‘I was good at hiding my feelings,’ Ashley told him with a small, sad smile and a little shrug. ‘I had to be. My father punished me for a week when someone asked me if I was unhappy in front of him.’
Nico felt himself go cold at that carelessly given detail. ‘What do you mean, he punished you for aweek?’ he demanded.
She shrugged again, this time even more dismissively. ‘Oh, he had all sorts of tactics. On that occasion, I think he just locked me in my room. It could have been worse.’
‘Lockedyou…?’
‘The housekeeper snuck me food,’ Ashley assured him. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’ She pressed her trembling lips together. ‘It was the more…humiliating punishments that I couldn’t stand.’
Humiliating…?Nico did not like the sound of that, and he could tell from the way Ashley’s throat worked, and her lips still trembled, that she didn’t want to say anything more. ‘I had no idea,’ he admitted in a low voice. Even when she’d said her father had been abusive, he hadn’t quite grasped just how much. ‘I’m sorry.’
She shook her head as she blinked rapidly. ‘You don’t need to be sorry. My father is the only one to blame—and me, I suppose, for letting it go on for so long.’
‘You were a child—’ he protested.
‘It didn’t stop until he was arrested,’ she cut across him, her quiet voice full of self-regret. ‘I was twenty-nine years old at the time. Hardly a child.’
‘Still,’ Nico insisted, angry on her behalf. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’
‘I don’t,’ Ashley told him, but he didn’t think she sounded convincing. ‘At least,’ she amended with an attempt at a wry smile, ‘I try not to. But it can be hard, when you look back on how you once were, and you wonder why on earth you justtookit for so long.’ She shook her head, her hair tumbling from its chignon to frame her face in unruly tendrils. ‘Why wasn’t I smarter? Stronger? I’ve asked myself that so many times.’
‘Yes,’ Nico agreed, his voice turning hoarse. It was a question he had asked himself many times, as well.Whyhad he trusted Chase Woodward so completely and naively? Why had he let himself be led, like a lamb to the slaughter, without even so much as a suspicion about where he was going?
Like Ashley, it was hard not to blame himself…which was why he’d fixated on getting his revenge. He’d thought it would finally satisfy him but so far, he had to acknowledge, it hadn’t. Taking over the last remaining bastion of Woodward wealth had only left him with questions and confusion when he craved certainty and closure.
‘I’m sorry I don’t remember,’ Ashley remarked quietly, her voice laced with sorrowful regret. ‘It’s the strangest feeling, not being able to.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘After my father went to prison, I had…something of a wobble.’ She gave a shaky laugh. ‘Ruth Boxall helped me through it. Without her…’
She trailed off as Nico with effort kept his expression neutral. Ruth Boxall’s husband had simply stood aside while Chase had framed him for embezzlement. The Chief Financial Officer of Woodward Investmentshadto have known what was really going on, and yet he’d said nothing. Had Ruth known too? Had Ashley, and she’d forgottenthat, too?
‘Anyway,’ Ashley resumed, ‘I saw a therapist, which was helpful, and it came up then that I couldn’t really remember some things from that time in my life, but I was okay with that. I framed it, at least in my own mind, as just blocking out painful memories, the way anyone might. I didn’t think I’d forgotten anything specific, anything thatshouldbe remembered. And I suppose I always thought that, if I wanted to revisit that time, I would be able to. I didn’t think I’d suffered from some kind ofamnesia.’
She paused, her expression clouding as she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. ‘But then last night…when you said I’d become upset and there was just thisblanknessin my brain…it scared me. It made me wonder what else I’ve forgotten. So maybe I really do believe that I’ve met you and I just didn’t remember, as incredible as that still seems.’
Nico couldn’t keep a cynical laugh from escaping him. ‘You thinkI’mthe one who shouldn’t be believed in this situation?’
She held out one pale, slender hand to him in appeal. ‘Nico, try to understand. Imagine if someone told you they’d met you and it was life-changing, but you had absolutely no memory of it. Wouldn’t that give you pause, at least? Make you wonder if they were lying, especially when that person had taken over your company?’
He finished the last of his whisky in one long, burning swallow. ‘I have no reason to lie.’
‘Nor do I.’
Which left them…where, exactly? They were both silent as the night settled around them, full of shadows and stars. He believed her, Nico realised heavily. With all the trauma she had suffered, she must really have forgotten. But did it change anything, truly? She’d still ignored him when he’d pleaded with her, something he had no desire to remind her of now. And, yes, maybe that was because she’d been afraid of her father, but he’d gone to prison—forfive years. A character reference from Woodward’s daughter on the witness stand might have strengthened his case, might have changed so much, not just for him, but for his family, his brother…
‘You believe me?’ Ashley finally asked into the silence.
‘Yes,’ Nico admitted heavily.
She gave him an unhappy little smile. ‘You make it sound like it doesn’t change anything.’
Nico set his glass on the table with a final-sounding clink. ‘I’m not sure it does.’
‘But…’ Her forehead furrowed as her clouded gaze scanned his face. ‘Why not?’
‘Because whether you forgot or not doesn’t really matter,’ he explained. ‘What happened still happened.’
Ashley leaned forward, her eyes brightening with both curiosity and urgency. ‘But Nico, you still haven’t told me what happened. Why were you arrested?’
The silence between them felt electric; if either of them broke it, Nico thought he would be able to see the sparks, feel the shock.
