For Better or Hearse

Chapter Twenty-Three

“A sh.”

Making a sound of annoyance, she rotates like a kebab to absorb maximum Nathaniel Whitford warmth. Hard chest, check. Cleaving arms, check.

Fingertips sweep through her hair, the gentle sensation soothing and wondrous. She sighs again.

Warm lips graze her cheek. “Ash.”

Eyes closed, she smiles. She could get used to this. Being held in his arms every morning and night. No cares. Just this very serious man who infuriates her on a daily basis. It’s absolutely everything she’s ever wanted.

“Ash.”

Nathaniel’s deep voice calls her back from her thoughts.

Her heart stops. “Shit.” She rockets up in bed. Scrapes a nest of hair away from her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Midnight.” He’s still making those smooth, gentle caresses over her arm.

“Fuck.” This is the third time she’s been dangerously close to staying over. Which absolutely cannot happen. Staying over is a tripwire to an ambush of feelings.

Nathaniel watches, wearing an amused smirk, as she tosses on her clothes. “What do you think happens if we fall asleep?”

“We turn into pumpkins and then fucking combust,” she hisses. “Or worse. Augustus catches us, and I get fired.”

An arched brow. “There would be no firing.” He’s smug, finally cashing in on that billionaire privilege. “Sleeping is a necessity for good health.”

She snorts. “Says the man who gets up at four a.m. to jog. ”

He snags her wrist. Long, tan fingers dance over her pale skin. When he pulls her toward him, his eyes are on fire. “What if you stayed the night?”

“Can’t.” She kisses him, bites his lip. Nathaniel releases a pleased groan. “Let me go, you tall, handsome asshole.”

His eyes turn molten. But he does.

Champagne dinners at five-star restaurants. Jet skiing. Scuba diving in a reserved cove. It’s been her world for the last couple of days, yet none of it holds a candle to Nathaniel.

Their time together is bliss. Paradise.

While she packs up her beach tote, the sheets rustle. He sits up, chest bare, frowning as he checks his phone. He’s been waiting for an acceptance from the rig in the North Sea. It’s had him in a mess for days.

He ducks his head, types out a response. It feels like there’s a switchblade in her chest. She wants to grab the phone from his hands, fling it out to sea.

Still, she plays it cool. “You hear back?”

A shrug. “No. Not yet.” His eyes are distant, his attention fixed on his phone.

Thank god. The knot in her stomach loosens. She never thought she’d want Nathaniel Whitford safe on shore, but here she is.

Ash chews on her bottom lip, then decides against saying more. She shoulders her bag. Walks toward the door. Pauses. On the minibar is the rock from their trip to Rainbow Falls. Shiny, bright and jagged.

Her heart hammers a warning in her ears. “You kept my rock.”

He quits scrolling. Smears a hand over his whiskered jaw. His eyes clear out as he focuses on her. “Of course I did.”

She gives a bobblehead nod. Takes in his stern, handsome face. His hair thrashed by her nails. His calm stance, leaning back against the headboard, watching her .

Fuck. There’s too much of her in his eyes. Adoration and lust and…and…

Butterflies automatically swoop into her stomach. It’s just green flag after green flag with him.

And then her stomach drops.

Too much green.

Too many feelings.

Noncommittal. They have to be noncommittal and cavalier about this.

It’s just sex . Her mantra the last few days. What she tells herself so she doesn’t detach and freak out and self-sabotage. Sleeping over, spending the night, is too intimate. It leads to attachment. And she needs to be very unattached. Even if she is starting to crave him on a level that is no longer strictly carnal.

The first sign of impending doom should be that they’re no longer playing the truth/lie game. There’s no need. Everything is truth. There’s a comfortableness now. Her truths, her musings just spill out.

She is not in the market for a relationship. She and Nathaniel go together about as well as serial killers and normal brain waves.

Mouth suddenly dry, she swallows. “Well, okay. I’ll see you.”

“You better,” he says solemnly, eyes heated.

Her heart somersaults. Perfect response from the perfect man. Good thing she hates it. Good thing it means absolutely nothing.

She slips out of the room, and instantly, she freezes.

Tater’s coming down the long hall, headed toward the room she’s sharing with Augustus, a carton of cigars in his hands.

Fuck.

Although she supposes it’s about time they got caught. The last two nights, she made great lung-sputtering sprints down the hall. Trying to beat the sun and Augustus’s alarm in the great race to fuck Nathaniel’s brains out. She hasn’t snuck around like this since she and Tessie hitchhiked to Burning Man .

“Oh shit,” Tater drawls. He holds up his hand and the cigars and gapes at Ash.

Ash narrows her eyes. “Are you sneaking cigars to your cancer-afflicted grandfather?”

Tate darts a look at Nathaniel’s door. His shoulders straighten with bravado. “Are you sleeping with my brother?”

They stare at each other a beat. Ash forks her fingers at her eyes, directs them to Tater. “We both have seen nothing,” she whispers ominously.

“Roger that.” With that agreement, Tater slips into Augustus’s room.

Ash stands in the middle of the hall, scarcely able to breathe. There it is. That spark of guilt vortexing deep down in her soul.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Isn’t this what she’s always done? Make a mess of it? This time, she’s determined not to. Because there is no this . No her and Nathaniel. Sex on the beach between frenemies with benefits. Nothing more. It’s a situationship. Ending when the vacation does. Sure, she’ll see him because of Augustus, but that’s where it ends.

Or is it? Is that what she wants?

“Ugh, shit.” Ash rubs at her eyes. Tries to fight the realization, the fierce want that’s rising up inside her like a tsunami.

Block him, delete him from her memory, throw her heart across the Pacific Ocean, do something to get Nathaniel Whitford out of her brain cracks.

Now.

She’d be insane to ever play that dirty game of love again.

Even if Nathaniel hasn’t shied away from her. She never feels judged when she’s with him. He accepts who she is, maybe even likes it.

Trying for something more serious with him wouldn’t be fair, anyway .

How can she ask anyone to love her, when all she does is ache to push them away?

She’s gnawing her lip, weighing her options, when her CGM alarm goes off. Loud. Sharp. Angry.

She checks her phone. Groans.

Sixty-eight.

Not wanting to bother Augustus and Tate as they puff away, she heads for the elevators.

At the hotel bar, she orders a glass of orange juice. As she waits, she scans the lounge. In a corner booth, Claire sits alone. Her face is free of makeup, and she’s wrapped in a shawl. A glass of wine to her left, a closed book to her right.

Ash sips her juice and moves in the direction of Nathaniel’s mother. She’s still debating about what to say when she stops. Clears her throat. “Claire?”

The older woman startles like she’s remembering where she is. Her pale-blue eyes, so much like Nathaniel’s, land on Ash. “Ash? What are you doing up?”

“Oh, uh…” God, she can’t tell the woman that less than twenty minutes ago, her son was folding her up like a lawn chair. “Juice,” she says, lifting the cup like a torch. “Minibar was out.” She peers closer. Claire’s face is puffy and red. “Are you okay?”

“Are you having fun on this trip?” Fingers on the stem of her glass, Claire spins it in a slow circle. “Because I don’t think I’m having fun.”

Ash shrugs, goes for nonchalant. “I am surviving as much as the next person, I think.”

“I suppose we haven’t made it easy on you, have we?”

Ash offers a small smile. “No. But I’m not in this life for easy. And I probably deserve a little hazing after what I did to your son.” She looks Claire in the eye. “I apologized to him. I’m very, very sorry.”

“I appreciate that.” Nathaniel’s mother sips her wine .

Taking that as the signal to go, Ash turns. Before she can get far, Claire’s shaky voice sounds at her back.

“I don’t think I can do this. With my father.”

Slowly, Ash pivots. She walks back to the booth. Takes a chance and sits across from Claire. Waits for her to go on.

Finally, Claire sighs. “He wasn’t there a lot, my father, but I—I still don’t want him to go.”

“I don’t either. It could be months, or it could be years. All we can do is be there for him.” She does her best not to say too much. Most people want an ear, not a lesson. “I know he loves you a lot.”

“I wish he would tell me that,” Claire says in a sad, faraway voice. She wipes at the corner of her eye. “All the birthdays he missed, the stories he never told me about my mother. All my life, I’ve felt like I’m made of strings. They’re all connected to me but blowing in different directions, and I keep grasping, keep trying to thread them together for—for some connection—and now for some closure before he goes.” Claire covers her face with her hands. Groans. “It’s weird. I don’t expect you to understand it, but—”

“No, I do.” Ash laughs, smiles at Claire’s words. They almost feel like Ash’s own story. “I understand more than you think.”

“How do I get through it? There’s so much to do. Our family’s not good at this.” Claire gestures between them. “What you do. Engaging with others. You have something that people like.” She fingers the stem of her wineglass and smirks. “Something that pisses off my husband.”

Ash arches a brow. “That’s really the purpose of this trip, isn’t it? Rip Don a new one?”

Claire laughs, a joyous sound of relief.

For a moment, silence settles.

“You know,” Ash muses. “Love and death are so similar. The beginning. The end. It’s all a mystery. An unknown. Both are always on our minds. We don’t control the ride, the ride controls us. And no matter how hard we prepare, no matter how much we think we’ve got this, we can’t escape. Love. Or death.” She fiddles with the edge of a napkin, swallows back the emotion bubbling up inside her. “But finding the grace to get back to one another, to understand, to forgive, is another kind of love on its own. It’s not death.”

“Then help me,” Claire says. She sits up, mouth fixed in a determined line. “Tell me what to do. You’re here to help; I’m listening.”

Ash’s jaw drops, and then she takes a breath, attempting to disguise her surprise. “I think you two should sit. Say a lot of big words to each other. Maybe you’ll get angry, and it’ll be hard, but then it’s out. You only get one shot. Chance, life, love are finite.

“And when the time comes…” Her throat tightens. The backs of her eyes sting.

Dear god, no. Not tears. Not now.

“I’ll be there,” Ash chokes out. “For Augustus and for all of you. If you want.” She swallows, but she forces herself to maintain eye contact with Claire. “I’ll help. It’s what I’m here for. You don’t have to go through the fear and sadness of being left alone after his departure. You just feel what you feel and rage how you rage and cry how you cry, and I’ll be there.”

Claire rests her chin in her palm and considers Ash. “Yes,” she says quietly, “I look forward to it.”