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“Thank you.” She still had the voice of an angel.
“How’s Ben doing? I haven’t seen or heard from him in a long while. The club is doing great. I hope he’s pleased about that.” God, I was rambling.
She inhaled as if she was preparing to launch into the reason she was here. “I’m actually here to talk about the club.”
“Oh?” I sat back, ready to hear what she had to say. I hoped it would take her a long time because I wanted to listen to her and look at her for as long as possible.
2
Beth – Wednesday
I thought I was prepared to see Ash again. I’d lived with my resentment of him for much longer than the summer I spent in love with him. While I wanted to be civil to him, I entered his office with my anger intact and a mission to accomplish. I was sure I’d be able to do that without any risk of old positive feelings mucking up my goal.
But seeing him sitting behind his desk, looking even more handsome than I remembered, my heart stalled in my chest. There was no doubt that he’d grow into himself. He looked powerful and competent as a businessman. It was probably in the Raven DNA. But as he watched me, I thought maybe he felt a little unsure, maybe even guilty. Good. What he did to me was cruel.
I didn’t want to come and see him. After he left that summer, it took a while, but when I finally got over Ash, I was determined that I would never see him again. I’d been so hurt and angry, I vowed to strike him from my memory. But that turned out to be impossible when a month later, as I was settling into my mother’s home in Europe instead of my going to Princeton, I discovered that night with Ash resulted in something that would keep a part of him in my life forever.
Back then, I knew I needed to reach out to Ash to let him know, but I didn’t want my family to find out he was the reason why my father was hiding me away. So I avoided digital devices I knew my father could monitor, and instead sent Ash a letter. It came back unopened with the words “Return to Sender” scrawled on the front. From then on, Ash was persona non grata to me.
When Ben learned the details of what happened, he wanted to kick Ash’s ass, but there were more important things going on, such as my father’s failing health and the company’s falling profits. Luckily, I convinced him to simply keep it to himself. And that was when, like me, Ben did all he could to avoid Ash. We had good reasons. Reasons that I didn’t need Ash to know about.
Unfortunately, today, we needed Ash’s help and so here I was, trying to keep my past from messing up my future. This meeting needed to be short and to the point. It needed to be all business. No reminiscing about the past or sharing our present lives. If I was lucky, Ash would be disinterested in all the personal stuff. He’d walked away from me without a thought. There was no reason to think he’d care now.
I took a deep breath. “Ben wants to sell his share of Jet. He wants out of the nightclub business.”
Ash’s brows arched up in surprise. “Ben loved being the owner of Jet. He always welcomed the pretty woman and liked to play up being the owner.”
I shrugged like it was no big deal, when in fact it was. Ben had been living his best life when he managed the club. “He’s moving on. He has other obligations now. Besides, it’s not like you two see each other. One of the reasons Ben agreed to join you was because of your friendship. But now that you’ve drifted apart, there doesn’t seem to be any point now.”
Ash frowned. “I’ll admit it’s been a while since I’ve seen Ben, but that wasn’t my fault. He’s the one that backed off the club, and I understood. Your dad was sick.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You weren’t there much before that.”
“The last few years, my work here has kept me away from Jet more than I’d like. But Ben is still my friend. Why did he send you instead of talking to me himself?”
I swallowed, hoping to hide my pain about Ben. There was too much going on with him. And his resentment toward Ash was around the same issue I had with him. The end result was the same. Ben needed to sell his half of Jet. Whether I did it, or Ben did it, it had to be done.
“Ben is busy dealing with my father’s estate.” That wasn’t a lie. He was dealing with my father’s business, but mostly he was trying to keep it from going down the toilet. He was struggling, and as a result, his own mental and physical health were impacted. Hopefully, selling his half of Jet would help with that.
