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“So what’s the deal with Freja Van Der Haus?”
“She told her husband I fucked her.” I shake off a shudder. Freja knows Mikael dislikes me. She knows her husband hates The Manor, and now he knows she’s been in my bed. Ava will be a red flag to a bull, and that flag will be billowing in the face of the bull if Mikael finds out I’m rather attached to the flag. “Now she’s sniffing around trying to find out if Ava’s still the object of my affections.”
“And craziness,” he mutters, prompting me to look at him tiredly.
“I refused to entertain her advances, and now I’m feeling a little vulnerable.”
“Like she might tell Van Der Haus exactly how recently you fucked her.”
“Yes.” So, basically, I’m screwed either way.
He looks over his glasses at me, his nostrils flaring with anger. I can relate. “You said no more crazy shit. This is crazy. Just be honest with Ava.”
I laugh hysterically as I break out in an anxious sweat, pointing back at Lusso. How many times do we need to go over this? “Tell her that I betrayed her? Tell her I lost my mind for a brief moment and accepted two women into my office after sinking a bottle of vodka?” I scoff. “That’ll confirm everything she fears, and the possibility of losing her will become a dead certainty.” I’m a fuck-up. And as if to confirm it, I stuff my hand in my pocket and feel the pill packet I just stole from the love of my life. The love of my life who I fucking betrayed. Just give me a gun and I’ll put myselfandeveryone else out of their misery. “We’ve just got back on track. I’m not telling her,” I affirm, marching toward my Aston. “I can’t lose her, John. It’ll be the end of me.” I fall into the driver’s seat, start the engine, and roar off toward the gates. Tell her? Give her all of the ammunition she needs to leave me for good? “What the fuck is wrong with people around here?” I yell, smacking the steering wheel a few times, cursing with every pound and every sharp pain through my fist. “Fuck.” I sniff and roughly wipe at my welling eyes, frustration getting the better of me. The moment, the very fucking second I leave my paradise, my world is upended and my reality crashes down around me. I drop a gear and slam my foot down, my teeth grinding.
Think of Ava.
Just think of Ava.
So I do. All the way to The Manor, I run over every second of our time since I opened my eyes and found her asleep in the chair after my week-long trip to hell. Of each moment she fought me but didn’t want to fight me. And the moment I spoke the words I’ve dreaded saying. And hearing her say them back. A lump springs into my throat, my knuckles turning white from the force of my grip.
She loves you. So maybe she won’t leave you. And can you really carry on like this? Hiding your secrets? Hiding your daughter? Hiding your miserable story? Hidingme?
No, I can’t go on like this. But the alternative is Ava getting beneath this exterior, and I refuse to be anything less than the man she needs me to be. The man I want to be. The man she’s helping me to be. A few minor meltdowns aside.
And cheating on her aside.
“We weren’t serious,” I yell, giving the steering wheel another punch, heaving like an angry gorilla. It’s a lie. It wasveryserious. For me, anyway. And that’s exactly why I turned to the bottle. It’s a fucked-up kind of compliment to Ava in a way. Because no woman in the history of Jesse Ward has sent him crazy. No woman has enchanted him. No woman has made him fall in love.
Until now.
And with my love, unfortunately for Ava, it seems there comes a whole heap of crazy.
11
The Manor is dead,the foyer silent, the bar empty, the summer room quiet. I don’t see one soul as I walk to my office, calling John to check in. Or, more to the point, check he’s still in one piece after collecting Ava from Lusso. “She’s here, Jesse,” he rumbles, unimpressed, before hanging up. And that’s that. She’s in his car, though I bet there was a pile of indignance that got in with her. Nevertheless, I feel like I’m winning.
I smile and put a call in to the maintenance guy at Lusso to order a new remote control for the gates before calling my new friend, the florist. “Jesse Ward,” I say when she answers, pushing through the door of my office.
“Mr. Ward. Same again?”
“Yes, please.”
“Same address on Bruton Street?”
“Of course.”
“And what should the card say?”
I sit down at my desk, thinking for a moment. “You got a pen?” I ask, and she confirms. “It should say,” I begin, reaching for my shoulder and rubbing at the place she sunk her teeth into me. “You’re a savage and a tease. You drive me crazy. I love you. Sign it off J. Add a kiss too.”
“You know, we’re living for your calls, Mr. Ward,” the florist says, and I frown. “My colleagues and I have a little bet going on about what swoony words will be delivered with each bunch.”
I laugh a little. “Too cheesy?” I ask. I’ve never been cheesy, and I don’t want to start now.
“Oh no, very romantic.”
My pathetic chest swells, and I grin at thin air across my office. “Women love romantic, right?” Why the fuck am I looking for reassurance? I know what Ava likes. I don’t need this woman to tell me.
