Ace rolled his eye once again.
On the opposite side of the bathroom door, stood the door to the closet. Hidden behind the pillar, there was a large pinboard which was filled with photographs and drawings. All the drawings were obviously courtesy of Cassie.
“Are these all the drawings Cassie’s ever given you?” Scarlett asked, marveling at the evolution of the little girl’s artistic talents.
Ace stood behind her and looked at them, “Every last one of them.”
“You really do love her, don’t you?” Scarlett asked, turning to him.
“How can you not?”
“Did you take those pictures?” she asked, nodding to the pictures he wasn’t in.
Ace nodded, quietly.
Scarlett’s face lit up with a mischievous smile. “Are you a photographer?”
“Everyone’s something, aren’t they, Ambrose?”
Scarlett nodded, gazing into his eyes, amused that the big, bad business mogul had such a soft spot for his niece and photography. She glanced around. “There’s one more thing I want to do.”
Ace nodded, questioningly.
A mischievous smile coming over her face, Scarlett took a few quick and long steps and very literally threw herself right into the middle of Ace’s bed.
He crossed his arms over his chest, walking over to the bed.
Scarlett had a look of complete and utter ecstasy as she laughed. “This is the most comfortable bed ever!” she rolled across the blankets, “How do you bear to get yourself off of this in the morning?”
“Ambrose, you do understand that that is my bed, right?”
“Oh hush, it’s not like a woman has never been in this bed,” she quipped and reached out to snuggle a pillow. Ace sat down on a chair directly across from the bed and watched her as the soft jazz music wafted up the stairs.
Scarlett’s eyes were closed and there was a blissful smile on her face. “When I die, I want to be buried in this bed.”
Ace shook his head, silently.
Scarlett rolled over on to her stomach, entangling herself in the sheets and pulled the pillow over to her. She looked directly at Ace, who was watching her with rapt attention, that strange expression of his where he wasn’t smiling or frowning, just watching, on his face. “Tell me something, Aeson.”
Ace’s ears pricked up with a strange feeling after hearing Scarlett say his full name. There weren’t many people who knew his full name and even fewer who actually used it. He was almost unfamiliar with the sensation of being called that, but he strangely welcomed it, coming from Scarlett’s lips. There was the expression of his barely-there smile as Ace nodded once.
“Tell me about Eve.”
If Ace was taken by surprise, he did not show it. Instead he asked her, “How do you know that name?”
“It’s the only other contact in your phone,” Scarlett said, simply.
Realizing the hole in the plot he had made for himself he nodded. “Quite the detective, aren’t we, Ambrose?”
Scarlett outstretched one hand and put her chin down on it. “Well, I hardly needed to call Sherlock Holmes for that one.”
Ace began to unbutton his cuffs. “Eve is someone I knew a few years ago.”
“You used to date her,” Scarlett said, flatly.
Ace nodded. “Yvette Jenkins. I met her at a hotel. I was staying there for a conference and she was there on holiday. We both reached for the same muffin and by the end of our stay, we had spent a considerable amount of time together.”
He pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and leaned them on his knees.
“I really liked her.”
“You loved her.”
Ace scoffed a laugh. “I did have a certain fondness for her that I hadn’t had for anyone else. I adored her immensely I don’t know about love but something wasn’t right; no matter how wonderful I found her, there was something about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on; and she wanted to travel and just be and I wanted to grow my company, so we ended it.”
Scarlett pouted. “And now you ask women the perfect question to make sure that none of them have any potential to make you fall in love with them.”
Ace leaned back in his chair. “Tell me, Ambrose, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”
“Will you tell me if I pass your agreement test or not?”
Ace shrugged. “Maybe.”
Scarlett hugged the pillow closer and closed her eyes, an easy smile spreading across her face. That coupled with the soft music playing made for a relaxing environment.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Neuschwanstein Castle in the south of Germany,” she said, dreamily, “Apparently, that’s what they based Sleeping Beauty’s castle on. She was my favorite Disney Princess; there was so much magic about her. That movie is so beautiful; you can pause it anywhere at it’ll look like a painting. I wanted to be in a forest dancing with a handsome Prince to the operatic sounds of ‘Once Upon a Dream’. I was so highly taken with Prince Phillip. I wanted all that magic that Aurora must have felt in her life. I want to go see the castle in winter when the castle is topped with snow and there are lights and you could just look up at it and just know that there is all the magic you could ever want there.”
She sighed, happily.
Ace stared at her as she laid on his bed, eyes closed, looking blissful and peaceful. He was quiet for a long time, thinking of what she had told him.
“Did I pass?” she asked, with a yawn.
“Those girls always tell me what they think I want to hear, or what they know I can afford. I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve heard Paris or the Bahamas.”
“How positively mainstream,” Scarlett sighed, snuggling her pillows.
Ace nodded. “While Paris and the Bahamas are beautiful, everyone knows them. So many of them ask me where I want to go and tell me that they’d want to go there; or tell me that they want to go where I go. I’ve never heard anyone tell me of a specific place that makes them feel something; somewhere they’ve dreamed of. No one.”
His eyes roamed over Scarlett’s form.
She was breathing serenely.
“Ambrose,” Ace said, softly.
For the first time in her life, Scarlett had fallen asleep easily and peacefully.