But then Nat laughed, and the sound shot daggers into his heart. “C’mon now, Rory. You know as well as I do that Havenbrook isn’t home. Hasn’t been for a long time, and I don’t imagine it’ll ever be.”
Asher closed his eyes, the crushing weight of her response settling on his chest. It didn’t matter what Nash thought he saw. What Rory—or anyone else, for that matter—thought they saw either. Not when, in the end, Nat didn’t want this life. She didn’t want to be stuck here. Not with her family and not with the family he’d strapped her with.
So, he was going to do what had always been the plan…what they’d agreed to at the start. He was going to let her go.
Rory’s words had been spinning in Nat’s head from the moment she, Asher, and the kids had left her parents’ house. She’d gone inside in search of Owen, not advice, but she’d managed to snag both. After Nat had laughed off Rory’s assumption that there was something between her and Asher, Rory had told her she was being an idiot. Par for the course with her eldest sister, really, but there’d been something in the way she’d said the words that had Nat paying attention.
Throughout Rory’s blustering and barbs, it had all boiled down to the fact that Nat and Asher had been able to fool everyone in town, as well as her parents, with this marriage because it hadn’t been all that fake.
It certainly hadn’t felt fake. Not when he kissed her each night, slid into her body, and moaned her name. Not when she woke up with him at her back, his breaths on her neck, and his sleep-gruff voice in her ear. Marriage hadn’t been at all like she’d thought it would be. Feared it would be, honestly. Marriage with him had been kind of perfect.
But things were now upside down and backward, and she didn’t know right from left or up from down. Didn’t know what everyone else saw when they looked at the two of them. She just knew that, somehow, after twenty years, she’d fallen in love with her best friend. And that was probably something she should tell him.
He sat on the couch, head bowed as he strummed his guitar, humming along to whatever tune was currently floating in his mind.
“That’s pretty. You have lyrics yet?” She sank into the spot on the couch she’d commandeered as her own, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
He glanced at her and offered a small smile. “Some, but it’s not finished.”
She hummed and tucked her cold toes beneath his thigh, wiggling them as if that would warm them up faster. “You seemed a little distracted tonight. You all right?”
“Yeah, never better.” He set the guitar down and ran a hand through his hair. “Everything worked out exactly how we planned.”
“Can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, but Seville made the right choice. The Haywards weren’t too happy, though—did they even try to set something up to see June or Owen while they’re here?”
“Nope. Don’t expect they will either.”
And those assholes had just about taken June and Owen from them—him.
“Well, if my daddy can come around, maybe they can, too. Never thought I’d see the day he spoke up for me.”
Asher relaxed back into the couch, resting his head on the cushion. “That was definitely not the curve ball I was expectin’ today.”
“’Course, he did make a comment when we were leavin’ about settin’ up an appointment at town hall for me to find a—and I quote—‘real job.’” She rolled her eyes. “Guess he’d hit the quota for bein’ a decent human being in a single day.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually, now that this is all done.”
She couldn’t have asked for a better opening, so she straightened and reached for his hand, running her fingers over the callused tips of his. “Good, me too. You first.”
“I—” He cleared his throat and shot her a look out of the corner of his eyes. Was that hesitancy there? “I can’t thank you enough for everything you did for me…for us.”
She poked his thigh with her toe. “You’ve gotta stop thankin’ me for something I said yes to, Ash. I mean it.”
“I just want you to know how much I appreciate it, and I love you for doin’ it.”
Yeah, she loved him, too, but not for some arbitrary reason. She loved him without fail or exception. Loved him unconditionally, through all the good and bad. Through all the ups and downs and every path life had taken him on. Loved him like she’d never loved anyone else.
“I love you for askin’ me and not Nash.”
He cracked a grin. “Somehow, I think that would’ve been harder to pull off, what since he’s livin’ with your sister and all.”
“I was probably a better choice, that’s true.”
“You were definitely the better choice. But now that it’s over, we should probably get our stories straight.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, though her heart had already started sinking, the pit in her stomach opening wider, threatening to swallow her whole.
“You’ve already done so much, so I’ll follow your lead on whatever you think is best to tell everyone now that you’re free to go.”
