AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Our gazes meet on the glass, and I purse my lips in defiance, because every time he speaks, somehow I easily give him his way, he’s so irresistible.
“That man in the mirror loves you so damn much it hurts him to keep it a secret. It hurts him to hide you. He wants to scream from the rooftops and jump up and down on Oprah’s couch, wild with his love, and only one thing stands in his way.”
I lower my eyes. I don’t want his hypnotic gaze tochange my mind like only he can. I want to keep pretending Chloe doesn’t exist.
He tips my chin back so our gazes meet in the mirror. “Baby girl, you deserve more. You deserve better.Wedeserve something at least resembling normal. So I’m going down there to find some closure and tell Chloe it’s done once and for all. I’ll meet her alone, but I sure as hell would love my woman by my side. United. A team.” He pulls my butt against him. “Remember? We walk through hell like we own the damn place?”
“Ashton…” My lungs release the tension I’ve held since having my foot in his hand. “Can’t we just forget her?”
“Will you, though? Really? And how can I let what she did to you go unanswered?”
I swallow hard. He’s right. Pretending didn’t make her go away.
Ashton rests his chin on the top of my head. “I get that you’ve needed time to process. But Fletcher already told his PR and agent, and they have plans to release a story themselves. Chloe doesn’t actually have anything on us anymore. She needs to know that. She needs to know it’s over. And that I love you. That you’re everything to me. That I’m never even fucking looking in her direction again once the conversation is over. I never got to stick up for you.”
I say the words but I don’t mean them. “I don’t need you sticking up for me.”I love him sticking up for me.It’s probably what made me fall for him in the first place.
“I’m your man. I like sticking up for you.” He flashes a coy smile. “I get off on it. You’re mine, Jolie Hunter. All mine, and I want everyone to know it.”
I stare at myself in the mirror, knowing this will either be very good or very bad. I cross my arms and take his hands in mine. “I’m going to need a mimosa or something after.”
“As many as you want, baby.”
“Okay.” I let out a loud sigh. “Let’s do this. So what did you tell her?”
“I told her to meet me at the bar at eight-thirty.”
“We’re having breakfast with everyone at eight forty-five, though.”
He counts the words on his fingers. “Fuck. Off. Forever.” He holds up three fingers. “What do you think that took? Five seconds?”
I grab his fingers and push them down with a smile.
He pulls me into his embrace. “I’m not interested in a long, drawn out-conversation. I don’t want to talk about the hockey stick incident. I don’t want to engage in some sort of burn contest. I just want her to know you’re mine, that she can’t hurt us or ever break us apart. And… to never speak to either one of us again.”
Half an hour later, we’re dressed and heading to the hotel bar where he told Chloe he’d meet her. Since he wasn’t sure I wanted to join him, she’s not expecting me. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t really intend to say anything. I can’t really trust my tongue around that woman anyway. Standing by Ashton and showing her we’re united is all I care about. I already know the kinds of things she’s capable of saying, and all the way down the elevator, I pump myself up to take her slander like a stoic champ.
She doesn’t deserve anything from me anymore.
I see her before she sees me. She sits with her back impossibly straight, almost as if she feels like people are watching her. As it’s the hotel bar and it’s too early for normal people to drink, she’s the only one there apart fromthe lone bartender. Her talons are long, manicured and shiny when she picks up a champagne flute and drinks from her red lips on a face full of makeup. Chloe wasn’t nearly as done up when she came to see me in Starlight Canyon. She dressed up for the occasion, and the green-eyed monster whispers she’s still hoping to impress my boyfriend.
She catches Ashton’s eye and begins to smile, but when her gaze slips down Ashton’s arm to where I’m holding his hand, her grin fades into oblivion. As we approach, her features become more and more hardened, her jaw so stiff it could crack.
She speaks to Ashton but looks right at me. “You didn’t tell me you’d be bringingthiswith you today.”
He kisses the top of my head, and it sends a reassuring wave of love through me. “I bringherwith me everywhere now, Chloe.”
She somehow sits taller. “Didn’t you see the sign outside? No class. No style. No service.”
Is she referring to me? I grit my teeth.
“Well then, how didyouget in?” Ashton retorts, walking straight into the tit-for-tat trap I did when she arrived in that white Jeep at Bird’s Eye.
His jaw tics, but he holds steady.
Chloe laughs as though they’ve both just made a joke. “So you came here to show off your pet, did you?”
My hand is balmy now but I already told Ashton I won’t embarrass either one of us in a hotel lobby, and I made him promise he wouldn’t either. I’m counting on him to finish this. And soon, because it will be so cringe for his friends to walk in on this conversation.
