AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I send my release into her mouth, jetting in hard spurts until a sense of relief and calm and utter contentment washes over me. I drag her up, needing to have her in my arms in a way I haven’t experienced in a long time.
Maybe ever.
I don’t just want her, I need her.
This is the dangerous truth.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ava
One week later...
I’VETAKENDODGINGmy mother’s calls to a whole new level, including setting her ringtone as theImperial Marchso I know not to answer. But the time has come. I can’t avoid her anymore.
“I really don’t feel comfortable doing this,” Daniel says as we walk up my mother’s driveway.
“You think I wanted to bring you here? Uh, no,” I scoff. “You’re raising my mother’s expectations so high that after we break up, no other man will ever have a hope of meeting them.”
Even thinking about the breakup sets my stomach churning. I can’t explain it, since the deadline has been approaching from the very beginning. But ever since we returned from France, things with Daniel and I have been...
Wow. I think I’ve had more orgasms in one week than in my whole life prior. We can’t keep our hands off one another. It’s sex like I’ve never experienced before. We fit. We’re so compatible we keep ruining his bedsheets and we can barely make it through a meal without touching.
And yet, there’s something else simmering away. It’s notjustthe sex. It’s the fact that we talk until late into the night, lying naked, hands entwined. It’s the looks he gives me when he thinks I don’t see him—the looks that aren’t simply heat, but curiosity and confusion and wonder.
They’re the looks I secretly give him.
“I’mthatgood, huh?” He winks in such an exaggerated manner that I can’t help but laugh. “Ultimate husband material.”
I ring the doorbell and roll my eyes. “You go in first. The doorway isn’t big enough for you, meandyour ego.”
“Ah, my favourite threesome.” He grins and I grin back, feeling my stomach flutter and my hands get a little sweaty like I reallyamabout to introduce the man I intend to marry to my mother.
But it’s a lie. All of it.
Daniel has the meeting with Henry Livingstone tomorrow to talk about acquiring his company. Marc has promised to stay out of it, apparently. Not for Daniel’s sake but for their mother’s. For everyone at the company who deserves for this deal to go well.
The media is on our side. Turns out my little outburst at the opera went down a treat—I’m a fierce woman in love and the internet clickers are eating it up.
Daniel almost has everything he wants... And then he’ll no longer have a use for me.
“Ava!” My mother opens the front door wearing the biggest, most charming smile I’ve ever seen. It’s entirely for him. “And you must be Daniel.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Matthews.” He sticks his hand out while keeping his other palm at my back. “I’m sorry it’s taken us so long to visit.”
“Oh, well...of course.” My mother is flustered in the face of such smooth charm. “Come inside so we can get to know you better.”
My mother always keeps her house spotless, but it’s even shinier than usual. The scent of something delicious wafts from the kitchen and the table is laid out with the “good” china. I’d tried to convince her to meet us out, but she’d refused—insisting that if Daniel were to be part of our family then he would need to come to the family home.
“I was surprised to hear that my daughter was engaged, I’ll be honest,” she says as she motions for us to sit.
I immediately reach for the bottle of red wine in the middle of the table and pour myself a huge glass. I can’t get through this without booze.
“That’s on my shoulders, I’m afraid,” Daniel says, rubbing my back in slow circles. I have no idea if it’s because he can feel my tension or if he’s playing the part—whatever the reason, his touch soothes me. “My life is a circus at the best of times and I was reluctant to expose Ava to that side of things. It’s an ugly thing to be in the spotlight all the time.”
My heart cracks a little at Daniel’s honesty. Over the past week and a bit I’ve come to see the toll such pressure takes on him, how he walls himself away from the world. How each night when he returns from work, he transforms into someone lighter, happier.
“I can imagine,” my mum says with a nod. She brings a big pot of homemade bolognaise pasta to the table, along with a fresh hunk of parmesan cheese and bread. “It’s been that way for you since you were a kid, right?”
