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My body heavy, I drag my feet to the bathroom. I can turn this around. Talk to her. Ask her what’s going through her mind. Reassure her. Get her back to where we both want to be. I feel my body reheating with that unfathomable rage.
Because of Sarah.
Fucking hell, Ward, keep your cool. Approach carefully.
I swallow and knock on the door. “Ava?” My voice is gruff, sounding a bit impatient. So, not surprisingly, she doesn’t answer. I close my eyes and try to reset, try to find some calm.
And then I hear the door lock click, and my hands are out before I’ve even registered they’ve moved, shoving the door open, my body naturally filling the doorway. Instinct.
She glances past me, probably checking the coast is clear, as I wonder where the fuck she got the willpower to abandon that moment because I couldn’t have, not for anything. Her pretty face looks at me in contempt, and I’m absolutely stunned by it. She pushes past me aggressively, and my body turns, following her path.
“Where the hell are you going?” I blurt without thought.
She ignores me, snatching up her bag and hurrying out of my suite.What the fuck?Nothing? No explanation? No words at all? After all that, she’s really going to leave without talking about this? My face must be expressing the incredulity I’m feeling, my forehead heavy as fuck from my confused frown. “Fuck,” I yell, snatching up my T-shirt, shoving my feet in my shoes, and grabbing the file she’s left, going after her.Not a fucking chance, lady.She doesn’t get to take me to heaven and then send me to hell. “Ava!” I bellow, flying out of the suite, wrestling with my T-shirt as I do.
I see her reach the bottom of the stairs, going into the bar. I’m down the steps in a few reckless leaps, wide-eyed members everywhere stopping and staring as I go.
I land in the bar, out of breath and disheveled, my fear escalating when I find Sarah crowding Ava near the bar. For fuck’s sake, didn’t she have someone to whip?
I feel her interested stare pass between Ava and me. I’m going to be grilled as soon as she has me alone. I’ll make sure it isn’t anytime soon, if only because I can’t promise I won’t rip her head off for fucking it all up. I feel like I’m back at square one, and by the look on Ava’s face, her beautifully flushed face, I am. Her eyes glance at me briefly before looking away, her attention turning to Mario who’s approaching.
“Miss O’Shea, here, you must try.” He thrusts a shot glass containing one of his potent concoctions toward Ava, and I find myself scowling at him. She’s driving, for fuck’s sake.
“Do you have my phone, Mario?” Ava asks.
“You try.” He thrusts it forward, all smiley, and she grabs it and knocks it back, her flinch an indication of the strength. I bristle.
“Wow,” she says over a cough.
“It is good?” Mario asks, hopeful, freeing Ava’s hand of the glass and replacing it with her phone.
“Yes. It’s very good.”
Yeah, well, don’t be getting used to it.I make a mental note to have a quiet word with Mario about testing his concoctions on Ava.
Sarah casts her eagle-eyed glare my way—she can fuck off, this is all her fault—as Ava fusses with her dress, breathes in, and lifts her chin, facing me.
“You left this upstairs,” I say, holding up her file, my eyes rooted to hers, my mind a riot of pleading words.Come on, Ava. Don’t walk away, not now. I need to finish what we started. And then do it all over again. And again. And again, and again, and again.
“Thank you.”
I feel her pull against the file, but I refuse to let go, my teeth going overtime on my lip, thinking, thinking, thinking. Just take her into your office. Talk it through. But before I can suggest that, she’s gone.
“Goodbye,” she says, leaving me standing like a twat, open-mouthed, Mario looking interested as he pours a drink, Sarah still studying me. If she breathes a word...
“Want to explain?” she asks, accepting the gin being handed over the bar. In my head, I tell her to fuck off a million times. “No.” I look at Mario. “When she was in the bar earlier, what did she have?”
“A wine.”
I’m off after Ava, and not only because she’s had a drink and she shouldn’t be driving, but because I deserve an explanation. She can give me that explanation while I drive her home.
I jog to the front doors and down the steps, hearing the engine of her car. Is she fucking stupid? “Ava!” I roar, incensed.
She screeches off, demonstrating she’s not in control, and the alcohol is only half the reason. “Fuck,” I bellow, flinging my arms into the air. Is it possible to desire a woman and want to fucking strangle her too? Because I do. I really fucking do.
I race back into The Manor, flying through like a bullet to my office. I grab my keys and sprint back to my car, people jumping from my path. I land in the seat heavily, start the engine, and pull off, sending the back end drifting across the gravel. “Fucking woman.” While it’s my mission to prove she’s as desperate for me as I am for her, it seems her mission is to send me to crazy town ineveryfucking way.
Her Mini comes into view, the gates stopping her escape. “Good try,” I say, coming to a stop behind her, getting out and walking over. I know my face is displaying every ounce of anger I feel as I swing the door open. She has her head resting on the steering wheel. Don’t tell me she’s exasperated? She has no fucking idea. I take her arm firmly and pull her out of the car, taking the keys out of the ignition too. “Ava.” My jaw buzzes, my aggravation blazing when her nostrils flare in annoyance. “You’re half pissed. I swear to God, if you’d have hurt yourself...”
