Page 57 of The Master

I smiled and kissed her forehead. “You’re an amazingly strong woman, you know that?”

She was gorgeous, and I’d told her as much more than once, but it was her strength that left me in awe of her, even more than her beauty. How had I gotten so lucky that a woman like her put up with an asshole like me?

“When Mona left, she just vanished. No notes explaining why she’d left or where she’d gone. Mom and I just came home from a shopping trip, and everything of Mona’s had simply vanished.” Her smile faltered, and I knew she was remembering, but she didn’t let it stop her from continuing., “We never really got any closure. We just had to move on.”

“You think that’s why your mom wants you to talk to Mona?”

“I think that’s why she agreed to talk to Mona in the first place, to ask all the questions we didn’t have answers to. Now, I think she wants me to have the same opportunity.”

“Do you still have questions?” I released her and reached for conditioner. I needed to do something with my hands, and this seemed like the best way to distract myself from the urge to take her right up against the shower wall. I turned her around and began to work the conditioner into her long, fiery hair.

“Some,” she admitted, “but honestly, I want to talk to Mona so I can tell her all of the things I’ve wanted to say since we realized she was gone. I want to tell her how devastated Mom and I were, how many times I wondered if it was my fault. I want to let her know that she missed out on being a part of a great family and that we had a loving home without her.”

She fell silent for a minute, and I kept at what I was doing, not saying anything. She didn’t need me to talk right now. Her mind had to be racing with all of the things that she’d thought had been long buried. My own past had come back to bite me in the ass, and that had been bad enough. What she was going through wasn’t her fault at all. She needed time to work through it.

“Do you think that’s the right choice?” she asked. “I mean, I know I want to mend things between Mom and me, but do you think my reasons for me wanting to talk to Mona are valid, or am I just being petty, wanting to unload on her?”

“You aren’t petty at all,” I said immediately. “Just because she’s the one initiating the contact, doesn’t mean she gets to determine all of the content of those conversations. Why should only you have to listen to what she wants to say without the chance to say whatever you need to?”

I wanted to say more, but it wasn’t my place. I hated what Mona had done to Roberta and Ashlee, and if I was asked, I’d have been hard-pressed not to say anything. Fortunately, Ashlee didn’t ask what I thought about the woman in question.

“I’d like to go around lunchtime,” she said. “That way, we have some time to get to anything for work that needs to be done right away. Does that sound okay?”

“That’s a good idea.” I couldn’t believe how perfectly that worked with what I wanted to do today. I hadn’t wanted to try to come up with an excuse that wasn’t a lie. Now, I could be vague, but not hiding anything. “I had something I wanted to do this afternoon too. Owen can take you to your mom’s while Angus takes me where I need to go, if that works for you.”

I tensed as I waited for her to either accept or reject the bit of information I’d given her. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I knew telling her my plan wouldn’t go over well.

“Owen doesn’t have to take me,” she said. “I’ve made my way through New York on my own for years.”

“You’re not going by yourself.” I fought to keep my voice even. “Not with these new developments. The press will probably go into a feeding frenzy right now.”

“Good point,” she agreed, much to my relief. “The last thing Mom and I need today is for her to have to rescue me from vultures.”

I wrapped my arms around her from behind, and she leaned into me. “I’m going to fix all of this,le soleil. I promise.”

Thirty-Eight

Ashlee

While Owen droveme to my mom’s, I was still thinking about the last thing Nate had told me before we’d finished showering

I hadn’t told him that I thought he probably wouldn’t be able to keep that promise, not if he thought ‘fixing’ meant things would go back to normal, the way they’d been before everything had blown up in our faces. I believed in the relationships we had with each other and with the people important to us, but the things that were now public knowledge could never be put back into the box.

Still, I loved that he wanted to do it, not just for himself, but for me too.

“Dammit.”

Owen’s curse snapped me back to the present. One look out the window told me without asking why he’d sworn. Vans and cars lined both sides of the street in front of Mom’s house, half of them right in front of parking restriction signs. Every inch of the sidewalk was taken up with people, some with microphones in front of large cameras, others using their phones.

“Is there a back way I can get you inside?” Owen asked.

I thought for a moment before nodding. I directed him around the block and had him pull into the driveway of the house behind and to the right of Mom’s. The Russells always spent April and May in South Carolina with their grandkids, which meant I could use their hedges as a shield without having to explain to them the things that were being said about me. Since they’d known me as a child, it would’ve been beyond awkward to havethatparticular discussion.

“It’ll be easier for me to sneak in alone,” I said. “And I don’t know how long I’ll be, so there’s no need to stick around.”

“Mr. Lexington would want me to stay here.”

“I’ll text him and let him know that I told you to leave and that I’ll call when I’m ready to go. I promise I won’t leave the house on my own.”

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