1. Ava #3
“Are you okay?” Lycan asked when I found him near the bar.
“Yeah, just…I met someone in the bathroom who said they knew my mother. That I looked just like her.”
Lycan blinked. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” I said, belatedly realizing one important fact. “She never told me her name.”
“I’ll have Bow pull the guest list,” he said. “But this time of night, everyone’s been drinking. Maybe she was confused.”
The night went on around us, and by midnight, my feet ached, and my eyelids stuck together anytime I blinked.
We left before the party ended, escorted back to our hotel suites on the penthouse floor by a team of security.
Locust, a member of the Royal Bastards MC and the leader of the squad, unlocked my door and headed inside while Lycan and I waited in the hallway next to Bow.
“Thank you,” I said, sheepishly looking up at Lycan. “For saving me back there…with Scott.”
He scoffed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “You had nothing to worry about.”
“Still. I appreciate you having my back.” I raked my gaze down his disheveled attire.
He’d untied the bow around his neck, now hanging unevenly down his chest, and his hair stuck out at odd angles, evidence that he had run his hands through it on the way home.
In my tipsy state, my fingers itched with the overwhelming urge to tunnel through it.
I clenched them to my side to keep them in place.
“You dodged a bullet with him,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
I breathed out a small laugh, pitying a younger version of me that had wished things could be different. I hadn’t had time for him then, and I didn’t have time for him now. Still, some small part of me wished I had.
“No man should talk to a woman like that, especially not one carrying his fucking child.”
“Such language.” I touched my lips in feigned offense. “Careful not to upset my delicate sensibilities.”
Lycan chuckled, narrowing his eyes. “You did well, Ava. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Well, he didn’t agree to discuss my proposition any further, so I suppose that remains to be seen.”
Locust returned and nodded at both of us, holding open the door. “All clear.”
“Thank you, Locust,” I said and took a few steps forward.
Maybe it was the champagne catching up to me, or maybe it was the lingering sensation of Lycan’s fingers on my waist, but a sharp pang echoed through my chest at the thought of being alone for the rest of the night.
Our security detail walked down to the end of the hallway, taking up their posts on either side of the elevator while Lycan lingered in the same spot.
“Do you want to come in for a nightcap?” I nodded toward my room.
Lycan lifted his eyebrows, parting his lips before he quickly returned to his default casual demeanor. “I should get some sleep. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
I pretended the ice-cold rejection racing through my veins was nothing. Our earlier closeness had been a ruse, a farce. He wasn’t interested in me, not like that. We were business partners. Barely friends. What the hell was I thinking?
“Of course. Right.” I pulled up my iron shield and ignored the stab to my pride.
“Rain check, though,” he said, but I knew he was only being polite.
“Sure,” I said. “Good night, Lycan.”
“Good night, Ava.”
I shut the door, turned to my cavernous suite, and rubbed my hands over my face.
If Lycan thought about me differently after my drunken invitation, he didn’t show it.
The next day, he teased and played the dutiful business partner in all our meetings.
He had that night off, so I ordered takeout and drank an entire bottle of expensive wine by myself while watching old reruns of a TV show I liked as a kid.
I tried to call Maeve, but she didn’t answer.
I trembled with an anxious shiver, something I’d always attributed to our time spent as one embryo.
Maeve and I were two sides of the same coin.
She was wild and reckless, while I was reserved and cautious.
She lived to revel in all the excitement life could offer, while I spiraled and ruminated about every decision I’d ever made.
Six months ago, she’d collapsed at the dining room table, and I thought I’d watch her die right in front of me, helpless to do anything to stop it.
After eons of testing, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her, only to say she’d suffered a cardiac event and she needed to be monitored to ensure it didn’t happen again.
It hadn’t, but it’d scared the hell out of me.
I hadn’t wanted to come on this trip for fear it might, and I wouldn’t be there to save her the next time.
I called her every day, sometimes more, and she always answered.
Still, one night of missed calls didn’t mean anything.
No, it was the tightening in my chest and the chill in my bones that shouted, “Something’s wrong. ”
I tried to ignore the pang of loneliness echoing with each thump of my heart, reminding me that everyone in my life would move on eventually while I stayed rooted in one spot, constantly debating the right course of action. I choked back a sob and smacked my own face.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Get back to work.
Pity party over, I chugged the rest of my wine, wiped my cheeks, and turned off the TV. Then I went to bed.
The next morning, I looked like hell—red eyes, swollen with huge, heavy bags under them and jowls like a basset hound. I donned my corporate armor, determined to let last night’s lapse fade into the darkest recesses of my mind.
Lycan looked worse. Dark circles bruised his under-eyes, and his cheeks were sunken in on his face. I paused in the hallway upon greeting him, and I was about to ask him what the hell happened, but who was I to talk?
“Good morning,” he said, his voice gritty.
“Morning,” I replied.
Together, we made our way down to the lobby and into the limo that would escort us to the subsidiary of Vanderbilt Holdings where we’d spend the day rubbing elbows with the company’s C-Suite. The drive passed in silence for a few moments before Lycan shifted and cast a narrowed glance at me.
“Are you okay?” He seemed genuine, if a bit reserved.
“Fine,” I replied. “Are you?”
“Fine,” he answered. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look exhausted.”
“Long night.” I paused and clasped my hands together in my lap. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like you died and came back to life.”
He barked a laugh. “Long night.”
“What’d you get into, if you don’t mind me asking?” I kept my tone friendly, conversational, not letting my curiosity show.
“A bit of this, a bit of that,” he replied, suspiciously vague. “What about you?”
I sighed and looked away, my chest tightening with the shame of drinking myself into a stupor and crying myself to sleep. “Same.”
My phone rang just as we pulled up to the office, and I narrowed my gaze at the caller ID.
“Scott,” I said as I answered.
“Hi, Lonnie,” he said. “I wanted to catch you before you got too busy for me.”
I ignored the hint of resentment in his tone.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking about your proposal,” he said. “Stop by my office when you’re in London. We might be able to come to terms.”
I laughed at his audacity. “I don’t just stop by offices for probabilities. Send me something worth considering.”
“God, I missed that about you,” he said. “Always playing hard to get.”
“I’m not playing, Scott,” I said. “I am hard to get.”
Which he remembered well.
Scott laughed. “Fair enough. We’ll talk soon.”
I hung up and turned to Lycan, who had one eyebrow raised and his jaw set in a tight grimace.
“He doesn’t want me to involve his sister,” I said. “He wants to say it was his idea.”
“Maybe that’s part of it,” Lycan admitted.
That piqued my interest. “Only part?”