Snowbound with the Santas (Forbidden Fantasies)

2. Rayne

2

RAYNE

“ W hat the hell are you doing here?”

Standing in front of me with his trademark butter-wouldn’t-melt pleasant smile, is my ex-fiancé, Ashton.

I haven’t seen him in five years, which is quite a feat since he hounded me day and night when we were together. Five years of freedom, of trying to rebuild my life from the scraps he left of it, of trying to find peace in my heart after what he put me through.

My mother hated Ashton and saw my love for him as an act of rebellion. Looking back with a healthier mindset, I know now that my love for him was simply desperation and fear.

He destroyed me and my life. He crushed my soul and left me with so many trust issues and so much trauma that I nearly hit Nina with a vase the first night she stayed at my apartment.

He’s a dark stain on my past that I’ve put many hours into therapy to leave behind. Now, he stands before me wearing a silver-blue suit and a crisp white shirt, looking like the cat that got the cream.

“Not a very nice way to say hi,” Ashton says in his deceptively pleasant voice.

“And dragging me into a—” I glance around quickly now that my eyes have adjusted to the lower light. “A supply closet? How is that any better?”

“Consider it a gut reaction to seeing you again,” Ashton says softly. “ My , you look a vision…” His dark eyes slowly drift down my body, and disgust coils hot in my gut—one eye is creamy and drifts slower than the other. It’s the one stark scar Ashton carries from our past.

The only scar.

The rest are in my soul.

I need to get out of here.

Being trapped in here with him is digging up old memories I’ve spent years trying to bury. Within two minutes, the familiar prickling under my skin has risen and the urge to scream bubbles at the base of my throat.

Ashton is dangerous.

Cruel.

I can’t be trapped here with him.

I can’t .

“I ask again,” I say, fighting against that bubble to keep my voice steady. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was invited.”

My mouth falls open. “By whom ?”

I can’t fathom a single person in my inner family who knew Ashton who would even invite him here. My mother never liked him, but only because she thought he was a commoner. She was blind to the abuse I suffered at his hands.

I was too good at hiding it.

“Well, by family , of course.”

“This isn’t your family,” I snap.

“Isn’t it?” His eyes narrow slightly behind his rectangle spectacles. “It would have been our family if we had stayed together.”

“You dumped me,” I remind him.

“A terrible mistake.”

“A lucky stroke for me.” I clench my jaw until my ears pop and clutch my purse tightly. If I need to, I can use it as a weapon to defend myself. I’m not the same crushed girl he grew bored of and left in the dirt.

I tell myself this repeatedly as we stare at each other, as if believing it can stave off the rising fear that crawls like a snake up my spine.

“I don’t have time for your games,” I snap, lifting my chin. “Go torment someone else.”

My strong words fuel my steps as I try to shove past him and leave the supply closet, but as soon as I’m close enough, he grabs my arm once more.

“What, you don’t have time for a catch up?” Ashton uses the grip on my arm to haul me closer against his broad chest, and my heart begins to race. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you.”

“Pity it couldn’t be longer,” I spit out between gritted teeth.

“Well, if you hadn’t done such a good job of avoiding me, maybe it wouldn’t have been long enough for me to miss you.”

“I certainly don’t miss you.” I tug at my arm and brace my heels down, but it does nothing to pull me free of Ashton’s grip. “Let me go .”

“Don’t you want to hear why I’m here?”

“No, honestly, I don’t. I don’t care what lie you spun to get an invite. I don’t care who you managed to manipulate. As soon as I tell my mom you’re here, you’ll be out on your ass.”

“But Rayne. Your mom invited me.”

My racing heart drops down to the pit of my stomach. “What?”

His face, once the most handsome I’d ever seen, melts into a wide smile. This close, his blind eye peers at me as if I’m the only thing it can see. A perfect row of white teeth glisten at me, framed by some well-trimmed facial hair dusting across his strong jaw. That smile wooed me when I was just a teenager. A smile that held so much promise.

Now I see it for what it really is—the grin of a snake.

“That’s correct. She wrote to me directly. Well, I suppose if you want to get technical , she wrote to my fiancée, but imagine my surprise when my finance, Phoebe , turned out to be one of your distant cousins.” Ashton speaks slowly, each word a calculated threat.

Phoebe ?

My mind spins, searching through the countless names my mother barked at me upon arrival here a few days ago. My immediate family is small, but my mother comes from a larger family, and the rich fuck like rabbits. They marry often too, so children from multiple families eventually get caught in the net and there’s no telling who is a blood relative, who is from marriage, and who just writes enough checks to be included.

The name is distantly familiar. My throat burns faintly and I swallow down the urge to vomit.

“A new victim, then?” I choke out.

Ashton’s hand tightens painfully on my arm, and I gasp aloud, only to be silenced when he shoves me back up against the shelving unit. Countless bottles and items tremble along the shelf, and a few wobble far enough to clatter to the ground.

“Is that really how you see yourself?” Ashton snaps, and his tone is deeper. Darker. Much more familiar. “Do you really dare call yourself a victim after what you did ?”

“What I did?” I gasp out, using my purse to shove against his chest. “You’re the fucking leech that saw me in a terrible place and decided to take advantage!”

Ashton’s smile turns cold. “Is that really what you think? We had fun, or don’t you remember?”

“How would I?” I spit, shoving harder at his chest. “Maybe you punched me one too many times and knocked those memories loose.”

Ashton suddenly shoves against me and his eyes narrow to slits. “Those are dangerous lies, Rayne. Didn’t I teach you better than that?”

“Fuck you,” I spit, hating the way my racing heart makes my voice tremble. He scares me. He’s always scared me, but I don’t want him to know that.

“Is that an invitation?” He surges forward, and the moment his cold lips make contact with my cheek as I turn my face away, my free hand flies out and collides with his face.

“Don’t you fucking dare! I don’t want anything to do with you, do you hear me? And when I tell Phoebe?—”

Ashton’s other hand crashes into my cheek, whipping my head to the side with the force of the blow. Then he grabs my chin and presses his fingertips painfully into my cheeks.

“Did you fucking forget that I own you?” Ashton hisses in my face, spraying saliva over my lips. “Did you forget that I’m the one who knows everything about you, Rayne? That I’m the only one who knows? You clearly forget what I’m capable of.”

“No,” I whimper, using all my strength to push back against him. My cheek throbs hotly, and my spine cries out as the edges of the shelving press the bodice painfully against my back. “You lost all of that the moment you walked away.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t been so boring, I wouldn’t have walked away, but I never left . I just gave you some time to experience life without me.”

“It was heaven.” Each breath slowly becomes a struggle. Between Ashton taking up all my space and my racing heart forcing quick breaths past my lips, I’m growing more dizzy by the second. “You walked away, and I was free.”

“You were never free.” Ashton leans in the last few inches and his cold, damp lips stroke along my cheekbone. “You were just on pause.”

“Fuck you!”

Finally finding some stability on my heels, I lift one leg and slam my knee upward as hard as possible. I miss his crotch by an inch and instead knee him in the thigh, but it’s enough to shift his balance, and he stumbles backward when I shove forward.

“You don’t own me anymore, Ashton. And I don’t care about your threats or whatever this game is. I’m not the same person I was back then, so you can go and fuck yourself. I hope the flight home is turbulent .”

My anger surges and I push at him again with all my strength. He stumbles backward, surprising the both of us, but anger floods through me like lava and I suddenly feel invincible.

I’m not his victim anymore. I healed myself. I made my peace with my demons—most of them—and I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in four years.

Ashton, unfortunately, doesn’t take the hint. He uses his grip on my arm to haul me backward against his body, then he shoves me face-first into the shelves and pins me there.

“A different person? Is that what you’ve been doing while you’ve been hiding from me, Rayne? Changing your number, moving apartments, always running like you could escape what we did together?” He leans in close and his hot breath seeps through my hair. “What you did?”

My blood runs cold and my stomach flips sharply. I know what he’s referring to. Try as I might, those terrible memories start to resurface.

“After everything I did for you?” Ashton growls low. One of his hands drops to the skirt of my dress and he pulls the material upward with his fist.

“I lost my fucking eye because of you, bitch. So you'd better treat me a little nicer, or do you really want to ruin Mommy’s night with a murder mystery?”