Page 43 of Acquiring Ainsley
“I don’t like the look of this. Neither should you. In fact, I hate it.” He tapped his fingers on the paperwork. “Frankly, there is a lot here to be very concerned about. I know that I mortgaged you in exchange for this merger, and to save our company, but I’m not willing to do that now. I won’t allow you to marry him. Not someone like this. I’ll do everything that I can to stop it, if need be.”
I blanched. I didn’t want Ashton trying to step in and “fix” my love life. I could handle it on my own. But howwouldI handle this disaster? Confusion warred with logic in my head. Was this man I’d been spending all that time with—and making love to—truly a monster? “It just doesn’t seem like the Trevor that I know. He hasn’t been like that with me. He’s… he’s different now. He’s not—”
“Stop and consider this from all sides, Ainsley. A lot of time has passed. You hardly know him.Hardly. He’s only shown you what he wants you to see, and I am sure that he’s been on his best behavior for most of the time that he’s been around you. I would be, too. With all that’s at stake, that can only be expected. Hewantsyou to like him. Don’t you see?”
I shook my head, fighting for Trevor, despite the possible ringing of truth in Ashton’s statements. “But this is—”
“This has all been a sick game to him, and I’m certain that as soon as you marry him, things are going to change. Whatever mask he’s wearing, he’ll drop it.” He got up from the desk, moved around it, took a seat in the empty chair next to me, and reached for my hand. “I’ll tell him the deal is off this afternoon. We can do it together if you want.”
“No.” I blinked, suppressing the sting of tears. “I-I want to do it. Just me.”
The corners of his mouth turned downward. “I’m just… good god, I’m sorry that I ever got you mixed up with someone like this.”
I looked down at his fingers, then back up at him. I could barely form thoughts in my head, much less spit out my next words. “And… and if I break it off, then… then what? If we drop this deal, the company will go under. How many times have you said this is our best option?”
“Many times. I know that.” He glanced around the room at the office he’d inherited. “That fact kills me inside, but there’s nothing we can do. I’m not going to let you chain yourself to a monster like this.”
I opened my mouth, then slapped a hand over it, fending off the bile threatening to rise up and choke me. My mind still raced, flipping through the little details I’d had with Trevor, the comments he’d made, and the small expressions I’d seen when it was just me and him. It felt like a war was going on inside me because the truth was, I wanted to be with Trevor. I was doing this willingly, and I had been for a while. I straightened my spine.However, I had to remember… what I’d just read was serious, and not to be dismissed. My respirations picked up and my pulse thrummed in my neck, speeding up the faint brewing anger beneath the surface. I refused to be taken advantage of or fooled by the devil himself. Before making any decisions, I needed to get to the bottom of this, to talk to Trevor, and to do some “due diligence” of my own.
“Let me speak to him,” I insisted.I’ll kill him if it’s true.“He might have a good reason for this.”
“A good reason? There’s no good reason for abuse, Ainsley. None. Full stop.”
“I just don’t—” I dropped his hand and regarded the folder full of so much damning information about someone I’d come to care about over the last few weeks. “This isn’t who he is. There must be a reason for all this. I feel it.”
Ashton scoffed. “I don’t.”
“That’s where you and I are different.” I stood from the chair. “Let me talk to him and see what he says. Give me a few days, okay?”
“Two. I’ll give you two days.”
“Fine,” I said to Ashton. “I’m sure I’ll have a good answer by then.”
But even as I said this to Ashton in the most confident tone I could muster, I knew that I couldn’t be so sure.
I had 236 emails to read, a dinner meeting to attend, and five other appointments before my day could end. But at that moment, none of that mattered to me. What mattered were the dozen black roses sitting in the middle of my desk, along with a card written in deep-red ink. My assistant said the delivery had arrived when I’d been at lunch.
“I didn’t know what to do with it,” Nancy said when I arrived at my office after a few frantic texts from her. “The delivery man refused to take them back, and I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “You did the right thing.”
Alone in my office, I read the card for the tenth time.
Roses are red
These are black,
You think that you love her
But she’ll never love you back.
Women like her never do.
After a deep breath, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number I hadn’t forgotten, no matter how hard I’d tried. She picked up on the second ring.
“Oh, my god,” she said without greeting me. “The roses worked.”
“No, Olivia, they didn’t.”
