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But it was her high ponytail and flat-heeled sandals that brought back all the feels from high school. She looked so much like that girl—from her wide smile to the love shining from her eyes—that I was pulling her into my arms before I really cataloged my movements.
“Well, hello,” Aya said with a bright giggle.
“I missed you.” I bypassed her lips to kiss the soft skin where her neck and shoulder met. I inhaled her lightly floral fragrance, my eyes sliding closed with bliss.
Her arms tugged me even tighter against her. Gratitude and fear buffeted my chest as I slid my lips up her neck to her jaw, tracing that line to her lips. Those emotions shouldn’t go together, but the more time I spent with Aya, the more I cherished her. And the more I feared she’d disappear once more.
In my world, nothing good lasted. Jordan, my therapist, had told me that wasn’t true—that it was self-sabotage and I needed to have more faith. I wanted to. Desperately. But my history proved him wrong.
Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. Right now, I needed to focus on spending time with Aya, charting our path forward.
“Well, that’s hawt,” Jenna muttered. “And our cue to go.”
I didn’t stop kissing Aya, even as Jenna and Kate shuffled out of the room.
“I sure hope Mama’s got some pie,” Kate sighed on her way into the kitchen. “Cuz I need something sweet after that.”
“Who knew the boy had it in him?” Jenna muttered.
Jenna’s comment caused me to smile. I opened my eyes to watch Aya’s lashes flutter. I stared down into her bright violet gaze, our lips just touching.
“Lived like a damn monk,” Kate agreed. “It’s the only reason Mama didn’t try to talk him out of buying that place.”
My smile turned to a chuckle, and Aya giggled again.
“Guess Mama Grace worried about my virtue.”
She touched her swollen lips. “I think it’s mine I need to worry about,” she said, her voice huskier than usual.
12
Aya
The two-lane highway bisected the lush, green fields slowly drying and browning under the blazing sun. Bluebonnets burst out of the grasses in clumps of swaying carpet. I noted a lone mesquite tree, with its twisted trunk and stunted branches, from my vantage point in the back seat of the Tesla next to Nash. This landscape was so different from the Cotswolds where my father and Harriet preferred to holiday—with my money.
My lips twisted as I remembered the article my solicitor had forwarded me. My father had recently granted the Sunday Times an interview and expressed his concern over my profligate lifestyle while living with my mother. He worried Nash would turn me into a drug addict and drunkard, and said he’d had no choice but to prove his concern and the seriousness of my actions by seizing my bank accounts and firing my solicitor.
He’d detailed some of my mother’s wilder moments, which had occurred while she was still at university, to showcase how like her I was—how in need of a firm hand to keep me from making the same deadly mistakes. My father had taken great pains to ensure that the public assumed drugs had caused her death.
I slid my hands under my thighs to keep from clenching them, not wanting to upset Nash. He’d set up this day, and I wanted to enjoy it with him.
“You going to tell me what’s got you so twisted up?” he asked.
I sighed. Most people considered me closed off, but Nash had always read me with ease.
I smiled. “Later.”
He tugged my hand from under my skirt and wrapped his fingers around it. “Now, Aya. I don’t want it eating at you.”
I opened my mouth to refuse but fear darkened his eyes, those damn storms brewing stronger.
Keeping my voice low, I gave him the update. Nash’s jaw clenched, but he never interrupted.
When I finished, he nodded once. “What do you plan to do about it?”
“I’d already moved a large portion of my funds to an account in the US months ago, once I realized he was manipulating me to get to my mother’s money. That’s in my name, so my father shouldn’t be able to touch it.”
“If you want me to—”
