Chapter 34
AVA
Early the next morning, I got to work, feeling a nervous flutter of excitement in my stomach. I’d see Desmond again. I’d hopefully get a chance to sort this out with him later on.
I worked the café until ten, when the daily meetings started and it was my turn to cart the coffee to the various meeting rooms.
I looked up my schedule and saw that I was taking coffee and snacks to the quarterly team meeting for the finance department on the sixth floor. Walking to the pantry, I loaded up the cart with the coffee carafes, bagels, and snacks before I took the elevator up.
When I reached the sixth-floor meeting room, a long room that could easily hold fifty people, I saw all of the finance team was assembled, waiting and sitting around a large wooden table that was cut in a designer woodwork way.
I started arranging the food and drinks on the counter that ran along the wall when Des showed up.
Not stopping or slowing down, he walked past me to the empty chair at the end of the table, and I froze with my back to him.
The air around us changed as he took his seat silently.
We hadn’t spoken or texted since our fight six days ago.
There wasn’t a hint of a smile on his face or a sign that he recognized me.
I finished arranging the food and took my empty cart out of the room, heading down the corridor to the elevator.
I got into the elevator, finally accepting that I perhaps wouldn’t be able to talk to Des at work, and hit the button for the lobby, watching the doors close.
I looked at the numbers on the display panel as the elevator went down.
Five, four, three—
It stopped.
I pushed the cart to the side to make room as the elevator doors opened with a beep. I saw Desmond standing there, huffing slightly. My jaw fell open as I stared at him.
“You—what are you doing here?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “Your colleagues are waiting for you in the meeting.”
“They can wait.”
It had been so long since I’d heard his deep voice that I felt the ache inside me ease a little.
He stood outside for a minute before looking at me with such longing that I felt my heart tug.
“I’ve wanted to tell you,” he said, standing resolutely outside the elevator while I stood inside, “tearing the restaurant up was a backup option from the beginning, and I wasn’t sure I would consider it.”
The doors made to close, but he put his hands on either side of the elevator, and the doors opened again. Obliging to the billionaire, like everyone else. He kept his hand on the sides to prevent them from closing again.
“And besides, when my team first brought up the idea that the location for The Galley was a much better option for a new Luxe Hotel, I was thrown for a loop. I couldn’t think straight.
I’d just run into one of the most intelligent, beautiful women I’d ever known, and I didn’t want to ruin things by telling you I was about to destroy your baby. ”
The elevator made a beeping sound, like it wanted to close its doors, but couldn’t.
Desmond didn’t let go.
“Wouldn’t you have dismissed me right off the bat if you’d known? Wouldn’t you have ignored me if you’d known?”
I nodded. “I would have,” I whispered. “But at least I’d have been safer. I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, like I am now.”
He bowed his head, thinking deeply. When he raised his head, he gave a slight nod. “You’re right. I was selfish. I was selfish in wanting more time with you. In wanting to see what Ava Hale ten years later was like. What Desmond and Ava ten years later would feel like.”
I hesitated, tripping over the words Desmond and Ava. I looked away for a minute before looking down at the ground. “It feels awesome,” I whispered. It felt like a confession.
When I looked up, he was leaning his head against the wall to the side of the elevator. “I agree,” he said in a low voice. “And that tiny, selfish reason is the one thing that kept me going. It was the lie that started this amazing thing that is us.”
I blinked, feeling a gush of emotions. He thought we were wonderful together.
I nodded. “I need to tell you something too. For the past few months, running the restaurant was getting much too stressful for me. And I realize now how much lighter I feel now that I don’t have to worry about its finances anymore.
So, if you think the restaurant isn’t profitable anymore, then I understand. I trust you.”
“Thank you,” he said. “But I take full responsibility for that lie, you know. And I promise you, it won’t happen again. I will be completely honest with you in our relationship, Ava, going forward.”
“Relationship?” I whispered, blinking through my tears. “I thought we were a two-week fling?”
He grinned as the beeping elevator finally got to be too much to bear.
He took two steps toward me, and he was towering right in front of me. His hands clasped mine and placed them on the wall behind me. “I’m serious about you, sweetheart,” he breathed out heavily, getting his face close to mine. “To me, you were never just a fling.”
My heart started to race as I considered this. The idea of dating Desmond. Of being his. Maybe even taking a vacation together. A proper relationship.
His eyes were on my lips, and my heart started to race just as the doors started to close.
“Thank you for the cake,” I whispered. “It was delicious and wholly unhealthy.”
His lips slanted over mine as the elevator doors closed, and the searing kiss that followed was everything I wanted it to be. Breathless, fierce, and passionate. I could taste the desire in that kiss.
From this moment on, I wasn’t holding anything back with Desmond anymore.
Later that afternoon, during my lunch break, I took out the journal Desmond had given me and looked at it. I needed to heal my anger with Mom, and I needed to give Desmond’s suggestions a chance.
I poised my pen on the paper, but struggled with my emotions when I got a text from Desmond.
Desmond: I hope you’re prepared to spend the night at my place tonight.
I smiled, and the spark of excitement that Desmond’s text lit up in me made it much easier to put my words and emotions in his journal.