One Tiny Lie: A Novel (29 page)

An instant lump forms in my throat.

“She had me when she was in her early forties. Unplanned and highly unexpected. And unwanted by my father. He . . . isn’t one to share. That apparently included my mother’s affections.” He pauses to give me a sad smile. “My mother modeled for years in Europe before meeting my dad and moving to America. I have some of her magazine covers. I’ll show you them one day. She was stunning. I mean drop-dead gorgeous.”

I lift a hand to touch his jawline. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He closes his eyes and leans into my fingers momentarily before continuing. “When she met my dad, she had no interest in having kids either, so it worked out well. They were married for fifteen years before I was born. Fifteen years of bliss before I ruined everything, according to my father.” He says that last part with an indifferent shrug, but I know he’s far from indifferent. I can see the pain thinly veiled in those brown irises.

Even though I know that I shouldn’t, I press my hand against his chest.

Ashton’s hand closes over it and he squeezes his eyes shut. “I thought I’d never feel you do that again,” he whispers.

I give him a moment before I gently push. “Keep talking.” But I leave my hand where it is, resting against his now racing heart.

Ashton’s lips curve into a small grimace. When his eyes open, he blinks against a glassy sheen. Just the idea of Ashton crying wrenches at my insides. I struggle to keep myself composed. “I still remember the day my mom and I sat at the kitchen table with a batch of cookies that I helped her bake. I was seven. She pinched my cheeks and told me that I was a blessing in disguise, that she didn’t realize what she was missing until the day she found out she was going to have me. She said that something finally clicked inside her. Some maternal switch that made her
want
me more than anything else in the world. She told me that I made her and my dad so very happy.” That’s when the single tear finally slips down his cheek. “She had no idea, Irish.
No idea
what he was doing to me,” he whispers, his eyes closing once again as he takes a deep, calming breath.

I brush the tear off his cheek but not before it spurs a dozen of my own, tears that I quickly wipe away because I don’t want to derail the conversation. “When did it start?”

Clearing his throat, Ashton goes on, pushing the door wide open to show me his skeletons without reservation. Finally. “I was almost six the first time he locked me in a closet. Before that, I never saw him much. He worked long hours and avoided me the rest of the time. It didn’t really matter. My mom doted on me constantly. She was an expressive woman. Endless hugs and kisses. I remember her friends joking that she would smother me to death with love.” His brow furrows. “Looking back on it now, that must have bothered my dad. A lot. He had had her undivided attention before that, and . . .” Ashton’s voice turns bitter. “One day, something changed. He started staying home when my mom had plans—a baby shower, or a party with her friends. He used those days to stick me in a closet with a strip of duct tape over my mouth. He’d leave me in there for hours, hungry and crying. Said he didn’t want to hear or see me. That I shouldn’t be alive. That I’d ruined their lives.”

I can’t understand how Ashton is so calm, how his heart keeps its steady rhythm, because I, despite all of my resolve to keep my composure, have melted into a blubbering mess as the visual of that little dark-eyed boy—not much bigger than Eric or Derek—curled in the closet burns bright in my mind again. I struggle to speak with the sharp lump in my throat. “And you didn’t say anything?”

Ashton’s palm wipes away some of my tears. “A few months earlier, I had accidentally let our Pomeranian out the front door. He ran right into traffic . . . My mom cried for weeks over that dog. Dad said he’d tell her that I
intentionally
let it run out the door, that I was a wicked little boy that did bad things to animals. I was terrified that she’d believe him. . . .” He shrugs. “What the hell did I know? I was only six.” There’s a pause. “It was about a month before my eighth birthday when my mom started forgetting dates, and names, and appointments. She did it occasionally before that but it started getting really bad.” His Adam’s apple bobs with a big swallow. “Within a year they diagnosed her. That’s the day . . .” Inhaling deeply through his nose, he rubs the belt on his wrist. The one that’s still there, still confining him. His constant reminder. “He never used a belt on me before that. I don’t think he knew how hard he could hit before breaking skin. And he was mad. So mad at me. He blamed me for everything. He said the pregnancy did this to her, that the hormones had started wrecking her brain the day I was born.” Ashton absently scratches over his forearm, where one of his scars hides. “He told me not to tell her what happened or the stress of it would make her get worse, faster. So I lied. I told her I got the cuts screwing around on my bike. After that, I lied to her about everything. The bruises on my ribs when he punched me, the welts when he hit me with the belt again, the bump on my forehead the night he shoved me into the door frame. I got so used to lying, and my mother’s health was deteriorating so quickly that what he was doing to me became . . . insignificant. I got used to it.

“He stopped hitting me the day we moved my mom into a high-end research and treatment facility. I was fourteen. At the time, I still held out hope that she might get better, that the treatment would reverse or stall the disease. She still laughed at my jokes and sang that song in Spanish . . . She was still in there,
somewhere
. I had to hope that we could buy enough time until they found a cure.” Ashton’s head dips. “That was the first day my mom asked me who I was. And when he came at me that night . . . I knocked him flat on his back. I was a big kid. I told him to go ahead and hit me as hard as he could. I didn’t care anymore. But he didn’t. He never laid a hand on me again.”

With a resigned sigh, Ashton gazes up at my face as he brushes the never-ending stream of tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “He found a better way to punish me for breathing. I just didn’t realize exactly what it was at the time. He sold our house and moved us across the city after that, for no reason other than to remove me from the life I knew, forcing me to change schools, to leave my friends. He could have shipped me off to boarding school and washed his hands of me as a responsibility, but he didn’t. Instead, he started dictating who I would speak to, who I would date, what sports I would play.” With a snort, Ashton mutters, “He’s actually the one who demanded I join crew. Kind of ironic, given that rowing is the one thing that I love to do . . . Anyway, one night when I was fifteen, he came home from work unexpectedly to find my unapproved girlfriend and me fu—” Dark eyes flash to my face as my back stiffens. “Sorry . . . messing around. He called her a whore and kicked her out of the house. I snapped. I had him off the ground, ready to pound the shit out of him.” Ashton’s arms tense around my body as he holds me close to him. “That’s when he started using my mother against me.”

I feel my brow furrowing with confusion.

“He threw around numbers—the price of keeping her in her expensive facility, how much it would cost if she survived another ten years. Said that he was beginning to question the point of it. She wasn’t going to get better, so why waste money.” Ashton’s tongue slides over his teeth. “A waste of money. That’s what the love of his life became to him. He hadn’t gone to see her since the day he put her there. His wedding ring was long gone.

“I didn’t want to believe that. I couldn’t just give up on her. She was all I had and he knew it. So he made my choice very simple—I could either live the life he permitted me to live or her last few years would be spent in some shithole, waiting to die. He even found newspaper clippings, examples of horror stories from those kinds of places—neglect, assault . . . That’s the day I realized how much my dad despised me for being born. And I knew he’d follow through with his threat.”

I release the air I’ve been holding. So this is what he’s been hanging over Ashton’s head all this time.

His mother
.

“So I gave in. Over the years, I’ve kept quietly accepting his demands.” With a snort, Ashton mutters, “The worst part? I could never really complain. I mean, look at my life! I’m going to Princeton, I have money, a car, a guaranteed job at one of the most prominent law firms in the country. It’s not like he’s
torturing
me. He’s just . . .” Ashton heaves a sigh. “He just took away my freedom to choose how I live.”

“Well, forcing you to marry someone is something to complain about,” I mutter bitterly.

Ashton’s head bows, his voice turning gruff. “That was the worst day of my life. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the engagement.”

“Look at me,” I demand, lifting Ashton’s face with a finger under his chin. I want so badly to kiss him right now but I can’t cross that line. Not until I know . . . “What happened with Dana? Where do things stand?”
Is the wedding still on? Is what we’re doing right now, sitting here together, wrong?

Those gorgeous brown eyes take in my features for a moment before continuing. “Three years ago, I was at the firm’s summer golf tournament, playing with my dad, when a new client introduced himself and his daughter to me. She was there, playing with him. That’s how Dana and I met. I guess Dana’s dad mentioned something about how much he’d love his daughter to be with a guy like me . . .” Ashton’s neck muscles cord. “Dad saw an opportunity. Dana’s father had given the firm only a portion of his businesses while three other law firms represented the rest. Getting ‘in’ with Dana’s dad was a huge financial win for the firm. Worth tens of millions, maybe more. So I was instructed to make Dana love me.” Ashton’s arms shift to pull me tight to his chest as he buries his face against my collarbone, making my pulse begin to race. He keeps talking, though. “She was pretty and blond and really sweet. I never felt anything
real
for her but I couldn’t complain about having a girlfriend like her. Plus she lived across the country most of the year, going to school, so it’s not like she cramped my lifestyle. Not until you came along.” I resist the urge to lean down. It would be so easy . . . just a little shift and my mouth could be on his.

“Three weeks ago, my dad called me and told me to propose. Dating Dana had secured a larger portion of her dad’s business. He figured marrying her would secure him the rest. I refused. The next day, I got the call from the facility with questions about my mother’s impending transfer to a nursing home in Philadelphia. I was barely off the phone when I got an email from my father with at least a dozen reports of neglect at this place. Even a sexual assault case that got thrown out of court on a technicality. The sick bastard was waiting and ready for it.” Ashton’s chest lifts and falls against me in a resigned sigh. “I had no choice. When he handed me the ring two weeks ago, after the race, I asked Dana to marry me. I told her she was the love of my life. I couldn’t risk her saying no. I was going to convince her to have a long engagement, until I finished law school. I just needed to hold out until my mother died and then I could break it off.” The self-loathing in his voice is unmistakable. He hates himself for it.

I struggle to wrap my head around this entire situation but I can’t. I can’t make sense of it. How could a man hate his own child this much? How could he find satisfaction in dominating another person’s life so completely? Ashton’s dad is sick. Just thinking about how such cruelty could be packaged in a sharp suit and successful career twists my stomach. I don’t care what dark demons lie in Ashton’s father’s past to make him like this. The person that I am will never find an acceptable answer for all that man has done.

I gently push against Ashton’s shoulder, enough to see his face again, and a few tears streaking his cheek. I search his features while his eyes rest on my mouth for a long moment. “When you came to my room that night and . . .” He swallows, his forehead furrowing. “I wanted to tell you. I should have told you before we . . .” Ashton’s expression twists in pain. “I’m so sorry. I knew I’d end up hurting you and I let it happen anyway.”

I won’t let him punish himself for another second about that night. “I don’t regret it, Ashton,” I answer truthfully, giving him a small, reassuring smile. If there is one mistake I will never regret for the rest of my life, it is Ashton Henley. “So, what now?” I hesitate before asking, “What happened with Dana?”

“She screamed and cried a lot. And then she said that if I promised to never let it happen again, she’d forgive me.”

Coils tighten around my stomach. Ashton is still engaged. His father still controls him. And I shouldn’t be here, getting this close to him. Shutting my eyes against the harsh reality, I sigh and whisper, “Okay.”

In a gruff voice, struggling to contain emotion, Ashton whispers, “Look at me, Irish.”

It’s through a haze of tears that I see his tiny smile, and I frown in confusion. Raising a hand to pinch my chin, Ashton pulls me into a soft kiss. It’s closemouthed and it doesn’t last long, but it leaves me breathless all the same. And all the more confused.

Ashton whispers. “I said, ‘No.’”

“But . .. ” I turn to take in his mother’s home. “He’ll transfer her from here to that awful place . . .”

“This is a new place, Irish. I moved my mom here a week ago.” A strange grin transforms Ashton’s face—a mixture of elation and relief and giddiness. It only amplifies his suddenly teary eyes.

“I don’t . . . I don’t get it.” My heart has gone from breaking into pieces to now galloping and skipping over beats with anticipation. I know that he’s hinting at something profound but I don’t know what and I
need
to, now. “Tell me what’s going on, Ashton.”

His expression turns somber. “I ended things with Dana. I realized that my life wasn’t the only one being ruined in this mess anymore.” A flash of pain crosses his eyes with a memory. “I saw the empty look on your face when you walked down the stairs and out the door that day. It destroyed me. After that, I did the only thing I could do. I went to see Coach. He’s . . . I’ve always envied Reagan for having a dad like that. Well, Coach cracked a bottle of Hennessy and I told him
everything.
”
His words bring me back to my night of confession with Kacey and tequila. It’s kind of funny that we were doing the exact same thing at the exact same time . . . “Coach demanded that I stay with them for a few days until we could sort things out. Sure enough, my phone was ringing off the hook on Monday morning, my dad telling me to fix it with Dana or else. I bought myself some time, telling him that I was trying. Meanwhile, Coach and I started contacting friends of his—lawyers, doctors, Princeton alumni—looking for a way around my dad’s legal control over my mother, a way to get her somewhere safe. It didn’t look like we were going to get anywhere. I was sure I was trapped.” A wry smirk touches his lips. “And then Dr. Stayner showed up on Coach’s doorstep four days later.”