The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,49
his feet over the bed. What the hell was going on?
“Don’t answer it.” Ash hovered by the bedroom door, chewing at a fingernail.
“Why not?” He yanked on a pair of boxer shorts and headed for the living room. “The guy already woke me up.” Irritated, he ran a rough hand across his chin. Damn. He’d been meaning to trim the goatee for a while now. Today, maybe. His hair, too long as well, fell across his eyes.
“Eddie.”
He turned to see Ash still frozen in his doorway. Pain etched a line from her brows to her down-turned mouth. “I’m sorry.” It was all she said, a quiet apology. Yet days later, it would be the only thing Eddie could hear echoing in his skull, the only thing he could remember of the moment before everything changed, the moment before he opened the door and saw Senator Randolph Kirk standing outside.
* * *
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
From the bedroom, Ash heard the voice again. Smooth, kind, polished through years of public service. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain seizing up inside her. How had he found her? Why had he come?
“You…you’re Senator Kirk, right?”
“Randolph. Please.”
Ash leaned against the wall and entertained the idea of going out Eddie’s back window. She could climb outside, sneak down the block, maybe stall for a couple of hours in the coffee shop. She looked down at herself. Oh, yeah? In what? Eddie’s shirt? The rest of her clothes lay somewhere out in the living room, still tossed on the floor. In plain sight. Oh, God.
“I’m looking for my daughter. Ashton.” Pause. “I understand she may be staying in the neighborhood for the summer, and…”
“Sir, I don’t think I can help you.” Politeness coated Eddie’s words. Ash could have cried. “I don’t know her.”
Go out there. You can’t hide in Eddie’s bedroom forever. You can’t pretend this isn’t happening. But maybe she could. Maybe Eddie would steer her father in a different direction.
“This is her picture,” her father went on. “A few people in the grocery store said they’ve seen her. Said she might be working at a restaurant here in town. And the woman across the street—”
“I don’t think…” Eddie stopped.
In her mind’s eye, Ash saw him study the picture. Saw him do a double take and look closer. Saw the corners of his mouth twitch. Imagined that bile rose in the back of his throat as he looked at an image of the woman he’d just spent the night with, the woman who had lived upstairs, and lied to him, all summer long. She forced herself to walk down the hall.
“You can stop looking,” she said. “I’m here.”
Her father stood in the open doorway, one hand in the pocket of his pressed suit pants, the other absently picking at a buttonhole in his sports coat. He looked the same as always. Poised and confident. Taller than the average man, but not haughty even though he looked down on just about everyone.
“Ashton!” His gaze shifted as she walked into the living room, and she saw him take in the T-shirt she wore and her bare legs beneath it. He looked from her to Eddie and back again. He swallowed, a small motion that anyone else might have missed. But she saw it and knew exactly what it meant. Disappointment. Disapproval.
Then he smiled, and it was true and fatherly, the way she remembered. “It’s good to see you.”
Eddie frowned. “You’re…I don’t…What’s going on here?” He stared at Ash and pushed the picture back at her father. “Why are you here?”
She wasn’t sure who he meant, her or her father. Neither one answered.
“Ash?”
Finally she drew a breath. “Yes. He’s my father,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Eddie shook his head. “I don’t get it. Who are you? What’s your real name?”
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Senator Kirk said, and slipped back into the foyer. The door clicked shut.
Ash wound the edge of Eddie’s T-shirt around her fingers.
“You’re Senator Kirk’s daughter?”
She nodded.
“Are you fucking kidding? Why didn’t you tell me?” Eddie’s voice turned thick.
“I didn’t know how.”
He took her by the shoulders, squaring her off and forcing her to meet his gaze. “Why the hell not?” He shook his head. “Jesus, what else haven’t you told me? Is it all a lie? Law school? Breaking up with your boyfriend? Every damn thing?”
Her tongue moved inside her mouth, searching for words. He spun away from her. Facing the windows, he laced his hands