Ravaged (Roman Holiday 4)
“How about—”
“They can’t both sound good,” Ashley interrupted. She heard the whine in her voice and tried to tone it down. “They’re opposites, right? Sunnyvale is heart and soul and community, and this development Roman wants to do—this dead, cheap thing—”
“I’m planning to call it Coral Key.”
“There’s no coral! Not anywhere nearby.”
He shrugged, a loose roll of his shoulders. “It sounds nice, though. That’s key spelled c-a-y.”
“I hate that,” Ashley spat. “I hate key spelled c-a-y.”
“Really? I’ve always thought it looked classier that way,” Prachi said.
“We’ll have excellent sport fishing,” Roman said to Arvind. “Have you ever tried sport fishing?”
“Can’t say that I have. What kind of boat do you use?”
Leave it to Roman to tap into Arvind’s love of boats. She was the one who knew how Arvind felt about boats. She was the one who’d heard his stories of living near the ocean as a boy. Ashley knew all about Prachi, too—how much she enjoyed her work, how hard she found it to relax on vacation. She and Grandma and Prachi had fun developing relaxation strategies for Prachi’s visits, trying out spa days, shopping, hiking, finally discovering that knitting was the thing that took Prachi out of her work head-space and into vacation mode. They’d spent hours by the pool, drinking and talking and laughing while Prachi knit scarves, baby blankets, and—her latest passion—socks.
Roman didn’t know any of that. He didn’t know Prachi and Arvind at all. He only knew what he wanted. He knew what he saw when he looked at their house and how to use it to manipulate them.
He was callous and self-serving. Why were they smiling at him?
“Is your dinner all right, Ashley?” Prachi asked.
“It’s delicious.”
“Are you sure? Because you haven’t touched the tofu. I can get you something else, if you’d prefer.”
“No, this is great.” She picked up the egg roll again, shoved it in her mouth, and chewed.
It tasted like pork. She gagged.
“I was sorry to hear about Susan,” Prachi said. “It seemed so sudden.”
Ashley couldn’t speak. Her mouth was full of this foul taste, and even when she grabbed her water glass and forced the food down her throat, an invisible fist gripped it, filling her sinuses with pressure.
“It was sudden,” Roman said. “But painless, I think. The hospice workers kept her comfortable.”
“How do you know that?” Ashley’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
“I visited.”
She closed her eyes for a second, looking for her center. Searching for peace, for a spark of starlight or a deep breath that would help her push the pain down, back into the well where it belonged.
The conversation continued around her, P
rachi saying something, Roman responding, but the pain roared, and she couldn’t hear over it. Wood chair legs scraped over the floor. She stumbled, which was how she knew she was standing. Her palms found silver and linen—the tablecloth.
“Ashley?” Prachi.
“Ashley, are you all right?” Roman.
“You don’t understand,” she said. Three pairs of eyes gazed up at her. She hit the tabletop with her fist, making the red-paper-wrapped chopsticks jump. Arvind and Prachi looked startled. Roman went blank.
“All of you are just deliberately missing the point.” She tried to find the words to tell them what the point was, but she couldn’t find any she hadn’t already said. Sunnyvale had made them happy. They needed it, because …
She couldn’t finish the sentence.