FALLING HARD SERIES (4 stories)

CHAPTER ONE: CARPE DIEM

“I still can’t believe you’ve found the guts to leave him!” Pippa exclaimed with misplaced enthusiasm, making Ashleigh Leia Fisher inwardly wincing at her insensitivity. “Chutzpah, I would say!” she went on, not even making an effort to hide her glee.

Pippa Hammington was as candid as it could get, there was no other way to go with her. Usually, Ash was the one to admonish her for her frankness but today it seemed that she lacked the energy to do so. So, instead, Samantha Foster their other best friend nudged her elbow gently sending her a measuring look before moving her boggling eyes in the direction of Ash.

Not very subtle, but effective as Pippa immediately straightened in her seat, and looked uncomfortable.

Where the hell was Krystal anyway? Ash mused as the silence grew tight once Pippa had been duly silenced. Krystal Bennet was the fourth member of their girlfriend groupie, and was by far the most pragmatic one among them. At only twenty-five, Krys had managed to uptake a rather important post in her father’s business, and they all admired her for her tenacity.

“Sorry guys,” came a familiar voice from behind, as Krystal joined them in the living room, and Ash heaved a sigh of relief. Krys would know how to tackle the situation – she always did.

“Where have you been?” Sam asked quickly, as they all hugged her in turn. They hadn’t seen her for weeks, the last they had met, it was Krys who had given her the idea to drop Oden because the situation was unbearable.

Thinking of him generated a bout of anguish so deep inside her heart that she had to bite her lips from crying out loud. Her misery must have been very flagrant because Krystal gave her one of her ‘mother hen’ hugs – which she rarely bestowed on anyone.

“How are you holding up, doll?” Krys asked while they were breaking apart, but from that close Ash could detect that there was something terribly wrong with her friend. Krystal’s usually fair complexion was looking haggard – even grayish if she dared, with barely any makeup which was weird since her friend was famous for being a flawless fashionista.

“What happened to you?” Ash replied with another question instead of answering, her pain momentarily forgotten on seeing her friend in such a distress.

“Don’t ask!” Krys sighed heavily, slumping her lifeless body on the couch next to Sam, who had also picked up their friend’s lack of glamour. “Dad’s been taken to the hospital this morning. Mild heart attack,” she added with another long-suffering sigh. “But he gave us the scare of our life.”

“How is he now?” Samantha prompted by placing a comforting hand on their poor friend – they all had experience of undergoing through the hardship of a close one’s suffering or death.

Ashleigh was glad to have the attention directed towards someone else for a change – a much needed breather. It was two days since she’d left home, and that topic had been the talk of the town. Two days since she’d had her last contact with Oden. He had made no effort to communicate with her either – and it was killing her.

With hindsight, she acknowledged that deep down her decision had been a desperate need for a wake-up call more than actually separating from him. Now that he was not groveling, it showed a lack of interest which was mortifying as well as humiliating.

Feeling guilty for skipping the news of the health of Roger Bennet, she shoved aside thoughts of her husband and even tried a wan smile in direction of her friend in guise of support for her ailing dad.

Samantha was doing all the talking, raining questions like a firing squad, which felt somewhat obtrusive until the topic of Keith Bennett was broached. Everybody knew that Sam had an all-consuming crush on Krystal’s brother, one which had burgeoned since high school.

Nobody knew what had happened between them, but whenever the two were in the same room, the atmosphere was so thick with tension that one could even slice it with a knife. As soon as Keith’s name came up, Sam shut up like a clam, her restlessness too obvious to mean anything else.

Ash was only half listening to them, her mind inadvertently drifting back to her husband, her initial outrage had burned down to regret and worry. Had she done the right thing? Was he alright? Should she call him to make sure he was okay?

Granted that he’d been a total asshole on Friday but it wasn’t like him to ignore her. Whatever their problems were, there was no doubt about his feelings for her. Or hers for him. Their love was undeniable. The problem was something else.

Maybe she’d been too hard on him? Ash knew the toll that making name partnership was taking on him. Taylor Hudson was the most prestigious law firm in NYC only hiring the elites from Harvard and Oden had been senior partner for the past two years.

His unwavering ambition was one of the things that Ash admired in him, having paved his way to the top from nothing. Hell, he had paid his law school fees by taking a loan and working his ass off day and night. Now he was considered the best lawyer in the city, his proficient expertise unquestionable.

Him working till late at nights wasn’t the problem either.

With retrospection, Ash wondered whether her trouble was even significant at all. Now that she’d taken the impulsive decision to leave her home and stay with Krys, she felt her mind in quite a quandary.

“Oh no no no! I know this look. You’re not having second thoughts,” Krystal hovered over her, wearing a fierce expression.

Ash jumped in surprise, unaware that the attention had been shifted back to her, her expression inherently turning sheepish.

“Krys,” Sam intervened with a warning note in her voice. “You have to back off. It’s between her and her husband.”

Krys threw a condemning stare in the direction of the woman who’d dared admonish her. “Look who’s talking. You weren’t there last week when she was crying her heart out because of the way he treats her. I mean we all know how Oden is. He will take her back and still treat her in the same shitty way. She needs to grow some spine.”

Sam, far from being intimidated only narrowed her eyes with a shrewd expression. “Are you sure this has nothing to do with a certain Devon who’s trying to take over your father’s company?”

There was a heavy silence now that the elephant in the room was out of the way. Ash was somehow glad that Sam had dared ask the question she would never have mustered the courage to utter.

“What do you mean?” Krys asked defensively, inadvertently rising to the bait.

“You know what that means Krys,” Pippa surprisingly butted in, with more gentleness than Sam, and Ash had the suspicion that cool and collected Pippa was deliberately taking the lead to diffuse the tense atmosphere. “With Oden defending Devon on the takeover, we’re worried that you’re making it personal.”

Denial was hot on Krystal’s lips but she swallowed her words at the last minute, her eyes darting from Pippa to Sam like she was trying to make up her mind. Indecision from her showed that there might be a modicum of truth in that statement.

Oh, hell what a mess!

Ash covered her face with her hands, her body sinking down on a nearby sofa as she faced her catch-22. What was she supposed to do now?

“It’s not an accusation,” Pippa added benignly. “We’re just concerned for both of you.”

All of a sudden, Ash felt every bit of the naïve fool that Oden seemed to think of her. She’d never even envisaged something like that. It looked that even Pippa and Sam knew that it was beyond her to come to such a logical conclusion, that’s why they hadn’t mentioned anything to her.

“Oh dear,” Krystal finally declared, her beautiful green eyes filled with horror, giving the impression of having recently made the discovery herself.

“It wasn’t intentional,” she offered in guise of explanation, looking at everywhere except in her friends’ eyes. “It certainly hadn’t started like that…,” she mused pensively, her distress obvious in the huskiness of her voice, making Ash wince with discomfiture. “But I can’t deny the conflict of interest here,” she acknowledged humbly.

Tactfully stated but no less bitter.

“Of course, we can’t. And we know that you have the best intentions. All we’re saying is that considering that stress you’re going through with your fight against Devon, you must not let it affect Ash’s married life.”

“Make no mistake. We all know that Devon is a first-class S.O.B, and we are with you all the way if you want to declare war against him,” Sam reassured her friend by squeezing her hand. “We just want to make sure that you don’t confuse Oden with Devon. Oden is nothing like that dickhead and whatever his shortcomings, we can still try to make him see sense before it’s too late.”

“You’re right,” Krys agreed, unaware of the predicament of poor Ashleigh just a few miles from her. In fact, all three friends seemed to completely miss the ashen face of their friend as they analyzed the situation pragmatically. “I was trying to direct my wrath towards Oden because he chose to defend that piece of s**t. I’m sorry.”

Krystal gasped in shock as she finally managed to face her friend. Ash had turned completely white, the blood seemed to have completely drained from her face as she started in space like a lunatic.

“Ash?” someone called, but she was too far gone to care who it was. Everybody around her presumed to know better than her.

“How dare you?” she exploded, tears streaming down her cheeks as she eventually let go of her emotions. “How dare you treat me the same way as him?!” she all but screamed at her so-called friends as she jumped on her feet, restless energy pouring into her.

“Ash, calm…”

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do Sam!” she snapped waspishly, forgetting her impeccable manners for the first time in her life, and thus appalling her friends. But she was beyond caring. “I’ve had enough of people around me knowing better about my feelings, my life than me! First my parents, then Oden. Now you!”

Overwhelmed with rage and frustration, she had to pause to swallow the huge lump down her throat. It was not fair. Everybody treated her like she was completely brainless.

“You think I don’t know the difference between Oden and Devon?”

Even uttering that sentence made her want to puke. Every word sounded so wrong, so out of place. It was an insult comparing Oden to someone like Devon Mahoney.

Talk about a demon. Devon was a womanizer, as cheap as it could get, leaving a panoply of broken hearts behind him wherever he went. His reputation preceded him in the city, the way he treated women too flagrant to restrain. Rumors had it that he even hosted orgies at his ancestral palace, stopping at nothing to satiate his inner beasts.

In contrast, Oden was a hard-working man whom everyone admired and held in great esteem, except that he sometimes found himself playing on the wrong side in cahoots with the villains.

But to think that her friends didn’t even trust her to distinguish between her husband and that pathetic excuse of a human being was the limit.

“You guys think I left Oden on a whim?” she finally croaked, her anger evaporating in a jiffy leaving her breathless as energy whooshed out of her like air from a deflating balloon. They were discrediting her decision. Just like everyone else.

Dispirited, she raked her mind for a semblance of peace, of rationale amongst all the chaos to maintain her sanity. She was on the verge of breaking down. Both physically and mentally.

“We didn’t mean that Ash. We were only focused on preventing Krys from influencing you more than necessary. I know how much you look up to her. So, we were just trying to avoid a catastrophe.”

It was Pippa trying to calm her.

But Ash turned to Krystal, her eyes flashing with pain as she stared at her friend with reproach. “You know… everything,” she croaked feebly. “Yet you’re agreeing with them!” she accused, wanting some for of reassurance from her best friend. Although she’d met Krys after Pippa, she felt a closer kinship to the former and had trusted her with every shameful detail of her failing marriage.

“Hon, I just want what’s best for you. If there is even a remote possibility that I am biased in that whole situation, I don’t want to take the tiniest risk. I don’t want to ruin your life over my personal battle.”

Ash fell silent, feeling inordinately betrayed. If Krystal believed that she had advised her based on mixed feelings, then there was really a confusion. Maybe she wasn’t the right person for counseling. Ash had felt so confident that there was at least one friend who understood her and that she could turn to in the worst circumstances.

Now she felt alone. And it scared her.

Loneliness had always been her companion but being alone felt terribly petrifying. Hugging herself to alleviate that morbid thought, Ash heaved a long sigh in defeat, almost like she was giving up on everything.

“So, what are you saying? I should go back to him?” she questioned in a small voice, already knowing the answer. Her friends were indirectly implicating that her predicament was insignificant, and that she should reconciliate with her husband.

Even thinking of going back made her inner self protest with vehemence – not only was it unconceivable but it was also self-derogatory. What chance would she have at gaining another people’s respect her if she lost credibility so fast?

“Hell no!” came the three voices in perfect unison, making Ash jump in stupefaction. Just when she’d been so sure that the trio was going to pressurize her to capitulate on her situation.

“No?” she parroted, unable to hide her confusion, her heart leaping at the way they all stared at her with determination.

“We are not undermining your problem with Oden,” Pippa pointed out with serenity. “We were just trying to clear the air about that conflict of interest before tackling your bone of contention. You can call it some kind of raising awareness on our behalf.”

Sam only nodded her consent by giving a thumbs-up without any additional word.

Baffled, Ash shook her head to clear out her confusion. So, her friends were actually supporting her in her quest? Once again, due to her pessimism, she had completely misinterpreted the situation.

It should have encouraged her, except that now knowing that she was right didn’t make her feel any better. If anything, the situation was worse. It was a perverse reaction but she now realized that she had wanted her friends to push her back to Oden. She was desperate to get back to him in fact and wanted someone else to take that decision for her.

Hence her irrational outburst.

While wanting to reverse her decision was pretty normal, she knew she had to be strong to resist the temptation. Going back with her ex was the coward option out for she figured Oden was still completely clueless of the way he treated her – illtreated her more likely. Returning to him would mean that she would have to succumb to a lifetime of being treated like dimwit which she refused.

It was time for her to grow some spine.

“So, what am I supposed to do now?” she queried hesitantly, all the while hating herself for having to ask that question. Wasn’t that precisely what she was avoiding at all cost? Wasn’t the whole point of leaving home to become less independent? To take her own decisions? To be less needy?

“Carpe diem, my darling,” answered Krystal with a cheeky wink, and her two other friends cheered in approval, leaving Ash feeling sanguine.