God, I Hate That Man Read online

  Ashley nods harder, confirming she would.

  “As soon as all of the paperwork goes through turning the company over to me, we’ll get a quickie divorce and go our separate ways. The company will be mine and you’ll be able to help all the abused kids you want. What do you say?”

  “I have a few conditions,” Ashley adds, raising her eyes up to me.

  I nod at her stiffly, sure she’s going to ask for more money. I can probably swing a couple of things around and give her a little more in the beginning, but ultimately, the business is a business, and I can’t condone giving her a higher percentage of the takings.

  “One,” she ticks it off on her thumb, “you don’t interfere with my work. You are not buying into the charity in any way that gets any sort of a say in how I run things. You are just a donor.”

  Wow, it’s not about money? “Agreed,” I say instantly. “I have my hands full with my own company, but even if I didn’t I wouldn’t have the first idea where to start with running that kind of charity, anyway. Although, I will say that if you ever need any help with investments or anything like that, I’d be happy to let you talk to our guy.”

  She nods, but she doesn’t accept the offer.

  I don’t push it.

  “Two,” she goes on. “I don’t expect you to stop seeing other women, but if we’re going to be publicly seen to be engaged and then married, you need to be subtle about it. I won’t be seen to be one of those women whose man cheats on them and they turn a blind eye to it all.”

  I hadn’t even considered this part of it, but she’s right. I wouldn’t want to be seen as a lowlife whose wife is cheating on him either, because for this to work, we have to make it look like a real marriage. “Done,” I say again. “And that has to work both ways.”

  “Don’t worry, I also have no intention of looking like some sort of slut who sleeps around outside of her marriage,” Ashley announces. “I have no objection if you do, I just don’t want to be the laughing stock of the city.”

  I nod. “Got it.”

  “And finally, number three. We don’t drag this out. We get married and divorced as quickly as possible.”

  “Done,” I say again.

  Ashley smiles at me and raises her glass.

  I raise mine and we clink them together.

  “Finn Jagger, I hate you too and I will be honored to be your fake wife.” She drains her drink and stands up.

  I get to my feet with her and walk her towards the door. “I’ll sort the paperwork out for you to go over tomorrow. And I’ll call you within the next couple of days to arrange a lunch with my mother so we can start organizing the wedding. I’ll give you the first check at lunch too, unless you need it sooner?”

  Ashley smiles. “That will be fine.” She starts to move away, but then she turns back, a genuinely horrified expression on her face. “Wait, you want me to meet your mother?”

  I laugh softly. “Well of course, but don’t worry. You don’t have to act like we’re in love or anything. My mother knows about this.”

  “Oh, okay.” She looks relieved. “I guess I’ll wait for your call then.” She goes out through the door.

  I close it then lean against the wood and smile to myself. “There you go, Grandpa. Ashley Winters and I are getting married.”

  4

  Finn

  I look at my watch for the third time. Ashley is late.

  I knew I should have gone to pick her up, but she insisted she didn’t want me to. She would come to my place and we could go from here together. I couldn’t really insist, as she clearly appeared not to want me to know where she lived. I could find out easily enough, but I figured it would be creepy to search out her home address and turn up there, even though that’s pretty much what she’d just done to me a couple of days ago.

  I try calling Ashley’s mobile again, and again, but it goes straight to voicemail. The thought she has changed her mind is ever-present. I feel like launching my own phone across the lobby, but I resist the urge, and shove it back into my pocket.

  It had been hard to convince my mom that this was a good idea. To pull off this marriage thing in a way so it won’t be obvious it’s a sham. My mom isn’t taken with the idea, but I guess ultimately, she knows nothing is going to change my mind, so she’s going along with it. But if she senses Ashley isn’t committed to doing this, she will be a nightmare to deal with, and quite frankly, I don’t have time to keep trying to persuade her.

  I look down at my watch impatiently.

  I’m really glad I told Ashley to be here an hour earlier than she actually needed to be. It gives us a bit of leeway, but if she’s much later, then we’ll still be pushing it.

  If there’s one thing my mom hates above everything else in a person it’s tardiness. I can already picture the pinched look on her face when we get to the restaurant to meet her.

  My phone starts to ring and I snatch it out of my pocket, expecting it to be Ashley explaining what the fucking hell she’s playing at. Instead, I see Tyson’s name on the screen. Tyson is my most trusted assistant, and I asked him to find out where the hell Ashley is. “Hello,” I bark into the phone.

  “I’ve found Ashley. You’re not going to like this, Finn.”

  “Don’t tell me. She’s panicked and booked a flight to Canada or something,” I say quietly, a cold claw gripping my insides. She has let me down and everything I’ve worked for, for so long is slipping away. Even though we both signed that contract, I know I can’t hold her to it if she really doesn’t want to carry on.

  “Worse,” he adds. “She got arrested this morning. They’re holding her at the police station over on Heather Avenue.”

  “Oh well, that’s just fucking fantastic,” I say, and to be honest, it might have sounded like I’m pissed off to anyone listening, but I am wild with joy. She didn’t change her mind. Hopefully, she hasn’t done anything too extreme and I can bail her out quickly.

  I end the call, then phone my mother and tell her something important has come up. I will be late and ask her if we can meet later at her house. She immediately tells me it had been murder to get the booking at that restaurant so she will wait for me no matter how late I am.

  I make my way outside, letting the doorman know I’m ready for my car to be brought around. My car arrives in seconds. I thank the valet and get in.

  I put the car in gear and pull away, my tires screeching. I’m going to have to get her something to wear first too. Whatever she’s wearing is going to be wrong for the occasion, but I assume there’s no way in hell she’s going to want to go and meet my mother in clothes she’s been wearing in a jail cell.

  I head towards a small boutique I know. I’ve taken some girlfriends shopping there and the owner is a friend.

  As I step inside, one of the assistants approaches me. “Good morning, Mr. Jagger. Can I help you find anything today?” she asks, with a welcoming smile.

  “Yes, actually you can,” I say. “I need a dress for my fiancée.” It feels bizarre referring to Ashley as my fiancée, but I guess I’m going to have to get used to that. “Something elegant. Something you’d wear to meet your new mother-in-law,” I add.

  “Ok.” The assistant nods. “And what dress size is she?”

  I have no idea, so I look the assistant up and down. “She’s about two inches shorter than you, but about the same build.”

  “Ok.” The assistant smiles, obviously used to clueless men trying to buy things for their women. “Do you have a picture of her?”

  I don’t obviously. I pull out my phone. I open up Google, type in Ashley Winters, add the name of her charity, and get thousands of results. One of the hits is a full-length photo of Ashley wearing a white lacy dress. Remarkably, she looks like she’s actually made an effort for a change. No doubt, someone else must have dressed her that day.

  I show the assistant the photo.

  She nods and tells me to take a seat. Within a few minutes, she’s back, holding on to a pretty black dre
ss. The dress has long sleeves and a demure neckline. The skirt part flows out from the waist and will probably sit just above Ashley’s knee.

  It’s perfect and I nod. “That’s great, thank you,” I say, standing up.

  “I also picked these out which I think would go really well with the dress,” the assistant adds, showing me a pair of nude high heels.

  I know it’s just a sales technique to try to upsell something, but almost immediately, I am filled with a strange excitement. I want to see Ashley wearing the dress and the sexy pair of shoes. I don’t allow myself to think too hard about why I want to see her in these shoes. I just nod again as I take both the dress and the shoes. She puts it onto my account and I rush back to my car and head towards Heather Avenue.

  I park my car and hurry inside. “Hi,” I say to the desk Sergeant. “I was told I would find Ashley Winters here.”

  He taps on a keyboard, then looks back up at me. “Yeah, she’s here.”

  “I’ve come to bail her out.”

  He nods at me and his eyes are twinkling. “Is she yours?”

  I raise my brows. “I guess so.”

  “A bit of a handful, isn’t she?” He remarks with a chuckle.

  “For sure,” I agree, and allow myself to chuckle with him. “What did she do?”

  “She was arrested for trespassing. She was in some fancy office causing a scene. To be honest, she wouldn’t have been arrested at all if she had just left when we showed up, but she wouldn’t leave, so we had no real choice.”

  I sigh. I hardly know Ashley, but this sounds like exactly something she would do. I hand the officer my debit card.

  He runs the payment then addresses me, “Take a seat. She’ll be released in a while.”

  I know better than to ask him to hurry it up, so I sit down, tapping my foot in irritation. God grandpa, did you know the girl is a wild cat? I bet he knew. I just bet he did.

  After a few minutes that feels like a few hours, a door opens and the officer steps through followed by Ashley.

  Her face falls when she sees me and she turns to the cop. “Oh God, Officer, please just take me back to the cells,” she mocks, rolling her eyes. “The last thing I need right now is another corporate suit.”

  The officer gives me a look I can read easily enough. Good luck.

  Yeah, I’m starting to think I’m going to need it. “Let’s go,” I say to Ashley, my voice is tight.

  She follows me out of the station, but once we reach my car, she refuses to get in. “Look Finn, the last thing I need right now is a lecture from you, okay.” She turns to walk away.

  I grab her wrist. “I just paid your bail to get you out of there and I damn well expect an explanation.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Let’s just say the slimeball I was confronting is lucky I couldn’t get to him. If I could have, then I would have been arrested for something a lot more serious than trespassing. But his office was locked and I couldn’t get in. The door was pretty solid actually. But I guess a guy like that needs something solid to protect him.”

  “For fuck sake Ashley, you knew we were having lunch with my mom today. How could you be so damned childish and irresponsible today of all days? Couldn’t your little one woman crusade against the machine have waited until tomorrow?”

  “Actually, he threw his sixteen year old daughter onto the streets because he found a little bit of pot in her room. By the time we found her, she had been raped,” Ashley mourns. “So no, it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow. And if your mom doesn’t get that, then quite honestly, I don’t think I want to meet her. In fact, this just proves that we’re too different to make this work, even for a few months. Why don’t we just call the whole thing off?”

  Her first words take the wind out of my sails completely and I feel my anger drain away, replaced with something altogether different. In fact, no, it isn’t all that different. It’s still anger, a deep burning anger, but it isn’t focused on Ashley. It is focused on the bastard who thought throwing a kid onto the streets was okay. Anger for the girl whose life had been ruined because of a shitty father who had let his temper get the better of him.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I find myself wrapping my arms around Ashley.

  She goes stiff in my arms for a moment, then she sags against me and lets me hold her.

  “Hell, Ashley, I’m so sorry,” I mutter. “I had no idea.”

  Suddenly, she pushes away from me, back in control of herself again. “No, you didn’t. And that’s what I mean, Finn. We’re just too different to do this.”

  “No, we’re not,” I argue. “Our passions lay in different places, but we both feel that fire. We can do this. We are doing this, Ashley. You’ve already signed the contract, and I’ll fucking carry you over my shoulder down the aisle if I have to. We can reschedule today, but that’s it.”

  She exhales heavily.

  “Don’t you want to have the resources to help more girls like the one from this morning?” I ask.

  She gets the message loud and clear. If she doesn’t do this, she won’t have the resources to help people like that girl. “Alright. Let’s just get it over with,” she finishes sullenly, then gets in the car.

  I slide in too and pull away before she changes her mind. I check my watch. “We’re meeting my mom for tea instead. We have about half-an-hour.”

  She leans back against the seat and closes her eyes.

  “What were you planning on doing if the door hadn’t been locked?” I ask Ashley, glancing over at her in the passenger seat.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I didn’t think about what I was doing, I just heard that girl’s story and I snapped.”

  “You could have gotten hurt,” I say.

  “Not as hurt as she is,” she replies, turning to look at me.

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she replies. “He’ll drop any charges, because if he doesn’t, then the reason I was there comes out. Don’t worry though, I’ll pay you back the bail money.”

  I wave away her offer. “Don’t worry about it. Call it my good deed for the day. Speaking of which, the first check is in the glove compartment.”

  Ashley opens the glove compartment and takes it out. She runs her fingers over it, then she promptly pushes it into her hand bag.

  “You need to change,” I say. “And there’s no time to go to your place. I picked something up for you. You’ll have to change in the car.”

  “No way.” She shakes her head. She’s saying it before I even finish my sentence. “If you think I’m clambering around in here changing, then you’re very much mistaken.”

  “It’s a dress, Ashley. It really won’t be that hard,” I say.

  “Ok, then let me rephrase it. I’m not getting changed in front of you,” she snaps.

  “Really, you can. You have absolutely no worries about your body turning me on.” I thought to put her at ease, but I see instantly it has the opposite effect.

  She turns towards me, her face full of thunder. “I think we’ve established that you don’t find me attractive. And I can do without you reminding me of that fact every two minutes. I’m not changing in front of you because I have a bit of self-respect, not because I’m assuming you won’t be able to keep your hands off me.”

  “I just meant…” I start then I sigh. “Oh, forget it. I’ll find a service station somewhere and you can go into the restroom there.”

  “You know what Finn? I’m perfectly comfortable how I am,” she asserts. “Just drive to your mother’s place.”

  I subtly look at her out of the corner of my eye. She’s wearing black trousers which aren’t too bad, although they aren’t the best fit. Her blouse is a problem though. It is shapeless and very crumpled. And her shoes. My God, her shoes. They look like something a grandmother would consider the height of fashion, sensible, flat black lace ups complete with her signature ridiculously big bow. To be honest, right now, I don’t care if she is dressed in a sack, bu
t I know my mom will care. A bad first impression with my mom lasts a lifetime.

  I know if I point out that her outfit is hideous, it will only make her dig her heels in so I try a different approach. “My mother will be dressed up and you are her guest. You’ll feel out of place,” I say.

  “Don’t sit there and try to tell me how I’ll feel,” she snaps. “I’ve told you I feel perfectly comfortable how I am. Why don’t you just be honest and admit you’ll be ashamed of me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about. Your mom knows we’re not really together. And anyone else seeing us together will never dream we are actually together. They’ll probably think I’m some random employee you’ve taken pity on and brought along.”

  That’s exactly what they’ll think, but I’m not worried about them. What I’m really worried about is the fact that my mom will take one look at Ashley and write her off as a bad idea. She won’t take the time to get to know Ashley and find out that beneath the awful clothes and the seemingly endless anger, there’s actually someone under there who has a good heart. Why, I want her to like Ashley is a mystery to me. I’ve never cared one way or another what my mother thought of all my other girlfriends. “Fine Ashley, have it your way. Let my mom see that you’re not in the least bit invested in actually making this thing work. That you’re just in it for the money.”

  Again, she surprises me.

  She doesn’t take the bait at all. Instead, she laughs at me. “Finn, that’s exactly what I’m in this for. And you were right earlier; we have a contract now, one neither of us can back out of. There’s no dress code in the contract, so you’re just going to have to accept that I am who I am, and that I’m not going to dress up like some airhead debutant to impress your mother.”

  I give up. I sit there, quietly fuming and Ashley does the same. Let her go in there looking like this, I think to myself. Let her show herself up and regret it. I’m honestly past caring about whether or not this is awkward for her. I might even tell my mother the true reason we’re late. See how she fucking likes that. Because my mom won’t care that she was doing something noble and brave. All she’ll see is a girl who has no idea about how commitments work and how, when you make an arrangement with someone, you keep it or let them know in good time that you won’t be able to make it.