’s face has gone stony. Mine is hot, and my breathing is uneven.
“I wanted to check on you,” Will says. “How’s your hand?”
“Better. It’s making working difficult, but there’s plenty I can do with just my right hand.” That’s a lie. I can’t do shit with my right hand, but I don’t want him to worry.
Will nods and starts to leave, but he stops himself and turns back to us. “Maggie, take the internship.” His eyes flick to Asher then back to me. “I never would have had the courage to take the leap to start the gallery if you hadn’t given me permission to dream big.”
Asher slides his fingers through mine. “Of course she will.”
I blink at him.
Will nods, his jaw set in a tight line. “Great.” Then he backs out of the too-small studio.
Once we’re alone, I spin on Asher. “You don’t get to speak for me.”
“Do you want to work in the gallery?”
“Yes, but—”
“Take the internship. Don’t let them take your dream. Be part of it.”
My shoulders drop and I close my eyes. “It’s not that simple.”
“Because you still want him?”
My eyes fly open. “Why would you say that?”
“He still wants you,” Asher growls.
“He’s marrying my sister.”
He lifts a dark brow. “That doesn’t change the way he looks at you. Or the fact that he’d like to kill me.”
I step forward and grab a fistful of his shirt, pulling him toward me.
He leans down obediently, until his mouth is a breath from mine.
“I like you, Asher. But if we’re going to keep this up, whatever this is, you need to know my life is a little f**ked up. I’m f**ked up.”
His eyes search mine. “Then we’re a great match.”
***
Asher
She pushes me away before I can kiss her. “You don’t know what f**ked up is.” She turns to the window, and the sunlight splashes across her freckles, making her look as young as she is.
“Try me.”
She whips around and, for a second, I think she might tell me—something, anything other than the shit she shovels to everyone. But then she pastes that smile on her face and shrugs. “Nothing you couldn’t hear from the magpies down at the beauty shop.”
“And the story they’d tell me, does it involve your ex-fiancé?”
“Of course.” Her smile is so manufactured her face looks almost plastic. “A rush to the altar and a runaway bride? Does it get any better than that?”
“But would it be the truth?”
That clears away her smile.
My gaze drops to her bandaged hand and wrist. “Was that about him?”
“What?” She pulls her hand against her chest. “This was an accident.”
“Yeah?” I take her hand. She doesn’t protest, but she watches me with a tight jaw as I remove the splint to find the swollen, neatly stitched wound.
My heart pounds at the sight of the stitches that run from the base of her palm right onto her wrist. I want to scream, to rage, to punch the as**ole who drove her to this. Instead, I re-secure the splint.
“Someday,” I say softly, “you’ll tell me the whole story. I’ll wait.”
“When you know the whole story, you won’t want me anymore. I’m that kind of girl.”
“Don’t count on that.”
When I lift my eyes to her face, she’s watching me with something like wonder. “What?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t figure you out.”
“Good.” I cup her face in my palms and trace her bottom lip with my thumb. “Then maybe you won’t be able to figure out how to push me away.”
***
Maggie
I can’t create shit with my left hand immobilized, and the doctor wants me to keep the splint on any time I’m working until the wound has a chance to heal more. After Asher left, I was determined to lose myself in my work, making sense of little shards of glass and ceramic, but I’m so damn frustrated at my limited fine motor skills that I’m ready to throw something.
Whatever. I’m a mess anyway. There’s some mysterious flower growing outside my art studio window that doesn’t agree with my allergies, and at this point there’s nothing but a drugstore for some allergy meds in store for my evening.
I lock up my studio and I sneeze for the tenth time in as many seconds.
Asher wants me to open up. I get that. He wants to know me. With any other girl, it would be the logical thing to want, but he doesn’t understand what he’s asking from me. Not even Will knows the whole truth. He doesn’t understand that he doesn’t want to know the real me.
As I turn toward the exit, I smack right into Ethan Bauer.
We jump back simultaneously.
“Maggie.” His lips curve into a smile on my name.
Damn, damn, damn. I have no desire to talk to him.
“Ethan.”
His eyes skim over me, and the hot gaze that used to make me wildly reckless with need now only makes me feel disgusted.
“There are nubile undergrads to seduce down this hall today,” I say with my sweetest smile.
He winces. “I’m heading to the bathroom.”
“Well, there it is,” I say, pointing. Again. A smile.
“Nubile undergrads? You really think that little of me?”
Déjà vu.
“You really think that I don’t love you? With all my heart I love you. I want to be with you. I want to wake up next to you in the morning.”
All lies, of course.
I want to turn on my heel and leave, but I stand my ground.
“You never did have a very high opinion of me.” Then he disappears into the bathroom.
He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Once, I had a very high opinion of him. Too high.
The first time I posed nude for Dr. Ethan Bauer, I was so at ease, he’d asked me to return. So many models, he explained, were too modest to do some of the more earthy and sensual poses he’d been itching to capture on canvas. I would be perfect.
So I posed for him.
“I’m going to ask you to do some things, Maggie, to get you where I want you.”
“Okay.” I flashed him a daring smile. “I’m not modest, Bauer. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”
