Page 149 of This Woman


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I nod, and she cuts me another piece, holding out her fork. I move in slowly, open my mouth, pull off the steak slowly, and chew slowly. Her expression is a picture. My face plummets into her neck, my hands finding her shoulders.

“You taste better,” I growl, biting my way to her lobe and latching on, making sure I breathe deeply, right into her ear. She shudders, pushing her head into me. “You eat,” I order, kissing her head, working her shoulders. “You’re tense. Why are you tense?”

She doesn’t answer, just hums, soaking up the pressure of my hands, and I am fine with that.

There’s a knock on the door. “Yes?”

Sarah wanders in, and I toss her a warning look, a look that tells her not to say anything smart. I don’t know if she catches it. She’s too focused on me massaging Ava.

“Your figures,” she mutters like a petulant child, setting them on my desk, frowning at the mess.

I drop a kiss on Ava’s cheek and take a long shot of her scent to see me through another half hour or so. “Thanks, Sarah. I have to work now, baby. Eat your dinner.”

I leave Ava on the couch and face Sarah. She’s smiling. Fuck me, her mood changes faster than the wind, and it’s about to change again. I pull the envelope out of my back pocket and hand it over. “Have one hundred thousand transferred into this account ASAP.”

“One hundred?”

“Yes. Now, please.”And do not question me. I go back to my desk and focus on the figures and accounts. “That’s all, Sarah,” I say, feeling her moody presence like a knife dragging across my skin.

I only glance up when I hear the door open, relieved to see John is back. Although he better have his big trap under control now.

He joins me, also looking across my desk that was perfectly tidy when he left. I shrug and start scooping up the papers. Where the hell has that contract gone?

“Looking for this?” John reaches forward and drags it from beneath a file.

I curl my lip and pluck it from between his sausage fingers. “I knew that,” I mutter, pulling the Post-it off the front. “All signed.” I give him a cheesy smile as I slip the pages into a stapler and smack the top before cockily presenting them to him. His face is straight. Unamused. “Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

“Fuck you.”

I laugh and find the accounts again, having a casual flick through. “You’ve seen these?”

“Yeah. Very healthy.”

“Aren’t they just,” I muse, looking at the net profit, the only line I need to see.

“I’m expecting a healthy...” John fades off when Ava appears, placing a glass of wine in front of me. Both John and I stare at it for a few seconds as I shift in my chair. God love her. I swallow and reach for the glass, even the feel of it in my grasp feeling odd, and John watches me with an interest I don’t like.

“I’m fine,” I say to her, detesting her slightly injured state. I force a smile, my hand beginning to tremble the longer I’m holding the wine. I don’t want to drink it. Not at all. But I also don’t want it in my grasp. “Thank you, baby. I’m driving.”

“Oh, sorry.” She smiles awkwardly. I hate that too. Fuck, I hate myself right now.

“Don’t be,” I say. “You have it. I got the wine for you.”

She nods, accepting the glass, and I feel like a ton of bricks has been removed from my shoulders the second it’s out of my grasp. I flick John a look. His serious expression, despite being pretty serious permanently, forces me to look away. “Don’t say it,” I whisper, finding the accounts again. “What went down in the communal room?”

“A miscommunication between members. Nothing more.”

“Good.” I sign the accounts and rest back in my chair, as John lifts from his. He looks across my office to Ava, and I follow his eyes. She’s reading a magazine she’s found. Totally absorbed. Completely oblivious to what is going on upstairs.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he rumbles, leaning over my desk. “Do it.”

“I’ve tried, John,” I whisper. “Believe me, a million fucking times, I’ve tried.”

“Try harder.”

“I’m going fucking crazy.” I move in closer, checking Ava is still distracted. “Do you know what I did today?” I don’t give him time to ask. “I talked to Jake. I’m talking to my dead fucking brother. That’s how crazy I feel right now.”A brother Ava knows nothing about.

He lifts his shades, revealing eyes that are nothing less than alarmed. “And what did he say?”

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