Page 41 of Don't Hate Me
There was no lightness in my life. There was no joy. There was only work and more work. The burden of school would be lifted, but did it matter?
“They don’t talk?” I asked George.
He knew who I meant. “No. Never. It’s like she’s an accessory he puts on, then takes off when it’s not needed.”
Ash talked to me constantly. Even when I didn’t want her to.
“I’ll go see her,” I said.
George let out a sigh of relief. “Talk to her. Explain to her she doesn’t have to do this if she doesn’t want to.”
“I’ll see where her head is. That’s all I can do. But if she smiles and tells me she’s happy, then I’m walking away. You might not like the fact that Ash cares more about the money than you want her to, but if the billionaire creep is what she wants, you have to accept that.”
“It’s not. I know it. She’s been sad for months, and it’s only when the cameras are directed at her, she smiles. It’s as if all the joy’s been sucked out of her.”
I didn’t react to his use of the wordjoy. However, I also thought it couldn’t be a coincidence.
* * *
Landen Estate
Marc
I stared up at the house and could not believe I was doing this. The minute I’d told George I was willing to go see her, he’d plucked out a small notebook from his coat pocket and started rattling off steps I needed to take.
Make sure Landen and Sanderson were occupied. George could confirm that.
Make sure all the cameras were off. George could handle the inside cameras, but the outside cameras were controlled by a monitoring company.
Which meant it was my chance to act out a script in front of the cameras. I would drive up. Head to the carriage house. A box with my personal items would be there, already packed.
So, I had the time it might take me to box up my stuff to sneak into the main house, talk to Ash, sneak back to the carriage house, then calmly take my box to my car and drive away. As if that had been my sole purpose for being on the property.
There had been a moment when I’d considered just pulling up to the front door and knocking. Fuck Landen. What was the worst he could do to me now? Fire me? I was leaving anyway.
The only thing that stopped me was the thought of what he might do to Ash.
He’d sent her to Switzerland. Might that truly have been some kind of punishment?
I parked the car and walked around the main house, past the pool and the tennis courts to the carriage house, like I had a million times before. Using my key, I unlocked the door and saw the box George had packed. Trophies from high school. Some clothes and books I’d left. Nothing I needed, but as far as excuses go, it was, at least, legitimate.
I made my way through the house to my old bedroom and opened a window. The carriage house was tucked into the trees of the estate and it would be easy enough to stick to the tree line to avoid the cameras. George made sure the back door was unlocked and the camera that monitored that door had been stuffed with leaves.
The monitoring company, so far, hadn’t reported any issues. Maybe stuff blocking the cameras happened all the time, or maybe the monitoring company employees were a bunch of assholes who didn’t do their job.
Either way, I slipped inside the main house easily. I knew she was home alone. George had confirmed that, too, before he left to take Landen up to Manhattan. So I didn’t hesitate, just made my way to her bedroom.
I stopped just outside her door and realized that when she was home, she was never in the living room. Or the game room. Or the library. This massive house, and, for the most part, she stuck to her room.
How had I never considered that before?
I saw the beam of light underneath the door and reached for the handle. It was locked. She locked the door to her bedroom. In her home. When no one else was around.
“Who’s there? I have a gun.”
She must have heard the door handle rattle.
“You do not fucking have a gun. As if you could shoot someone, Ash.”
