I have no idea, so I look the assistant up and down. “She’s about two inches shorter than you, but about the same build.”

“Ok.” The assistant smiles, obviously used to clueless men trying to buy things for their women. “Do you have a picture of her?”

I don’t obviously. I pull out my phone. I open up Google, type in Ashley Winters, add the name of her charity, and get thousands of results. One of the hits is a full-length photo of Ashley wearing a white lacy dress. Remarkably, she looks like she’s actually made an effort for a change. No doubt, someone else must have dressed her that day.

I show the assistant the photo.

She nods and tells me to take a seat. Within a few minutes, she’s back, holding on to a pretty black dress. The dress has long sleeves and a demure neckline. The skirt part flows out from the waist and will probably sit just above Ashley’s knee.

It’s perfect and I nod. “That’s great, thank you,” I say, standing up.

“I also picked these out which I think would go really well with the dress,” the assistant adds, showing me a pair of nude high heels.

I know it’s just a sales technique to try to upsell something, but almost immediately, I am filled with a strange excitement. I want to see Ashley wearing the dress and the sexy pair of shoes. I don’t allow myself to think too hard about why I want to see her in these shoes. I just nod again as I take both the dress and the shoes. She puts it onto my account and I rush back to my car and head towards Heather Avenue.

I park my car and hurry inside. “Hi,” I say to the desk Sergeant. “I was told I would find Ashley Winters here.”

He taps on a keyboard, then looks back up at me. “Yeah, she’s here.”

“I’ve come to bail her out.”

He nods at me and his eyes are twinkling. “Is she yours?”

I raise my brows. “I guess so.”

“A bit of a handful, isn’t she?” He remarks with a chuckle.

“For sure,” I agree, and allow myself to chuckle with him. “What did she do?”

“She was arrested for trespassing. She was in some fancy office causing a scene. To be honest, she wouldn’t have been arrested at all if she had just left when we showed up, but she wouldn’t leave, so we had no real choice.”

I sigh. I hardly know Ashley, but this sounds like exactly something she would do. I hand the officer my debit card.

He runs the payment then addresses me, “Take a seat. She’ll be released in a while.”

I know better than to ask him to hurry it up, so I sit down, tapping my foot in irritation. God grandpa, did you know the girl is a wild cat? I bet he knew. I just bet he did.

After a few minutes that feels like a few hours, a door opens and the officer steps through followed by Ashley.

Her face falls when she sees me and she turns to the cop. “Oh God, Officer, please just take me back to the cells,” she mocks, rolling her eyes. “The last thing I need right now is another corporate suit.”

The officer gives me a look I can read easily enough. Good luck.

Yeah, I’m starting to think I’m going to need it. “Let’s go,” I say to Ashley, my voice is tight.

She follows me out of the station, but once we reach my car, she refuses to get in. “Look Finn, the last thing I need right now is a lecture from you, okay.” She turns to walk away.

I grab her wrist. “I just paid your bail to get you out of there and I damn well expect an explanation.”

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s just say the slimeball I was confronting is lucky I couldn’t get to him. If I could have, then I would have been arrested for something a lot more serious than trespassing. But his office was locked and I couldn’t get in. The door was pretty solid actually. But I guess a guy like that needs something solid to protect him.”

“For fuck sake Ashley, you knew we were having lunch with my mom today. How could you be so damned childish and irresponsible today of all days? Couldn’t your little one woman crusade against the machine have waited until tomorrow?”

“Actually, he threw his sixteen year old daughter onto the streets because he found a little bit of pot in her room. By the time we found her, she had been raped,” Ashley mourns. “So no, it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow. And if your mom doesn’t get that, then quite honestly, I don’t think I want to meet her. In fact, this just proves that we’re too different to make this work, even for a few months. Why don’t we just call the whole thing off?”

Tags: River Laurent Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net