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“Fuck you, Brandon!”
His long legs cross the short distance between us, and I pull my hands back from his. His warm skin is now too much to bear.
“Ava, please?—”
I can’t stand the way my name sounds in his traitorous mouth. As long as I live, I won’t forget this moment and how much he’s hurt me.
“No, no, you don’t get to Ava me.” I say, pacing now in front of the windows overlooking midtown with red and white lights from the traffic glittering in the distance. “Fuck Asher too. I get that I’m the youngest and everyone seems to think I don’t know my own mind. I know what I want and, more importantly, how I feel.”
Brandon hangs his head, not certain how to follow up what I’d said. I want him to fight for me. Fight for us.
He’s not going to. Instead, he’s going to let know-it-all Asher and his father’s brutal words make him feel like he’s less than. Like Brandon isn’t worthy of me.
“I have to get out of here,” I say in a low voice and move past him towards the door.
Brandon tries grabbing my wrist, but I evade him, and my feet won’t stop moving. I begin walking out of the office, not really registering where I’m going. Unshed tears blur my vision. I’m relying on the sound of the loud television Maxwell’s watching to guide me away from Brandon.
Guide me away from more hurt.
“Please get me out of here,” I say to Maxwell when I reach the doorway. He’s reclining back on a chaise, laptop in hand. Compassion shows in his eyes when he looks up at my face. “I can’t spend another moment in this office.”
Not another moment in this office or anywhere else reeking of Brandon.
“Ava, wait,” Brandon exclaims, catching up to me.
Max looks between his boss and me. I must look so pathetic that he stands up and asks, “Where to?”
“Back to Greenwich,” I say, moving from the doorway and away from Brandon Eastwood. I wanted to go back to my first home, putting as many miles as I could between Brandon and I.
“Max, stay there,” Brandon says.
I take another step toward the elevators.
“You’re not going anywhere, Ava.”
I whip around so quickly I bump into Brandon. “How dare you! It was hot when you ordered me around before, but now you have the nerve to try to control me after that bullshit about how we should just end this now,” I say, echoing his words from moments before.
“Ava, I’m only trying to keep you safe. Protect you. The very thing I should have been doing from the beginning. Instead, I let myself get…distracted. You don’t understand, I won’t be able to live with myself if anything were to happen to you.”
I shake my head. “Liar! You made your choice. You value your friendship with Asher over what we’ve created. I’m tired of being second-rate. Tired of being told I’m too young to know my own feelings, my own mind, when I’m grown. I’m leaving this office, and I never want to speak to you again.”
CHAPTER 16
Ava
That night I left Brandon’s office for the last time. Maxwell brought me back to my apartment before heading to Stonybrook. I was still unable to gather my things since my building was the scene of a crime.Reid’s crime scene.
“You sure about this?” Maxwell asked me.
I resisted, thinking that I could return to TSS, hash things out with Brandon, and make him see the reason. What would that make me? A woman who chased after a man, trying to get him to see the value in her.
Well, fuck that and fuck him. I didn’t need to chase after Brandon. Even as my heart broke and begged me to go back, I couldn’t.
“I’m sure,” I’d said to Max. There wasn’t anywhere else in the world I’d feel safe again, and Brandon was the last person I needed to see. After providing the address, we made our way to the westside highway and far away from Asher and Brandon.
Thinking about Brandon brought another sob. I don’t know what word describes hating someone and needing them at the same time.
The drive was a little over an hour, and thankfully Max didn’t try to make me feel better with empty platitudes. Instead, he turned up the R&B XM station so I could cry in peace.
