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Authors: Maisey Yates
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ever.
âAsh,â Sophia said again, automatically stepping forward to embrace him, her eyes widening when he immediately encircled her wrist with his right hand to fend her off while stepping back from her in rejection.
How could she have been so stupid? There was, after all, a history of rejection between them, or rather of Ash rejecting her, and now she had put herself on the back foot by allowing him to feel that he needed to push her away. In her anxiety to plead for his help she had acted foolishly. She must be more mentally alert, she warned herself.
Yes, an inner voice argued defensively, but all she had been doing was greeting him as she would greet anyone she knew well, not coming on to him. She opened her mouth ready to make a feisty protest and berate him for misinterpreting her gesture and then closed it again, as she controlled her emotions. This was not the time to antagonise him, no matter how strongly she felt that she was being misjudged. And now that she was so close to him, she could see what she hadnât seen before: the change in him that was clearly written in the steely uncompromising coldness of his expression.
Against her will, sadness locked her throat. The Ash she remembered had been a warm, outgoing young man who had laughed a lot and enjoyed life. What had happened to change him and turn him into the cynical, almost-brooding man in front of her now? Did she really need to ask herself that? He had lost his wife, a wife whom he had loved.
Her sadness grew, compassion for the Ash she remembered filling her. That Ash had been a young man whose innate kindnessâespecially to the young sister of a school friend on those holiday visits he had made to the islandâhad made that girl feel for the first time in her life that someone understood her, and valued her. His kindness and his understanding had meant so much to her, and it was her memory of those things that had brought her to his side now and not the abrupt sea change in their relationship as she had turned from a girl to a woman, and his rejection of her because of it.
Those qualities though had been stripped from the man in front of her now, Sophia recognised with a sudden painful jolt of her heart into her ribs. This Ash possessed a dark and brooding air that she didnât remember, along with a cold remoteness, as though somehow a dark cloud had darkened the warmth of the personality of the young man she remembered.
Something deep within her ached for what he had been. Immediately, Sophia clamped down on that feeling. She must not allow herself to be vulnerable to him emotionally. She must not feel anything for him. Not even when she had once patterned her ideal of what she thought desirable in a man on Ash himself? That had been a foolish mistake and one for which she had paid through the heartbreak that only the young and idealistic can know. The reality was that right now she should be feeling glad that he had changed and that there was therefore no danger of her being foolish enough toâ¦
To what? To still feel something for him?
That was impossible.
But what if her responsiveness to him both physically and emotionally was burned into her DNA? Burned into it? Sophia winced. Burned was the correct word and she still had the scars to prove that. But those scars protected her now. She would never make the same mistake again. She was immune to Ash now and she intended to remain immune. She wasnât sixteen any more, after all.
Before, she had been filled with a young, romantic teenagerâs need to taste the apple the serpent had offered to Eve, and she had turned to Ash to help her assuage that need. That had been a terrible mistake for which she had paid in tears of shame and anguish.
Now she had to think past that, to that innocent time when she had merely seen Ash as her saviour, the one person she could turn to, to help her, the person who had, after all, saved her very life on more than one occasion.
âAsh,â Sophia said again, automatically stepping forward to embrace him, her eyes widening when he immediately encircled her wrist with his right hand to fend her off while stepping back from her in rejection.
How could she have been so stupid? There was, after all, a history of rejection between them, or rather of Ash rejecting her, and now she had put herself on the back foot by allowing him to feel that he needed to push her away. In her anxiety to plead for his help she had acted foolishly. She must be more mentally alert, she warned herself.
Yes, an inner voice argued defensively, but all she had been doing was greeting him as she would greet anyone she knew well, not coming on to him. She opened her mouth ready to make a feisty protest and berate him for misinterpreting her gesture and then closed it again, as she controlled her emotions. This was not the time to antagonise him, no matter how strongly she felt that she was being misjudged. And now that she was so close to him, she could see what she hadnât seen before: the change in him that was clearly written in the steely uncompromising coldness of his expression.
Against her will, sadness locked her throat. The Ash she remembered had been a warm, outgoing young man who had laughed a lot and enjoyed life. What had happened to change him and turn him into the cynical, almost-brooding man in front of her now? Did she really need to ask herself that? He had lost his wife, a wife whom he had loved.
Her sadness grew, compassion for the Ash she remembered filling her. That Ash had been a young man whose innate kindnessâespecially to the young sister of a school friend on those holiday visits he had made to the islandâhad made that girl feel for the first time in her life that someone understood her, and valued her. His kindness and his understanding had meant so much to her, and it was her memory of those things that had brought her to his side now and not the abrupt sea change in their relationship as she had turned from a girl to a woman, and his rejection of her because of it.
Those qualities though had been stripped from the man in front of her now, Sophia recognised with a sudden painful jolt of her heart into her ribs. This Ash possessed a dark and brooding air that she didnât remember, along with a cold remoteness, as though somehow a dark cloud had darkened the warmth of the personality of the young man she remembered.
Something deep within her ached for what he had been. Immediately, Sophia clamped down on that feeling. She must not allow herself to be vulnerable to him emotionally. She must not feel anything for him. Not even when she had once patterned her ideal of what she thought desirable in a man on Ash himself? That had been a foolish mistake and one for which she had paid through the heartbreak that only the young and idealistic can know. The reality was that right now she should be feeling glad that he had changed and that there was therefore no danger of her being foolish enough toâ¦
To what? To still feel something for him?
That was impossible.
But what if her responsiveness to him both physically and emotionally was burned into her DNA? Burned into it? Sophia winced. Burned was the correct word and she still had the scars to prove that. But those scars protected her now. She would never make the same mistake again. She was immune to Ash now and she intended to remain immune. She wasnât sixteen any more, after all.
Before, she had been filled with a young, romantic teenagerâs need to taste the apple the serpent had offered to Eve, and she had turned to Ash to help her assuage that need. That had been a terrible mistake for which she had paid in tears of shame and anguish.
Now she had to think past that, to that innocent time when she had merely seen Ash as her saviour, the one person she could turn to, to help her, the person who had, after all, saved her very life on more than one occasion.
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