I had been arrested, interrogated, and held under harsh lights at the police station for an hour. The charges were serious: breaking into private property, damaging private property, and causing fear and potential harm to the owner.
Charges I had never imagined facing. Consequences I had never stopped to consider.
By the time the officers left me alone in the interrogation room, I felt hollowed out. I rested my head on the cold table, exhaustion sinking deep into my bones, my thoughts relentless and unforgiving.
Then the door swung open.
“Really, Bailey? Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell were you thinking?”
I lifted my head to see Ashton standing in the doorway, fury etched into every sharp line of his face. His suit jacket hung from one hand, his tie loosened like he had torn it off in frustration.
“Er… not you again,” I muttered, dropping my head back down. Shame pressed hard against my chest. I had never wanted to face him again.
“Move,” he snapped. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Confusion cut through the fog. “What?”
“My lawyer spoke to the officers. All charges were dropped.”
My breath hitched. “How?”
“Your father didn’t want to press charges. You’re free to go with a warning.”
“Eva was coming to get me.”
“Not anymore,” he said coldly. “I told her to go home. Now move.”
Too exhausted to argue, I followed him out. He spoke briefly with an officer and another man in a suit, then grabbed my hand and pulled me outside.
The drive back was silent and suffocating.
This was the second time that day I had been in his car, and the tension felt ready to snap. His jaw stayed locked, a vein pulsing in his neck. I didn’t understand why he had come for me at all. If he hated me so much, why had he not let me sit in that cell and rot?
When we reached my cottage, he didn’t say a word. He followed me inside, shut the door behind him, and finally let the storm loose.
Ashton paced my small living room like a restless tiger, coiled and ready to strike. He was waiting for me to explain myself. I knew the officers had already told him everything.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “After your stepmother bruised your ego, you decided to pay her a visit. Not by knocking on the door, of course, but by sneaking in. Jumping over her wall. Destroying her garden.”
“It was my mother’s white roses,” I snapped. “She didn’t deserve them.”
He stared at me as if I had lost my mind, then shook his head slowly. “All this over flowers? She was terrified. She thought someone was breaking in. She was alone with her two sons while your father was out of town.”
“Well, lucky for him,” I shouted. “I would have loved to see his face when he found out what I did to his precious garden.”
He stopped pacing so abruptly it startled me. When he turned, his eyes were dark, his jaw clenched so tightly I could hear his teeth grind.
“Do you hear yourself?” he snapped. “You broke into a house. You scared children. And you are talking about flowers?”
“They were not just flowers,” I screamed back. “They were hers. The only thing she loved that he did not ruin.”
“That does not give you the right to become a criminal,” he roared. “Do you have any idea how close you were to destroying your life tonight?”
I laughed, sharp and bitter. “Do not pretend you care about my life now.”
His fist slammed into the wall beside him, making me flinch. “I would not be here if I did not.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
