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“I’m supposed to walk you to your vehicle,” Paul explained.
I didn’t reply, though I felt better with an escort. Climbing into the driver’s seat, I gave the security guard a little wave. I was out of his hands now and on my own. I felt very small, jumping at shadows. It was a long drive full of heart stopping near misses. But I felt safe when I finally pulled up to my building.
Chapter 21
Nate
I knew Ava couldn’t do her job, not the way she was acting that morning. It wasn’t that I needed a secretary more than I needed her to be safe, just that I thought by sending her home, I was helping. I figured she could blow off some steam, or maybe curl up with a good book. Whatever she needed to do to make herself feel better obviously couldn’t be accomplished in the office.
I called Peter and asked him to loan me his secretary. The other woman poked into my office, curious more than anything. I told her that Ava had come down with something and had to go home. I had a few meetings lined up and asked if she could sit outside and answer phones.
She agreed, getting comfortable in Ava’s spot. Only an hour passed before Ava was back, however, breaking into my first meeting. I was on a video call with a colleague on the west coast. We were discussing one of the major distributors, and how much of a pain in the ass they were.
“They think because they’ve cornered the market, they can just push us around,” the man complained.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “Our hands are tied.”
“I have half a mind to tell them to shove it,” my friend said. “We can do our own online sales. We can go to their competitor.”
The competitor was so far down on the food chain, it wasn’t even funny. The distributor we were having a problem with had such a market share, it was ridiculous. I opened my mouth to offer another unhelpful quip when my door opened, and Ava stumbled through.
I could see instantly that something was wrong. “I have to go,” I told my colleague.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll call you back,” I answered, getting him off the screen. I closed my laptop and ran to her side, helping her onto the couch.
She looked up at me, breathing heavily. She looked like she had just run a marathon in freezing cold weather. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and frightened. I didn’t understand what had just happened, where she had been, or why she returned. I fought the urge to berate her, to try to coax the words from her traumatized throat. She would tell me when she could.
“Marcus,” she whispered, clutching my hand in desperation. “He left flowers at my door.”
“I saw,” I replied. I thought we had been over this. The flowers were cleaned up and the situation had resolved itself.
“No.” Ava shook her head. “At my apartment.”
“But that’s supposed to be a secret,” I said, dumbfounded.
“I know!” she snapped. “I don’t know how he found me. I don’t know what to do. Where can I go? Why is he doing this?”
I sat down beside her, feeling like there was a lot I was missing. If this man was the one to end the relationship, why was he stalking her? Surely, he understood that it was inappropriate for him to leave flowers outside her door. The point of the exercise must have been to elicit this type of response. But why would anyone want to frighten someone they cared about?
I was confused, but more than that, I was pissed. “Wait here,” I told Ava, getting up and walking to my door. I poked my head outside, politely excusing myself for the rest of the day. I told Peter’s secretary to let my calls go to voice mail. I asked her to cancel my remaining meetings and let everyone know I was taking a sick day.
Once the woman returned to her own desk on the opposite side of the hall, I helped Ava to her feet. We walked back down to the parking garage, but instead of putting her in her own car, I took her to mine.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m going to take you home and you’re going to pack a bag,” I said determinedly.
“And then?”
“And then I’m taking you to my place,” I replied.
She pressed her lips together, considering my request. I knew she wanted to refuse. I knew she didn’t want to ask for help, or to be a burden to anyone. Back when her biggest problem was homelessness, she had been downright rude in refusing assistance. But that was child’s play compared to what was currently happening.
The whole time she was sleeping outside, she never attracted the kind of attention her ex-boyfriend had literally brought to her doorstep. It had become personal. She wasn’t just a number, just an invisible byproduct of the expensive Boston society. She was a victim, or she would be if we couldn’t find a way to deflect the boyfriend’s unwanted attention. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine what might happen if he showed up when she was home all alone. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“I want to say no,” Ava began, “but I won’t. Thank you.”
