Chapter Ava Reynolds
AVA REYNOLDS
I stood in the mirror with one earring in and the other in my hand, staring at myself.
I told myself I was getting dressed because Zahra and I were going out to celebrate the vote, and that was true.
The Cartiers could finally start building, and everybody had a reason to pop out tonight.
But that was not the only reason I had changed outfits for the third time.
I was thinking about Reek. I hated admitting that, even in my own head.
I’d always known he was fine. A woman would’ve had to be blind not to see it.
He was that toxic kind of handsome that made you look twice and then get mad at yourself for still looking.
He had the most lethal combination: full, neat, beard, deep, crisping lined waves, and a body covered in ink.
He carried himself like he knew exactly what he did to a room, and that little grin of his only made it worse.
He looked good, and he knew it. I never focused on his looks, though, because Reek was a hoe and my heart had been set on Sincere.
Everybody knew it. He flirted for sport.
He moved how he wanted. He was the kind of man you only had fun with.
But I wanted a relationship and something real.
Still, ever since he started flirting with me, I had been thinking about him differently. Not just that he was attractive. I was thinking about how he looked at me, how he talked to me, how he kept pushing, even when I acted na?ve to his flirting.
I leaned closer to the mirror and blended the corner of my eye.
The door opened without a knock.
“Are you ready?” Zahra asked.
I looked at her in the mirror and smiled. “Almost. I just need to finish my makeup.”
She came in and sat on the edge of my bed to wait on me, already dressed and pretty.
I capped my lipstick and asked, “Where are we going again? And who all is gonna be there?”
“The private Cartier spot. Everybody basically. The Cartiers and their spouses. Sincere and Rhythm. Reek too."
I looked at myself in the mirror so she wouldn’t catch my smirk.
Zahra snorted. “I wonder if Sienna’s going to be there now that the vote passed.”
I glanced back at her. “Why you say that?”
She laughed and crossed one leg over the other. “Because I’m wondering how Reek’s gonna get rid of her.”
I turned around fully. “Why you think he wants to get rid of Sienna?”
“Because Sienna doesn’t act like she knows what their situation is. She is acting attached. And Reek is still Reek. That man is a hoe. He is not about to settle down because some girl started playing house in her head.”
My attraction to Reek checked itself right then.
A little part of me had been entertaining the thought of Reek too much.
Hearing Zahra say it out loud snapped me back to the reality I knew in the back of my mind.
Reek was fun to look at. Reek was fun to flirt with.
But Reek was not a man to build a future around.
I turned back to my mirror and picked up my powder brush.
Zahra watched me for a second, then changed the subject. “You still thinking about going abroad for a while?”
I nodded, and she got quiet.
I set the brush down and met her eyes in the mirror.
“I need space, Zahra. I need to figure out what I want without everybody around me pulling me in a direction. I want to get back to me. School. Travel. Something that feels like my life again.” I swallowed and looked down at my vanity.
“In Daddy’s house, I was the princess and you were the problem.
I hated that. Even while I was benefiting from it, I hated it. ”
I looked through the mirror at Zahra’s expression saddening. Then she shook it off.
“I used to think if I stayed good, quiet, and perfect, he would always protect me. I really believed that. The night he tried to trade me, something in me broke and I still haven’t put it back together.
If the man who said he loved me the most could do that, then what does that say about me?
What does that say about what I’m worth?
” My eyes filled before I could stop them.
“I’m scared of ever needing a man that much again.
I’m scared of being that dependent on anybody.
” I scoffed while saying, “And now look at me. I’m living in another powerful man’s house, protected, guarded, and still depending on other people. ”
Zahra stood up and came to me. “Our father was sick, Ava. The way he was soft with you and cruel to me was the same sickness. It was not love in one hand and hate in the other. It was control in both.”
I started crying for real then.
She took my hand and kept going. “You were not loved better. You were groomed to be useful in a different way. And what Saint is doing is not the same. This protection does not cost you pieces of yourself. He is not trying to own you. He is making sure nobody else gets to hurt you while you figure your life out.”
I covered my mouth and nodded, crying harder. “I know I know. But I feel guilty all the time. I feel like I’m a walking reminder of everything Daddy did to you. I feel like every time you look at me, you see favoritism.”
Zahra’s expression turned sympathetic, and she hugged me. “I don’t. I see my sister.”
I held on to her and cried on her shoulder.
When I could talk again, I pulled back and wiped my face. “I don’t want to leave you. I need to leave. It’s not because of you. I just need to go.”
Zahra looked at me for a long second, then she sat back down on the bed and pressed her lips together like she was trying not to say something.
“What?” I pressed.
She looked up at me and said, “I don’t want you to leave.”
I sighed. “I know.”
“No, I really don’t want you to leave.”
The way she said it made me stop moving.
Then she smiled, and she grew teary eyed. “I’m pregnant.”
I gasped as the biggest smile spread on my face. “What?!”
She nodded, crying and laughing at the same time. “Yep, I’m pregnant.”
I screamed so loud I scared my own self, then I dropped to my knees in front of her and grabbed her hands. “Shut up. Zahra!”
She laughed through her tears. “I’m serious.”
I started crying again and hugged her around her waist. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“I thought you wanted to wait a while and just enjoy your honeymoon phase.”
“I was okay with waiting. We didn’t plan to get pregnant, but I’m not surprised, since Saint won’t stop cumming in me and I’m not the best at taking my birth control every day.”
“What did Saint say? I know he was so excited.”
“I just found out. I didn’t tell him yet.”
I pulled back so fast. I wiped under my eyes and pointed at her. “I absolutely have to be there when you tell him.”
She laughed. “Ava—”
“I’m serious. I need to see that man cry like a baby. Because he is going to cry. He acts hard, but he is going to lose his mind.”
Zahra laughed harder and nodded. “He is. He’s going to cry harder than the both of us.”