~ Ares

“Fuck.”

There was a mountain of papers on my desk when I entered my office and I fought the urge to rip them to shreds. The stockholders had never been very subtle about voicing their opinions, and, in the month since I’d been arrested, the tabloids had devoured me. I was back to being the unhinged bad boy, and every magazine and news rag in the city had my picture on the front page.

I didn’t want to see any of it, I didn’t want to hear it. If anything, my mood was so fucking black that I was in the mood to make some more headlines.

Worse, there was no publicist to run damage control. With my “antics” all over every media outlet available, the public opinion that I’d so painstakingly built up with Ava the past few months had plummeted so much so that the company had started to suffer. No one wanted to buy stocks; no one wanted to invest in real estate that had my name attached to it. The firm was operating in the red for the first time in five years, and looking at the ledgers made me sick to my stomach.

On top of all this, I was frustrated. At myself, at the media, and at the memories that kept springing up, no matter how hard I tried to repress them. How Ava’s hair gleamed in the sunlight. The first time she teetered into my office in her new heels. The look on her face when I gave her her first orgasm and her surprise when I announced that I was making love to her.

We were over. If I never saw her again, it would be too soon but, somehow, I still pined for her. There was a gaping emptiness in my gut that made me grouchy and irritable. I bitched at Margaret until I drove her away in tears and someone from HR came up to slap me on the wrist—hard.

Everything was so incredibly fucked and there was nowhere I could turn.

After clearing the papers from my desk, I sat down and attempted to do as much damage control as I could. If I diverted certain funds to other accounts, I could keep us afloat for the next few months, but if we kept bleeding money the way we were, the firm was finished. I was finished.

So, I didn’t expect to be blamed when a knock on my door earned a barked warning not to enter.

Josiah had never been much intimated by me. He was one of my first and most loyal investors, and, despite the fact that he could be one of the most annoying, he was always by my side. So, when he let himself into my office, I did my best to keep from biting his head off.

“You look worn pretty thin, Ares.”

I merely glared at him, looking back down at my paperwork and determined to ignore him. Deep down, I hoped against hope that he wasn’t about to tell me he wanted out. I heard that prospect was being discussed among several of the other stock leads and the notion was enough to make me lightheaded.

“I think it’s time for a new publicist,” he said.

“No.” I snapped immediately. I was still smarting from the last publicist, and a selfish feeling in my gut didn’t want anyone filling the spot that belonged to Ava. That used to belong to Ava. “No more publicity.”

Josiah sighed, raking a hand through graying hair. “You need something positive to turn this around, Ares. If you don’t, we’ll be in deep crap and you know it.”

I tossed my pen down, sitting back in my chair with a black scowl. Just the mention of a publicist only made me think of Ava, and before I knew it, I was asking the question I had managed to repress for the past five weeks. “Where is she?”

Josiah’s expression softened into something that resembled pity, and my throat tightened. “There’s been news that she resigned her position with the publicity firm. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly feel any worse, my heart plummeted. She quit her job. Which meant that even if I wanted to contact her, to demand that they reinstate her contract, I couldn’t. Just like that, I’d lost my last tenuous hold on her and goddamn if it didn’t hurt worse than I could have imagined.

“Think about the publicist, Ares,” Josiah coaxed softly, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance. “It could be what you need.”

After he left, I stared at my desk despondently. Josiah had to know I wasn’t budging on this. We’d have to come up with another way—one that didn’t involve anything that reminded me of a certain stubborn, blonde-haired whirlwind.

Completely alone, I shook my head slowly. She had been all that was good in my life. She tried to make me better, tried to love me and I pushed her away.

I was such a fucking fool.

**

It took the board a few more weeks to come up with a solution to our problem that didn’t involve any more publicists. By the time they pitched their idea to me, I was so desperate to save my company that I might have agreed to take a naked dive in the Arctic if it got me the confidence I needed to raise my numbers.

But it turned out their idea was nothing so extreme. They wanted to run an art charity auction with the proceeds going to some good cause or the other. At the charity, I would issue a public apology, and hopefully, it would go a long way to regaining the trust of the public. It was as good an idea as any in my opinion, and I didn’t issue a single protest.

Thankfully, the announcement of the event seemed to warm the hearts of the people who had so recently thrown me under a bus. Tickets sold like fucking hotcakes and we raised fifty thousand in a single afternoon from placeholders alone.

When the night of the actual charity came, I lingered in the car before I made my appearance. I knew this was the right thing to do. It was something Ava might have thought of, something clever and humbling. But underneath everything, she would still humor me. She knew who I was, and after the giving, bowing, and kowtowing was over, she’d laugh with me, knowing that she could never completely rid me of my lascivious ways.

Goddamn, I missed her. I’d give anything to see her just one last time.

There was a red carpet outside the venue, and anyone who was anyone had managed to claim a ticket to the event. It was a media nightmare, but I made myself smile for the photos. I knew they could make or break me, and public perception was more important now than it ever had been. After a good thirty minutes of making nice with the people who happily skewered me on a daily basis, I finally made it inside.

Thankfully, Josiah was the first person I ran into and he quickly pulled me aside, his smile hopeful. “Bear with it, Ares. Just one event and we could turn this thing around. Now,” he gestured towards the hall where they were storing the artwork for the auction. “You need to meet with the appraiser, just to make sure everything’s on the up and up.”

“Sure.” My heart wasn’t in it, but my gut certainly was. This night was everything, so I’d be on my very best behavior, even if it killed me.

I stepped past the velvet ropes that cordoned off the art storage space and stepped past the curtain, where time stopped.

For a few precious seconds, I knew I had to be dreaming. Ava stood there, clad in some godly, silver confection of a dress as she looked over a clipboard before carefully checking the details of a vivid watercolor. At the sound of my footfall, she straightened, turning to face me.

My heart leaped into my throat. My pulse thundered in my ears and I was pretty damned sure I forgot how to breathe. She was beautiful, a living work of art herself, and I pinched myself, hard.

“Hi, Ares.” When she spoke, soft and hesitant, I knew it wasn’t a dream. “You look... well.”

“Ava.” My voice was hoarse with disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

She graced me with a small, shy smile and my heart stuttered in my chest. “I’m your Art appraiser. I’ve only been at it professionally for a few weeks, so go easy on me, ok?”

“Right.” I croaked. “I... what... how did you—”

“I’ll be honest with you, Ares.” Thankfully, she saw fit to save me from my floundering. “I... arranged to be here tonight. When I saw the agency posting for your appraiser, I bent over backward to get the position. I need to talk to you.” She placed her clipboard on a nearby table, and I noticed a slight tremor in her hands when she turned back to me. One rose to toy with the ponytail she wore and I remembered that was a sure sign that she was nervous.

My heart swelled.

“I’m sorry.” When she said the words, her gorgeous eyes gleamed with moisture and I felt a rush of emotion like a punch in the gut. “That night with Hamilton... and in the precinct after, I was horrible and insensitive and it was completely out of line for me to speak to you the way I did. I never meant to betray your trust.”

“Ava…” I took a step towards her, swallowing thickly, and she took a shuddering breath, holding up a hand to stop me.

“Please, let me finish.” Her voice trembled slightly. “I was selfish and awful... and if there’s any way you can forgive me…”

“Ava,” I groaned, closing the space between us to sweep her into my arms and crush my mouth to hers. She tasted so goddamned sweet. She was everything I wanted, everything I needed, and I’d be damned if I let her slip away again. “Don’t you dare apologize.” I drew back to smooth stray strands of blonde from her brow, my gaze fierce on hers. “I’m the selfish one. I clung to the past so fucking hard that I wouldn’t let myself accept the way you changed me. I was hurting myself more than you ever hurt me, and that’s on me and me alone. I was fucked when I met you, Ava. Bitter and callous and everything in between and you healed me. I have no fucking clue how, but you did.” I searched her open, hopeful features and knew I had to say what I’d known for weeks. What I was terrified to admit but I knew would save me just as surely as Ava herself. “I love you, Ava. I can’t be without you. Forgive me, God. I’m begging you. Tell me it’s not too late.”

In response, Ava merely laughed, tearful and ecstatic all at once, before tugging my mouth down against hers again hungrily. “I love you,” she murmured desperately between kisses. “There was only ever you. There will only ever be you.”

When Josiah found us ten minutes later, we were still locked in the same embrace. A quick clearing of his throat had me lowering Ava’s skirt back into its proper place as I growled at him possessively. Josiah merely grinned, clearly amused, and I had to wonder how big his part had been in Ava and my reunion. “Apologies, Ares, but you’re needed in the atrium. The auction is about to start.”

Fuck. The goddamned auction. I had all but forgotten about it, but I knew better than to skip it entirely. Too much was riding on it. I looked down at Ava’s flushed face and she laughed coyly. “Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Damned straight you’re not.” I stole another quick kiss before my expression softened to one of pure adoration. “I love you, Ava.”

She turned cherry, obviously embarrassed by my show of affection in front of Josiah. “I love you too, you deviant. Now go, the sooner you finish, the sooner you can come back.”

She had a point. I didn’t think I’d ever gotten onto a stage so quickly in my life—and all the while, thinking of what waited for me after all the glitz and glamor had run its course.

The auction seemed to last forever, but when the last guests had finally taken their leave, I found Ava. She was making sure the art pieces all found their proper homes and I reassigned Josiah to the task before spiriting her away.

With the media focused on the front entrance, we managed to sneak out the back, strolling the few blocks to a dark Central Park as I caught up on the few weeks I’d missed. When Ava told me how she’d finally, finally told off her mother and sister, I couldn’t help but drag her into my arms and against a nearby tree. Our kiss quickly turned heated and, to my surprise, Ava was the one to break it, drawing away to gaze up at me through long lashes. “Hey... have you ever done it in a park before?”

I stared at her for a long moment before a wicked grin split my face. “No. Are you suggesting something?”

Ava giggled, reaching down to shimmy her dress up and over her hips. I was on her instantly, hoisting her up and against the tree and thanking God that the park was dark enough to hide our delinquency. When I thrust home, she gasped my name, twining all her limbs around me to hold me in place.

To keep me where I belonged.

“My naughty little girl,” I groaned against her ear. “I like this side of you. Show me more.”

Ava rolled her hips enticingly against mine and I briefly saw stars. “Anything you say, Ares. Anything you say.”