FALLING HARD SERIES (4 stories)

CHAPTER TWO: MENTAL HOMICIDE

Five days. Five whole days.

Oden had gone five whole damned days without seeing his wife, and he was starting to get really pissed. They haven’t talked since the last time Ash had stormed out of the house and he’d never been without her for so long – not until the last two years anyway.

Damn!

The macho male in him had assumed that she would be back after a few days to clear her head. Now, the lover in him was writhing in pain for having gotten the whole thing completely wrong.

Picking up his phone, he dialed her number for the sixteenth time this morning, and was about to cut off when the call went through just before he could disconnect. Nervous, he had no other choice than to let the call go through and was on his toes as the dialing was incessant.

He was definitely not ready to talk to her yet. Feeling nearly relieved that it would go unanswered, he was about to cut off when the line connected.

Gulping down his anxiety, he had to make a herculean effort to swallow his pride at how small her “hello” sounded.

 “Hey,” he replied with feigned apathy. His ego had taken quite a blow when his wife had left home without giving him a second chance and he was not going to make it any easy for her. “When are you coming home?” he asked cutting directly to the subject of the matter.

It wasn’t like him to beat around the bush, and Ash knew him better than that.

For quite a long moment, there was no reply, the silence stretching so much that it was almost awkward. For the first time he acknowledged that Ashleigh was the first woman he’d always felt comfortable with – he could not recall any moment when he’d hesitated to engage a heart-to-heart with her.

“Honey,” he tried again when it was obvious that there was not going to be any answer to his impulsive question. “Are you okay?” he finally asked lamely, when the options fell short.

“Yah,” she ultimately replied, her voice still subdued, lacking its usual buoyancy. “I’m good.”

He cleared his throat in a pointless attempt to dislodge the uncomfortable feeling of conducting a conversation with a stranger. “So where are you currently living?” he asked casually.

He knew. Of course, he knew where she was staying.

Franklyn Martin, the PI he’d hired to stalk her had given a full report the day before, giving every detail of her whereabouts and who she’d been with. It was not rocket science to figure out that the reason she’d walked out on him was not another man.

Which made it even more complicated. But not in a bad way.

As per the bearer of glad tidings, Ashleigh had gone straight to the Bennet’s mansion, which was so huge that a wing was accommodated for each offspring. Keith, the brother of Krystal rarely lived in the city anymore, and so part of the mansion was empty with ongoing renovation. Krystal lived in the west wing, still unwilling to leave the nest as Devon had contemptuously implied several times during the merger meetings.

“I’m staying with Krystal for the moment.”

Oden had worked as a lawyer long enough to understand any hidden connotation behind words. For him, the intrinsic message was clear – she had no intention of returning home soon.

The way she was giving curt answers, to the point indicated a source of extreme distress, rendering the conversation even more gauche. In trying to diffuse the feeling of uneasiness, Oden cleared his throat several times, raking his head for a neutral topic.

“Can we meet?” he finally asked, concluding that a face-off would be better than talking over the phone. Hell, anything would be better than the unsurmountable distance between them.

After a few monosyllables, they managed a consensus to meet in a restaurant for lunch, which left Oden with little choice than to up his already hectic schedule to clear that time slot. He had the uncanny feeling that he was going to exceed his lunch time today.

Trying to concentrate at work was a challenge and when the clock struck noon past fifteen, Oden rushed to the restaurant to find the pre-booked table already occupied.

It was only then that Oden realized that he’d been holding his breath – he hadn’t been sure until now if she would come. It was a positive sign that she was here. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

“Hey,” he greeted, bending to kiss her, and felt some kind of solace when she returned his kiss without inhibition. “I’ve missed you,” he confessed without preamble and taking the seat opposite her. Clenching his wrist until his knuckles went white, he resisted the urge to grab her for more than a mere kiss, admonishing himself to behave like a gentleman.

“You look tired,” she observed lithely, her expression forlorn and withdrawn, making Oden squirm inwardly at the lack of usual warmth. “Have you managed to convince Devon to settle yet?”

Ash was of course talking about his latest case. Following the latest heart attack of Roger Bennett, his children had agreed to a compromise, but the old scoundrel was proving to be a nuisance despite his heart condition.

But wait a second. Was that case the reason Ash had walked out of him? Come to think of it, it made pretty sense all of a sudden. Krystal was the BFF of his wife, and the case was clearly taking a toll on the Bennetts given Mahoney’s obdurate attitude. Had Ash asked him to withdraw from that conflict last week and he’d completely missed that appeal?

The Bennett-Mahoney war had completely drained all his energies, particularly last week when Devon had all but insulted the old man, which had inevitably triggered the latter’s heart attack.

The more he thought about his hunch, the more he felt sure that Ash was simply worried about her friend and wanted him to resign from the case. That must be why she’d left home, a desperate act when nothing else had gotten his attention. He would have gladly accepted if Deborah Hudson hadn’t given him the ultimatum. Resolve the case and they could discuss about putting his name on the door.

He was that close to achieving his aspirations. But he would gladly give them up for his beloved wife. Feeling lighter, he attempted a bright smile and was about to begin his benevolent speech when a blonde waitress interrupted them.

With barely concealed impatience, he endured the intense look-over from the woman, clenching his jaw to tolerate the invasion of his individual space. Being subjected to female scrutiny was something he was supposed to have grown used to, but he knew it made Ash uncomfortable, and that irritated him even more. Apparently, women found him attractive, so much so that they tended to ignore the insignificant detail that he was married.

Talk about bad timing.

With a few curt monosyllables, he completed their orders, and was glad when the waitress gave up on him, by walking away with an offended swag. Not caring, he reached for his wife’s hand, and nearly howled with frustration when she backed off.

“It must be the suit,” he tried lamely, offering an excuse for being so blatantly checked out by another woman, that too in front of his wife.

Ash merely bestowed a wan smile in response. “Why did you order for me?” she asked in a voice which suggested that she was fiercely trying to control her fury.

Completely taken aback, Oden did a double take, his mind drawing a complete blank at the woman sitting opposite him. The same woman he could read as clearly as a book only days ago.

What the hell? She was more pissed with the fact that he’d ordered in her place instead of exhibiting her usual possessive lover antics? Why was she suddenly behaving like a termagant woman instead of his sweet understanding wife?

“Alright,” he conceded bad humoredly. “Is this about Krystal?”

The stupefied expression on his wife’s face informed him that he was completely off-track, and that made him squirm inwardly in discomfort. He absolutely hated the fact that Ash had drawn up an unsurmountable barrier against him, and he was trying hard to get through.

“What has Krystal got anything to do with the fact that you’ve ordered in my place?” she asked with such incredulity that Oden felt stupid for having harbored that thought.

But it was too late to retract.

“Well... I kind of… umm… believe that’s the reason you left… home,” he confessed, staggering on the last word as he replaced the last word “me” with “home”.

“Krystal?” she questioned still baffled. “Oh, you mean the case?”

Finally! She was coming clean with… but she shook her head almost immediately, interrupting the train of his thought.

“No that has nothing to do with why.”

“Then why?” he queried without missing a beat. If he knew the source of the problem, he would be better able to tackle it. Forewarned was forearmed, wasn’t it?

“I told you last week in very specific details why I couldn’t go on like this,” she adamantly insisted. “You didn’t even listen to me and now I’m no longer in the mood to repeat myself.”

“Fine!” he capitulated, hiding his excruciating frustration for failing in cajoling her. Knowing Ash, it must be quite hard for her to cast him off, her extrovert nature never backing away from an opportunity to express her opinion.

He must really have messed up.

“Let’s eat,” he said, when the plates were placed in front of them, accepting that the conversation would probably go nowhere on their first meeting, willing himself to be patient. Baby steps, he instructed himself.

It was his modus operandi with everything. His problems. His life. His cases. Unlike Devon and Keith, he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’d worked his ass off to get away from his impoverished state.

If it wasn’t for his unwavering temerity and unlimited patience, he would have dead a long time ago with an alcoholic mother and an absentee father.

And now he would have to exhibit the same kind of perseverance with his wife. So be it.

Oden felt more normal when he caught Ash throwing the blondie a look of pure venom, his male instincts kicking in as to confirm his assumptions about her remnant feelings for him. If she felt that opposed to him having another female attention, it must definitely mean that she was not as immune as she was letting on.

But he was very careful to let the scene go unnoticed, pretending to be blissfully unaware of the incident as he sipped his wine.

As an afterthought, he remembered Ash reproaching him to have placed her order, and he’d avoided the question because he hadn’t wanted to reveal that he’d been giving the blonde a wide berth. If she wanted a different meal, he would gladly pay for the expense.

“Did you want to order anything else?” he suggested politely, inwardly loathing the way they were interacting. The aloof attitude which he was maintaining was a mere façade, requiring an iron-clad restraint on his behalf.

All he wanted to actually do was to grab her near like a starved man, inhale her unique scent and apologize for whatever bullshit she’d accused him of last Friday. It would be the quickest way to get over that stupid argument or situation. But he instinctively knew that it would be the improper way.

Whatever was bugging her was deeper than she was letting on.

“No, I don’t want anything else. The order is on point… as usual,” she responded so caustically, especially on the last words that Oden flinched despite his good intentions.

This new version of Ashleigh could test the patience of a Saint.

“Is that a reproach?” he queried casually, digging in his food to avoid strangling her beautiful slender neck. It looked so fragile that one mere press would do the trick. It would also have helped if for once, she’d left her angelic face at Krystal’s place before joining him.

With her hair wrapped around her the top of her head in an elevated bun, the wayward tendrils framing her heart-shaped face, she exuded a look which managed to be innocent and sexy at the same time. She was the only woman who could pull off such a contrasting paradox, the intriguing factor being the salient feature which had caught his attention in her.

“Not a reproach,” she answered his question, breaking him out of his reverie. “Merely an observation. I’m a grown-up, you know. I can manage placing my own order.”

Now, it was his time to feel stupefied.

“I got the order perfectly correct,” he debated, inwardly acknowledging that it was a futile discussion, one of those baseless couple arguments which led to nowhere but could end up in divorce.

Such fickleness in amorous relationships nowadays.

“It does not matter. What if I wanted something else?” her voice was full of indignation, her fork digging furiously in the steak as she made no sense.

“You didn’t,” he observed benignly, his actions belaying his kind words as he mimicked her action by attacking his meat. If only it were her neck. He rolled his eyes at his plate at the lugubrious notion.

Was mental homicide a crime?

“No.” Her answer was curt and brisk and for a second Oden feared she would leave the conversation at the monosyllable, which would take him back to square one with her. Meaning NOWHERE.

But then she continued in her abrupt tone, completely in contrast with her dulcet nature. “But it would be nice if you asked for my opinion.”

It wasn’t her words which made an impact on Oden. The way she’d uttered that sentence, like she was a small child unwilling to make herself known which captured his undivided attention.

His skin puckered with goosebumps, heart picking up speed as he analyzed the situation the way he would when confronted with a complicated law case without much information. With great stealth.

Until he knew more, he would have to wait and not to poke the lion, as the famous adage went.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he responded coolly, ensuring that none of his inner turmoil was apparent. He refused to give her a chance to pick up a futile fight with him. Showing any weakness would mean that he was desperate and Ash would come back to him out of pity. Or obligation.

Albeit the fact that he knew she loved him, he wanted her to come back for a very good reason. The fact that she had forgiven him and was comfortable enough to share her worries with him. He really believed that their problems were insignificant, and that soon – very soon his wife would be back in his arms.

It was just a matter of time.

All he knew was that even if he was not aware of the problem right now, he was unequivocally certain about one truth. There was no way Ash would stay away from him for a long time. Whatever was happening was only a transient phase, and they would overcome it to emerge as an even stronger couple.