Beauty and the Billionaire

The world is a great, gorgeous fairy tale until we’re driving back to my place and we have to pull over before we get there.

There are five police cars in front of my house—two in the driveway, two off the curb and one on the front lawn—and the near-immaculate moment Ash and I were enjoying together craters into brimstone.

Ash gets out of the car, but I hesitate.

I know exactly what happened. Maybe not the specifics of what he did this time, or even whether this is just the fallout of another scam-gone-bad from who knows when, but the police aren’t there because someone broke into my house.

I get out of the car, more for the sake of not leaving Ash out there by herself than anything, and policemen start coming out the front door of my house.

“You don’t have anything in there that would give you away as a boxer—fighter,” she sighs. “You know what I mean.”

“No,” I tell her. “There’s a lot of MMA stuff, but nothing that would give away anything. This is all him.”

When they bring Chris out of the house, Ash grabs my hand. We’re in front of the neighbor’s house, but he sees me. I don’t know what the look on his face is, but there’s almost a ferocity to it back somewhere beneath the expressionless face itself.

I don’t try to get closer or try to stop it. I don’t call out that I’ll have his bail tonight or that everything’s going to be okay.

I don’t want to lie.

We just stare at each other until he’s put in the back of a police car.

Chapter Twelve

The Fourth Letter in the Alphabet and the Longest River in the World

Ash

“Good morning!” Mason’s voi

ce comes out of a dream and into my irritating reality.

“Why are you waking me up ever?” I drone, my face a little more than half covered by the pillow.

“It’s nine,” he says. “It’s late. Come on, I made you breakfast.”

“Great,” I moan. “You can eat it yourself, which should give you the strength to try again in another three hours.”

“Come on, Ash,” he says cheerily. “It’s a beautiful day outside.”

I put my whole face in the pillow now and wonder if I have the resolve to be the first person to intentionally smother herself with a pillow. After a couple of seconds with decreased oxygen, though, I decide to live. Even if that means I have to get out of bed.

I turn my head to the side, catch a bit of sunlight too directly in the eye, and I’m strongly reconsidering my options.

Mason’s been Mason for the most part, but that’s kind of the problem. For the first hour or two after Chris got taken away, Mason just said he didn’t want to talk about it. After that, it was like a switch just flipped and everything was fine.

Now, when the topic of Chris comes up, he says, “What happened is what happened.”

Breakfast out of bed at nine o’clock in the morning on my day off, though? This must be stopped.

My knuckles hit the floor shortly after my feet do as I drag myself out of bed. It’s been nice staying at Mason’s, but he’s got to stop picking my clothes off the floor before I’ve had a chance to get up in the morning.

I walk over to the dresser where my clothes are all folded neatly—okay, the folding is new—and I get dressed. The television is on as I enter the living room and Mason’s just coming around the corner from the kitchen.

“Oh hey,” he says. “I didn’t know if you fell back asleep or not. Breakfast is ready when you are.”

“Mason,” I tell him. “You have to let me sleep.”

“Ooh,” he says, “come check this out.”