CHAPTER THREE: DON'T FIGHT ME

Selena sat peacefully in the living room of the Crightons watching her sister hyperventilating. For the past half an hour she was in a horrible state and Selena was getting worried.

“What’s wrong Rach?” she asked her sister for the umpteenth time while she sat there looking stunned, no make that dumbstruck.

“He’ll…he’ll… be late,” she stammered staring at her as if she’d just seen a ghost.

“Is it Jake? Has something happened to him?” she asked sensing that something was deeply bothering her. In response to her question, Rachel began to babble several words at the same time and she could only make out that somehow Ashton was involved.

“Why don’t you calm down and start over?” she suggested in a gentle voice, determined not to get angry because Rachel was so upset.

“Honey, I swear I had no idea…” she delivered in a small voice and looked at her pitifully.

Oh-oh. She already had a premonition that it was all about; she wasn’t going to like it. “No idea? About what?”

“About Ashton coming home tonight for dinner,” Rachel finished in an even smaller voice than before.

Ok, Selena. You should have guessed it would be something like that. There was no way she could avoid seeing that monster forever but now was not the time to face him. She already had her own demons to deal with as it was. Trying to keep her composure, she handed the sleeping baby back to his mother and frowned at her sister accusingly.

“Please, Selena,” Rachel said refusing to take the baby back. “Listen to me. I’m sorry. No really,” she added on seeing the expression on Selena’s face.

“I swear, totally, absolutely swear that I had no idea he was coming. I know how much you hate him and want to avoid him. I have asked Jake not to call him when you are home but he wanted to show him something and...” she pronounced solemnly looking not any younger than eight years old.

“Rachel, I’m going back home.”

“Ok, ok. I can understand your reluctance.”

“Reluctance?” she echoed loudly, ready to explode but sobered at the look in her eyes.

“Let me finish, please,” she said.

Selena sighed and signaled her to go on.

“We were supposed to have a friend of mine to dinner tonight, Heather Knight. You know her, don’t you? She was with me at the university.”

“The one who wore her hair like a hedgehog?” Selena mocked, knowing she was acting like a bitch but could not help herself.

 Rachel glared at her and nodded. “Yeah, the very one. Well, we had invited her over and we were trying to fix her up with Ashton and…”

“Fix her up?!!” Selena shrieked letting out a loud laugh. “As in a blind date? Hah! What a nice pair they would make. The Hedgehog and the Dog!!!”

“SELENA! Stop it!”

“Ok,” she said still chuckling at the thought.

“Yah, so Heather just phoned me saying that would not be able to make it as she had some professional restrictions and since you already told me you were coming. But I told Jake to forget about bringing Ash but he insisted that he would want to meet his best friend as we’ve not seen him much lately and wanted…”

“Alright, I get it. It was not your fault but now I can’t promise that your nice evening won’t turn into another disaster.”

“No, please Selena. Can’t you be civilized to him? I’m not asking you to like him or whatever. Just try to treat him as a friend. Look, he’s Jake’s best friend and I’m sure he would want to have him home more often. But only because of you…”

“Rachel, I hate it when you manipulate me like that. I’ll try but if anytime I want to leave, you’ve got to promise me not to stop me.”

“Deal,” agreed Rachel already halfway out of the living room.

*****************************

“My, my. If it isn’t the high and mighty princess,” a voice mocked behind her and it took her all the willpower in the world not to turn around. She would never give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he got under her skin.

“Ashton! I thought we had an agreement,” she heard Jake warning his friend and smiled inwardly.

Like you could make an agreement with the Devil! Huh! But she refrained from any comments not in the mood to get into another endless argument with the devil, loving the feeling of the sleeping baby in her arms. She had never been a fan of children but little Adam was too cute to resist. But she loved him only when he was sleeping!

Thankfully, Ashton feeling chastised most probably refrained from any further comments as well as Rachel joined them and greeted them, jumping on Jake like some starved wolf.

“Do we have to remind you that we are still here?” Ashton and Selena echoed both in a disgusted voice.

“Oh, don’t mind them honey. They’re both frustrated human beings,” Rachel teased and got brooding looks from both of them. “Come and help me in the kitchen.”

As they both disappeared Ashton cleared his throat and sat next to Selena on the couch his thighs brushing her legs in the process. A jolt of awareness vibrated through her and she had to summon all her willpower not to bolt.  

They both stared at the floor, an extremely uncomfortable silence stretching between them. He shifted again and his knee touched her again and this time she jumped unable to hide her reaction.

 Closing her eyes in dismay, she waited for the goading which never came and felt astounded at his lack of reaction.

What the hell was happening here? Selena wondered frantically trying to get a grip on her wayward thoughts. They were not fighting; that was a strange enough but why was her heart beating loud enough for the whole world to hear? Why was blood pounding in her heart? Why was it an effort to draw in a breath? Of course that was the way she had always felt with Ashton around but she had always associated her reactions with anger. But what was wrong now? There was absolutely no anger but all the reactions were present as real as ever. Something was dreadfully wrong.

“I never thought you were such a fan of babies,” he finally remarked and Selena’s eyes flew to his in surprise. What the heck? He was actually trying to make a conversation with her?!

Or maybe Rachel had told him about her losing her job. He was pitying her!! That made sense! And she had particularly warned her sister not to let on anything about losing her job. It had been the most humiliating experience which would last her a lifetime.

As promised, she had worked off her ass to be able to meet the strict deadline one month ago and had delivered the website in due time. However, her boss had decided to ‘postpone’ her promotion with the excuse that she was too young to be a leader yet. What the hell. She had her background degree in computer engineering and was paying for her part-time studies for her masters in project management. How can her employer be so heartless as to forgo her promotion?

Loaded with debts, she had no other options as to remain silent and act as if it meant nothing to her. She could not risk quitting her job now when she was almost near to her goal. She would show that Ashton asshole how hard-working she was as compared to him. She was a legend.

However, when her boss had hinted that she could be promoted if she was willing to stay and convince him alone, she had categorically refused his advances and told him clearly what she thought of him as a person. Men were such bastards anyway, always looking for one thing; sex.

Defeated and depressed, she had still endured his lecherous and disgusting comments but when he had started to touch her, she could not stopped herself from slapping him and leaving his office affronted. By the time, she had reached her place, everybody knew what had happened – well of course her idiot of a boss had twisted the story and every male was looking at her with a hungry expression.

She had felt cheap and had in spite of that tolerated the snide remarks from her colleagues for one whole week when someone else had asked her the rate for one night, she had given up. It had not been a good working environment anymore and she always returned home more depressed than tired. So, without thinking about the repercussions, she had left without even giving notice. She made that clear to the HR that given the circumstances, she was sure they could do an exception for her as she was not going to press charges for sexual harassment. Not that she would have done it but she had played her cards and it had worked out. The company had wanted to avoid any scandals and they had parted in amicably.

 Which left her jobless and unable to pay her debts. Thankfully, she had some savings which would allow her to pay her monthly installment of her apartment for this month but she had to look for something else before next month. She could hardly imagine the humiliation she would feel when the bank would seize her apartment from her because she could not pay.

It would serve her right anyway; her mother had warned her not to take such an expensive apartment but she had been too hasty to show her success to the world. She had needed to prove herself that her hard work had finally paid off in contrast to Ashton’s fluke.

And it had backfired on her. Now what?

Just when she had thought it was time for her to smell the roses and settle down. Ruefully, she remembered one month ago, she had been planning to ask Rachel to help her having a boyfriend. Humph! Everything had gone haywire and well life was as predictable as it never was.

She had a choice though; she could mob in self-pity all day or she could fight back as she had always done.  So, she squared her shoulders and looked at the man in front of her with affront before telling him to mind his own business.

Sensing his anger rising, she did not dare look in his direction and focused her attention on the baby in her lap. Inhaling the unique scent of the precious lump, she tried to snap out of her ‘poor me’ mode not wanting to break down in front of her worst nightmare. Hell, she was stronger than that; had always fought life back with all she’s got and would continue to do so even if it killed her.

“Listen, I’m not interested in talking to you as well,” Ashton was lashing out at her unaware of her inner feelings. “Jake asked me to be nice to you and I’m making an effort here.”

Unable to bear him anymore, even if he was only being civilized to her, she whirled round facing him, her curls bouncing at her movement.

“I imagine he’s already told you about me losing my job so you don’t need to rub it in,” she snapped angrily; irritated with herself to be feeling weak at such a time of her life.

When she saw the look of complete surprise on his face, she could have bitten her tongue. He had not known the truth about her job and she had blurted out the truth like a fool. She watched as the look of initial surprise faded and was replaced by complete pleasure.

She sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.

“You don’t say!” he exclaimed. “So what happened? Doesn’t the Mr. Boss fancy you anymore?”

Selena was surprised. How the hell did he know that her boss used to fancy her? She had known it on the day when he had tried to propose her a different kind of deal and had frankly admitted his feelings to her. How was she supposed to know anyway that her boss was such a lecher? He was supposedly happily married and father of three cute little kids and Selena had never thought of him in such a way. Well clearly it took a lecher to recognize another one!

She gave him a pointed look finding it futile to refute him. “Well, let’s just say that he was getting impatient and wanted something I wasn’t willing to offer,” she told him bitterly.

“Awwww! What a pity,” he drawled.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the ‘pity’ part but Ashton would tell her anyway by the end of the day so she played along.

“Pity? Pity for what? Not getting what he want? Or me not willing to offer more?”

Ashton grinned at her wolfishly. “Both.”

Yeah right, she thought. He would be thinking along such lines anyway. Ashton Cooper was more immoral than her boss. Well, ex-boss. That thought sobered her once again and she wasn’t in the mood to fight him back. She simply shrugged and put baby Adam in his cradle and activated his baby monitor.

After dinner was served, Selena had had enough of Ashton’s taunts and wanted to crawl back in her apartment to lick her wounds. Now that he knew the reason of her dismissal, he was acting like a complete asshole, advising her that it wasn’t the way to survive in the business world if she wanted to achieve something. Usually, she would have retorted something back but she was feeling even more depressed at his words and so she kept silent.

Rachel seemed to notice her unusual resignation to Ash’s derisive attitude and took her defense.

 “What do you mean by that, Ash?” she asked responding to his last sentence where he was actually asking Selena the reason why she had refused the advances of her boss.

“Well,” he said appearing completely surprised at the question. “I don’t see why she refused him. She should have taken up the opportunity as she’s still young and able to use her charms to…”

He didn’t get further than that. Selena got up from the table and dumped her bowl of macaroni on his head!

If the atmosphere was not loaded with tension, it would have been almost funny to see an Ashton with white long hair and a red dye as the macaroni sauce was dripping on his face. It was difficult to read his expression from the pile of pasta but Selena could feel that he was angry.

Well, he deserved that. How dare he assume that she would trade her body for anything at all? And it only showed what a complete asshole he was anyway.

Unflustered, Ash grinned and licked the sauce impishly looking at her with mocking grey eyes. She could have killed him right then and there but she would not because she knew he was only goading her and the more infuriated she got, the more he will take his sadistic pleasure.

Trying to keep her composure, she looked at Rachel with mortification of what she had done. “I’m sorry, Rach.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t be. He deserved that all the way.”

Selena heaved a sigh of relief and smiled apologetically to Jake who was grinning like a fool too. She rolled her eyes at his expression. Men!

“I’ll clean this up,” she said quickly retreating to the kitchen followed by Rachel.

“Are you okay?” Rachel asked her and she nodded feeling embarrassed at having lost her temper and thrown away good food. Coming from a modest background, she was one to know how hard it was to get a morsel of food and hated any type of wastage.

“Listen, why don’t you and Jake go for a walk? I’ll clean up the mess and do the dishes,” she said in an attempt to make amends for what she had done.

“No, I’m…”

“Please, you deserve it after working so hard for dinner. It was fabulous and I’m so sorry for spoiling it.”

Rachel frowned at her and finally nodded.

“And I’ll look after Adam if he wakes up. Bring your mobile along. I’ll call you if he wakes up. Go have a nice time with your husband.”

Rachel grinned and winked at her conspiratorially. “Atta girl!”

“And please take the monster with you and leave him somewhere on the way.”

Her sister’s grin got wider and as she left, Selena already felt better for her goof-up at the dinner table. It had been such a bad idea for her to be in the same space as that Ashton. Damn, she hated him so much.

Some minutes later however, her peace was disturbed by the sound of his voice. On seeing him, she jumped out of her skin nearly splashing water everywhere. He was wearing a pair of black trunk and a towel around his neck looking as sexy as hell. “What the hell are you doing here? And pleeease put on some clothes.”

From the look of it, he had just taken a shower and was smelling yummy. She had to try hard to hide her reaction from him.

“Can’t handle me now, can you?” he chided playfully tugging at her hair.

“Well, since you are here, make yourself useful. Here,” she said handing him the moist cloth expecting him to take it and clean the table; anything to hide her trembling hands. Damn!

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “Are you crazy? I don’t mop,” he said arrogantly. “Seems that losing your job has made you lose your mind as well.”

Selena felt tears weld up in her eyes at his taunt but she gritted her teeth and continued with the task completely ignoring his presence. It was the only way she was going to survive this evening.

When she had finally done the dishes, the couple had still not arrived and she decided to wait for them in the kitchen avoiding another encounter with Ashton. The latter had seemed to finally calm down and was playing video games in the living room.

It was then that the whole situation hit her and everything took a toll on her. Without warning, tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared outside at the dark window not registering anything through her tears.