52. Ava
52
Ava
T he gallery’s overhead lights dim automatically at 10 PM, leaving only the strategic spotlights that highlight each painting. I’m alone with my thoughts and the ghosts of my artwork staring back at me. Well, not completely alone. Diana and Michael stand guard outside the main entrance, my personal security detail still religiously following Gideon’s protocols even though our marriage is basically toilet paper at this point.
I slump onto the minimalist bench in the center of the main room, kicking off my heels. My feet ache almost as much as my heart, and that’s saying something considering I’ve been standing for about fourteen hours straight.
Nothing says ‘successful gallery opening’ like feet that feel like they’ve been dragged barefoot across hot coals and broken glass.
Honestly, I can’t believe the opening went so well. Nothing in the gallery itself collapsed, which is honestly a miracle considering we put it together in about the time it takes most people to assemble an IKEA bookshelf. The track lighting I was convinced would come crashing down during some collector’s earnest analysis stayed firmly attached to the ceiling. Even the baseboards held.
Small victories, I guess.
There were no scandalous revelations, either. No hushed whispers following me through the crowd. No reporters ambushing me with questions about trading sexual favors for wall space.
Nothing.
Could I have been wrong?
“What are you playing at, Gideon?” I whisper to the empty gallery.
For a split second during the reception, I thought I saw him. That unmistakable dark hair, broad shoulders, and imposing height that somehow manages to fill any room he enters. But when I looked again, he was gone, swallowed by the crowd of New York’s art elite pretending to understand my work.
I stand up, padding barefoot across the polished concrete floor to adjust the angle of a spotlight that’s been bothering me all night.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Lucy again.
“How’s the afterglow of success?” she asks when I pick up.
“Lonely,” I admit, settling back onto the bench. “But I’ll survive.”
“Did he come yet?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Redwood. You know exactly who.”
I sigh, tracing random patterns on the concrete with my big toe. “I thought I saw him during the reception, but he disappeared. Probably just my imagination playing cruel tricks. ”
“Or maybe he was actually there but wanted to respect your space,” Lucy suggests, her voice taking on that tone she uses when she thinks I’m being particularly dense. “You should hear him out if he shows up.”
“Why are you suddenly Team Gideon? I told you about those documents. He was working with Blackwell the whole time.”
“Things aren’t always what they seem,” she says cryptically. “Just... listen to him, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”
“Do you know something I don’t?” My free hand balls into a fist. “Lucy, if you’re holding out on me—”
“I read what he gave me, that’s all. And unlike you, I didn’t immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion.”
“When did he give you anything?”
“Earlier. He was at your opening. Your eyes weren’t playing tricks. He handed me a portfolio before he left.”
My heart does a strange little stutter-step that I absolutely refuse to acknowledge. “And?”
“And it’s not my place to tell you what’s in it. That’s for him to explain. Just give him a chance to talk, okay?”
After we hang up, I’m left with even more questions. Barefoot, I walk a slow circuit around my gallery, this space that represents everything I’ve fought for. By some miracle, I managed to secure it through my own connections, though I still need the remainder of Gideon’s settlement to buy it outright. The thought makes my stomach twist.
Always the same story. Men with money controlling my art, my future.
Still, I hear Lucy’s words echo in my mind.
Give him a chance...
The quiet is suddenly broken by the soft beep of the security system. Someone’s entered the access code at the front door.
I freeze, my heart hammering against my ribs. Only four people have that code. Me, Lucy, Diana, and Michael. The latter two employed by...
Gideon.
He looks different than I remember, though it’s only been a week. Thinner maybe, with shadows under his eyes that match the ones under mine. He’s carrying a sleek leather portfolio under one arm, and he hesitates just inside the entrance.
“May I come in?” he asks, as if I could actually deny him entry to a space that technically isn’t even mine yet.
I nod stiffly, crossing my arms over my chest like I’m trying to hold my ribs together. “Kind of already did.”
He approaches slowly, stopping a respectful distance away. His eyes scan my face, and I hate how easily I can read the concern there. I hate even more how much I’ve missed those eyes.
“Your opening was impressive,” he says finally.
“Yeah, well, turns out betrayal is a fantastic creative motivator.” I gesture to the wall of canvases behind me. “Who knew?”
He winces, then holds out the portfolio. “I need you to look at this before we talk.”
“What is it? More evidence of how you planned to humiliate me?” My voice cracks embarrassingly, and I hate myself for it.
“It’s the truth,” he says simply.
Something in his tone, a vulnerability I’ve rarely heard from him, makes me take the portfolio. I lead him to one of the private back rooms and shut the door behind us, just in case there are some other staff around who haven’t left yet that I don’t know about. I feel a moment of doubt shutting him inside there with me, but again, something in his tone makes me lower all my defenses.
I move to the small desk in the corner and spread the contents across the surface.
The first document is an email thread between Gideon and Jonas. I scan it quickly, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“Server logs?” I mutter, looking at the timestamps on the documents I found in his desk. “These show they were created three weeks after our wedding, not before.”
“Keep reading,” he says quietly.
I continue through the stack, my hands growing increasingly unsteady. There’s an entire counter-strategy documented: restraining orders against specific media outlets, digital surveillance of Blackwell’s communications, a crisis management team on standby specifically to protect my gallery opening.
“The dates were falsified deliberately,” Gideon explains, moving closer. “We needed Blackwell to believe I had been planning to discredit you from the beginning. That I was cold-blooded enough to sacrifice you and your career. If he believed I was capable of betraying my own wife, he would believe the other misinformation we fed him.”
I look up sharply. “Misinformation that led him to what?”
“Financial overextension and failure.” A hint of grim satisfaction crosses his face. “He just lost the financing for his next three major projects. He’s lost the Hartman warehouses.”
My mind races, trying to fit these new pieces into the puzzle. “But why didn’t you tell me about any of this? Why keep me in the dark?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I wanted to protect you from knowing Blackwell was targeting your opening. You were already stressed enough about the exhibition.” He pauses. “I realize now that was my control issue speaking. I should have trusted you with the truth.”
I blink. “Wait, what? How was he targeting my opening?”
Gideon’s jaw tightens, and I can almost see him weighing how much to tell me. “Our intelligence indicated he’d hired a PR firm that specializes in character assassination. They were planning to plant stories about how you used our marriage to secure gallery space and funding.” His voice grows harder. “They had photographers ready to ambush collectors entering your show, planned to question your artistic credentials publicly. There was even a fake art critic prepared to publish a scathing review before seeing a single piece.”
Jesus.
“Their plan wasn’t subtle. It was designed to create enough of a spectacle that your art would be overshadowed by scandal.” He moves closer, eyes intense. “We fed them the documents you found to make them think I was already planning to do something similar. It gave us access to their playbook while we quietly implemented countermeasures against each threat.”
I swallow hard, finally understanding the stakes. “So all this time, while I was obsessing over lighting and wall space...”
“I was making sure no one could touch you or your reputation.” He looks away. “I should have told you. You deserved to know what you were up against.”
“And after I found the documents and left?” I press. “Why wait a week to explain?”
“I wanted you to see that nothing happened at your opening. That all our counter-measures worked. I thought...” he hesitates, “I thought you wouldn’t believe me without proof that we had protected you successfully.”
The sick feeling in my stomach begins to uncoil slightly. “So it was all a strategy designed to feed Blackwell misinformation.”
He nods, takes another step closer. “Ava, look at the last page.”
I flip to the final document. It’s a detailed analysis of potential threats to my reputation with corresponding counter-measures. It’s dated one week after our wedding.
“I would never target your art,” he says softly. “From the beginning, I knew your talent was extraordinary. I would never undermine what makes you... you.”
My chest tightens painfully as the full realization hits me. “I thought you were just like my stepfather. Another man using his power to destroy my artistic future.”
“I know.” His voice is rough with emotion. “That’s what hurt the most when you left, knowing that you believed I could do that to you.”
I stand up abruptly, needing to move. “My stepfather deliberately sabotaged my future. When I saw those documents in your desk...” The tears I’ve been fighting finally break free. “It felt like history repeating itself.”
Gideon closes the distance between us, his hands coming up to cup my face, thumbs gently wiping away my tears. “Your talent is what drew me to you from the beginning. It’s part of who you are, and it’s part of why I love you.”
Wait, what? Did he just say...
My heart stutters to a complete stop, then restarts at twice its normal pace. “You what?”
“I love you, Ava.” His gray eyes hold mine, unflinching. “I think I’ve loved you since that first night, but I was too stubborn and scared to admit it.”
“But our agreement—”
“Fuck the agreement.” His voice has taken on that low, intense quality that always makes my knees weak. “I don’t want a financial arrangement. I don’t want a temporary marriage of convenience. I want you. Just you. No contracts, no terms, no expiration dates.”
I’m shaking now, overwhelmed by emotions I’ve been suppressing for months. “All this time, I thought it was one-sided. I thought I was just another business transaction for you.”
“Never.” His hands tighten slightly on my face. “You’re the only real thing in my life.”
Something inside me breaks open. All the walls and defenses I’ve built to protect myself crumble away in an instant.
“I love you, too,” I whisper, the words I’ve been terrified to even think finally slipping free. “I’ve been fighting it for so long, but I can’t anymore. I don’t want to.”
His lips find mine in a kiss that feels like coming home. It’s gentle at first, almost reverent, before deepening into something hungry and desperate. My arms wind around his neck, pulling him closer as two weeks of suppressed longing surges to the surface.
When we finally break apart, both breathing heavily, he presses his forehead against mine. “Come home,” he whispers. “Please come home.”
I nod, unable to form words past the lump in my throat .
The whole ride back to the penthouse is a long, extended foreplay session. Just a blur of heated lips and hands that can’t seem to stop touching. The scent of his cologne, that blood orange zest, aged cognac amber, vetiver, fills the enclosed space, and I breathe it in greedily. I almost want him to take me right there.
I can’t believe we’re doing this. Actually admitting we love each other. What happens now?
By the time we reach the penthouse, the tension between us is almost unbearable. The elevator ride up is silent except for our breathing, his hand wrapped around mine like he’s afraid I might disappear if he lets go. We watch the numbers rising in anticipation. Before we’re even halfway, we’re already kissing and groping.
When the doors open, we pull apart and step into the familiar space. I immediately notice my paintings still hanging exactly where he left them. Every brushstroke, every expression of my heart still on display despite my dramatic exit speech demanding he take them down.
“You didn’t remove them,” I say, turning to look at him.
“I couldn’t.” He shrugs, a gesture so uncharacteristically vulnerable it makes my heart ache. “Nothing else felt right.”
I kiss him again, hungrily. From the edge of my mouth I say: “I want you so bad.”
He pulls away. “Wait.”
The epitome of restraint, he leads me forward.
In moments we’re standing in the hallway between our bedrooms. A space that once represented the boundaries of our arrangement. There’s no moment of hesitation. Gideon simply takes my hand and leads me toward his bedroom.
It smells exactly like him, and the familiar scent brings back a flood of memories. Nights spent tangled in these sheets, mornings waking to the weight of his arm across my waist, the quiet moments between us when we were just Gideon and Ava, no pretenses or performances.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, voice rough as his hands come up to cradle my face again. “Every night without you here has been torture.”
I rise on tiptoes, pressing my lips to his in answer. This kiss is different from all those that came before. Still hungry, yes, but there’s no pretense of a purely physical arrangement, just the raw honesty of how we truly feel.
His hands move to the zipper of my dress, slowly drawing it down. I ease the fabric down from my shoulders, letting it pool at my feet. I stand before him in just my underwear, suddenly shy despite the fact that he’s seen me naked countless times.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, his gaze traveling over me with a reverence that makes me blush. “So fucking beautiful.”
We kiss again.
I reach for him, unbuttoning his shirt with trembling fingers. “I never thought we’d be here,” I admit from the side of my mouth, pushing the fabric aside to reveal his hard chest. “I never thought you could feel the same way.”
“I fought it,” he says, stepping back to remove his shirt completely. “I told myself it was just physical.” His pants follow, leaving him in just boxer briefs that do nothing to hide his arousal. “I’ve never been so wrong about anything in my life. ”
We tumble onto the bed together, a tangle of limbs and desperate touches. His mouth explores my body with exquisite slowness, as if rediscovering territory he thought lost forever. When he finally settles between my thighs, his tongue drawing patterns over my panties that make me arch off the mattress, I feel tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
“Gideon,” I gasp, fingers threading through his hair.
He looks up, his gray eyes dark with desire. “Tell me what you need, vixen.”
“You,” I say simply. “Just you.”
He prowls up my body, his mouth sealing over mine in a searing kiss. His hands skate down my sides, fingertips catching the rim of my panties.
“These,” he rasps against my lips, “are in the way.”
With a single fluid motion, he tears them free, the delicate fabric splitting like a sigh. I gasp at the violence of it, the claim in the act, but he’s already reaching for his own underwear, his cock straining against the fabric.
I reach for him, greedy.
“No.” He guides my palm to his chest instead. “You’ll watch.”
My breath hitches as he leans back and strips himself bare. He shoves his underwear down over lean hips and his cock springs free, thick and flushed, and I whimper at the sight, thighs reflexively tightening.
He catches my knee, pushing it wide. “All of you,” he growls, “is mine.”
His hand wraps around his length, stroking once, slowly, his gaze locked on mine as he lines himself up. The blunt head teases my entrance, slick with my arousal, but he holds still, tormenting us both. The feel of his cock pressing against me makes me whimper with need, but he holds back, searching my face.
“I love you,” he says again, the words still new and precious between us. “I need you to know that this isn’t just about sex for me. It never was.”
“I know,” I whisper, cradling his face between my palms. “I feel the same way. I’ve always felt the same way.”
“No more games,” he murmurs, voice rough.
When he pushes inside me, there’s no barrier, no hesitation, just the raw, molten glide of skin against skin. My breath hitches, nails digging into the sheets, but he captures my wrists in one hand, pinning them above my head.
“Look at me,” he commands, and I obey, drowning in the storm of his eyes. Every thrust is deliberate, agonizingly slow, stretching the moment into eternity. His free hand skims my ribs, my hip, leaving fire in its wake, before settling possessively on my throat. Not tightening. Just claiming .
“Mine,” he growls, lips grazing the shell of my ear, teeth nipping at the tender curve where my pulse races. The word isn’t a question. It’s a vow, primal and irrevocable, and it unravels me.
“Yours,” I gasp, arching against him, the admission tearing free like a confession. “And you’re mine, too.” My heel drags down his calf, urging him deeper, and a feral sound escapes him. Half groan, half triumph.
“Always.” The promise vibrates against my collarbone as his rhythm turns relentless, each stroke hitting that place that makes me see stars. His grip on my wrists tightens, the faint sting of it merging with the pleasure coiling low in my belly.
“Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!” I say it in time to his powerful thrusts.
I’m close —so close the air burns in my lungs, every nerve screaming for release. But he drags his mouth down my throat, slow and torturous, pausing to suck a bruise over my racing pulse. “You want to break, don’t you?” His voice is hoarse, his wet lips curving against my damp skin. “Beg for it.”
The demand sends a shudder through me. I bite my lip, refusing, but he feels it. The way my thighs tremble, the desperate clench of my body around him. His hips snap harder, stealing my breath.
“Beg ,” he repeats, thrusting deep enough to draw a broken moan from my throat.
“Please—” The word fractures, and his groan vibrates against my breast as he takes my nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling in cruel, perfect circles. I writhe, but he pins me harder, his teeth grazing the sensitive peak until I’m sobbing. “ Please , I need— god , I need to—!”
“Need what ?” He lifts his head, eyes blazing, and shifts his angle just so. The new friction is intense, ruthless, and my vision whites out for a heartbeat. “Use that pretty mouth, vixen. Tell me.”
“Let me cum!” I choke out, nails raking the sheets. “ Now .”
“ Cum , vixen. Let me feel you.” His hand slips between us, thumb pressing tight to my clit, and the world splits .
I shatter with a cry. “Gideon!”
My body clenches around him, waves of ecstasy crashing so hard I’m weightless, boneless, his .
He follows instantly, hips stuttering as he buries himself to the hilt, his roar muffled against my neck. “Ava! Fuck! ”
I feel every pulse of him, hot and thick, filling me as his breath comes ragged against my skin.
Afterward, as we lie tangled together in the afterglow, I trace random patterns on his chest and marvel at how different everything feels. The same bed, the same man, but nothing is the same at all.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“That I never thought I’d be here again,” I admit softly. “A week ago, I was convinced you were just like my stepfather. That you’d only pretended to care about my art while planning to destroy it.”
His arms tighten around me. “I will never betray you like that, Ava. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it, if you’ll let me.”
I prop myself up on one elbow to look at him properly. “The rest of your life, huh? That’s a pretty big commitment for someone who insisted our arrangement was strictly temporary.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. It’s not the guarded smirk I’d grown accustomed to, but something genuine and a little vulnerable. “Maybe I’ve had a change of heart.” He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Maybe I realized some arrangements are worth making permanent.”
My heart does that funny little skip again, and this time I don’t try to ignore it. “Are you proposing? Because technically, we’re already married.”
“Not properly,” he counters. “That was a business arrangement. I want to do it right this time. No contracts, no clauses, just a promise between us.”
Tears prick at my eyes again, but they’re different from the ones I’ve shed all week. “I’d like that,” I whisper, leaning down to press my lips to his. “I’d like that very much.”
As sleep begins to claim me, wrapped securely in the warmth of his arms, I think about the paintings I created during our time together. How they traced the evolution of what I thought was just a convenient arrangement into something real and lasting. Maybe I’ll create a new series, I decide drowsily. One that captures not just the pain and confusion of falling unexpectedly in love, but the joy of that love being returned.
Tomorrow, we’ll have more to discuss. Practical matters like what happens with the trust and the gallery and all the other loose ends of our previous arrangement. But tonight, for the first time since this all began, I fall asleep with no walls between us, no pretenses, and no doubts about where I belong.
Right here, with him.