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I took my time washing my hair before using the deep conditioner that required fifteen minutes to soak in. I shaved and then exfoliated—everything I could think of to prolong the time before talking to Steve. Yes, what he’d told me was probably correct, but that didn’t stop my jangling nerves or reflexive heartbreak. I didn’t know how to make that stop, and Steve wasn’t going to let it slide. He and Nash shared a stubborn streak wider than the state of Texas.
Finally, the warm water ran out, and I was forced to shut off the taps. I wrapped another towel around my head and turned on the ancient blow dryer I found under the sink. I didn’t use it on my hair—no need to get split ends. Instead, I turned it on and left it next to me on the counter while I moisturized my swollen, raw face. Crying so much had really messed with my skin.
Then I brushed my teeth. I undid my hair from the towel and began to comb it slowly, from the ends, the way I was supposed to. I scrunched it a few times when I finished, hoping to add some body. Might as well put on a full face since I had nothing else to do.
I touched the blow dryer, wincing at the heated plastic barrel. With a sigh, I turned it off.
“He knows he upset you, Aya,” Steve said immediately. “But you shouldn’t have run away. I’m worried he’s going to slide back into drugs or booze. He already did the booze.”
My heart squeezed, tears threatened, but I refused to open the door. I would not be tricked by Steve. If Nash wanted to see me, he could bloody well do it himself. I couldn’t repair all of this on my own.
“He’s drowning in emotions,” Steve continued. “He doesn’t know how to handle them. And now he’s off on this stupid tour. I’m concerned.”
I glared at the door. Steve might sound like my friend, but he was Nash’s father—a man trying to make up for years of poor decision-making. No way I was opening the door.
“Didn’t you see the videos? Didn’t you hear him? Listen.”
“Can you dish on your lunch date in D.C. with the heiress Lindsay Herrington-Smythe?” someone asked.
“That was a business meeting, nothing more.”
My breath caught at Nash’s voice.
“Hmm… You two were linked together just after your original split from Aya Aldringham, right?”
“I was never with Lindsay. We’re not friends. She’s currently running a nonprofit that Aya and I have dealings with.”
“Seems like a messy love square between—”
“Don’t even say that, Tim. It’s ridiculous. Aya’s the love of my life. I’ve loved her since I set eyes on her the first time just about twenty years ago. We were on a beach in Turks and Caicos, vacationing with our parents. She wore a lime green and white striped bathing suit and a huge floppy hat. She’d built this amazing sandcastle—remember, we were like…five, maybe—and it had all these turrets and parapets. I was fascinated by it. She’d been creating links out of sand for her drawbridge when I walked by with my mother. I kept an eye on her the rest of the morning.”
I hadn’t known that. He’d told me he didn’t remember anything from that trip. I pressed my hand to my heart. My fingers grasped the edge of the counter.
Nash said he loved me. Nash just admitted he’d always loved me.
He’d remembered my swimsuit. And my sandcastle. I vaguely remembered creating it. I’d been sad to leave it because I’d spent most of the day fixated on the structure.
“Then why isn’t Aya with you on this tour?”
“She has courses for her engineering degree. And she has every right to her own life, her own interests,” Nash snapped.
I leaned against the door, waiting for more. Nothing. Silence. I swallowed, annoyed that Steve was manipulating me. Oh, hell. No he wasn’t. He was offering me the truth, even if it contradicted my deeply engrained feelings and reactions. He was showing me how Nash felt when he’d heard about the will, why he’d reacted the way he had.
I leaned my forehead against the wooden door. Dammit, I was tired of being timid, of waiting in the background for Nash to step back into a place where I was comfortable, waiting for either of us to get everything right. I needed to step up and fight, be a forceful advocate for the things I wanted, the life I wanted.
Humiliation had left me unsure. But Nash hadn’t humiliated me, intentionally or otherwise. Yet my reactions to anything similar remained unpredictable and unmanageable. I needed to actually move forward, leave the past behind.
I also needed to get used to the presence of the media and learn to ignore it. Fame had frightened me before Nash even signed his first contract, and after that night in high school, any kind of scrutiny left me in a heightened state of terror. But I’d given interviews in London, and some of them resulted in terrible things being written about me—not because of Nash but because of my wealth and heritage, or my style or myriad other reasons. I’d shrugged most of those off, not necessarily with ease, but I’d managed. It was only with Nash that I had this terror.
Steve was right. I needed to get past my own fears to consider how Nash was feeling, put myself in his situation. I’d been too nervous about our relationship to be open to that. But wasn’t that what love was? Thoughtfulness. Caring. Openness. Trust.
It was time for me to step forward. Into his light, into his world, and trust that he’d still want me, still work with me to avoid as much of the petty meanness as possible, to create a life that worked for both of us.
But that would be after I made him listen to reason about my mum’s thrice-damned will.
I opened the door to the bathroom. I met Steve’s gaze. “Let’s go to the hotel. I’m not prepared to hash out our issues at the venue.”
28
