My Despicable Ex (Book 1) (8 page)

Without hesitation, Jake
jumped into the pristine water with a loud
splash
that caused our photographer
to laugh.

“
Your boyfriend is quite
the daredevil,” the photographer said. “I haven’t even checked for
sharks.”

“
He’s not my boyfriend,” I
said politely. “Is it okay to go in now?”

He looked through his binoculars in
every direction. “Looks good.”

“
Ooh, the water’s
wonderful!” Jake shouted. “Come on, Ashly!”

I leaned over the railing. “Forget
something?” I asked.

He grinned. “Guess so. Can you throw
it down?”

“
Sure.” I took off my long,
colorful wrap and adjusted my red and purple one-piece. I put on my
mask, snorkel, and fins, then grabbed Jake’s gear and jumped in. I
couldn’t fathom that I was actually floating above the actual Great
Barrier Reef. After I handed Jake his gear, I took a long, deep
breath and ducked my head under the water.

A school of yellow fish swirled around
us, and the underwater photograph began snapping away. “They look
good,” the photographer said. “I’ll have the CD and eight-by-tens
delivered to your hotel room when we get back.”

“
Thanks,” I
said.

He grinned and climbed back into his
boat. “For now, though, I’ll give you lovebirds some time to be
alone,” he said, ignoring my earlier claim that there was nothing
between us.

“
We’re just friends,” I
said.

“
The way you were staring
at him?” He laughed. “I don’t think so. You were lookin’ at that
boy like a crocodile looks at a chicken!”

Jake began to laugh.

My cheeks burned. “I was
not!”

Jake’s grin grew even
wider.

“
I wasn’t,” I
retorted.

Our photographer held up his
binoculars. “Enjoy yourselves. I’ll keep an eye out for any company
of the fin and toothy variety.”

I swallowed hard. “Why does that make
me a little nervous?”

“
We’ll be fine,” Jake said,
grinning. “C’mon. Let’s have some fun. It’s not every day you get
to splash around in Jaws’s back yard.”

When he clasped his hand around mine,
my skin began to tingle. His warm, soft fingers rubbed against the
back of my hand lightly as he pulled me toward the reef, and I
softly tugged my hand away; Jake had no right to hold my hand like
we were lovers on some excursion.

I dived deeper, to a point where the
visibility was awesome. The reef was beautifully decorated in a
kaleidoscope of marine life, from clusters of colorful anemones to
large sponges, coral, and starfish. Thick carpets of strawberry
anemones covered the bottom, and Jurassic-sized sea fans swayed in
the current like branches in the wind. I noticed every light and
shadow and thought about how wonderful they would be to capture
with my own camera.

I grinned at passing tropical fish all
decked out in startling reds, blues, greens, and yellows. There had
to be zillions of them. My eyes opened wide as I noted their
sparkling appearance, complex patterns, and vibrant coloration. The
spots, stripes, and shapes were all different, as different as
snowflakes, and some shapes and patterns I couldn’t even identify
with my vocabulary.

Jake’s black hair flowed
out in the water, waving back and forth with the rhythm of the sea.
A stream of bubbles came out of his mouth as he smiled, his eyes
wide. He picked up a huge stingray measuring at least five feet
across from wingtip to wingtip. I reached out and touched the
gentle giant as it swam out of Jake’s hands and disappeared into
the sandy sea bottom.
Too cool!
It felt soft and slimy, like a big, wet
Portobello mushroom.

I resurfaced and gasped for air, then
dived down again. I kicked hard to propel myself forward, gliding
over a beautiful coral garden. The formations offered vivid
patterns, fantastic shapes, weird textures, and unique colors I’d
never seen before, all bolder, brighter, and more brilliant than
any I’d noticed on previous dives. I couldn’t resist touching a
colony of green coral as I swam by, and when I did, in an instant,
the entire colony changed from green to red, like some mermaid’s
Christmas decoration.

I burst through the surface. Sucking
in long gulps of air, I noticed radiant sunbeams glinting in Jake’s
blue eyes; in the sunlight, they were absolutely blazing blue, and
I’d always been a sucker for baby blues.

“
How are you doing?” Jake
asked.

“
Good. How about you? Are
you doing okay?”

He nodded and said between breaths,
“This place is…it’s incredible…all those colors and…the fish.” With
that, he let out a soft groan and turned away.

I touched his shoulder. “What’s
wrong?”

His jaw set into a grimace. “I cut my
leg on the coral, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

My lips pressed into a grim line.
“Nothing to worry about? C’mon, Macho Man. Let’s get you back to
the boat and all bandaged up.”

“
Aw. That’s so cute,” he
said.

I stammered, shocked and a bit
insulted by his condescension. “What?”

“
You still
care.”

I rolled my eyes. “There are two
things I care about in this instance. One, if you get an infection,
you might not be able to finish the journey, and I’ll lose my
inheritance. Two, if sharks smell that blood you’re leaking all
over the place, we both might lose our limbs. I’m not willing to
risk it, so turn your stubborn butt around and swim back to the
boat.”

He grinned. “That’s not it at all. I
saw genuine concern in your eyes. You can give me a million excuses
if you want, but deep down, I know you’re worried about
me.”

“
Whatever, Jake,” I
said.

I waved our photographer captain over
and told him that Jake had been injured. He motioned us back to the
boat, and as soon as we were aboard, he sped off, heading back to
our island oasis. Fortunately, Jake’s gash wasn’t severe, and it
only required a bit of peroxide and a little gauze. I almost
laughed when the peroxide stung him, but I managed to hold my
tongue.

We spent a few days in Australia, only
talking when absolutely necessary. I tried to stay away from our
shared room as much as possible by going out and exploring the
island. Making small talk with him in the hotel was more than I
could bear. The man was supposed to my husband. If things had gone
according to plan, we would have been enjoying sunset dinners,
staring lovingly into one another’s eyes, then heading back to our
room to make love all night. Instead, we weren’t even friends and
were nothing more than hostile roommates, prisoners of one
another’s forced company. I could barely tolerate him, but I knew I
had to.

* * *

Back at the airport again, I was
dressed in dark-washed jeans and a white, lacey top. My hair was
pulled back and held by a sparkly white clip made of seashells, a
souvenir from our first stop. Jake was handsomely dressed in a snug
black shirt that perfectly accentuated every muscle of his chest,
tucked into blue jeans and finished off with brown shoes. Muscles
bulged in his arms when he picked up my suitcase.

“
I got it, Jake,” I said,
reaching for my bag, “but thank you.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Just trying
to help.”

After checking our luggage, we were
told we had a three-hour delay before our flight to Arizona, so I
curled up in the airport chair and started tapping away on my
laptop, trying to catch up on work.

Jake came over and held a Pepsi out to
me. “Still your favorite, I presume.”

I nodded. “I’m surprised you remember.
Thank you.”

“
I remember more than you
know,” he said, sitting down next to me.

I gave him a fake smile and went back
to my laptop.

“
I see you’re taking your
work with us.”

“
I’ve got a business to
run.”

“
Yeah. Are those
reports?”

I looked up from my computer. “You’re
bored. You’ve always wanted to talk whenever you get
bored.”

He inched closer and whispered in my
ear, “Remember what we used to do to make time fly?”

I gazed up into his eyes. “You mean
when we used to tangle up the sheets?” I said without even
flinching and not caring who could hear us; I had no problem
embarrassing him in public after the way he’d humiliated me in
front of all of the most important people in my life.

“
No. It was more than sex.
We made beautiful love, and then I’d hold you all night
and—”

I stood. “I’m gonna go sit somewhere
else,” I said, then hurried to a different seat without even
looking back.

As I expected he would, Jake followed
me. “You forgot your Pepsi…and I’m sorry if I offended you in any
way, shape, or form.” He shifted his stance. “We’re not strangers
though, Ashly. We were best friends, and I loved you more than I’ve
ever loved anyone.”

My lips pressed into a flat line.
“Hmm. And you show it by being a no-show at our wedding?
Interesting.”

The intense pain in his face was
evident. “I know. I was such an idiot, and that dumb decision cost
me the best thing that ever happened to me. What hurt the most was
losing my best friend.”

When they called for our flight to
board, I felt relieved. I hurried onto the plane, settled down in
my seat, and began to flip through a magazine someone had left
behind.

“
We get to ride donkeys
down into the Grand Canyon,” Jake said, “just like the
Brady Bunch
on that one
episode.”

I chuckled under my breath

“
What’s so
funny?”

“
It’s ironic that my mother
has us riding down on jackasses?” I said. “I’m sure it’s some kind
of symbolism from the grave.”

“
And what would that
be?”

“
Think really hard about
what a jackass is. It can be a Rocky Mountain canary, burro,
donkey, he-ass, jack, male ass, neddy, or, my personal favorite…a
Jake,” I muttered underneath my breath.

“
What? Did you just call me
a jackass?”

The flight attendant’s voice cut into
our conversation. “I have your drink, miss.”

I pointed to an empty seat at the
front of the first-class section. “Is there any way I can move up
there?” I asked. “I could use a little more privacy.”

“
Is everything
okay?”

I reached for the drink she handed me.
“I just can’t sit next to this gentleman for such a long flight…and
calling him a gentleman is putting it nicely.”

She smiled widely. “Okay. If you’d
like to move, it’s no problem.”

“
Thank you,” I
said.

“
Ashly…” Jake
started.

My gaze narrowed. “Listen, my mother’s
Will doesn’t require me to ride next to you on the
plane.”

He flashed a smile. “Right, but it
does stipulate that we have to share a one-bed room whenever that’s
a possibility.”

I shot sharp daggers at him with my
eyes. “The room, maybe, but not the bed. Wherever we have to stay,
I hope the floor is as cold and hard for you as you were to
me!”

With that, I turned and
headed for the front seat, not even bothering to look back to see
his expression. I was still too mad and bitter to be out on some
personal
Amazing Race
with him. I’d never considered myself an ice-cold bitch, and
I didn’t want to be, but around him, I just couldn’t help it. The
truth was, I would need years of therapy to get over what Jake had
done to me, if I could ever get over it at all. In some way, shape,
or form, I knew I’d always think about him and would forever wonder
where we’d be if he hadn’t left me high and dry.
Where would five years of love have taken us?
Would we have children? Would they have looked like me or
him?
He’d destroyed the future we were
supposed to have, and I’d gotten burned in the process. Jake, the
man I’d once loved and trusted, had thrown our love away and made a
joke out of it, and I was still furious at him for that. Whoever
said, “Time heals all wounds,” was a liar—or at least that was what
my heart was screaming.

Chapter 6

We checked into
a historic hotel located at the Grand Canyon
National Park,
El Tovar Hotel, situated
directly on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. As we approached the
lodge, I noticed elk grazing on the grass in front of the lodge; I
couldn’t resist taking out my camera and snapping a few
pictures.

The lobby was behind a
broad entry veranda and extended up to four stories topped with a
turret, pyramidal roof. I loved the rustic ambience as I peered up
at the chandeliers and dark-stained wood. The ranch-style furniture
was done in wine-red fabric, and Indian rugs adorned the
floors.
The architecture and décor
re
minded me of a
fancy hunting lodge; there were even mounted deer, elk, moose,
and
one snarling wild boar. As I watched a
woman load piles of firewood into the lobby fireplace, a memory
flooded my mind of Jake holding me in front of a blazing inferno at
a ski lodge where we’d vacationed. His lips had crashed against
mine as we made mad, passionate love by the fire. My cheeks blushed
as I basked in the nostalgia of happier times.