Undeniably Asher (The Colloway Brothers Book 2) (36 page)

I listen to every word, not able to wrap my head around any of it, but I also know he’s not lying. Stuff like this happens in movies or books, not real life.
Does it?

“She always looked out for you and Livia, but from then on, she did it secretly. Even my father didn’t know she kept tabs on you. She pulled me in on her clandestine stalking I think mainly so she could use me as an excuse when my father questioned what she was doing or where she was going. We would drive by your house at least once a week and occasionally we would get a glimpse of you or Livia. She told me she even snuck in at night sometimes while you were sleeping and your dad was out gambling so she could just sit there and watch you.”

A river of pain pours from my eyes as I remember back to the nights I thought I’d dreamed she was with me.
I hadn’t
. She was there.

I want him to stop.

I want him to continue.

I want to be anywhere else but here.

“When I was twenty, my father got the Republican nomination for state senator and won. They moved to Lansing and Elaine was distraught at not being able to make sure you were okay, especially as it seemed your father’s gambling had reached an all-time high. And since I was staying back in Dearborn…”

He stops and wets his lips, his stare intense.

“She asked you to keep an eye on me,” I supply.

He nods solemnly. “I wasn’t supposed to talk to you. I was just supposed to watch you from afar, but…you were too fucking irresistible, Alyse. I couldn’t stay away. I think I’d been in love with you for years from afar. I watched you grow up from this awkward, gangly little girl into a stunning, incredible, smart woman who had been given an unfair lot in life but made the most of it anyway. Not once did I ever think of you as my stepsister. You were simply the woman I was in love with.”

My mind is reeling with each new confession. My stomach’s now agitating like a washing machine in the spin cycle, so I set my whiskey down.

I reach up, wiping the tears away. “They found out, didn’t they?” My shaky voice is barely audible.

“Not until the accident.”

Once again, he reaches for my hand, twining it in his. I look at my small fingers engulfed by his large ones. I let myself remember the way it used to feel so long ago, skin tingling every time he touched me.

We were both put into an impossible situation, one that would never have a happy ending no matter how hard we would have tried. The bitterness and resentment slowly start melting away at that realization. My eyes lift to find him watching me attentively, waiting patiently.

“What happened after the accident?”

“My dad and your mom were called and they came to the hospital. I was in pretty bad shape. I had five broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured right arm in three places and my left leg was completely crushed. I needed a total of a hundred eighty stitches between my arms, head, and torso. I had swelling in my brain and was in a drug-induced coma for two weeks. I guess I went into cardiac arrest five times during those two weeks. I spent three weeks in ICU, but I was in the hospital for eight total.”

Then he releases my hand, bending over to draw up his pant leg. I almost lose my ability to breathe.

“Jesus, Beck.” I feel positively ill. Cooper’s words hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. “
He’s suffered just as much as you have, if not more.”
He’s right. Beck has suffered far more.

“I lost my leg right above the knee. I spent nine months in intense rehabilitation. I was in a bad way, Alyse. I went into a deep depression. I wanted to die. I thought my entire life was over. My father was furious with Elaine and me, and your father was practically homicidal, threatening to press charges. I later found out that my father paid him off to keep him quiet. Fifty grand. But part of the deal was I wasn’t to ever have contact with you again and let you believe that I’d died and…I agreed.” His voice cracks and I find myself comforting him by squeezing his hand. A smile plays on his lips before they press into a thin line.

“At the time, I thought it was for the best. I didn’t even want to live, let alone be with anyone, and I couldn’t imagine I could ever be loved by a woman—
you
—with part of my body missing.”

“Oh, Beck. It wouldn’t have mattered. Not to me.”

“I know that now, Alyse. But at the time I couldn’t make sense of anything. It took me years to physically and mentally get back to where I was before the accident. To actually
want
to live again. Depression makes you look at things very differently.”

“I know,” I reply softly.

His eyes are full of sorrow and understanding. “Jesus, I loved you so much. I wanted to marry you, and for weeks I’d been trying to figure a way out of the fucking mess I’d created. To tell you the truth, wipe the slate clean so I could be the man you deserved. But every scenario I came up with ended badly. I needed to tell you the truth to keep you, but the truth would drive you away, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that.

“And when you told me about the baby…for a split second, I can’t even describe how happy I was, but then reality crashed into me and I felt the bottom drop out. I felt like I’d lost everything before I even had it. I panicked. I drove recklessly and almost cost us our lives. I cost our baby its life and that torments me every fucking day, Alyse. Every. Fucking. Day.”

Next thing I know, Beck is beside me, my wet face in his palms. His eyes are wild with torment. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. About the accident. About the baby. About not coming back for you. About everything. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I am so very sorry, Alyse.”

“I forgive you,” I whisper. “I forgive you, Beck.”

Then his mouth is on mine, his need for me evident. His lips are soft and warm, as I remember. His kiss burns with longing and love as it always did. But this time I also taste regret.

When I saw Beck across the street last week, the feelings that washed through me were love, among so many others, but I couldn’t deny one of them was definitely love. But as I feel his mouth on mine now, I know it’s not the kind of love that forevers are made of. That kind of forever is with another man.

“Beck,” I mumble, placing my hands on his chest, pushing. “Beck, stop.”

Hands still frame my face as his forehead touches mine, chest heaving. “It’s too late, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

His sharp intake of breath cuts me to the quick. “It’s him, isn’t it? The guy at the bar?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Do you love him?”

“Very much.”

He presses his lips to my temple, letting them linger. “I feel like I’m losing you all over again.”

His pain seeps into me, battering my heart. “Beck, I—I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry. I know that’s not fair. I’ll always love you, Alyse. Always.”

“So will I. Just…not in the same way as I once did.” I just didn’t fully realize that until now. Those chains I’ve had locked tightly around my heart suddenly break, each link severing permanently from the link before it. For the first time in twenty-five years, I feel whole. Repaired.
Worthy
.

My mom wanted me.

Beck wanted me.

Asher wants me.

“Can I hold you? Please?”

I may not be in love with Beck, but I still care about him immensely. We have a history that can never be erased. I need this for closure, even though I hope that maybe we can be friends somehow. “I’d like that.”

Beck pulls me to him, tucking me under his arm and we relax against the back of the couch.

“Jesus, I have missed you.”

“Me too.”

“I’ve thought about you every day for the last eight years, Alyse.”

“Me too,” I confess. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“So am I. Took me a while to get there, but…yeah.”

“How did you know about the baby?”

“I saw the marker along the side of the road.”

I tilt my head up as he bends his down. “You went to the crash site?”

His eyes soften and the agony I see churning makes me swallow back my tears again. “Many times. Going back there was part of the healing process for me and then…then I just wanted to be close to you and our baby and I didn’t know any other way.”

“Beck…” I feel immense guilt for all the bad things I’ve thought about him over the years when he’s suffered so much. We sit there in silence, neither able to break away from the other, both of us remembering.

He clears his throat. “So, this guy…”

“Asher,” I smile. “Asher Colloway.”

“Asher. You’re in love with him, huh?”

I nod and his mouth turns down slightly. It tugs hard on my heart.

“Does he know about me? Us?”

“Not yet,” I reply softly. But I need to fix that.

“You going to marry him?”

“Yes,” I answer with no hesitation. Because now I know there is none. Hesitation, I mean. I want to tell Asher everything.
Everything
. Barb Colloway was right. Forgiveness is freeing. Even through this horrible scenario, I feel lighter. Happier. Finally…
finally
ready to move on.

“I’m glad. I mean, I’m jealous as hell, but you deserve to be happy, Alyse.”

“Yes. I do.” I grin again and he laughs, squeezing me tighter. “Tell me about my mom.”

So he does. He talks and talks and talks until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

Chapter 38

Asher

I stand there, unable to make my mind work through what I’m seeing.

Bob Everley called me at eight to tell me he was dropping the lawsuit. I gathered through my discussions with Patty, his financial advisor, that Bob’s been asking her out for quite some time. She’s refused. He trumped up some bogus charges to try to scare her into changing her mind. Needless to say, we won’t be doing business with Bob Everley any longer. He can take his twenty mil and have some other firm manage it. Motherfucker.

Even before I ended that call, I was walking to my car, overnight bag in hand. I couldn’t stand to be away from Alyse for another second if I didn’t have to. No matter that I haven’t had but two hours of shut-eye over the last two days. I settled in for the four-hour drive home just so I could sleep with her in my arms. Seems like I can’t do anything as basic as sleeping anymore without her.

It’s now a little after midnight and I let myself into Alyse’s place, knowing that’s where she would be. But what I never expected was to see her lying asleep in the arms of another man. The room is dark, but I can make out that it’s the fucking photographer.

The words she said in her office that day when I caught Aaron trying to kiss her come rushing back. I believed her then. I don’t now.

“I may have a lot of personality flaws, Asher, but adulterer is not one of them. I have never cheated on a man in my entire life. I wouldn’t do it.”

Turns out Alyse wasn’t any better than Natalie and I was right. I have never experienced debilitating pain before today.

My anguish is bone deep and soul crushing. Never mind they’re fully clothed instead of naked, writhing on each other. Never mind they’re on the couch instead of the bed. The way he’s holding her is more intimate than any sex act.

I turn and walk out as quietly as I came, leaving my beating heart on the floor at their feet, bloody and broken, eternal darkness taking up the empty space it left.

Chapter 39

Asher

“Hey, you can use the house tonight if you want. My plans changed.”

“What do you mean they
changed
?” Conn asks, skepticism in his voice. I’ve wanted that fucking house every year for the last five years and now that I have it, I’m giving it up. Yeah, he knows something’s up. I’m glad I’m having this conversation over the phone. It would be much harder to lie to his face.

“Just what I said. Something’s come up.”

I hear rustling in the background and a few seconds later, it sounds like his breathing’s picked up. Wow, starting early, huh? “Asher, what did you do?”

That pisses me off. “Oh, what? Because
I
would be the one to do something, right? Not her.”

“Well, yeah.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“And you’re probably jumping to conclusions, as usual. Jesus, Asher, do you have to sabotage every good thing you have?”

“I’m done with this conversation. Take the house if you want it. If not, fuck off.”

I no sooner hang up on him than I hear pounding on my door.

Asshole.

“What?” I growl, opening the door before I walk back to the couch, where I sit with a nice, strong, mostly vodka Bloody Mary. Who the piss cares if it’s only nine o’clock in the morning? Maybe this will help me pass the fuck out, because God knows I didn’t get even a wink last night as I lay wide-eyed in my bed wondering how this could have happened to me yet again.

This time, however, I will not recover. Pain lances every cell of my body this morning even worse than last night. I’m finding it hard to breathe. To think. To give a fuck about anything but numbing my heartbreak.