I freeze. Adam turns with a questioning look. “You go ahead,” I murmur breezily, acting casual. “He probably just wants to threaten us with more paper pushing. I can handle it.”
Adam nods, and exits with the rest of them. Finally the room is empty. The door closes behind them.
I brace myself and turn.
Ash is lounging in his seat, watching me. His eyes rove over my body again, but this time there’s a blatant hunger in his gaze, as if he’s stripping my pencil skirt and blouse away, leaving me vulnerable and naked.
I shiver.
“Hello, JJ,” Ashton murmurs, and the sound of my old nickname on his lips sends me flashing back to grad school, and all those nights we spent up late, studying together and talking about everything under the sun.
I can’t let him do this. Five minutes ago he acted like a total stranger.
A total asshole.
“You don't get to call me that anymore,” I tell him icily.
“Why not?” Ashton asks. “Because of the meeting? It's just business.” He shrugs. “It's not personal.”
Is that it? I stare at him in disbelief. I was expecting an apology, some explanation maybe as to why he walked out of my life three years ago with a promise to call, and then never spoke to me again.
Instead, Ashton gets up and strolls to the window. His body is silhouetted by the New York City skyline, showing off his broad shoulders and the tight planes of his lean, muscular body.
I know how good that body feels, sliding sweaty and damp against me. I know how those hands grip tight around my wrists, how my thighs can wrap around his waist.
How his cock feels, driving hard and relentless inside of me.
No!
I stand and square off against him. “You don't get to act like we're friends.” I snap. “Not after the stunt you just pulled.”
“I'm protecting my investment.” Ash frowns. “You should understand business comes first. Did you expect me to let you win, JJ, just because we used to be friends?”
He uses my nickname again, and despite everything, it makes my stomach flip.
“That’s bullshit,” I retort. “You’re using intimidation and bullying to cheat a man out of his work. And the Ash I knew would never have stooped so low.”
“The Ash you knew…” he echoes, and a shadow passes over his face.
“I would ask how you’ve been, but clearly, you’re doing just fine.” I continue, making a show of looking around the fancy office.
“I get by,” Ash replies evenly. “My father passed away soon after I returned to England, and it took some time to get his affairs in order and take control of the company. But, as you've seen, I've expanded it and we've been successful.”
I pause, thrown.
“I'm sorry about your father,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
Ash shrugs. His expression is a blank mask. “He was a controlling tyrant and an angry drunk. It was bound to catch up with him eventually.”
“But, still, he was your father,” I say quietly.
Our eyes meet. Ashton knows how my father abandoned my family when I was a child, and I know how Ashton spent years trying to please his father before finally giving up. We'd both accepted it but sometimes it still stings. It was one of the things that bonded us, before.
For a moment, my anger softens. I remember how close we used to be: how he would surprise me with coffee in the library; hug me from behind and scrape his five o'clock shadow against my cheek until I'd squirm away.
How he made me feel at home in a school full of trust-fund kids and daddy’s little princesses, like there was someone who understood me in the world, with all my fierce ambition and flirty humor.
“What about you, JJ? How have you been?” His question is quiet.
I look away. “Fine,” I murmur, still caught up in echoes of the past.
His cell phone rings suddenly, cutting through the silence. Ash glances at the display. His jaw clenches with tension. “I have to take this,” he says curtly, turning his back on me.
I'm stunned by the sudden coldness in his voice. He’s dismissing me like I’m one of his minions, as if I’ve served my purpose, and he can just release me.
But that shouldn’t be a surprise. He already discarded me once, the last time he left.
“Goodbye,” I manage to say, heading for the door.
As it shuts behind me, I hear him growl into the phone, his tone hard and curt. “I told you never to call me again.”
I take a cab back to the apartment, my head spinning. It’s not just the way he treated me that’s so shocking, but how everything about him is cold and remote—a million miles from the charming, spontaneous guy I used to know.
What could have possibly happened to make him this way?
His father dying and his inheriting the company, that can’t be it. As much as Ash resented his responsibilities when I knew him, he was always determined to do things his way and not let the pressure control his life.
No, this is something else entirely.
I feel a wave of sadness, for everything we’ve lost. But even as I feel the ache, I know I can’t let myself be paralyzed by the past, not with so much riding on this lawsuit.
My client is depending on me. My whole career is on the line. I’ve already messed up today, getting caught off-guard for the meeting. Now the opposition knows, I’m scrambling to stay ahead.
I feel a fresh surge of determination. I’ll show Ash, I won’t let him ambush me again. I just have to accept that the man I met today is a completely different person than the guy I once knew.
He doesn’t realize yet, I’m different too. I’ve fought too hard to let old feelings cloud my judgment.
The past is dead and gone. I’m going to win this case, and show him exactly what I’m made of.
What he missed out on by walking away.
The cab stops, and I realize I’m back at the apartment. “Keep the change.” I give the cab driver a twenty and climb out, nodding hello to the doorman as I step inside the lobby. It’s all polished marble and gleaming chandeliers, with an executive elevator straight to my penthouse suite.
I unlock the door and I’m about to step inside when I notice another box waiting for me on the table in the hall.
Deep purple with a gold silk ribbon. The same elegant handwriting on the heavy cream stock card.
It’s him.