Taking Him (Lies We Tell) by Jackie Ashenden Page A

back, eavesdrop on your conversations? It was one of those nights I first saw your tattoo. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.”
    Where the hell was she going with this? Beautiful. Christ. That’s what people, mainly women, always told him about the wings he’d had inked on his back. But he hadn’t gotten them because he’d wanted beauty. He’d got them so he could be clean. Pure. So the pain would wash away the dirtiness—
    Ah, but all that shit was over, wasn’t it? Over years ago.
    Yeah, so over you’re using a drawing pin in your hand instead. Fuckwit.
    Hunter turned abruptly and went over to his workbench. There were bike parts scattered all over it. Hell, he really needed to clean this place up.
    “And did you know,” Ellie went on in the same tone, “that I spent years thinking about what it would feel like to have you touch me? God, I constructed so many fantasies about what would happen. How it would happen. When it would happen. And what you would do and say afterwards.” A brief pause. “The one thing I didn’t imagine was that you’d leave me in pieces and walk away.”
    The silence in the workshop was absolute. Because he could think of nothing—nothing whatsoever—to say.
    Eventually, he turned round. She was standing with her thumbs still hooked in her belt, her chin slightly tilted, eyes meeting his, such determined honesty in them he couldn’t look away.
    In pieces, she’d said. He’d left her in pieces.
    “What else did you want from me?” he asked, rougher than he should have.
    Her posture stiffened, her jaw tightening. And in her eyes, a flash of pain and anger. “Respect, Hunter. I could have done with a little more respect.”
    It felt like she’d slid something sharp beneath his skin. A barb that stuck there, digging in.
    This wasn’t a child kicking him in the shins or throwing a tantrum. Not this time. This was a woman. Whom he’d hurt.
    Something shifted inside his chest, disorienting him. A feeling that the ground beneath his feet had moved, a crack running through the earth, and he had no idea where to stand.
    “Ellie,” he began, not knowing what he wanted to say, only that he had to say something.
    But she was already turning away, walking toward the door. “Spare me, Chase.”
    “Ellie,” he repeated, yet she didn’t stop, she only walked out of the workshop.
    And he knew that somehow, whether he wanted it or not, during the course of the conversation Ellie Fox had taken herself out of the box he’d been keeping her in.
    And that this time he didn’t think he could put her back into it.
     
    Ellie went up the stairs, across the veranda and into the house, swearing under her breath. Well, so much for that conversation. Once again she’d been the one to turn herself inside out in an effort to get something from him. And once again, like a mirror, he’d just reflected it back.
    What else did you want from me?
    Jesus Christ but she hated the way he made it seem like it was her fault. That he’d done nothing but give her what she wanted and that the problem had been with her expectations. It didn’t help either that deep down she knew he was right. She did expect more because of who they were to each other.
    And what’s that?
    Ellie stormed down the wide, white hallway and went into the study Hunter kept scrupulously neat. Then she threw herself down onto the chrome office chair in front of his very minimalist style desk and stared at the computer screen.
    Bugger it. He was the fantasy man she’d constructed and she was still the child he’d looked after. That’s what they were to each other. And she’d reached for the fantasy and got…someone else. Now she was trying to find out who that person was and what had he done? Dismissed her yet again. So what was the freaking point? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know why she was still here.
    Her throat went tight as she looked blankly at the screen and the email to her new boss that she’d been