‘Please…’ She turned around slowly, stretching one hand out in front of her in supplication. Nico waited, curious as to what ploy she was going to try now, wondering if she really would beg, when Ashley’s face went the colour of paper. Her eyes turned almost black as her pupils dilated and she swayed, stumbled and then collapsed to the ground in a dead faint.
Chapter Three
FOR A SECOND, Nico thought she was faking. She’d accused him of being—what was it?—a brooding princeling? Well, right now she was playing the damsel in distress to complete and ridiculous effect. Then, when her face remained the colour of ash and she didn’t move, he realised she wasn’t faking after all. She was out cold.
Muttering a curse under his breath, Nico crossed the small room to crouch by her. As he leaned forward, he breathed in her scent—something almond, different than he remembered from before, when she’d smelled expensively of roses. Everything about her was different, he reflected, from the woman he’d recalled in his dreams—and in his nightmares. Had Ashley Woodward changed so much, or was he misremembering? After years of replaying that wretched night over and over in his head, torturing himself with every precious, privileged detail that had haunted him.
Or was Ashley pretending to be someone she wasn’t? He’d figure out the answer to that one way or another, but right now he was pretty sure she wasn’t play-acting being unconscious.
‘Ashley…’ He realised, it was the first time he’d said her name since he’d seen her again, and it sounded strange on his lips, familiar and forbidden. Because, after torturing himself for so long, he now tried never to relive the heart-stopping half-hour he’d spent in her presence.
‘I don’t recognise you,’ she’d said, smiling, when she’d come upon him half-hiding behind a pillar, working up the courage to glad-hand the people whom he knew were subtly sneering at him, the Italian immigrant from Brooklyn whose dinner suit was a little too tight.
‘I work for your father,’ he’d said, awed by her cool, perfect beauty. She was so unbearably elegant, like something spun from glass, dressed in a white gown that was covered with Swarovski crystals so she shimmered every time she moved, an angel spangled in diamonds. Nico had both longed to touch her and been afraid to at the same time.
Ashley had cocked her head and leaned in so he breathed in her perfume—something delicate, of roses.
‘Are you new?’ she’d asked.
‘I was hired six months ago.’ He’d struggled to hide the accent he knew his colleagues secretly mocked. ‘What about you? Do you always come to these things?’
‘Oh yes,’ she’d replied on something of a sigh. For a second, she’d looked sad, her green gaze turning distant, her lush mouth turning down at the corners. Nico had raised a hand as if to comfort her, but then she’d lifted her head, her suddenly bright smile seeming like a shield. ‘Do you ever get bored at these things?’ she’d whispered conspiratorially. ‘Or intimidated?’
She’d nodded towards the mingling crowd, her expression turning thoughtful, assessing. ‘All those people…’
She’d trailed off, shaking her head, and Nico had felt a surge of protectiveness for her which made no sense becausehewas the outsider, not her.
Ashley Woodward looked as if she belonged in that beautiful room, dressed in a ballgown that glittered every time she moved, her hair pulled up to show her long, graceful neck. She’d been born to that life, was privileged and pampered, and he was the poor boy who had been given an entry-level job that was only a little more than minimum wage. Chase Woodward might be trying to help him, but everyone in that office looked down at him, with his rough ways and his Brooklyn accent. Even Woodward himself would be less than enthused to see him talking to his daughter, Nico suspected, but he felt so out of place at th event, and she’d been kind enough to seek him out…or so he’d thought.
‘I’ve never been to something like this before,’ he admitted. ‘So I’m not bored yet. And certainly not when I’m not talking to you.’
She blushed at that, and Nico felt a thrill of victory.
‘I’m usually bored at these things,’ Ashley confessed with a faint, sad smile on her lips. ‘Andintimidated.’
‘I can’t believe you’re intimidated,’ Nico protested, and she laughed softly.
‘Oh, believe it. I’d rather be upstairs in my room, reading a book. What about you?’
He thought for a moment. ‘I’d rather be getting a pizza and a beer back in Bensonhurst,’ he admitted, and she laughed, a sound that drew him in, making Nico feel as if they shared something.
‘Why do you go to these things, then?’ he asked. ‘If you don’t like them?’ He tugged on his bow-tie, feeling uncomfortable in the penguin suit he’d never worn before. He knew he was a fish out of water in this Fifth Avenue mansion and wished he wasn’t…for this young woman’s sake.
She shrugged then, casting her gaze downwards, her golden lashes fanning porcelain cheeks. ‘I…have to,’ she said in a tone of such resignation and even grief that Nico felt as if there was a world of unspoken burden in those three little words, a history of expectation he didn’t entirely understand, yet he related to it.
‘I have to’ was the reason he’d dropped out of school at sixteen and worked two jobs. ‘I have to’ was why he’d taken every pathetic pay cheque home, knowing it wouldn’t even cover the rent and groceries, never mind his little brother’s medical expenses. And all the while his mother was his brother’s full-time carer, and his sister made bad choice after bad choice.
It had been a hard life, averyhard life, which was why he’d been so pathetically grateful to Chase Woodward.
At least now, he reflected, he possessed the power to make it better, not that his mother would take anything from him. They hadn’t so much as spoken since his trial. Chase Woodward’s treachery hadn’t just affected him, but that was a dark place he couldn’t bear to go, so he pushed the unwelcome memory away.
Nico touched Ashley’s cheek now, amazed and a little concerned at how cold it was. This wasn’t what he’d meant by thinking of her as an ice princess. Why didn’t she wake up?
‘Ashley…’ he said again. She didn’t stir.
A sudden, hard knock at the door had Nico turning, and then a neatly dressed middle-aged woman opened it, looking shocked even before she saw Ashley crumpled on the floor.
‘Mr Galletti…’ The woman’s eyes widened as she caught sight of Ashley. ‘What did you do to her?’ she demanded.
