“I’m not one of your girls who will drop her panties whenever you look at her, Josh. You know me. I’m not that girl. You and I both know emotions will get involved. You know I wear my heart on my fucking sleeve. I’m that girl, Josh. That’s reality.”

He pulled his face away from mine and took a step back. I fixed up my shirt, straightened my skirt, and redid my ponytail, all while under his constant gaze.

“A couple of things, Ashlyn.” Shit, he used my full name. No Ashy and no Ash. “I don’t want you to drop your panties for me. I want you to make me work for it, because you are worth every last bit of effort I have. I hope to Christ there are emotions involved between us, because I want you to feel everything thing that’s beautiful about being wanted. The fact that you wear your heart on your sleeve makes you the strongest person I know. You are the happily-ever-after girl, and you should be fucking proud of that. I don’t give a shit about what reality you thought you knew, this is a new reality. Hold on tight, Ashy. This is just the beginning.”

Thank you for the flowers. Very sneaky of you, coming in and putting them on the counter. I might need to change my locks. ;-)

I read Ashlyn’s text message for the fifth time, trying desperately to comprehend what I was actually reading. I hadn’t seen her since our tryst in the storage closet at the office, and I certainly didn’t sneak into her place and leave her flowers.

Dread filled my now highly-tense body, as I stood from the couch and placed my laptop on the coffee table. Scenarios hit me from all angles, but there was one that immediately haunted me. Ky and Eden had gone down the coast for a few days, so it wasn’t them, and the three of us were the only ones that had keys to Ashlyn’s place. One name continued to stab my thoughts, digging in deeper until I was drowning in anger.

Lachlan fucking Johnson.

I needed to get to her, it was as simple as that. Whether I locked my apartment or not was the least of my concern, as I rushed down the hall toward her apartment. Thank fuck for living on the same floor.

“Ashy, where are you?” I announced, after barging into her place and finding an empty living room. Where the fuck was she? I walked through the living room and halted as my eyes locked onto the offending flowers that were sitting on the kitchen bench. Roses? Ashlyn hated roses.

“What are you doing here? It’s not even three P.M.”

I turned at the sound of her voice behind me. She walked straight to me, wearing black sweat pants and a fitted pink tee, with her hair hanging freely over her shoulders. The smile that greeted me was pure happiness, and I would have absolutely loved it if I knew it was for the right reasons.

“I worked from home today.”

Raising her hands and resting them on my chest, her big green eyes shimmered with thankfulness and glee as she gazed longingly at me. She truly thought it was me. How was I meant to tell her my assumption was that her mother fucker of an ex had come into her apartment without her knowing? That it wasn’t me who brought her the flowers that made her radiate with happiness?

“Thank you again. The flowers are beautiful.” She rose on her tiptoes and edged closer, her lips heading for mine.

“Wait,” I whispered, knowing I couldn’t kiss her under false pretenses.

She froze and lowered herself down as rejection flashed across her face. All happiness disappeared, and she stepped away like I was poison. The distance she put between us was immediate, as she crossed the living room toward the kitchen. This was so fucked up. She didn’t need this, she didn’t deserve this bullshit.

“Josh,” she said softly as she stood by the offending flowers. She turned back to look at me as the color fled her face. “Why did you send me roses? You know I don’t like roses.”

The look of unease on my face seemed to be the only answer she needed. Slowly, she began shaking her head as the stark reality of who brought the flowers collided head first with the fantasy that I had given them to her.

“You know I don’t like roses,” she repeated in a barely-there voice. The sparkle I saw when I first walked in had faded into a pit of emptiness. In a flash, I moved to the kitchen and grabbed both of her hands. The only thought I had was getting her as far away as possible from the flowers and all that they represented. We crossed the apartment, her eyes shimmering with hurt, until we hit the couch.

“Tell me what happened. When did you find the flowers?” I asked as we both took a seat.

Ashlyn pulled her knees to her chest as she sat on one end, as far away as possible from me. She twisted a piece of her long blonde hair around her finger and nibbled on her bottom lip. A million emotions appeared on her face, and it was obvious this was tormenting her, like the pieces of the puzzle were slowly joining to form the bigger picture.

She took a deep breath and dropped her gaze to lap. “I slept late, then got up, made coffee, and had some toast. Then I cleaned and did some blog work, before I had a bath and read for a bit. When I came back out, they were on the counter, and that’s when I sent you a text.”

When she finally looked at me, my blood began to boil. Utter defeat plastered her face, and the Ashlyn that began to reappear over the past few weeks had been stolen.

“It was Lachlan, wasn’t it? He was in here,” she whispered, her eyes pleading with me, yet contradicting themselves. One minute she looked like she was begging with me to tell her that he hadn’t been here, but then she was begging me to confirm her biggest fears.

“Who has keys to your apartment?” I stammered over my words. I already knew the answer, but it was the only way I could confirm her fears without saying the fucker’s name. If I said his name I knew I’d completely lose it, and losing it was something I couldn’t do while Ashlyn was on a one-way course to losing it herself.

“He could have come into the bathroom.” She shot up from the couch as the reality of the situation hit her. Her face clouded with anger, and her eyes, once fearful, now simmered with hatred and complete frustration. “Josh, he could have come into the bathroom while I was in there. I was here on my own. Shit, I didn’t even have my phone with me.”

She stormed out of the living room, hips swinging, hair flying behind her like a sheet on a windy day, and disappeared down the hall like a woman with a score to settle.

“Where the fucking fuck are you?” She growled in frustration. It was evident in her emphasis of the word fuck that she was beyond pissed.

Tentatively, I stepped into her bedroom to find her ripping at her bedding and throwing pillows to the floor. She was like a woman possessed, like a tornado on a mission to completely destroy anything in its path.

“Ashy, you’ve got to settle down.”

Immediately it hit me that I’d made a mistake when her body went rigid and she whipped around and offered me a hellish glare.

“Settle down?” She scoffed in disbelief. “He came into my house, Josh, and put the flowers I hate on my counter like it was some kind of prize. Worse still, he made me think they were from you, and in that moment I fucking liked roses because they were from you. You, Josh, not my psychotic ex-boyfriend, or whatever the hell he was, because apparently we weren’t dating when he put his cock in another chick’s pussy. I am seething mad. No, it’s beyond that. I am livid, and when I find my phone I will be telling him exactly that. This shit needs to stop. Now I’m not going to be able to take a shower or bath without thinking someone is walking around my apartment. He doesn’t deserve that control.”