Chapter 16
Dane
The video call interrupted me as I was hard at work, bent over my laptop. I blinked and looked around me, realizing that it was already three in the afternoon. Outside, rain had started coming down, running down the windows. How did it get so late?
I answered the call, which was from the concierge downstairs. “Mr. Scotland, you have a delivery.” He said a French word which I recognized as the name of the suit company.
My suits from a few days ago were here. “You can send them up,” I said, adding, “Is anyone with them?”
“Anyone besides the delivery person? No, sir.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
I thanked him and hung up. It was afternoon, I hadn’t seen Ava since yesterday at the pool, she hadn’t called or texted me. She hadn’t come by to help deliver her precious clothes, then make me put them on. I hadn’t heard anything from her at all.
I picked up my phone, scanning it in case I’d missed something. I should have texted or called her, but I’d gotten sucked into work. I texted her now. My suits are here. Where are you?
The app said she read it, but she didn’t reply. Before I could think that through, there was a knock at my door and I let the delivery guy in. When all of the expensive, custom-tailored suits, shirts, dress pants, and ties were delivered, and I had given the guy a tip and let him out again, there was still no answer to my text.
Shit. What had I done?
That was my first thought: that I’d fucked something up somewhere. That session at the pool had been intense. I’d pretty much blanked out with pleasure for most of it. Had I said something to hurt her feelings? Or worse, to freak her out? I thought back, sorting through everything. That brought back the image burned into my brain: Ava pushing my knees apart, kneeling between them, smiling up at me as she yanked down the waist of my swim shorts.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and paced into the kitchen, opening the fridge and slamming it shut again. That blow job had been fucking amazing, it had definitely been Ava’s idea, and I hadn’t said or done anything stupid. Actually, I’d had to refrain from babbling adoring praise at her when it was finished, then offering to do anything she wanted—anything at all.
“It wasn’t the blow job,” I said out loud, my voice a low growl in my silent penthouse. The light was dim as the rain came down harder. I paced to the window and looked out, thinking. If Ava was mad at me, she wouldn’t hide; she would let me know. I’d get a visit, or at least a phone call, in which she gave me hell for whatever stupid thing I’d done. I was sure I hadn’t hurt her feelings, either. Which meant that whatever was happening, her silence wasn’t about me.
If something was bothering Ava, and it wasn’t me, that meant it was something bad. Something that mattered. The only thing that could make Ava go silent, dim her bright light, was her mother. And then I remembered her question at the pool yesterday, right before she’d rocked my world: Do you think I should visit my mother while I’m here?
“No,” I said out loud. “Oh, no, Ava. What did you do?”
But I already knew the answer. I grabbed my keys and walked out the door.
I knewwhere the memory-care home was. I’d helped Aidan shop for it when it became clear that his mother couldn’t live on her own anymore. We’d looked at all the options, seeking the best one. It was so fucking easy when money wasn’t an object.
The home was in the suburbs, away from the city and set in a green landscape with man-made ponds. It was gated, just in case any of the patients got out. The home itself was large and stately, styled like a grand mansion instead of a concrete prison. I knew that the staff inside was kind, considerate, professional, and vigilant. They treated the patients with care, but the halls and rooms were also equipped with cameras and multiple locked doors. Memory care patients could wander at any time of day or night.
I buzzed for permission at the front gate and when it opened I drove the Lexus through. I moved slowly up the winding drive toward the large front steps of the building, my wipers slashing through the rain on my windshield. I was about to park and go inside, ask anyone I could find about Ava, when I noticed a single figure sitting on a concrete bench in the rain, her blonde hair soaking around the edges of her hood.
I swore, threw the car into park, and got out, jogging toward her. It was Ava, sitting alone, staring at nothing. She was wearing a full-length skirt and a raincoat, sandals made of thin straps on her feet. In her hand was her phone, sitting cradled and dark in her palm, the rain falling onto the face of it.
I knelt in front of her, looking up into her face. Her skin was pale, her eyes red. If she’d worn any makeup, it was long gone. She blinked at me, slowly recognizing me as she came out of her trance of misery.
“Dane,” she said, her voice cracking.
“What are you doing here, baby?” I asked, making my voice gentle. “You’re sitting here all alone.”
“I was going to call a cab.” Ava looked down at the dark phone in her hand. “I took a cab here, and I need to get back to the hotel, and I was going to call one. Any minute.”
She seemed so lost in that moment, soaking in the rain. How long had she been sitting here? Half an hour? More? She was more lost than any of the patients inside. I put my hand over hers. “You don’t have to call a cab,” I said. “I’m here. I’ll drive you.”
Ava paused, then nodded, but she didn’t move. She looked at me and her breath hitched. “Dane, it was so awful,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “I thought it would be… but it wasn’t. It was so awful. I couldn’t…”
Her breath hitched again, like she was fighting back sobs, and my chest wanted to crack open. She’d come here all alone? Faced this all alone? Of course she had. She’d faced everything in life all alone. It was the only thing she knew.
God only knew what had happened in there. I knew a lot about what was wrong with their mother from what Aidan had told me. Memory loss, health problems, a change in personality—it must be hard for Ava to see. Even though she’d been a mother who had been distant and not very loving, she didn’t deserve to get sick this way. And Ava didn’t deserve this either.
“It’s over now,” I said, putting my hand over Ava’s. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”
Ava ignored my tug on her hand. “She didn’t know me,” she said, rain running down her cheeks. “I kept talking to her like an idiot, hoping she would remember. She would tune out, and then she’d ask me who I was again. Then she got angry. She said I couldn’t be her daughter, because she didn’t have a daughter. She said…” Ava wiped the water from her cheeks, but the rain just wet them again. “She said that she never had a second child. She had an abortion instead.”
Jesus Christ. “Ava,” I said.
Ava shrugged again, that gesture that contained so much angry hurt. “In her mind, she’s leading a different life now. One where she got what she wanted. One where I never existed at all.”
This time, she let me tug her hand. I stood up and gently pulled her to standing, then led her to the car. I put her in the passenger side and got in the driver’s side.
“I’m dripping on your nice leather,” she said as I pulled away from the hospital.
“I don’t care,” I said.
She was quiet for the rest of the ride. I drove to the Langham and let a valet take the car as I walked her inside. She didn’t protest, only followed me in silence. I could feel the grief coming off of her, the confusion and exhaustion. She didn’t want to talk, to listen to me try to console her or lie to her about how everything was going to be okay. She didn’t want any words at all right now. I knew what that felt like, so I stayed silent.
In her hotel room, I took her raincoat from her and went to the bathroom for a towel. I came back and dabbed her face, her hair, her hands. I dried off her wet cell phone and put it aside. “Your skirt is soaked,” I said.
In response she slid her arms around my waist and leaned against me, tucking her face against my neck.
In an instant, my body was on fire. Ava smelled like rain and tears and vanilla, and her arms were warm around me, her breath soft against my skin. I could feel the pressure of her breasts against my chest, and all I wanted was her. I wanted to strip everything off of her and feel every inch of her skin, make her breathe and moan and forget every bad thing that had happened to her. Make her forget everything except me and how I felt inside her. She’d just been through hell, and that was the only thing I fucking wanted.
She shivered a little, and I felt it. She was still chilled from the rain. I put my arms around her and rubbed my hand up her back, between her shoulder blades and up the back of her neck. I was trying to be comforting, but there was no way she didn’t feel how hard I was in my jeans. Ava shivered again and I pulled her tighter. She shifted against me, and she pressed her hips against mine. She could definitely feel me, and she wasn’t shying away—instead, she was moving closer.
She pressed in to me again, tilting her chin so she was looking up at me. I stilled with my arms around her, making a last effort to be a gentleman. Ava sighed against my skin, and then with deliberate intent, her hands lifted the hem of my hoodie and T-shirt and her palms slid along my bare back.
I knew Ava. She was hurt and she was damaged, she was looking for comfort, but that wasn’t all this was. She’d never been weak or needy, at least with me. This had been building up for days, and it wasn’t going to be stopped now. She didn’t want it to, and neither did I.
I tilted her chin and kissed her, taking her mouth deep and hard. Ava kissed me back, taking everything I gave her and asking for more as her hands curled against my skin. Her nails scraped me lightly and the blood pulsed thick in my veins at the sensation, the feel of how badly she wanted me. My teeth scraped her lip, she pushed up the hem of my shirt, and then we were on fire.
I was done waiting. I was done playing.
It was time to get what I wanted, no matter what the cost would be.