Page 50 of The Love You Fight For
“Wouldn’t you like that?” Ashton whispers, moving his hand to grip my waist and his lips to just below my ear. Another kiss. More hot, moist breath. Another repulsed shudder I have to shove down. “I think you would.”
He plants another kiss on my jaw, then moves to my mouth. I turn a fraction of a second before he makes contact, so the kiss lands on the corner of my mouth instead of flush on the lips. I’m relieved for half a second, but then he grips my face, turns it to his, and forces his mouth on mine.
I don’t move. I don’t kiss him back. He moves a hand to my breast and squeezes hard before pushing me further into the seat. When he forces his tongue into my mouth, I let him, and I think ofJane Austen. I think of the scene where Mr. Darcy confesses that he still loves Elizabeth Bennet and pretend it’s being read to me in Lennon’s voice.
I will not cry.
“Ms. Harper, we’re here,” the driver says, and Ashton reluctantly climbs off me.
Ashton pulls his face from mine so I can finally breathe, but he doesn’t remove his hands. We’re still almost a minute from my building. The driver announced us early, and suddenly I want to shower him with gratitude. I wonder how many other women he’s had to do that for.
“You’re like kissing a corpse,” Ashton says, his tone bored. “We’ll have to work on that.”
I say nothing.
When we pull to the curb outside of my building, the driver wastes no time getting to my door and reaching for my hand. Just as I place mine into his, Ashton’s voice stops me.
“Let me come up.”
It’s not said as a request. It’s not a suggestion. It’s an order.
I flash pleading eyes to the driver, a silent request to intervene should he need to, then turn softer ones to Ashton. The words I speak taste like dirt.
“Rain check.”
I allow the driver to help me from the car and close the door behind me.
“Thank you,” I whisper to him, and he nods but doesn’t look me in the eyes.
“Be safe, miss.”
I walk calmly into the lobby. I say hello to the security guard. I wait for my private elevator, then ride it in silence to my condo. Once inside, I set the alarm and head to my kitchen. I pull a wine glass from the cabinet and a bottle of white from the beverage fridge.
I get the full glass all the way to my lips before I remember the Valium, and then I let out a scream and hurl it at the floor.
The glass shatters and wine splatters everywhere.
It’s not enough. I still feel his hands on me. I still smell his breath.
I pick up the wine bottle and slam it hard against the stone countertop with another scream. I have to hit it twice before the bottle breaks, then I hurl that at the floor too. I pull more wine glasses from the cabinet and throw them, one by one, at the spot on my kitchen floor now littered with broken glass and a large puddle of expensive white wine.
The crystal decanter I got in Italy goes next.
Then I go for a drinkware set made of imported crystal. I can’t remember where I bought it, but it was paid for with my father’s credit card. Another pointless, luxurious purchase. Another way to waste my father’s stolen, inherited blood money.
I throw each piece against the tile with a scream, mentally calculating the cost of the damage. Martini glasses, champagne flutes, rocks glasses. They all crash satisfyingly on the ground until they’re nothing but sharp shards of crystal. No longer rare and valuable. No longer coveted.
Now they’re nothing but treacherous garbage.
I stand for several minutes and catch my breath, surprised at how disheveled I’ve become. My hair is falling out of my bun. I’m sure my eyeliner is once again smudged. My father’s voice filters into my head, followed by Ashton’s.
Stop being so dramatic, Samantha.
Thank you for behaving, Samantha.
You kiss like a corpse.
We’ll have to work on that.
