Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) (10 page)

“Remember I said I lived in New York for eight years?”
Almost nine
, I correct silently. But Krystal doesn't look away from the swan she's formed from paper. “I was training to be a lawyer. I had several summer internships at Worthington and Associates before they took me on after college.” She undoes the swan and starts all over again. “I'd just passed the bar exam when I came back to L.A.”

“You didn't like it?”

“I loved it. I had a whole life planned out for me, and I was a completely different person when I lived in New York. But there were a number of reasons why I had to leave seven years ago and yes, Dex was one of them. Sean, Julia’s brother, was another. But the biggest reason I came back was for my sister. I thought Mimi needed me.” She remains quiet for a little while before adding, “But I thought wrong.”

“Your sister’s name is Mimi, and not Katrina?” I ask for clarity, still trying to wrap my head around the alternative-identity thing.

“Yeah,” she nods. “Mom wanted to protect us when we were younger. Plus, using our stepdad’s surname helped launch our careers. He was one of the big cheeses when he was alive.”

I take a long look at her expression. I take in every detail and for the first time since we've met I feel confident she is telling me everything I need to know. “Ashleigh,” I repeat and take a few moments to consider it. “It kind of suits you.”

She laughs, a small chuckle lacking humor but full of irony. “My family also call me Ashzilla when I’m not around.” I’m about to ask how she knows, when she volunteers, “Sean took great pleasure in telling me so.”

Like the physical peace of mind her non-disclosure contract brought her, I feel the need to double-check that I know everything now. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“
Must
you
analyze everything I do?”

I lift a brow in response to her accusation. “Stop it! Get out of my head! You don’t know me well enough to be able to know I’m hiding stuff, and it's disturbing.”

I chuckle because she’s right. It is disturbing when someone crawls inside your mind.

“All right.” She rolls her eyes at me. “Fine I’ll tell you just how fucked up I really am, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Ashleigh—”

“I’m in love with Sean. Hopelessly and regrettably so. ”

Huh?
But wasn’t she just saying Dex and his daughter were too important to her to jeopardize? Why would she have someone she didn’t love? "Sean’s the future you’re holding out for?”

Ashleigh shakes her head. “Maybe, once upon a time and in a faraway kingdom, yes. He could have been my happily ever after.”

“And what is Sean to you now, if he’s not your happily ever after?”

“Nothing.” It’s the hopelessness in her voice and the distant ache in her eyes that makes my heart break for this woman, who like myself, has distanced herself so far from a potential happy ever after, because she’s afraid of being hurt again. “I will never
ever
forgive Sean for the way he’s humiliated me—correction, keeps humiliating me. This heart,” she begins with a hand covering her heart, “has been broken too many times by him to forgive him. Besides, a relationship with Sean is toxic for both of us.”

“Oh?”
That
I wasn’t expecting. "Wow!”

She flinches. Her eyes widen as she squirms on the stool beside me. I’m expecting a flippant remark, but she says nothing as she draws in a deep breath. “I’ve never actually said those words to anyone. Ever. Not even Julia.” And then she laughs. “So what does your psycho-analyzing bullshit say about that?”

That she’s defensive, and maybe a little offensive, when she feels vulnerable? Something I’ll note for later.
But for now, the only way I can react without causing Ashleigh to pull away and close herself off from me completely, is to take this news in my stride, as though it’s not news to me at all.

“You know, I’ve had a hell of a weekend, and I’m too exhausted to analyze any of this.” Instead, I offer her my hand, “Ashleigh Jordan, will you settle for ‘it's nice to meet the real you?’” I know, just know, the moment her palm slips into mine that for once, I’ve done the right thing at the right time.

Chapter Eight

FOR A BRIEF MOMENT,
I feel the familiar warmth of home. It’s as though I’m lying in my own bed, sleeping in my own house. But home is a strange concept to me. I haven’t felt like I’ve had a place to call home since college, and as the clouds of sleep begin to lift, the feeling swells.

The bedroom door clicks shut. It can't possibly be time to get up yet. After talking to Krystal—no, Ashleigh—until four o’clock in the morning, I feel like I’ve only just gone to sleep.

I bury myself further under the blankets and try to ignore the shuffling sound of her moving around the bedroom. But the sound of bare feet scraping across the bedroom carpet only grows louder above the thumping inside my head—loud enough I almost groan at her to get the hell out and leave me alone.

The lack of sleep, my worry over my deteriorating relationship with Lisa, the troubling reason I’m here in LA and not with her, everything I’ve learned since I’d arrived
and
the jet lag … is finally catching up with me.

After she'd shown me where I was sleeping, I‘d endured a heated discussion about those sleeping arrangements, which I'd lost. Ashleigh had changed again, into a bathing suit this time, and I'd fallen asleep to the sound of her rhythmic strokes through the pool, drifting up through the open doors leading to the balcony that overlooks it.

Maybe she’ll go away if she thinks I’m still sleeping?
This is her bedroom, I suppose, and she needs to shower and dress.

The mattress dips as she climbs on top of the covers.
What is she doing?
Haven't I made it clear enough to her that I don't care how intimate we’re pretending to be, I am
not
sharing a bed with–

“You didn't wake me!” That isn't Krys … Dammit! I need to start getting her name right. More importantly, who the hell is on my bed? “I asked for you to come see me when you got back.”

I slowly roll over. My sleepy gaze falls on the intruder currently hugging her knees into her chest. She’s pretty. Almost pixie-like, with delicate features framed by a mass of blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She worries her soft rose-colored bottom lip with her top teeth. Actually, in her own subtle way, she’s stunning. I recognize the pull, deep in my stomach. This isn’t good. It's a sensation I’ve only ever associated with my ex-wife. This isn’t good at all.

“I need to tell you something,” she whispers. “I know you went to a lot of trouble to get me to the clinic a few weeks back." She pauses for a second. “And I know your Dad will kill you if he finds out you’re interfering with his case again but … I couldn't do it, Ash,” she mutters. It’s all one word, before she bursts into a long explanation about why she's let Ashleigh down. The shame and guilt in her voice make me question why I’m even here at all. Ashleigh shouldn't make her best friend feel like this. “This baby is a miracle!”

I pull back the covers and sit up, twisting to look at Julia. Well, who else could it be? “You're
pregnant
?” I ask. But I knew this. Ashleigh had told me about Julia's pregnancy in my living room back in New York. But hadn’t she said Julia
was
pregnant? So, Ashleigh didn’t know she was
still
pregnant?

Julia’s eyes grow wider. Her chest expands and her lips part.

“No-no,” I hold my hands up as I wince in preparation for her high-pitched squeal to add to the thumping pain in my head. “Please don't scream,” I plead. “I've barely slept in a week, and I have one hell of a headache.” Besides, if she screamed the whole household would come running in here, and trying to explain what I'm doing in bed with Julia would not be a great start to anything.

Big silver eyes stare back at me, panic darts her gaze around us. No doubt she’s looking for her easiest escape route. “I’m sorry. We weren't supposed to meet this way. Kryst—” I curse my inability to retrain my memory on such little sleep. “I mean Ashleigh—didn't want to wake you. We arrived pretty late last night.”

“You know Ashleigh is Krystal?” she asks.

“I’m still getting used to it.” I nod, but the suspicious glare she returns drains all confidence in introducing myself as Ashleigh's lover. “And you must be Julia,” I attempt again, but her frown is still laced with suspicion. “I met Mel last night, and you’re the only other woman living here.” I feel somewhat like I’m tripping over my tongue. “Are you Julia?”

She avoids my question with one of her own. “Who. Are. You?”

That is a good question. I shuffle backward to rest against the headboard. Who is this half-naked man lying in Krystal Valentina's bed, about to tell the biggest lie of his life to her best friend? Because I certainly don't feel like myself anymore. “I’m Darryl.”

The creases deepen in her forehead. As a result, moths bump in my stomach. This is all going to come crashing down right this minute, because she doesn’t have a clue who I am. So much for Ashleigh telling Julia all about our past meetings.

“
You’re
Darryl?” she asks. “As in Darryl Hawthorne?” Her voice lifts a notch higher as she adds, “You’re Faith McKenzie’s brother?”

There are times when that label serves me well, but today it just pisses me off. Sure, I’m Faith’s brother. But I’m also the head of a nationwide charity and the CEO of a statewide company. I’m more than
Faith’s little brother
. I don’t speak, though, afraid I’ll say something I might regret. Instead, I nod.

“But why are
you
sleeping in Ashleigh's bed?”

A thousand questions about this situation rush through my mind. Does Julia know? Has Ashleigh spoken to her about me yet? What is the best way to break this news to her? Would she care? But I decide my best strategy is to enforce my right to be here. Julia is the intruder. “Why wouldn't I be sleeping in Ashleigh's bed?”

It appears nonchalance is not my friend. She stares at me, and for the longest of moments. Except for the narrowing of her eyes, she doesn’t move. It surprises me that the concealed implication about our relationship takes her so long.

“No,” she shakes her head, “she … she denied it.” Julia scrambles from the bed, but then stops. “Actually,” she shakes her head again, “what she said was that I didn’t know what I was talking about!"

“You’ve talked about me before?”
I am now going to kill Ashleigh. Has she been plotting this for a while, and not just the weekend like she claimed?

“Yes, kind of, but she was more concerned about Dex than she was about you.”

Oh great!

Julia shuffles away from me and off the edge of the bed, before spinning around and glaring at me, like suddenly I’m the one who’s in the wrong. “If she wouldn’t sleep with Sean when she was single and he wasn’t, then she most certainly wouldn’t be dating you
and
Dex at the same time!”

Didn’t I know this wouldn’t work? Didn’t I tell both Ashleigh and Caleb that this was a bad idea from the start?
Knowing she hasn’t bought into the lie and keeping my disappointment from showing on my face takes more effort than I expect.
What am I supposed to do now?

“And even if this is real—and that’s a when-pigs-fly kind of if—
if
she was sleeping with you … you wouldn't be here, not in Ashleigh's bed. She wouldn't have you. So, who are you, and what are you
really
doing in Ashleigh’s bed?”

Guilt snakes up my spine as I stare at Julia. I can’t do it. I can’t abuse the trust she has in her best friend. How can anyone blatantly lie to her angelic face? I swallow, hard, and utter, “He’s a cover story.” I have to turn away as I continue with the story she’s made up. “We’ve been together for over a year. She doesn’t want anyone to know, and therefore
Krystal
is dating Dex.”

“No.” Julia’s whispered denial draws me back toward her. “You can't be. For you to be in this bed, Darryl … well, you'd have to … she'd have …” Her words drift off completely as she sighs, and her frown deepens. “Darryl, are you marrying my best friend, and she hasn’t told me?”

My jaw hangs open. I’d already guessed that Ashleigh’s reluctance to have men stay in her home meant bringing me here would have church bells ringing, but hearing it out loud is a sucker punch right in the gut. She’s just jumped from introductions to marriage proposal: the best-friend equivalent of zero-to-sixty.

Jesus Christ, this girl doesn’t mess around. Who am I? What am I doing here? And what are my intentions towards her best friend? I’m so not equipped for this.
“Well, I haven’t asked her to,” I begin as her eyes narrow in a warning. “Look, with all due respect, I don't know you. Not yet, at least.”

I don’t know what makes me ramble on, but I do, and it’s the revelations Ashleigh has given in the last couple of days, about the extreme lengths she goes to in order to protect her privacy, that make me say it. “I’m not going to tell you my plans for an intimate proposal and a secluded ceremony, not before anyone else knows about it.”