Chapter 20 The Ambush
The Ambush
Alec’s sandalwood cologne tickled her nose, making her nose scrunch up and her mouth open to hold back a sneeze. She couldn’t help but compare his cologne to the natural coffee notes that clung to Owen, and how much more she preferred the latter.
“Hey, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.” Alec gave a wide smile, showing off his perfect veneers. A smile she used to swoon over but now inspired indifference. “It’s just me, in the flesh. No need to gape.” He chuckled and reached out to nudge the bottom of her chin.
Ava stepped back when his fingers brushed her face and snapped her lips together. “What are you doing here?” She looked him up and down, noting his crisp button-up and perfectly styled hair. His sleeves rolled back to reveal his toned forearms. Ava felt nothing looking at him.
“My calls and texts haven’t been reaching you, and I haven’t seen you since the meeting I set up with the board members.
You left the call before we could talk. I’ve been worried about you,” he said, that perfect smile still on his face.
A face that she used to find handsome. He took a step closer. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
Ava considered saying no and keeping him outside, but her engrained southern manners and hospitality training wouldn’t let her.
She stepped back and swept her arm inside, waving him into the combined kitchen and dining room.
She watched him look around the initial space, cataloguing everything he saw.
“This is the cabin? You weren’t kidding that your Dad loved loons.” His placid smile still in place, he stepped close and grabbed her wrists in a gentle hold. Lifting them to kiss the backs of her hands. “It’s so good to see you, finally. You’ve been hard to reach.”
Ava pulled out of his grasp, stepping back and crossing her arms across her chest. “Why are you here? And how are you here? I never gave you the address.” His unexpected arrival confused her.
She’d told him stories of the cabin and Cedar Falls, but never enough detail for him to find the location of her dad’s property.
“When you stopped responding to my attempts to reach out to you, I grew worried. You weren’t even responding to my follow-up emails about the meeting. Then Morgan texted me–”
“What do you mean, Morgan texted you?” Hurt pierced Ava’s already bruised heart at the thought of her friend going behind her back. Morgan knew how she felt about Alec.
“Yesterday, Morgan reached out to me. She said she’d gotten back from visiting you and invited me to meet for a drink. She was worried about leaving you here on your own because you were struggling with your dad’s loss and suggested I come. So I got the first flight I could today.”
Ava uncrossed her arms to rub her temples, not believing what she was hearing.
Morgan had been home for barely twenty-four hours before she went behind her back and talked to Alec.
She remembered Morgan questioning her about getting back together with Owen after their run-in yesterday, and it clicked.
Morgan had sent Alec to convince her to get back together, so she’d forget about Owen.
Her head and her heart ached. From the fight with her brothers, the hurt from Morgan’s disloyalty, the frustration from Alec not listening to her.
She was over it.
“Alec, we broke up.” She enunciated each word, hoping to get through to him.
His calm smile dropped, replaced by a confused frown. “You said you needed time to grieve your dad and get his affairs settled. I know we broke up, but I thought it was all temporary, until you got back to New York. I’m happy to give you space, but Morgan said you needed me.”
Ava tilted her head and stared at him, not comprehending what he said. She distinctly remembered uttering the words “it’s over” to him. He was handsome and nice, and easy to be around, but she’d never loved him.
“It didn’t cross your mind there was a reason I didn’t answer your calls and texts?
It’s because I didn’t want to. I appreciate the introduction to your contacts on the Grand Bohemian board, and I hope we can continue to have a business relationship.
But we’re over,” she said, recrossing her arms across her chest. Brief worry flashed through her mind about the wrinkles the last few hours had caused with all her frowning.
“You’re grieving, and that’s fine. I’m willing to wait for you.” He stepped closer, despite Ava’s guarded stance. “I love you,” he said.
She smothered her laughter at the ridiculousness of his proclamation.
Maybe it was the fight with her brothers, or the grief from her dad’s decisions she would never get answers to, or simply the fact there was only one man she would give anything to hear those very words from, and it was not the man standing unwelcome in front of her.
“You don’t love me. You don’t even know me. Not the real me.” She shook her head at him.
“What are you talking about? Of course I love you,” Alec said.
Ava uncrossed her arms and arched an eyebrow at him. “OK, what is it you love about me? How does it feel when you kiss me?”
Alec paused, as if giving thought to her questions.
“I love how dedicated you are to your work. I love how well we look together; you know how to charm my work colleagues and you’re sexy as hell on my arm at the events we attend in those black dresses.
” He stepped closer and grabbed one of her hands.
“And kissing you is like, well, it’s a kiss.
Is a kiss supposed to elicit something other than affection? It’s an emotional transaction.”
Ava sighed, disappointed but not surprised by his answers.
“Those are all surface level things about me. You don’t crave my presence or feel like kissing me is like coming home.
You don’t miss the heat of my body when it’s no longer touching yours.
” Ava stopped herself, becoming out of breath the more she talked. Her chest heaved.
Understanding dawned on Alec’s face. He backed up, putting space between them. “You feel all those things. But not about me, right? You don’t love me, because you love someone else.”
Ava stayed silent, unsure what to say in the face of Alec’s revelation.
He laughed to himself, staring at the front door.
“I’m an idiot, aren’t I? I built up this relationship between us, thinking things were perfect, and you just needed space after your dad’s death, but that was just a convenient excuse for you to break up with me.
We still would’ve broken up, regardless. Am I right?”
Ava bit her lip and nodded. Nothing she said now would make him feel better. The indifference she felt toward him melted into shame about herself. She hurt everyone around her by ignoring what she didn’t want to deal with. Owen. Her brothers. Her dad. Alec.
They all deserved better.
Not someone who pretended and avoided to keep herself safe at the expense of others.
She always waited for someone or something else to push her in one direction or another so she didn’t have to decide herself.
Her mom pushed her toward Columbia. The breakup with Owen pushed her to New York.
Her dad’s death forced her to confront her past in Cedar Falls.
She’d been a passive participant in her own life, and all it did was hurt others.
“Right,” Alec said, the disappointment clear in his voice. “I’m sorry about your dad. I hope you figure yourself out, Ava. And whoever it is you have these feelings for, tell them, instead of putting another guy through whatever this was between us.”
Shame settled in the pit of her stomach, his words battering her already bruised heart. “Alec, I’m s–”
“Don’t.” He shook his head, brushing aside her attempted apology. He walked toward the doorway, the signature loon yodel absent, as he opened the door. “Take care, Ava.”
The door snicked closed behind him, leaving Ava in the overwhelming silence of the cabin.
Her mind raced, unable to process the adrenaline rushing through her body.
She couldn’t stay here, not in the wake of all the hurt lingering in the cabin.
She pulled out her phone to call the one person she could count on—Summer.
Her heart thundered as the phone rang in her ear. Pick up, pick up.
“Hello?”
“I need you to come get me.”