Page 68 of Forbidden Hearts
“Sure, Ash. Continue to play the role of the Boy Scout, but I’m not stupid. You two keep dancing around each other, and it’s cute to watch. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do whatever it is that you want to do. Hell, if anything, I’m telling you to break out of this monkhood you’ve entered and enter another realm with lots of debauchery.”
And the seriousness is over, not that I expected it to last that long. “You need help.”
“I don’t deny that, but you need to fuck the nanny out of your system.”
“I don’t need that,” I clarify.
In fact, the absolute last thing in the world I need is to do anything with the nanny. Phoebe is beautiful, smart, and funny. She is also not going to stay in Sugarloaf and has the potential to screw up my job and life.
“Mind if I do it then?”
I don’t take the bait. He wants me to react like every part of me is screaming to, and I won’t.
So, instead, I shrug. “If you want to, by all means.”
Then I turn and walk away, clenching my fists because the idea of anyone touching her causes rage to course through every fiber of my body.
seventeen
PHOEBE
Ilean my head against the car door as I drive. It’s late, almost one in the morning, and I’m exhausted. There’s no food in my father’s house, so I am on my way back from the twenty-four-hour grocery store two towns over. I don’t understand how my father thinks his diet of coffee and ginger ale is adequate, but it isn’t.
I pull up Emmeline’s number and dial, the girl is nocturnal like myself.
“Hey!” she answers happily, far too awake than any person should be.
“Ehh.”
“Wow, you sound excited to talk to me.”
“It’s not you.” My voice is clipped.
“Oh? Well, you’re in a swell mood.”
I am. “I’m irritated, sad, and ready for bed.”
She laughs once. “Did something happen when you were volunteering?” I was at Run to Me for about four hours, helping Addison inventory supplies and create kits to give out to the runaways who come in for help. They were packed with necessary hygiene products along with resources and information that could help. Each runaway is asked to give basic information along with what the shelter can do for them, whether it’s help from law enforcement, rehabilitation clinics, or reuniting them with their family.
“This girl came in today,” I explain. “She was about seventeen and ran away because she was in love with her teacher. He promised her that he’d protect her, that he loved her, and they could be together, but they had to leave in order to be together.”
Emmy sucks in a breath. “Wow.”
“She was so young, you know? She believed everything he said.”
“And you saw yourself,” she finishes.
I saw this girl who thought she had something real that was really a work of fiction. It was so hard to listen to her and not feel like I was just as naïve as she was, and I have, like, seven years on her. I should’ve known better.
“She was so hopeless by the end. These guys of power who prey on women like that make me sick. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her it would be okay, but that’s a lie.”
“Why is it a lie, Phoebs? You got played, same as she did, and you came out the other side of it okay.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, look at me, the winner who is now lusting after her boss, who keeps trying to convince herself it’s totally okay to have feelings for a man I definitely shouldn’t have feelings for.”
She groans. “Whatever is brewing with Asher is nothing like what happened with Jonathan! Nothing. Asher isn’t promising you the world. He’s not married, lying, or trying to get you to drop your panties so he can get what he wants. If anything, it sounds like the man is trying to put a chastity belt on you to avoid it.”
I laugh, imagining him with a medieval metal plate. “That’s probably the only way we’re going to avoid it at this point.”
