Chapter 30
Thirty
SOREN
Lena.
Fuck.
That bitch’s mouth is curved into that smug little simper she saves for men who ghost her and women she wants to psychologically decapitate.
“Lena,” I say, voice flat.
“Soren,” she replies sweetly, batting her lashes. “Long time no tongue. I’ve been missing you since our little romp at the Great Booksgiving.”
Fisher makes a noise that sounds as if he’s swallowed a wasp. But I don’t look at him. I’m watching Ava. She’s gone completely still. To anyone else, she might look unaffected. But I know better.
It’s in the rigid set of her shoulders. The way her fingers tighten around her glass. The barely-there flare of her nostrils as she forces herself to keep breathing.
Booksgiving. Fucking Lena.
I know exactly what she’s doing. She’s planting doubt, twisting the timeline just to make it sound recent. And intentional. Like I left her bed and fell into Ava’s the next morning.
I didn’t sleep with her this year. Hell, was she even there?
But last year?
Yeah. We did.
Biggest goddamn regret of my life. It was meaningless and ended when Lena tried to pitch me her novella idea mid-blowjob and asked if my agent reps reverse harem.
Haven’t touched her since.
But Lena didn’t say that, did she? She let it hang. Vague enough to hurt. Sharp enough to cut.
I inhale slowly, forcing down the heat slithering up my neck. “Funny, don’t remember seeing your face there.”
Lena’s smile turns wicked, her teeth practically glinting. “Well, maybe that’s because your head was between my legs at the time.” She laughs—a cruel, sugar-drenched sound that lands like broken glass in my gut.
Ava moves, excusing herself, polite and breezy, like she’s going to powder her nose, not go completely feral in a stairwell.
I know better for that too.
The moment Ava’s out of sight, I round on Lena. “What the hell are you doing?”
Lena lifts a shoulder. “Making conversation.”
Fisher’s on his phone, typing erratically. I catch a glimpse of the screen—Group text: Mayday. Shitstorm level ten. Suite 811. Bring a mop.
“Leave,” I command Lena.
She leans in. “I warned you. If you wanted to see unhinged, I’d show you. And I’m just getting started. ShelfSpace is going to hate you once I’m done.”
“Not more than I hate you.” I storm off.
By the time I catch up to Ava, she’s barreling into the suite. Camille and Renata rush in behind me, panting. Fisher slams the door and presses his back against it, acting like we’re barricading ourselves in a war zone.
“Ava—” I start.
“Don’t,” she snaps, spinning on me. “Do not try to kiss me or calm me or explain that away.”
My stomach sinks. She’s not pissed—she’s hurt.
“Nothing she said was true,” I quickly say. “I haven’t touched her—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me.” Her voice breaks a hair. “Don’t insult me.”
Fisher winces from the doorway. Camille swaps a glare with Renata. They both might want to fry me where I stand. I can tell Renata’s halfway between sympathy and strategy mode.
I can’t deal with any of them. Not when the only person I care about hearing the truth doesn’t even want to be in the same room as me.
“I think it’s best if all of you leave,” I tell the three of them. They all nod and, without a word, exit the suite.
As soon as the door clicks shut, Ava starts in, “Soren, I’ve been trying to believe this is more than PR and timing and viral clips. I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt, even when I knew your reputation. Because I wanted it. I wanted you.”
My chest twists. “Ava—”
“Then that woman walks up to me as though I’m just a pit stop. Or another hashtag in your trail of conquests. And you didn’t even deny it. You just stood there.”
“I was caught off guard.”
Ava laughs—bitter and hollow. “Yeah. So was I.”
“I didn’t sleep with her at this Booksgiving.” It sounds like a loophole. A technicality. A soft lie blanketed in omission. And now she thinks I’m another man who sweet-talks his way into her life and leaves her feeling small. Stupid. Used.
“But you have.”
Silence.
If I confirm that the woman aiming poison arrows at her once had her hands on my dick and my mouth between her thighs, I know exactly how it’ll land.
Betrayal.
A confirmation of every fear Ava’s ever had about me.
Proof I’m still the man she’s scared I might be.
But I’m not anymore. Not with her. Ava Bell isn’t the exception—she’s the goddamn rewrite. And she doesn’t need Lena’s name in the footnotes.
My answer is quiet. “Yes.”
I pray her mind isn’t feeding her images of what my one night with Lena might’ve looked like.
“It meant nothing. I buried it. Shoved it down into the graveyard of old selves I never plan on resurrecting.”
Ava shakes her head, eyes glassy but burning. She turns toward the bedroom, jaw set. I don’t know what to say to make her stay, because right now, she’s finished with me.
But I’m nowhere near finished with this conversation. Ava needs space, though. So, I stand in the middle of our hotel room, watching the woman I care about–the one I’ve been trying so hard to give me a chance–disappear behind a closing bedroom door, and I feel nothing but helpless.
This is precisely the kind of shit Ava’s been guarding her heart against. And she’s been waiting on it like clockwork, knowing it would end soon enough.
The reason she doesn’t let people in. The reason she doesn’t believe in soft landings or safe hands or someone staying long enough to mean it.
And I handed it to her. On a silver platter. With Lena’s perfectly glossed venom on top.
I’m going to be sick.
Ava’s been fighting against herself to believe in me. And in us. Now, I’ve given her Exhibit A for why she should’ve kept her walls up.
My heart aches. Ava’s in the other room, wondering if I’m exactly what she feared I was from the start.
I want to go to her. Crush every wall. Every defense.
Tell her what happened, when it happened, why it never meant anything.
Tell her about the texts from Lena. What Marcus said to do.
And that I’m sorry. For all of it. For not telling her in the first place.
That she’s the person who makes me a better man.
However, nothing is going to make it better right now. No amount of clever comebacks or toe-curling kisses or dreamy-boyfriend optics is going to fix it. Ava Bell finally let herself believe in someone. That someone was supposed to be different.
I drag a hand through my hair, chest burning, reviewing the last thirty minutes in my mind.
And you know what? Fuck that.
Ava doesn’t get to hold my past sins against me. I’ve worked too damn hard to prove I’m not that man anymore. I’ve shown her who I am now—over and over again.
Fuck her if she thinks I’m going to back down so easily.
I push through the door as though it’s on fire. Because it is. Ava’s pacing near the bed, arms wrapped around her waist. She’s trying to hold herself together with sheer force of will.
She spins when I enter, eyes blazing. “Get ou—”
I don’t let her finish.
I kiss her.
Hard as fuck.
Desperate.
Furious.
She shoves me back instantly. “Don’t you dare—”
I throw my hand up when I say, “Yeah, I fucked Lena. One time. She left that part out on purpose. She planted a seed of doubt in that gorgeous, brilliant, overthinking head of yours. But you didn’t even let me explain. You didn’t ask. You decided I was exactly what you were afraid I’d be.”
Ava’s arms drop, her mouth opening. She wants to argue.
I don’t give her the chance. “You want honesty? I’ve already given it. Time and time again.”
She shakes her head, confused, defensive.
“From the moment I found your voice in those pages, I couldn’t stop reading you.
I devoured your entire backlist in a week.
I saw the fire and hurt and hope in your words and it gutted me.
You gutted me.” I step closer. My voice softens.
“I fell in love with you on the page before I ever met you in person. And maybe that’s weird.
Maybe it’s crazy. But it’s true. You’ve held my heart in your hand since the first chapter of The Lumberjack’s Love Letters.
Which is a stupid fucking title, by the way. ”
She sucks in a breath, lips parting, but I hold up a hand.
“But here’s the thing, Bells. You demand honesty. Loyalty. Trust. And you deserve all of it. But if we’re doing this—if we’re going to be in an actual relationship—then you have to meet me halfway.”
One more inch.
I take another step, gaze unwavering. “You don’t get to preach vulnerability and then shut the door the second it gets scary. You don’t get to ask me to bare my soul while you hide behind your walls and your sarcasm and that cute little flinch you do every time shit gets real.”
She swallows hard. Her eyes glisten—but still, she doesn’t speak.
“I love that you’re strong, Bells. I love that you’ve protected yourself. But I am not the enemy. And if you’re going to keep treating me like the villain, this will never work.”
Her lip trembles.
“I love you,” I say, chest open, heart exposed, and with so much emotion, my soul aches.
But it’s a welcome pain. I’ve been living with this secret for far too long.
“I never imagined this would be the thing that made me tell you those very important words for the first time. But here we are. And I will not spend my life begging for a chance you’ve already decided I don’t deserve. ”
Silence.
Breathless, aching silence.
“Say it again,” she whispers.
Confused, I shake my head. “What?”
Her voice is barely a breath. “Say it again. Say you love me.”
“I love you, Ava Bell. And I am not going anywhere.”
Ava flinches at that, like it physically hurts her to hear. She turns her back. She’s going to walk—that’s what she does when it’s too much.
“I mean it,” I say, voice firm, unshakable. “Don’t get to shut me out.”
Her shoulders tense.
“I know your move, Bells. Pretend it didn’t happen. Bury the feelings. Talk yourself into believing I’m nothing but another guy with a pretty face and a decent line. Safer that way, right? Easier to protect yourself if you write me off before I get the chance to do any damage.”
Ava still doesn’t speak—but her breathing falters.
“You want to be mad at me? Fine. Be mad. But don’t twist what we have into something that it’s not because it scares you.”
She finally turns, eyes wet, voice shaky. “Of course it scares me! This whole thing—it felt too good to be true from the start. The fake dating, the cameras, the fans, the chemistry—it’s storybook shit, and I don’t get stories like that, Soren.”
I close the distance between us and take her face in both hands before she can retreat again. “You do this time.”
Ava tries to look away. I won’t let her.
“In our story, you get loved, fully and openly, and without fine print. By me.” My forehead presses to hers. “You’re not some problem I’m trying to fix. You are the woman I choose, Ava. Every single damn time. Choose me back.”
Tears spill down her cheeks, but she still fights. “What if I can’t do this? What if I’m not enough?”
“Impossible.”
“What if I mess it up?
“Then we mess it up together,” I say. “But we don’t walk away. Unless we’ve said every truth. Unless we’ve given it everything.”
Ava shakes under my touch. I kiss her tears. I need her to believe it more than I need my next breath, so I repeat, “I love you, Ava Bell,” again and again and again.