“Calm down.” I motioned for her to sit on the hood of my car.

“We met at the movies and everything was going fine, but then he said he wanted to spend some alone time with me. He told me to follow him somewhere and...It was an um, a hotel...”

Please give me the G-rated version...

“He had the room set up really special, and he’d rented some movies, and he told me to ‘just relax’...We drank like four beers each and I thought we were just going to mess around. Honestly, I swear! I didn’t think he was going to try and sleep with me! This was only our third time going out!”

“Okay...” I braced myself for the rest.

“We were kissing and touching and stuff but then he started getting really rough and tried to take my pants off...I told him no, but he kept trying so I threatened to scream...Then he got really angry and started cursing at me, calling me a tease...He told me he didn’t really like me anyway. He’d just heard that I was....I was easy! But that’s not true! I’ve never been with anyone!” She cried. “So I ran out of the room, but when I got downstairs all his teammates were in the lobby laughing at me and calling me all these names...They said he only invited me there so he could—so he could prove how easy I was...I rushed out to the parking lot and drove off as fast as I could...I was fine at first, but then I couldn’t really see where I was going and the road started to get blurry and...Well...” She waved her hand toward the wreck.

“I take it that you didn’t ask your mom if you could use her car?”

“Are you kidding me? She would’ve said no! She always says no! She expects us to stick together all the time! I mean, Caroline is my best friend and we do a lot of stuff together, but we do have our own lives. She acts like she doesn’t see that! How can she expect us to share a car? It’s not fair...” She shook her head and leaned on me, not saying anything for a long time.

Once I felt like she’d completely calmed down, I cleared my throat. “So, you called me because you want me to fix this before your mom gets back?”

“Well... yeah.” She sat up and smiled. “I think you can afford it...”

“And you’re going to beg me not to tell her what happened?”

“Yes...”

I smiled and tried not to laugh. “Tell you what, I’m not going to tell her.”

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

“You are.”

“What?”

“I’ll have it replaced by tomorrow morning, but you have to tell her that you took her car without permission and you were out drinking as soon as she gets back from her trip.”

“What! What type of sense does that make?”

“It makes perfect sense to me.”

She crossed her arms. “She’ll ground me! I’ll miss Charity Lane’s party next weekend! Not to mention autumn jam!”

“Probably so.”

“And she’ll take away my cell phone! And not just take it away—she’ll destroy it!”

“It could be ten times worse.”

“But the car won’t be wrecked! She won’t even be able to tell that I drove it once you replace it! I’ll be telling on myself for nothing! I’ll be—”

“You could’ve killed someone tonight, Ashley.” My voice was stern. “You’re lucky nothing happened to you or that you weren’t pulled over. Why were you drinking anyway? You’re only sixteen.”

She frowned. “I did it because I didn’t want to seem lame in front of him...I’ve never done it before today and I promise I’ll never do it again...Do I really have to tell her that part?”

“Do you want me to replace the car?”

“Fine...” She sighed. “I’ll kiss my social life goodbye.”

“It’s only temporary. Who knows, maybe she’ll see you as being responsible for telling her and get you and Caroline separate cars for your birthday.”

“Could you please talk her into that? That would be so awesome!”

“We’ll see...” I pulled out my phone. “Greg? I need a tow truck. Yeah, for the Audi Q7. We also need to buy another one in the next few hours—same model and we’ll need to get the custom upgrades that we got before. See if you can work out something with the VIN number...I’m in the parking lot at Haven Foods on Tim Street. Could you also bring something to eat for Ashley? Yes...McDonald’s will be fine.” I hung up.

“Thank you for helping me with this...” Ashley looked down at the ground.

“You’re very welcome.”

“You know, I really like you, Jonathan. I think my mom still likes you too, but she’d probably like you even more if I told her that me and Caroline are kind of missing you since you two broke up. I mean, we are missing you. Not many people understand our Physics jokes and I like your pasta a lot better than my mom’s... So, I’m thinking...If you want me to put in a good word for you, I think you should reconsider—”

“You’re going to tell her about the car, Ashley.”

She laughed. “It was worth a try.”

Chapter 30

Claire

“How was your trip, sweetheart?” Damien lifted my hand and kissed it.

“It was amazing. I had a lot of fun.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the awards ceremony tonight? The organizers swear it won’t be as boring as the last one. ”

“I’m sure.” I placed my carryon bag in my lap and buckled my seatbelt. “I just want to unpack with a glass of wine and slowly readjust to the real world tonight.”

He laughed and leaned over to kiss me. As he ran his fingers through my hair, he tugged at the strings of the sea shell headband I was wearing and whispered, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too...”

He kissed me a few more times before moving away and revving up his car. He sped through the airport terminals and entered the highway. He looked over at me every few minutes, smiling whenever I looked at him.

He was definitely sexy as hell and my eyes couldn’t get enough of him, but over the past couple weeks it seemed like “attraction” was the only thing holding us together. Even though he was a few years older than me—forty three, had experienced divorce just like I had, and seemed to be a perfect match, there was something missing.

Our conversations weren’t that deep, our time together was hardly memorable, and he seemed to be more into impressing me than getting to know me.

Maybe if you actually gave him a fair chance, you would think differently...You haven’t honestly done that yet...Maybe you should open up about your past a bit—maybe even tell him about Jonathan...

I cleared my throat. “How was your week while I was away?”

“Terrible. In addition to not being able to see the most beautiful woman in the world every day, I got crushed by Statham Industries for the year to date presales.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve outsold us by fifteen percent for the year so far and they haven’t even opened up the pre-sales for their sPhone red yet...I hate Jonathan Statham.”

What?! “Why?” I tried to sound indifferent.

He drove onto the exit ramp. “Okay, I don’t necessarily hate him—No, I do hate him.” He laughed. “We’ve been at it ever since he started his company. He’s our biggest competitor and he knows it. I can’t deny the man’s a genius, but sometimes he makes moves just because he can, just to be a showoff so he can say that his company is number one.”

“Like...”

“Like releasing a new product days before my company does. We’ll have a marketing plan in place months in advance. We’ll have commercials and billboards all over the country for a product that comes out on Friday, and just to be an ass, he’ll release his competing product on Thursday.”

I tried not to laugh. “So, it’s a friendly rivalry?”

“No.” He pulled in front of my house and turned to face me. “We’re polite whenever we see each other, but we don’t get along at all...Between you and me, I really respect him, but it always seems like he has the upper-hand, like he always gets the best stuff first. I feel like no matter what I do, I’m always getting his sloppy seconds.”