Money Man's Fiancée Negotiation (8 page)

She rolled her eyes at his less-than-subtle dodge. He knew as well as she did that her hair hadn’t changed in twenty years. “How is Melody?”

“On the mend. She should be back to her old self in no time.”

“I’m so glad to hear that. Send her my best.”

“I will.” Rachel knew Melody had been in an accident, but not the severity of it, or that she had amnesia. There would be too many questions that Ash just didn’t have the answers to.

It was best he kept Melody as far removed from his life as he could, so the inevitable breakup wouldn’t cause more than a minor ripple.

When rumors of her leaving the first time had circulated, the compassionate smiles and looks of pity were excruciating. He didn’t appreciate everyone sticking their noses in his personal life, when it was no one else’s business.

Rachel looked him up and down, one brow raised. “Did someone make it casual day and forget to tell me?”

He chuckled. “Since I’m not officially here, I thought I could get away with it.”

“I’ll let it slide this one time.” She patted his shoulder. “Now, you go sit down. Coffee?”

“That would be fantastic. Thanks.” He was so zonked that if he were to put his head down on his desk he would go out like a light. He’d slept terrible last night, knowing that Mel was just a few feet away in the next bed, naked. It only made matters worse that she insisted on walking around the room naked beforehand.

While Rachel fetched his coffee, Ash walked into his office. It was pretty much the way he’d left it, except his inbox had multiplied exponentially in size. He was going
to have to stay all weekend playing catch-up. Just as he settled into his chair Rachel returned with his coffee and a pastry.

“I know you prefer to avoid sweets, but you looked as if you could use the sugar.”

“Thanks, Rachel.” He’d been eating so terribly the past week that one little Danish wasn’t going to make much difference. Kind of like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic. Thankfully the hotel in Abilene had had a fitness room, and he’d used it faithfully each morning before he left for the hospital.

“I there anything else?” she asked.

He sipped his coffee and shook his head. “I’m good.”

“Buzz if you need me,” she said, then left his office, shutting the door behind her.

Ash sighed, gazing around the room, feeling conflicted. He loved his job, and being here usually brought him solace, yet now he felt as if there were somewhere else he should be instead.

With Melody, of course. All the more reason not to go home.

Ash picked up the pastry and took a bite. Someone knocked on his door, then it opened and Flynn stuck his head in.

“I see our wandering CFO had finally returned to the flock. You got a minute?”

Ash’s mouth was full so he gestured Flynn in. He swallowed and said, “I’m not officially back until tomorrow, so I’m not really here.”

“Gotcha.” He made himself comfortable in the chair opposite his desk. “So, after you left so abruptly last week I tried to pump Rachel for information but she clammed up on me. I even threatened to fire her if she didn’t talk and she said this place would tank without her.”

“It probably would,” Ash agreed.

“Which is why she’s still sitting out there and I’m in here asking you why you disappeared. I know your parents are dead, and you never mentioned any relatives, so it can’t be that. I’m guessing it had something to do with Melody.” He paused then said, “Of course you can tell me to go to hell and mind my own business.”

He could, and it was tempting, but Ash figured he owed Flynn an explanation. Not only was Flynn his boss, he was a friend. However, he had to be careful to edit the content. Maddox had some very conservative clients. Conservative,
multimillion-dollar
clients. If rumors began to circulate that his mistress of three years left him because she was carrying another man’s love-child, it would only be a matter of time before word made it to someone at Golden Gate Promotions, who wouldn’t hesitate to use it against Maddox.

Not that he believed Flynn would deliberately do anything to jeopardize the success of the company his own father built from the ground up, but despite the best of intentions, things had a way of slipping out. Like the affair that Brock, Flynn’s brother, was rumored to be having with his assistant. Brock and Elle probably never intended that to get out either.

It just wasn’t worth the risk.

“I found her,” Ash told Flynn.

“You told me you weren’t even going to look.”

“Yeah, well, after a few weeks, when she didn’t come crawling back to me begging forgiveness, I got…concerned. So I hired a P.I.”

“So where was she?”

“In a hospital in Abilene, Texas.”

His brow dipped low over his eyes. “A hospital? Is she okay?”

Ash told him the whole story. The accident, the drug-induced coma, all the time he spent by her bedside, then having to drive home because she couldn’t fly.

Flynn shook his head in disbelief. “I wish you would have said something. Maybe there was a way we could have helped.”

“I appreciate it, but really, there was nothing you could have done. She just needs time to heal.”

“Is she back home with you now?”

“Yeah, we got back today.”

“So, does this mean you guys are…back together?”

“She’s staying with me while she recovers. After that…” He shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“This is probably none of my business, but did she tell you why she left?”

“It’s…complicated.”

Flynn held up a hand. “I get it, back off. Just know that I’m here if you need to talk. And if you need anything, Ash, anything at all, just say the word. Extra vacation days, a leave of absence, you name it and it’s yours. I want to do anything I can to help.”

He wouldn’t be taking Flynn up on that. The idea of spending another extended amount of time away from work, stuck in his condo, just him and Melody, made his chest feel tight. “Thanks, Flynn, I appreciate it. We both do.”

After he was gone Ash sat at his desk replaying the conversation in his head. He hadn’t lied to Flynn; he’d just left out a few facts. For Flynn’s own good, and the good of the company.

His mom used to tell him that good intentions paved the way to hell, and Ash couldn’t escape the feeling sometimes that maybe he was already there.

M
elody’s quick rest turned into an all-day affair. She roused at seven-thirty when Ash got back feeling more tired than before, with a blazing headache to boot. After feeling so good the day before, the backslide was discouraging. Ash assured her that it was probably just the lingering aftereffects of the barometer and temperature change going from Texas to California, and she hoped he was right.

She popped two painkillers then joined him at the dining-room table in her sleep-rumpled clothes and nibbled on a slice of the pizza he’d brought home with him. She had hoped they could spend a few hours together, but the pills seemed to hit her especially hard. Despite sleeping most of the day, she could barely hold her head up. At one point she closed her eyes, for what she thought was just a second, but the next thing she knew Ash was nudging her awake.

“Let’s get you into bed,” he said, and she realized that he had already cleared the table and put the pizza away.

Melody stood with his help and let him lead her to the bedroom. She crawled in bed, clothes and all, and only vaguely recalled feeling him pull the covers up over her and kiss her forehead.

When she woke the next morning she felt a million times better. Her head still hurt, but the pain was mild, and her stomach howled to be fed. Wearing the same clothes as yesterday, her hair a frightening mop that she twisted and fastened in place with a clip she found under the bathroom sink, she wandered out of her bedroom in search of Ash, but he had already left for work.

The coffee in the pot was still warm so she poured herself a cup and put it in the microwave to heat, finding that her fingers seemed to know exactly what buttons to push, even though she had no memory of doing it before. While she waited she fixed herself something to eat. She spent a good forty minutes on the couch, devouring cold pizza, sipping lukewarm coffee and watching an infomercial advertising some murderously uncomfortable looking contraption of spandex and wire that when worn over the bra was designed to enhance the breasts and improve posture. She couldn’t imagine ever being so concerned about the perkiness of her boobs that she would subject herself to that kind of torture.

She also wondered, if she’d never gone to Texas, and the accident hadn’t happened, what she would be doing right now? Would she be sprawled on the couch eating leftovers or out doing something glamorous like meeting with her personal trainer or getting her legs waxed?

Or would she be in class? It was only mid-April so the semester wouldn’t be over yet. She wondered, when and if she got her memory back, if they would let her make up
the time and work she’d missed or if she would have to go back and take the classes over again. If she even wanted to go back, that was. The law still held little interest, but that could change. And what if it didn’t? What then?

Worrying about it was making her head hurt, so she pushed it out of her mind. She got up, put her dirty dishes in the dishwasher alongside Ash’s coffee cup and cereal bowl, then went to take a long, hot shower. She dried off with a soft, oversize, fluffy blue towel, then stood naked in her closet trying to decide what to wear. Much like the bras she had packed for her trip, everything she owned seemed to be a push-up or made of itchy lace—or both. Didn’t she own any no-nonsense, comfortable bras?

It gave her the inexplicable feeling that she was rummaging through someone else’s wardrobe.

She found a drawer full of sport bras that would do until she could get to the store and put one on. Maybe she’d liked those other bras before, and maybe she would again someday, but for now they just seemed uncomfortable and impractical. The same went for all the thong, lace underwear. Thank goodness she had a few silk and spandex panties, too.

She was so used to lying around in a hospital gown that the designer-label clothes lining her closet seemed excessive when all she planned to do was hang out at home, but after some searching she found a pair of black cotton yoga pants and a Stanford University sweatshirt that had been washed and worn to within an inch of its life.

Since she was already in the closet, she decided that would be the place to start her search for memory-jogging paraphernalia. But around ten, when Ash called to check on her, nothing she’d found held any significance. Just the typical stuff you would find in any woman’s closet. She wondered if she was trying too hard. If she stopped
thinking about it, maybe it would just come to her. But the thought of sitting around doing nothing seemed totally counterproductive.

Refusing to let herself get frustrated, she searched her desk next. She found papers in her hand that she had no recollection of writing, and an envelope of photos of herself and Ash, most in social settings. She’d hoped maybe there would be letters or a diary but there were none.

In the file cabinet she found pages and pages of schoolwork and other school-related papers, but nothing having to do with any specific research she’d been working on. In the very back of the drawer she found an unmarked file with several DVDs inside. Most were unmarked, but one had a handwritten label marked
Ash’s Birthday
. Video of a birthday party maybe? Home videos could jog a memory, right?

Full of excitement and hope, she grabbed the file and dashed out to the family room to the enormous flat-screen television. It took her a few minutes just to figure out how to turn everything on, and which remote went with which piece of equipment. When the disk was in and loaded she sat on the couch and hit Play…and discovered in the first two seconds that this was no ordinary birthday party. At least, not the kind they would invite other people to. For starters, they were in bed…and in their underwear. Those didn’t stay on for long though.

This was obviously one of those videos that Ash had mentioned. Although, at the time, she had half believed he was joking. She felt like a voyeur, peeking through a window at another woman’s private life. The things she was doing to him, the words coming out of her mouth, made her blush furiously, but she was too captivated to look away. Was this the kind of thing Ash was going to expect when they made love? Because she wasn’t sure if
she even knew how to be that woman anymore. She was so blatantly sexy and confident.

Melody hated her for it, and desperately wanted to
be
her.

When the DVD ended she grabbed one of the unmarked DVDs and put it in the player. It was similar to the first one, starting out with the two of them in bed together. But this time after a bit of foreplay she reached over somewhere out of the camera’s view, and came back with four crimson silk scarves that she used to tie a very willing Ash to the head and footboard.

Watching this DVD she discovered just how flexible she actually was. Physically and sexually. It was sexy and adventurous, and in a lot of ways fun, but it occurred to her as it ended that she wasn’t particularly turned on. More curious than aroused. Not that she didn’t enjoy seeing Ash naked. His body was truly a work of art. Long and lean and perfect in every way. It was the sex itself that was, she hated to admit, a little…boring.

She grabbed a third disk and put it in, and as it began to play she could tell right away that it was different. This one was set in Ash’s bathroom, and he was filming her through the clear glass shower door. She was soaping herself up, seemingly lost in thought. He said her name, and when she turned she looked genuinely surprised to see him standing there holding the camera. After that he must have put the camera on a tripod because he came from behind it, already beautifully naked, and climbed in the stall with her, leaving the door open.

The tone of this video was completely different from the others. They soaped each other up, touching and stroking, as if they had all the time in the world. And unlike the others there was a lot of kissing in this one. Deep, slow, tender kisses that had Melody’s attention transfixed to
screen, actually licking her lips, wishing she could taste Ash there.

Missing was the sense of urgency, as if it were a race to see who could get who off first. Instead they took their time exploring and caressing, their arousal gradually escalating, until they both seemed to lose themselves. It was like watching a totally different couple, and this was a woman she could definitely imagine being. A woman she
wanted
to be.

The first two DVDs had been sexy, but they were just sex. There didn’t seem to be much emotion involved. In this one it was clear, by the way they touched, the way they looked in each other’s eyes, that they had a deep emotional connection. She could
see
that they loved each other.

On the screen Ash lifted her off her feet and pressed her against the shower wall. Their eyes locked and held, and the ecstasy on their faces, the look of total rapture as he sank inside her made Melody shiver. She
wanted
that. She wanted Ash to kiss her and touch her and make love to her. She was breathing heavily, feeling so warm and tingly between her thighs that she wished she could climb through the screen and take the other Melody’s place. They were making love in the purest sense, and she couldn’t help thinking that if he were here right now she would—

“This one is my favorite,” someone said from behind her.

Melody shrieked in surprise and flew off the couch so fast that the remote went flying and landed with a sharp crack on the hardwood floor several feet away. She spun around and found Ash standing behind the couch, a couple of plastic grocery bags hanging from his fingers and a wry grin on his face.

“You scared me half to death!” she admonished, her
anger a flimsy veil to hide her embarrassment. But it was useless because her face was already turning twenty different shades of pink. He’d caught her watching porn. Porn that
he
was in. What could be more embarrassing? “You shouldn’t sneak up on people.”

“I wasn’t sneaking. In fact, I wasn’t being particularly quiet at all. You just didn’t hear me. I guess I see why.”

On the television her evil counterpart was moaning and panting as Ash rocked into her, water sluicing down their wet, soapy bodies. Melody scrambled for the remote, but it took her a few seconds of jabbing random buttons before the DVD stopped and the screen went black. When she looked back at Ash he was still wearing that wry smile.

“What are you doing home? It’s only—” she looked at the clock and could hardly believe it was after three “—three-fifteen.”

Had she really been watching sex videos for almost two hours?

He held up the bags. “There’s nothing here to eat but pizza so I stopped at the store after a lunch meeting. So you wouldn’t have to go out.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

She waited for a comment about her watching the video, waited for him to tease her, but instead he walked past her and carried the bags to the kitchen. It was the first time she had seen him in a suit since the day he showed up at the hospital to claim her, and, oh, man, did he look delicious. There was something undeniably sexy about an executive who shopped for groceries. Of course, as turned on as she was right now, he would look sexy in plaid polyester floods and a polka-dot argyle sweater.

“I found the DVDs in my file cabinet,” she said, following him, even though he hadn’t asked for an
explanation, or even looked as though he expected or required one.

He set the bags on the island countertop and started unpacking them. It looked as though he had picked up the basics. Milk, eggs, bread, a gallon of orange juice, as well as two bags full of fresh fruits and vegetables.

“I didn’t know what they were when I found them,” she said, stepping around to put the perishables in the fridge. “I was pretty surprised when I put the first one in.”

One brow rose. “The
first
one?”

God, she made it sound as if she had been sitting there watching them all day. “The
only
one,” she lied, but it was obvious he wasn’t buying it. Probably because he’d seen the DVDs strewn out on the coffee table.

“Okay, maybe I watched two…”

Up the brow went again. “…and a
half.
It would have been three if I’d finished the one I was watching when you walked in.”

He seemed to find her discomfort amusing. “Mel, watch as many as you like.”

She wondered if he really meant that. “It doesn’t…
bother
you?”

“Why would it?” he asked, looking very
un
bothered.

“Because you’re in them, and they’re very…personal.”

He gave her a weird look. “You’re in them, too.”

“Yeah, but…it doesn’t
seem
like me. It’s like I’m watching someone else do all those things.”

“Take my word for it, it was definitely you.” He emptied the last of the bags so she balled them up, shoving one inside the other, and tossed them in the recycling bin under the sink.

“So,” she said, turning to him. “The shower one is your favorite?”

He grinned and nodded, and she wondered if she could talk him into re-creating it someday soon. It only seemed fair, seeing as how she could no longer remember doing it.

“It was mine, too,” she said.

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“I guess because it seemed more…
real.
”

That brow rose again. “Are you suggesting that in the others you were faking it?”

“No! Of course not,” she said, but realized, maybe she had been. The first two had been lacking something. They seemed almost…
staged.
As if she had been putting on a show for the camera. And there was no denying that, now at least, the hot sex and dirty talk didn’t do half as much for her as watching them make love.

Had
she been faking it in those first two?

“You look as though you’re working something through,” Ash said. He was standing with his arms folded, hip wedged against the counter. He narrowed his eyes at her. “
Were
you faking it?”

She hoped not. What was the point of even having sex if she wasn’t going to enjoy it? “Even if I was, I wouldn’t remember. Would I?”