Wash (6 page)

Practically flooring it, I sped to the
White Coyote. I took a moment to gather my nerves, then walked into
the bar. Music played, and people laughed and chatted. I scanned my
surroundings until my gaze fell on Jake, who was shooting pool.
When he let out a laugh at his failure to sink the purple ball, it
jarred my memory; I remembered that deep, delicious laugh, the one
I could have spent hours listening to. I watched him lean over the
pool table. His faded blue jeans clung to his perfect ass like a
second skin. Huge muscles bulged through his tight T-shirt as he
made the next shot and then reached for his beer bottle that sat on
the rim of the pool table.

All of the sudden, as if he’d caught a
whiff of me or was somehow psychically aware of my presence, he met
my gaze and gave me that familiar, sexy smile. Tousled hair in
disheveled waves skimmed the collar of his T-shirt as he said,
“Wow. You look absolutely stunning.”

Mission
accomplished,
I thought, throwing a little
more sway in my walk as I approached him.

He motioned around him. “I’d introduce
you, but I’m sure you know all these guys,” he said.

“
Most of them,” I
responded, waving to everyone.

They all stared at me and gave an
awkward wave back; whether it was compassion, pity, or shock that
I’d even shown up, I couldn’t tell.

“
Can I get you a drink?”
Jake asked.

Ed smiled. “She doesn’t look like
she’s here for a beer, man. Get her some champagne.”

“
Ashly’s always been a
classy woman,” Mike said.

“
Mike!” I said, blushing.
“You know I’m just one of the regular folks.” I grinned.

Mike walked over and gave me a
friendly hug. “I’ve missed you, girl. It’s been years.” He kissed
me on the cheek. “I heard you and Nadia started a fashion line and
even own a boutique.”

Jake smiled at me.
“Congratulations.”

“
Thanks. We’ve got big
plans, and we’ve gotta start somewhere.”

“
Reach for the stars, I
always say. Anyway, we’ll catch up later,” Mike said. “I know
seeing Jake again must be, uh…quite the shock,” he
whispered.

“
I didn’t mean to lose
touch,” I said. “I just…”

He winked. “Don’t even worry about it.
Just give me a call sometime, and we’ll play catch-up over lunch.
I’m in the phonebook.”

“
Definitely,” I
promised.

Another one of his buddies slapped me
on the back. “Does Jake still look the same?”

“
I’m sure any minute, Earth
will fall off its axis from all his hotness,” I said
sarcastically.

They all laughed, and I could only
grin.

Jake finally managed to tear his gaze
away from my cleavage and smiled. “How about that drink?” he
offered again, sounding like he needed it more than I
did.

I pushed my long brown tresses behind
my ears. “Thank you, but I won’t be staying long.”

“
I was hoping we could
catch up,” Jake said.

Right on cue, another of Jake’s
friends walked in and hugged me. “Ashly! It’s been years. You must
be here for Jake.”

“
Yes, I’m here to talk to
my absentee groom. And I was the dumpee, so get your stares and
whispers out of the way or forever hold your peace.”

Most of his friends just said hello,
then left. Either they wanted to give Jake a little privacy or they
were too uncomfortable to face me.

“
Look,” I said. “I chased
your entourage away.” I blinked. “Imagine that. It seems I still
have that effect on people. I mean, I did somehow chase you away
on
our
big
day.”

“
I asked them to leave so
we could have a little privacy, Ashly. I know the White Coyote
isn’t the best place to meet to hash out our differences, but I
couldn’t have you going off on me at a restaurant or
something.”

“
So you’re expecting me to
go off on you?”

“
I know I deserve it. What
I did was rotten, and I’ve never been able to forgive myself.” He
inched closer. “I’m so sorry, Ashly. If I could take it all back,
you know I would.”

I reached into my purse and grabbed
one of the pictures of me in my lovely wedding gown. “Since you
never got to see me in my wedding dress, here,” I said, shoving it
into his hand.

He glanced down and pondered for a
long moment. “Wow. You’re so beautiful. I was such an
idiot.”

“
You got that right. How
could you just leave like that, Jake? How could you do that to me?
And the worst part was that you humiliated me in front of all our
friends and relatives. I didn’t deserve that.”

“
Ashly, you know as well as
I do that I never fit in with your rich family. I was a bad boy
from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“
But love conquers all,
right? I didn’t care, and you shouldn’t have cared
either.”

“
We were so young. I had
just turned twenty, and…” he said, trailing off before he blurted
out yet another lame excuse.

Images flooded into my mind. I
remembered Nadia helping me take down all of his pictures a few
weeks after what I’d deemed Black Saturday. I’d felt shock and
rage, depression, and the most intense loneliness anyone could ever
feel. For weeks, I couldn’t get out of bed, and taking a shower and
getting dressed seemed like pointless, impossible chores. After
Jake walked out of my life without ever looking back, Nadia also
helped me pack up his belongings. I cleared out the medicine
cabinet and threw out his blue toothbrush in the wastebasket, one
of the hardest things I ever had to do. I learned the hard way just
how much heartbreak could hurt. I worked through the pain
eventually, and that helped me to get on with my life, but if it
weren’t for my job, friends, and family, I never would have
survived the havoc that Jake wreaked on me. I still wasn’t sure I’d
ever get past the anger completely, because it was still sitting
like a lump in the pit of my stomach.

“
Ashly?”

I snapped back into reality and stared
at his blue eyes glittering in the dim light.

“
Do you want me to beg?”
Jake asked. “Please. If you hate me, that’s fine, but let’s go on
this trip, take these pictures. We’ll stay strictly in the friend
zone, and I promise I won’t even talk to you unless I absolutely
have to. After that, we can go our separate ways, and you’ll never
have to see me again.”

“
Jake, you put me through a
living hell. I’m only here so I could tell you that in person. How
could a man declare his undying love the night before his wedding,
then just leave minutes before he’s supposed to walk down the
aisle?” Before he could answer, I continued, “There’s nothing more
I can say, and it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it? We can’t
go back in time and fix things. What’s done is done, and I have to
move forward with my life. I just wished you would’ve left me a box
of tissues that morning instead of a dozen red roses.”

“
You’re pissed, and I don’t
blame you. But you’re just gonna walk away from your inheritance,
your mother’s dying wish, because you can’t stand the sight of me?”
he asked.

“
Something like that,” I
said, then turned and started making my way to the door.

“
Ashly, please don’t
go.”

I ignored him and hurried to my car,
hoping he wouldn’t jump on the hood and confess his false, undying
love for me just so he could dupe me a second time.

* * *

The next day after work, Nadia knocked
on the door. When I opened it, she looked frantic, totally out of
character for her.

“
What’s wrong?” I
asked.

“
The bank didn’t give us
the loan.” She strolled into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and
poured herself a glass of wine from my fridge, then downed half the
glass in one gulp. “Our dreams of running our very own fashion
business are going down the drain. We don’t have any money left,
and we’re going to be thrown out. Our boutique will go down in
flames, Ashly! What are we gonna do?”

“
Our clothes are different
from the competition’s. We stick it out, Nadia.”

She poured a glass of wine for me.
“Not if we can’t get noticed. Our boutique’s just starting to take
off, but not enough to pay the high mortgage. I tried talking to
the owner, and when that didn’t work, I resorted to flirtation and
cleavage. I don’t know what a girl’s supposed to do when neither
begging nor boobs works.”

“
We just need to get our
ideas off the ground.”

“
There’s no time. We have
to be out by next month, and building a fashion brand doesn’t
happen overnight.”

I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I’ll ask Mr.
Hanford for an extension.”

“
Good luck. He’s not an
understanding or flexible man, and he obviously doesn’t care about
push-up bras either. He just wants his money. Our boutique is on
prime property on Fifth Avenue, and he has two other business
associates begging him for our space.”

“
We can’t lose that spot.
Location is everything.”

“
I agree.” She sighed
heavily. “Look, Ashly, I never would ask you this if there were any
other way, but…”

I cocked my head when she paused and
trailed off, wincing a bit.

“
You need to take that trip
with Jake. It’s the only way to save our boutique and everything
we’re working so hard for.”

“
What!?” I shouted. “No! No
way.”

“
I know he hurt you bad,
but you don’t even have to talk to him. Just give him the cold
shoulder and take those crazy pictures your mom demanded. Turn them
into your lawyer, and you’ll have more than enough money to keep us
going.”

“
No, Nadia. I mean…I just…I
can’t.”

“
Take the damn pictures,
Ashly,” she said, patting my shoulder.

“
I can’t leave you alone
with the boutique for all that time,” I said, making
excuses.

“
I can handle it, and I can
hire my sister for cheap to help out. Please take that dream
vacation—for the sake of our dreams.”

I glanced down at the floor, as if it
could give me answers. “You have no idea what you’re asking,
Nadia.”

She pondered. “I do, and I’m sorry I
had to ask,” she said. “I understand if you can’t do it though,”
she said, heading for the door. Over her shoulder, she sadly
announced, “We gave it our best shot. That’s the important
thing.”

“
Nadia!” I called, but she
ignored me and ran out the door. I pondered for a few minutes, then
grabbed my purse and hailed a taxi. I directed the cabbie to drive
to my boutique.

After he dropped me off and I paid the
fare, I walked up to the display window, pressed my palm on the
cold glass, and stared back at my own reflection. I looked at the
mannequins, dressed in creations I’d spent countless hours
designing. Then I opened the doors and switched on the lights. I
spun in a slow circle and looked at all racks of clothing, trendy
outfits in all sizes for less than fifty bucks. That place was my
dream.

The décor in our boutique played a
vital role in our success. We kept the atmosphere modern and
contemporary, with a huge black dresser in the corner, its top
drawer open for accessories and the jewelry Nadia designed, from
crystal earrings and necklaces to beaded bracelets. We furnished
the place with big, comfy chairs and lounge benches with cushions,
as well as mirrors, lights, display cases, deep shelves in the
wall, dressing rooms, a sitting area, and a public
bathroom.

The thought of losing our
business was devastating, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen as
long as I had a way to prevent it.
How
hard can it be to take some stupid pictures with an idiot I won’t
even have to talk to? I’ll just stay as far away from him as
possible and only get close when we have to take photos.

I frantically dialed Nadia’s number.
When she picked up on the third ring, I said, “I’ll do
it.”

Ecstatic, she screamed so loud, my
ears began to ring. “Awesome!” she squealed.

“
I’ve got to make the
arrangements and call my idiot traveling companion.”

“
Look, Ashly, I know you’re
taking one for the team, and I can’t thank you enough.”

“
I’ll grin and bear it…but
you so owe me for this.”

“
Owe you? You’re gonna be
rich. You’ll have twenty-five million dollars for putting up with
that ass for a couple of photo sessions.”

“
A couple? Try almost a
dozen of them, all in different locations!”

“
Don’t cop out now. We need
this. Promise me you’ll put up with the ass. Think of it as a
horrible, horrible job assignment. Don’t even talk to him. Just get
the photos and hurry back. I’ll have a stiff drink waiting for you
the second you get off the plane.”

“
I’ll do my best. I just
hope I can handle spending all that time with Jake.”

“
If you feel like leaving,
promise you’ll call me first.”