28. Jet
Chapter 28
Jet
I lift my glass, letting the whiskey burn a trail down my throat as I stare out of my office window.
My heart has never felt like it’s about to drop out of my ass before. Not until I saw Ava’s eyes roll back in her head as all the blood drained from her face. She came around after a cold towel on her forehead and her feet raised.
But my heart hasn’t stopped feeling like I’m about to go into cardiac arrest since.
“Jesus,” I utter as I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“That’s the first time the media team has dealt with something like that.” Hayden laughs as he walks into my office.
I turn away from the floor to ceiling windows and look at him. “Breathe a word and you’re fired.”
He stuffs his hands into his pants pockets as he strolls closer, his eyes dancing with mirth .
“Come on, you mean you don’t want everyone knowing what a charitable member of the Beverly Hills community you are?”
I grumble.
“Fine,” he concedes. “But next time you’re going to get the cops called on you for having your dick out in public, can you do it in my neighborhood? A donation that size will get us the new library we want.”
He sniggers, eyes lit up like the fourth of July. He’s going to be cashing in on the fact I had to call him to help diffuse the situation at my house after Ava ran off for months, if not years.
Still, I’d have donated ten times what I did to the neighborhood community fund to have avoided a trip to jail. The fact it took me hours to make it to Ava’s doorstep riles me.
What if she’d passed out with no one there to help her?
He studies my grave expression. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I mutter.
He’s known me long enough to know when to let something drop.
“So, how’s the hiring going?” he asks instead.
“It’s done. He starts tomorrow.”
“He?” Hayden tips his head in interest. “You got a male PA? Is he hot?”
“Don’t get ideas,” I grit. “Patrick comes highly recommended; I don’t want to have to replace him next week. Fuck your own PA if you must.”
He smirks .
“Jesus Christ, I don’t want to know. Just keep it out of office hours.” I shake my head. How Hayden finds time to get as much action as he does, I’ve no idea.
“You ready for the final push?”
“I am. We’ve got him right where we need him.”
I walk over to the display cabinet that holds some of the awards Atlantic Airways has won. I stare at the mixture of shiny plaques and laser-engraved glass before turning my back on it.
“Callaghan’s getting what he wanted. And we’re getting what we need.”
He looks at me. “You saved the airline. Not even a smile?”
I grimace, and he walks over and grabs my shoulder, squeezing it in solidarity.
“You did what you had to. Everyone in the office will sleep easier. You’re a great CEO, Jet.”
My shoulders tighten at his rare compliment.
“I’m glad someone will,” I say.
“What’s Ava think about—?”
“She’s no longer working for us.”
“Oh. And she’s okay about—?”
My jaw tightens. “She has her own life.”
He stares at me.
“I’m taking her out tomorrow night,” I grumble, regretting sharing the minute his brows shoot up his forehead.
“On a date?”
I press my lips together, my silence giving him all he needs .
“Never thought I’d see the day.” He smiles, strolling toward the door.
“Sometimes you have to move forward, or you’ll just keep standing still,” I mutter as I walk over to my desk.
He turns back. “Good for you.”
I sink into the deep leather chair as he leaves and pick up the framed photograph on my desk. I look at my mother’s wide smile as she stands with her arm around a ten-year-old me. The bright blue plane behind us shines like a jewel.
Just memories now. Something to haunt me, like Ava’s haunt her.
I push my finger and thumb into my eye sockets as the memory of her limp body in my arms surfaces again, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“I’m fine, Jet,” she murmurs as I climb onto the bed beside her and pull her into my arms.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” I slide my hand to her neck and check her pulse again as she closes her eyes. It’s steady.
“Don’t do that again, Ava,” I soothe, my voice low. “Don’t fucking scare me like that again.”
Her gentle breathing as she slips into an exhausted sleep echoes around the room. I stroke her hair back from her face, watching the way her features relax as my fingertips dust her cheek.
I press a kiss to her forehead and just hold her while she sleeps.
I’m going to ruin her, just like I warned her I would .
She’ll hate me.
But it has to be done.
“The view’s better than the bus, I’ll admit.” Ava looks down at me through the limo sunroof.
“Good,” I reply, one hand gripping onto her thigh beneath her dress. I know she can’t fall out, but it doesn’t stop me from being unable to let her go since she asked the driver to open it and then climbed up onto her seat and stuck the top half of her body out.
“Come and see.” She reaches down and tugs the collar of my jacket.
I give in, squeezing myself out of the gap. Her hair is blowing in the evening air, her eyes glowing brightly with the magic of experiencing something new as she gazes at the sun setting over the ocean.
“See? It’s fun.” She grins, then throws her arms up in the air, hollering out a giant ‘whoop’ as the air blows past us.
She turns to me, and her grin settles into a soft smile.
“Forgive me,” I rasp.
“Not yet.”
She bites her lip, her eyes twinkling the same way they have every time she’s said no since I picked her up hours ago. As soon as she woke after blacking out, and I’d satisfied myself that she was okay, I told her I wanted to bring her out tonight. I wanted to spend time with her. Show her I’m sorry and make it up to her.
Ask her for her forgiveness.
She told me ‘no’ three times before we left Zena’s house. A further fifteen times over dinner. And we’re up to number seven since we got into the limo I organized to take her on a tour of all the best places that booger-covered tour buses don’t know about.
Only the ‘no’ has turned into a ‘not yet’.
Soon it’ll be a yes.
And it’ll be the sweetest word I’ve heard.
“How do you get any work done living here?” She sighs dreamily. “I’d be too distracted.”
I barely look at the sunset over the water. It’s got nothing on the flame-haired woman beside me.
“Forgive me,” I murmur, my eyes tracing over the curve of her cheek.
She laughs and shakes her head.
“You always want to win, don’t you?” she tuts, playfully. Her blue eyes narrow. “What if I think you need to grovel harder first?”
“I’ll get on my knees and stay there until they’re just bone if that’s what it takes.”
She sighs, her shoulders softening .
“I don’t need all the flashy gifts, Jet. I just want you to tell me that you’re sorry, and to stop holding yourself back from what could be. To let yourself consider a future with something more.”
I swallow, my throat thick as she turns back to the ocean.
“Are you happy?”
She frowns, like they’re the last words she expected to hear from my lips. But then her brows smooth out and she smiles, her eyes locked on something in the distance.
“Yeah, I am. I’ve been to some amazing places. And now I’m here, seeing LA. Spending time with my mum. It’s what I’ve dreamed about for years.”
“You deserve to see the world, Ava.”
She sighs wistfully.
“Forgive me,” I breathe.
Her face creases as she laughs softly.
“I want to, just to stop hearing you ask over and over.”
“Then do it.”
“Fine.”
The air in my lungs leaves all at once.
“Really?”
“I’ll do it. On one condition.”
“There’ll be a unicorn in a box when we get back. A whole fucking herd of them.”
She laughs as if I’m joking. “I don’t want gifts. I want you to stop being an asshole who keeps people at arm’s length all the time. ”
“I am an asshole.”
She pops a brow at me, but I stand my ground until she rolls her eyes.
“Just the second part of that sentence, then. Be an asshole who lets people in sometimes.”
“I’ll consider it,” I grit, knowing full well I’ve no intention of letting anyone closer to me than Ava has gotten.
I don’t want anyone else.
I shouldn’t even want her.
She snorts, shaking her head. “That’s the best I’m going to get, huh?”
I grunt out a non-response that has her sighing.
“You know, I hope this business with Callaghan is over soon. You need a night out. A huge blow out once it’s done. Get drunk and do something reckless. Lose control for a change.”
“No,” I clip, the collar on my shirt feeling tight against my windpipe.
“You do know how to do something reckless, don’t you?” She sighs when I don’t answer. “Okay… What do you do for fun? What do you enjoy? Apart from making multi-million-dollar business deals and skipping.”
“I…” I run my tongue over my teeth as I think. “I don’t have time for much outside of those two things. The airline is my life.”
“Fine.” She talks slowly like she’s explaining something to a child. “Then just tell me one thing you enjoy doing that isn’t work.”
“I enjoy doing you. ”
Her eyes go wide. “O-kay. To the point, I guess.”
“I mean, fucking you is amazing—"
“Romantic.” She laughs.
“Fuck, what I mean is being with you… Anything that involves having you all to myself. Naked is a bonus. But…” I tip my head back and curse at how badly I’m screwing this up. “I like being around you, Ava. Even though you’re a brat most of the time.”
“Funny kind of apology.” She smirks.
“Forgive me,” I rasp.
“Do not start that again. I’m over hearing you apologize, even though you’ve got lots to be sorry for.”
“Noted. No more apologies.”
“And don’t ever start a fight with me when we’re in the middle of...” She side-eyes me. “That was probably the most awkward exit I’ve ever made from a guy’s house.”
My blood heats at the mention of her with any other men.
“Fine,” I clip.
“I’m surprised you weren’t arrested, coming out in the street like that.”
The Beverly Hills neighborhood fund isn’t surprised.
“I didn’t want you to leave.”
“You didn’t want to lose me?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So what now?” She searches my eyes. “What do we do now?”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Just enjoy the view before it gets dark. ”
Her gaze darts to the sunset over the ocean and back to me.
“Jet, I—”
I silence her with a kiss, and she whimpers.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “For all of it.”
“I forgive—”
I press my fingers to her lips. I’ve spent all day and evening aching to hear her say it. But now that she’s about to, I can’t let her. Because the truth is, I don’t deserve her forgiveness. Not for what I’ve done, and for what I’m going to do if I don’t get a handle on myself and take back control. I should never have taken her to Thailand with me. Let her trust me. Let her believe there is something good there when there isn’t.
I’m the worst kind of asshole.
Clear blue irises, as bright as the reflection of the ocean beneath the fucking sun, dilate.
It’s too late.
She was doomed the moment I lost control and touched her that first time. When I laid her out on my father’s kitchen table and tasted every inch of her like it belonged to me.
This all has to end.
Just not tonight. I’m too damn selfish to let her go without one more night.
“Keep watching the view,” I say against her lips, before giving her another kiss where my tongue entwines with hers with an urgency that races through my whole body. “The view,” I grunt as I sink back inside the limousine, leaving Ava where she is, everything above her waist on full display to the outside world.
“What are you doing?”
I shush her, and she tuts.
Brat.
The privacy screen is up, shielding us from the driver. And the windows are tinted.
I push Ava’s dress up and slide her silk panties down her thighs. No one sees me scrunch them against my face and inhale with trembling lungs, like a drowning man’s life-saving breath. No one sees me stuff them into my pocket to treasure. To add to the ones she gave me in that alleyway before I spanked her. The ones I’ve wrapped around my cock. Fisting it to thoughts of her so hard it should be bleeding. And no one hears the guttural groan that leaves my throat as I bury my tongue inside her cunt and eat her out while she watches the sunset over Malibu beach with dreams in her eyes.
No one.
But I feel every twist of her fingers in my hair as she grabs it and grinds down against my mouth. I feel every pulse, ripple, and flutter she makes on my tongue as I press it against her clit and lick.
I feel every damn thing she does.
Including the moment she comes with my tongue buried in her. Comes so hard that her legs give way and I have to catch her around the underside of her ass and hold her up on my face so I can finish pushing her through her orgasm.
And I feel the emotion in her gaze as she looks down at me afterward, her cheeks flushed, her hands switching to a gentle stroke, fingers tracing over my eyebrows, lips parted as she sighs my name.
It’s the final thing I focus on before I feel the excruciating tear right through the center of my heart knowing it’s the last time.
She can’t be mine.
Not anymore.