She moved through the open-plan living space. Leather sofas and coffee tables that looked like sculpted pieces of modern art were scattered around to make the most of the view of the city stretched out far below them in a carpet of light. A galley kitchen with a marble island stretched off to one side and a hallway led to bedrooms on the other.
‘I feel like I’m upside down,’ she remarked as she came to stand by the window. ‘And I’m looking at a sky full of stars.’
‘A lot of this evening has felt upside down,’ Nico replied, and she slowly turned to face him. He hadn’t turned on any of the lamps, and the ambient light of the city below cast half his face into shadow, and half into light, which seemed fitting. She really did not understand this man and his shifting moods…but maybe tonight she finally would.
‘So tell me about when we met,’ she said, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. She had the feeling he was restraining some powerful emotion that both intrigued and frightened her.What on earth had happened that night?‘I wore this dress at the ball,’ she continued. ‘And we spoke, I presume?’
‘We did.’
‘About what?’
‘A few things.’
She shook her head, already exasperated. ‘You brought me here to talk about it, so why won’t you explain now?’
‘Because I still can’t decide whether you’re lying to me or not,’ Nico told her flatly. ‘And I have no intention of rehashing that night, which ranked as the worst of my life, simply for your amusement.’
Ashley blinked at that startling and scathing indictment ‘Nico,’ she said quietly, taking a step towards him, one hand instinctively outstretched. She sensed so much pain beneath his anger, and it filled her with an emotion she had not felt for him before—a deep and abiding sympathy, along with a desire to comfort him. Somehow to make it better. ‘Do you honestly think I’m that kind of person?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Who would…torment someone simply for her own amusement?’
‘You were,’ Nico replied, his steely gaze locked on hers, ‘That kind of person on that night.’
‘What…?’ The single word escaped her in a shocked breath as Ashley dropped her hand. ‘What are you saying? What did Ido?’
He wheeled away from her, heading to a drinks table on the side of the room, where he poured himself a large whisky. ‘I just can’t believe you can’t remember,’ he muttered, half to himself.
‘To be fair,’ Ashley told him, a tremor in her voice, ‘Those years are kind of a blur to me. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised I’ve forgotten. I’ve tried to forget a lot of what happened back then, but I didn’t realise I’d blanked things out quite so completely.’
‘Oh?’ He turned round, his tumbler raised to his lips. ‘And why have you tried to forget?’
He wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to reveal the painful episodes of the past, Ashley reflected, but one of them was going to have to take that fearful, flying leap into vulnerability, and she supposed it might as well be her. Someone had to go first. ‘Because back then I was very unhappy,’ she explained carefully. ‘And I suppose no one likes to dwell on times in their life when they were unhappy.’To say the least.
Nico didn’t reply for a long moment. ‘There’s a difference between notdwelling,’ he said at last, before raising his glass to his lips and taking a long swallow. He lowered the glass, his silver stare skewering her once more. ‘And forgetting completely.’
‘That’s true,’ Ashley was compelled to agree. ‘Which is why this whole thing has taken me by surprise.’
‘Why did you keep that dress and none of the others?’
The abrupt switch had her blinking for a few seconds. ‘I… I don’t really know,’ she admitted slowly. ‘I gave away all my fancy clothes after my father went to prison. I didn’t need them any more, and so many of them had painful memories attached to them.’
‘Painful?’
She swallowed hard. ‘My father…chose my clothes and forced me to wear them. I know that doesn’t sound like anything much, but…he could be cruel about it. It kept me on edge for a long time, because he’d be so charming one minute, telling me how I was his pretty…p-princess…’ She stumbled slightly over the word, the memories making her throat tighten. ‘And the next he’d be…unkind.’ It was all she was willing to say about that, at least for now. ‘After my mother’s stroke, I was forced to act as his hostess, and I wasn’t very good at it, which…he didn’t like.’
She had to swallow again as she recalled the icy precision of her father’s rage, always hidden behind an easy smile in public, to be released in private, so that every social occasion had become a source of dread for what invariably came after. ‘I never liked parties,’ she explained, ‘Or socialising, or small talk, and back then I would have rather been—’
‘Up in your room with a book.’
Ashley’s gaze widened as she absorbed what Nico had said so knowledgeably. ‘Ye-es,’ she said slowly. ‘How did you…?’
‘You told me.’
For a second, Ashley felt as if the room were spinning. Memories suddenly whirled through her mind…snatches of ideas, emotions, words…and then were gone again, leaving a fathomless longing in their wake.
‘I… I think I need a drink,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Do you mind…?’
He gestured to the drinks table behind him. ‘Whisky?’
Ashley had never had whisky in her life, but she nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
