Broken Souls (24 page)

She felt sick.

Her feelings for Ben were non-existent now. She was so hurt that he had lied. He hadn’t wanted to be with her, it had all been complete and utter bullshit. But should it have been something that she spotted? Ashley had known that something was off from the moment he had confessed his feelings and asked her to marry him
.
But never would she have expected this level of deceit—especially from him.

“I just can’t
watch you with her. I don’t want you kissing her... Or touching her…” She heard Melissa starting to whine. “I’ll leave right now if you promise me that you won’t touch her. She doesn’t get what belongs to
me,
ever.”

“Of course not, baby,” Ben replied. “We will be out of this soon, okay?
Just persevere with it, and I promise that I’ll give you the life you’ve always dreamed of. I love you, Meli.”

“I know.
I love you too.”

Nausea swirled in
Ashley’s stomach. She could feel the meal she had just eaten starting to bubble its way up her throat. The hallway was starting to spin and the floor was giving way beneath her. It was too much for her to take in. She had been well and truly played by him, and it hurt. Heck, she had been well and truly played by Melissa as well. That bitch deserved an Oscar for the performance she had put on over the last few weeks. It had fooled near enough everybody in her life.

“Breathe, Ashley,” she whispered under her breath. “Just breathe…”

Steadying her rapid breaths, Ashley felt her strength slowly re-emerging. Her hands clenched into tight fists as wave after wave of fury rolled and crashed over her. She wasn’t going to let him get away with this.

Picking up the front of her dress,
she headed back towards the gallery to take her seat before Ben returned. The little fucker was going to squirm for the rest of the night, and she was going to enjoy every minute of it until she decided what she was going to do.

“Darling, what’s wrong with you?” Her mother appeared
suddenly in the doorway, her face contorting anxiously. “Why are you out here? Where’s Ben?”

“Well, actually.
” Ashley dropped the gathering of dress and placed her hands on her hips. “I need to talk to both
you
and dad.”

Her mother bit her lip. “What about?”

“There are some things that you aren’t awar—”

“There you are!” Ben interrupted, sneaking up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “I
came back and I couldn’t find you,” he said, nuzzling softly against her neck.

“
Please don’t touch me,” Ashley shuddered.

She recoiled from Ben’s grasp just as a flash of fiery red hair whizzed past them. By the time Ashley had blinked and looked for Melissa, she had completely disappeared out of sight, which frustrated her beyond belief.

“What’s gotten into you, darling?” Her mother’s startled voice filled the hall.

“Ashley?” Ben moved to touch her again, but she raised her hand to stop him from going further.

Her voice shook as she pointed a finger in Ben’s direction. “You don’t have the right to speak to me. You are absolutely nothing!”

His mouth dropped open slightly before he recovered. “What the heck is wrong with you?” he snapped, grasping hold of her arm to try and pull her away from the prying eyes that were starting to gather from her outburst.

At this point, the only thing that Ashley could see was red. She had turned into a raging inferno within seconds that refused to cool down. Now was the time for her to explode, and she did it in style.

Placing her free hand against his chest, she pushed back with all of her strength
until he ultimately released her. Rearing back, Ashley used the opportunity to launch her hand as hard as she could to the side of Ben’s already reddened cheek. Her palm stung instantly on contact, but she didn’t care. The satisfaction far outweighed the pain in the end.

A chorus of gasps echoed around the hall, prompting her to look at the spectators who had started to gather. Her father along with Ben’s parents had now joined the group of ten or more people hovering around. She saw the confusion on his face as he looked at the reddening flesh of her hand.

“What the fuck, Ashley? I only went to answer a telephone call and now you’re acting like this?” Ben roared, his fists clenching at his sides.

“You’re a liar!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “Don’t lie to me, Ben! Tell me what you were really doing? In fact, why don’t you tell
all
of us?” Ashley suggested, gesturing wildly at the people around them. “I’m sure they are dying to know what’s going on!”

Ben cleared his throat. “If I knew what you were talking about then maybe I would enlighten people as to why you’re acting like this.” He flashed
a warning with his eyes which bated her further.

“You don’t want to tell people?” she asked, cocking her head to the side, a devilish smirk playing on her lips. She turned towards the crowd of people, and more importantly, her mother who was now watching her with a look of pure disgust. “Guess what, mother?
Ben doesn’t want to tell you that he played you for a fool. In fact, he played all of us for a fool. And do you know why? Because he and his
lover
are only after one thing from our family, and that’s the money sitting in your bank account!”

Ashley turned towards Ben and noticed a fine sheen of moisture on his face.

“You didn’t hear me following you, did you? You didn’t know that I was just around the corner listening to your conversation with your
lover
. You see, it was quite an informative eavesdrop for me. I got to listen to your whiny bitch of a girlfriend and how she hates this scheme you’ve got planned, and also how you are planning on using every hand available to get me to marry you so that you can access an early inheritance. Am I on the right track?” She watched his shifting gaze as he pulled at the collar of his shirt. “But the main question on my mind, Ben, is why? Why do you need the money from my family?” She turned towards his parents with a questioning stare. “Why does your son need to steal our money when your family has plenty of its own?”

When there wasn’t a response to her question, she turned towards her mother expecting a sorrow filled apology. However, what she saw shocked her. There was nothing but hate written over her mother’s face, and it was aimed at her.

“You vindictive, lying, little bitch,” her mother screeched, lunging forward to grab her. “You are sick in the head and you need help, Ashley! Rupert, I told you that she needed help. Look at her, look at what she is doing to us again!”

“What?” Confusion struck as she continued to fight her off. “You can’t be serious?”

Clearly sensing an opportunity, Ben darted between the two women and placed his hands to separate them. “Jackie,” he spoke softly, stilling the woman in her tracks. “You were right all along. Ashley is sick and needs help. Regardless of the claims she made, I will stick by her because I can’t switch off my feelings.” He turned towards her, his eyes hard and threatening. “We will get you the help you need, Ashley,” he said, gripping her shoulders tightly, his fingertips digging into the soft, bare flesh of her arms.

“That won’t be necessary,” Callum murmured, stepping into the hall
with his wife to survey the commotion. His eyes narrowed on the position of Ben’s hands which caused him to stumble back from Ashley in alarm. “It’s time you owned up to your mistakes, Benjamin. Tell these people the truth before you hurt them further.”

“I... I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he challenged, eyeing his parents for some form of back-up. When they didn’t jump to his defence, Ben’s face paled and his leg started to shake again.
“Can’t you all see that she’s lying through her teeth?”

Callum shook his head. “You’re making the wrong decision here,” he wa
rned. “Think about what you’re doing.”

“
Excuse me?” he argued, turning towards Callum. “You’re a fine one to talk about making the right decision. Wasn’t it only a few months ago that you were splashed all over the press? You lost your company, so don’t start with your good samaritan shit here.”

Callum’s hands clenched tightly
into coiled fists as an echo of gasps were heard amongst the crowd of watchers. He bristled slightly before seeming to regain his composure, a cocky smirk lifting at the corners of his lips.

“
Did I touch a nerve?” Ben sneered.

“Don’t rise to it, baby,” Charlie begged, placin
g her hand on Callum’s chest. “You’re better than this lowlife.”

“
It’s fine,” Callum replied, trying to reassure not only Charlie but everybody else around them. “Security will take care of this.” He raised his hand into the air and signalled to a group of men in suits near the entrance. “Get rid of him,” he ordered, gesturing towards Ben.

Two men came forward and gripped hold of Ben
from behind as he tried to escape their grasp. “Get your hands off of me,” he snarled.

“Ben, just stop,” Ashley
cried. “It’s over. You lost this one.”

She watched him fight the men
as they carried him off to the entrance, his parents silently following behind with their heads dropped.

“Cowardly b
astards,” Callum grumbled, stepping forward and placing a reassuring hand on Ashley’s shoulder. “I was aware of their impending bankruptcy, but even I didn’t think that they would stoop so low. I’m sorry that you were used in such a way. Although, I am glad you discovered their intentions before it was too late.” He gave her a gentle squeeze before turning to the crowd of onlookers. “Come on, this is a charity event after all. Let’s get back to the drinking and schmoozing!” he cheered, leading a stampede of people back into the ballroom.

Once the hall had cleared, Ashley found that only her mother and father were now remaining. Her father was full of sympathy, yet her mother still wore her earlier expression.

“Well, once again you have managed to bring shame on our family. And you’ve now aired someone’s very private affairs in public. Are you not disgraced with yourself?” her mother cried, frustration lacing the tone of her voice.

“Jackie,” her father commanded. “This has gone far enough. Listen to what you are saying to your daughter.” He inhaled a sharp breath before his next words. “I think... I thi
nk we should go away on a break somewhere, to a place where we can both relax and understand each other further.”

Ashley broke out in a smile, knowing that this was her father’s way of trying to break through to her mother. Hopefully with a little time together, he would muster the courage to finally have the conversation she had been waiting her life for him to have.

Taking the bag from her mother’s hands, he opened the small clutch to reveal Ashley’s mobile phone. He grinned as he passed the device back to her. “I hope you and I can stay in touch,” he said, coming forward to wrap her into an embrace. He placed a kiss against her forehead before turning back to his wife.

“I... I’ll be going then,” Ashley replied, gesturing to the exit. It had been a few minutes since Ben’s departure, so she hoped that he had
actually left and wasn’t lingering around outside.

Unclipping her seatbelt, Ashley collected her things from the seat and flashed a warm smile at the driver who had taken her home tonight.

“Drive safely, Martin,” she
said, opening the car door and stepping onto the pavement. She gathered the front of her dress in one hand and buzzed into the building with the other. “Finally, I’m home,” she muttered, walking up to her front door a few minutes later.

She couldn’t even describe how relieved she was
feeling to be at home. It had been a dramatic few days to say the least. Fainting at Gabby’s funeral, drama with her parents and then drama with Ben; it had worn her out completely. But on the plus side, at least it was now coming to an end.

Snapping
open her clutch bag, Ashley pulled out her front door key and pushed it into the lock. The contents of her bag slid around from the movement, and her mobile phone caught her eye as it glinted under the fluorescent tube lighting. It ignited a brief spark of excitement in her bones. She hadn’t yet switched it on and the anticipation was killing her.

Rotating the key, she kicked the front door open with her foot, wincing as it cracked loudly off the paintwork inside. She hadn’t meant to
use so much force, and was surprised that the key had managed to disengage from the lock and stay within her grasp.

“
Tesoro?
” She froze in the doorway at the sound of his voice. Bracing her hands on either side of the doorframe, she tried to steady herself as the room started to spin. “Where have you been?” she heard him choke out, his usual thick and heavy sounding accent tinged with a mixture of desperation and pain.

Ashley stood dumbfounded in the doorway as
Marco rose from the sofa and made his way towards her. After everything that had happened with Ben, seeing him now in front of her was enough to finally push her over the edge. Tears blurred her vision and rolled helplessly down her cheeks. He
was
here… The realisation helped to release the tight hold she had placed around her heart, revealing it completely to the full force of pain she had been holding on to.

“Y-You’re here? I thought you
had left for Milan?” she choked through her tears. “B-Ben said that you’d gone back for Sophia? I don’t understand.”

Marco
wrinkled his brow and reached his arms out to her. “I’ve been going out of my mind trying to get hold of you. Where have you been? Why haven’t you answered your phone?”

His
presence surprised her somewhat. She hadn’t expected him to be waiting at her flat tonight. It was unusual to say the least. Especially after he hadn’t come near her whilst she was at the hospital trying to escape from her mother’s attempts at holding her against her will. Things would have been a lot smoother if she’d had a back-up plan.
He
could have been that back-up, but he had chosen not to be.

“Where have
I
been?” she sobbed. “Where have
you
been? I needed you and you completely bailed on me. I thought that we were friends?” It cut her deeply to mutter the end of that sentence. A friend was definitely not what she wanted to be, but she couldn’t just come out and tell him that. “You left me. You completely ditched me after Gabby’s funeral. Why didn’t you come to the hospital to see me? Do I really mean that little to you?”

He dropped his arms to the side of his body, his face crumpling as he watched her emotions unravel before him. “
Cara
,” he begged. “Please, let me explain to you.”

“Explain what?” she continued to cry. “There’s nothing to explain, Marco. You did what you did and I have to accept that.” Her heart was telling her that this was all wrong and that she was doing the comp
lete opposite of what it wanted, but she couldn’t stop. “If you
had
gone to Milan then maybe I could have understood. But you’ve been in London all this time? That isn’t right, at all.”

Marco turned towards the interior wall and smacked his fist loudly against the
plaster. “
Cazzo!
” he roared loudly. “I want to kill him... Fuck! I want to kill him.”

Fearing the intrusion of nosy neighbours, Ashley silently stepped into the flat and closed the
front door. She leaned back against the wood and watched him carefully.

“
Tesoro
,” he whispered, thrusting a hand through his hair. The warm chocolaty strands became tousled from the roughness of his touch. “I had no idea where you were! They took you in an ambulance, but I didn’t know which hospital you were going to. Nobody told me anything. That arrogant little shit disappeared and wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I was just left at the chapel with no way of getting to you.”

She felt his arms encircle her waist, the strength
in his muscles pulling her from the door and into his warming embrace. A sigh escaped her lips at the feel of contact between them. He pressed his chest against her and dropped his head into her hair.

“I’ve been here for days
waiting for you. I figured you’d come back at some point though. And it looks like I was right,” he said, trying to laugh off the pain evident on his face. “Although, I have to tell you that you look breathtaking tonight.” He pulled back and held her at arm’s length, admiring the beauty of the dress and the way she looked in it. “But where have you been?” he asked her again.

The tenderness in his voice practically broke her on the spot. She recalled her evening and the way she had been treated the last few days.
Marco appeared a saint when she compared his compassionate and caring words with the way Ben had treated her.

“
Cara
,” Marco said, placing his fingers under her chin and tilting her head. “Why have you been ignoring my calls? Why has it taken you so long to come back home? I have been going out of my mind thinking about you. It’s even why I attended that stupid charity dinner this evening and subjected myself to that whiny woman that you know. I hoped I would be able to find you because I heard your parents were attending.”

“W-What?” she murmured. “You were at the event tonight?”

When he nodded, she felt the air rush from her lungs; it was all starting to sink into place.
He
had been the man that had found Melissa outside trying to get in.
He
was the one that Ben had been afraid of her running in to.

“That bastard knew,” she mumbled under her breath. “He knew that you were there with Melissa. That was why he was pissed at her for coming. Not because she came alone, but because of
who
she was with. You were the potential catalyst that could have destroyed his fool proof plan tonight.”

“
I can’t believe you were there,
tesoro
,” he replied with amazement. “I looked but didn’t see you.”

“Yes, but I overheard
some things during a conversation that I shouldn’t have. I attended as Ben’s guest with our parents, but he was acting very strange. So basically, I followed him. And I found out a lot...”

Ashley couldn’t quite believe it. Ben had been trying to hide him from her. He had known how much she wanted to speak to Marco, yet he purposely kept his identity hidden. Instead, he
had worried his own arse about the potential disruption to his deceit. He was warning Melissa to get rid of him before they coincidently bumped into each other, but it sounded as if Marco had already left by that point. He had lied to her about everything. Marco hadn’t chased Sophia back to Milan, he’d been trying to find her which hurt more.

“Marco... There are some things that I have to talk to you about,” she whispered, reaching for his hand.

She knew that she couldn’t carry on a minute longer without laying it out on the table. Everything had to come to the surface; Ben’s lying scheme, her past and their night together.

“I know,
tesoro
,” he replied, “there are things that I need to say too, but first...” His sentence cut off as he dipped his head and pressed his lips against hers, taking her by surprise at the sweetness of his gesture.

He swiped his tongue across her lower lip to coax her
to open under him. She felt the urgency in his movements as he fought for access. His hand moved and pressed the back of her neck before trailing to rest at her lower back. He pushed their bodies together so that her lace covered breasts pressed against his chest.  

She knew that this
was moving too fast. Her hands wiggled into the small cavity between them and reached for his chest to push him away. He growled from her touch and tried to deepen the kiss further.

“No... Marco...” she gasped between breaths. “We need to talk.
We are both all over the place right now. Don’t let this be another
mistake
.” She chose her words carefully, making sure to emphasise the mistake he had confirmed his agreement to last time.

“
No. You were never a mistake to me,
dolcezza
,” he groaned against her lips. “Never...” He cupped her face and brought her mouth back to his. She opened for him on a blissful sigh and enjoyed the pressure and warmth of his tongue as he caressed and dominated her.

Ashley
pulled at his navy suit jacket, releasing it from his shoulders and dropping it carelessly to the floor. Her hands reached instinctively for the buttons on his shirt, her deft fingers working quickly to unbutton and reveal the light covering of dark hairs that covered his upper torso. Ripping open the shirt, she pushed it from his shoulders and drunk in the view before her. She studied the beauty of his tanned skin, her eyes captured by the dusting of hair across his knuckles and arms, to the light covering on his chest and bellybutton. She followed the hair from his navel, her eyes dipping lower to the unmistakeable bulge growing within the confines of his trousers.

“Not yet,
tesoro,
” he chuckled, placing his hands on her shoulders and spinning her away from him. His hands reached for the hook and eye fastening at the top of her dress before he pulled at the zip to release her from the encasement of lace. “
Bellissima
,” he murmured, placing a soft kiss on each shoulder as he slipped the garment from her body.

Ashley flushed as the dress pooled in a silky puddle at her feet, leaving her clad only i
n her gold strappy sandals and black thong. She felt his fingertips as they ghosted along the length of her spine, his touch enough to elicit soft murmurs of delight from her lips.

He was slowly setting her on fire. She could feel the heat on her own skin whe
re his cool fingers touched. Her breasts were beginning to grow weighted as they swelled from the anticipation of his touch, her nipples hardening in readiness for the onslaught of his skilful tongue that she knew was to come.

“I’m taking you to bed,” Marco
muttered, hooking his arm underneath her legs and lifting her into his arms. He dipped his head and suckled on a nipple as he carried her along the hallway to her bedroom.

Kicking the door open with his foot,
he stepped over to the bed and placed Ashley on the edge. He reached for the zipper on his trousers and quickly shed them along with his shoes, socks and black boxer briefs.

Sitting up on the bed, Ashley tried to reach for Marco’s cock as it bounced freely before her eyes, the solid and hardened shaft swaying invitingly for her taking.

“Not today,” Marco grinned, dropping to his knees and pushing her legs up on the bed. Reaching under her hips, he pulled her closer to the edge and spread her thighs further apart. “I haven’t thought of anything but this pussy,” he murmured, trailing a single finger over the front of her thong. “I want this so bad,” he breathed, applying a little pressure each time his finger moved over her clit.

The material pressed against her damp flesh and Ashley moaned softly in the back of her throat. With each swipe of his finger, she felt her hips buck towards his ha
nd, her body becoming greedy and craving his touch. “Marco...” she started to pant his name when he focused on rubbing her clit with precise and exact circles. The pressure alternated repeatedly, keeping her build-up slow and calculated. “I want to come,” she cried when she believed that she was about to reach a pleasure overload.

Feeding her eagerness to find that elusive release that
she was building up to, Ashley closed her eyes and bucked her hips in rhythm along with Marco’s hand. Ever so slowly, she felt the brink of her orgasm approaching. Her breaths came quicker and faster as she forced an arch in her back to steady the rapidly growing feeling in her lower belly.

“
Dolcezza
, what have you done to me?” he groaned, pulling her underwear to the side to reveal her bare and glistening pussy to his hungry eyes.

Ashley threw her arms above her head and cried out at the first flick of Marco’s tongue against her already
enlarged clit. She felt his hands splay over her pubic bone as he tried to hold down her hips. Normally, she would have been embarrassed by her enthusiastic responses, but tonight she wasn’t... not even in the slightest. Her body was completely alive for him and she wanted to fulfil every fantasy she could.