Ignited (Roman Holiday 5)

He wasn’t supposed to catch her wrists and pick them up and pin her in place with the truth.

God, it felt good, though. Righteous and fucking satisfying.

“She gave me everything,” Ashley whispered. “She was great.”

“She was flawed, Ashley.”

“She loved me.”

“I know she did. She talked about you all the goddamn time. ‘My granddaughter Ashley’s making jewelry. She has a new boyfriend, and he seems like such a nice young man. She’s going to be a doctor. She’s in Bolivia, helping people get clean water.’ I’m not saying she didn’t love you. Everybody knew that.”

She looked right into his eyes. “Then what are you saying?”

Roman dropped her arms and stepped back, struck suddenly by the selfishness of what he was doing. By the raw hostility of it.

I’m saying that she didn’t love you as much as you deserve to be loved.

I’m saying it’s starting to look like nobody does.

Who wanted to hear that? What right did he have to say it, even if it was true?

Her mother was dead. Her father had turned her away, or she’d turned him away—Roman didn’t know which.

She’d had no one but Susan.

Roman had no right to take Susan away from her.

He backed up until he ran into the sink and the rest of the Mardi Gras beads fell in with a clatter.

It was too hot in the trailer. Sweltering. His head hurt. He needed to get out of here and calm down. Let the sediment settle, clear his mind so he could think rationally.

Instead, he asked her, “What’s the deal with your dad?”

Her throat flushed red, her cheeks pink. “What do you mean?”

“I mean your dad’s a senator, and he never talks about you, and you never see him. What’s the deal?”

She crossed her arms. “There’s no deal.”

“There’s got to be. If there were no deal, you’d be giving speeches at rallies for him.”

“We don’t have the same politics.”

“Even so. He could use you. Just your face—you wouldn’t even have to talk. But he doesn’t. He acts like you don’t exist.”

Ashley looked at her feet, bare against the trailer’s shag carpeting. “Okay, so we have an arrangement.”

“What arrangement?”

“I keep a low profile. Don’t embarrass him.”

“And in return?”

“He leaves me alone.”

But the loneliness in her voice—the desolation in her body—told Roman she was lying. Her father didn’t leave her alone. He ignored her.

Roman thought of Ashley in her tap shoes, clamoring for attention, and he could hardly breathe.