Ava
It took me three days to realize I was in the wrong place. My life was moving forward and I wasn’t a part of it anymore. I was watching it from the sidelines, wondering how the hell it was moving on without me.
Graham and I were good – as good as we could be when I wasn’t invested – and my job went well. Hannah and I did our lunches together and talked about trivial shit for an hour every other day.
And nothing felt like it was working for me. I was on auto pilot. I had turned down a life I was sure would rip me apart in exchange for one that was suffocating me with its sameness. On Friday, Graham picked me up from the office for date night. We were going to a restaurant that I couldn’t remember the name of. I had packed higher heels and a different blouse to be able to dress for the occasion.
The restaurant – although classy – was the same as all the others we’d gone to. I couldn’t tell them apart anymore. They all had menus that offered roughly the same. We drank wine and talked about our day and laughed and pretended like we were in love even though it was one-sided.
I wasn’t in it anymore.
When the starters arrived, I realized what I was doing wrong. I was in the wrong place, with the wrong person.
“Graham,” I said, interrupting him. He’d been talking about work and I hadn’t been paying attention.
“Yes?” he asked.
I shook my head, trying to find the words.
“I can’t do this,” I finally got out.
Graham blinked at me. He looked around the restaurant for a moment.
“This feels a lot like déjà vu to me,” he said.
I nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this… I just can’t do this. I can’t keep pretending with you. I tried but I just can’t do it.”
Graham sighed. “I had a feeling it would come to this. It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Who?” I asked.
“James Weber.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing between us. It’s not about someone else. It’s about… me.”
Graham nodded. “I know that. I didn’t think you were cheating on me. It’s just the way you reacted when I told you he was at the door. The way your fire was drained since then. It doesn’t take a lot to see that the woman you love doesn’t love you the same.”
I swallowed and suddenly I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t him to think he wasn’t good enough. I just couldn’t do it.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
I looked down at the starters – garlic snails. Had I ordered this?
“I’ll pay for it,” I said.
Graham smiled sadly at me. “Don’t,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
I nodded and pushed back my chair. I walked away from Graham, leaving him behind in the restaurant again. One day, he would find the right woman, someone that would be flattered by his effort. Someone would be able to love him just as much as he dished out.
I went home and turned on my laptop. When the laptop had booted I booked a ticket to Tampa and paid for it. I walked to the bedroom and packed a bag. I needed to get down there and find the heart James had taken back with him after I’d left the hotel that night.
The flight to Tampa was almost four hours with the usual stop-over in Atlanta. When we finally touched down in Tampa it felt like a dream. I took my bag from the overhead compartment – it was small enough to take it as a carry-on – and made my way to the entrance where I ordered a cab to take me to the office.
James worked most Saturdays.
There was no receptionist at the front desk and when I rode the elevator up to James’s office Lauren wasn’t there, either. I carried my back to James’s office and opened the door, hoping it would be unlocked.
I found him hanging in his chair behind his desk. His eyes didn’t focus on me properly and his hand held loosely onto a glass of whiskey. An almost empty bottle stood on the desk in front of him.
“Ava?” he asked, blinking at me.
“You’re drunk,” I said.
“You’re not real.”
I shook my head and closed the door behind me. I walked around the table and took the glass from him before it fell on the floor.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m here to talk to you. I can’t do this anymore.”
“What?” he asked. He pushed himself up in his chair. His eyes focused on mine. Maybe he had decided I wasn’t just a drunken hallucination.
“I can’t do this thing where I don’t know what you want from me. I had someone. I was happy. But you had to come and mess it up for me by making me think that there could be something between us.” I was aware that I sounded hostile. It was either that or break down crying. I wasn’t doing the latter. I had cried over this man far too many times. “So, you have to tell me now. What is it that you really want? Because if it’s me you have to tell me in so many words.”
James looked angry. He frowned. “I told you I love you.”
“That’s not enough, James. I wasn’t enough, even the first time. You still left me. So, what will it be? Why am I here?”
James shook his head and then winced like he regretted doing it.
“I don’t know why you’re here. You have a man, don’t you?”
I was angry. It had been just beneath the surface. I didn’t know why I was so angry – I had come here with the best intentions. It seemed like being angry with James was the one thing I did best.
“I’m not here to tell you I have someone in my life if that’s what you’re getting at. I’m here to find out what the hell you want from me. Why can’t I get away from you? Why are you always a part of my life? Will there ever be a time where I’ll feel like I’m good enough for you?”
James stood up. He swayed slightly but managed to right himself.
“I didn’t ask you to come back,” he said. “Don’t make it my fault.”
“That’s just the problem!” I cried out. “You never asked me to come back. You didn’t ask me to stay. All you ever did was accept that I was there and forget to care when I was leaving. All I wanted was for you to fight for me, James. Instead, you pushed me away because it would be easier. Safer.”
He shook his head. He was hard to read but I could tell he was getting angrier.
“I was trying to look after you! Do you think any of this was for my own health? I told you that this life was too hard, that they would have eaten you alive. I did this for your own sake.”
“And who are you to decide that I needed to be kept safe? Who were you to decide that being with you wasn’t the right thing? You didn’t ask me. You never spoke to me about it. I would have done it for you, James. Even if it was hard. Even if they hated us, I would have stuck by your side because I loved you.”
James shook his head, turning his chair away from me.
“Stop it,” I said. “Stop turning away from it. You run every time it gets hard. Why don’t you face the music for once and deal with what’s in front of you?”
He shook his head, not looking at me.
“I didn’t talk to you about it because resentment was better than regret, okay? In my books, I would rather you hate me because I didn’t come through for you than hating me for fucking up your life.”
I laughed sarcastically. He finally looked at me.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” I asked. “You think you saved me, but you messed everything up, anyway. You shattered my dreams and you had no right.”
I wanted to cry. Damn him, I wanted to cry. I shook my head and picked up the bag I’d dropped on the floor. I opened the door and walked out.
I don’t know how he moved so fast. For a drunk guy, he was steady on his feet. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the office. I glared at him.
“Don’t go,” he said.
It was the first time he’d ever asked me to stay. I nodded. If he’d asked me to stay a month ago, I never would have left.
“You’re too good for me,” he said. His voice was gentle compared to mine. “I know I’m the bad guy in this story, I’m the guy that threw you away when it wasn’t what you wanted. Or what I wanted.”
I blinked. “What did you want?” I asked. The fight had gone out of me a little.
James sighed. “I’ve always wanted you, Ava. From the very start. Even when I told you off. Even when my dad tried to set me up. Through all the other girlfriends and women and everything…” He looked apologetic for his words but he pushed through. “I didn’t know how to be myself, to take what I wanted. I’m ruled by my social image. But I’ve always wanted you.”
“James…”
He shook his head, not letting me speak. “Let me get it out while I’m too drunk to stop myself from throwing it all out there,” he said. He took a deep breath. “You were the first on my list. You’ve always been number one. I’ve tried to forget about you and I can’t. God, and you coming back here with Caleb… I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. That’s cliché, but it’s true.”
He pushed his hands into his hair and rubbed them down his face, making his hair stick up at different angles. He was wearing jeans, not a suit and it made him seem more vulnerable.
“I went looking for you, you know,” he said. “Once, long ago. But they told me you were gone already and they wouldn’t tell me where. And I didn’t know how to find you again.”
I frowned. “You came back for me?”
James nodded. “It was just too late. It’s always too late. It’s too late, again.”
I shook my head and stepped closer to him, taking his hand. I kissed his palm, felt his warm fingers on my cheek when did. His eyes were on me, looking down at me. He lifted his other hand and traced my face with his fingertips.
“How did it take me so long to find you again?” he asked me.
He didn’t let me answer. His lips came down on mine. He was a little clumsy with the alcohol. He tasted like whiskey and raw emotions. I leaned against him. His body was warm and soft. He held onto my face and kissed me harder, with meaning. His tongue slid into my mouth and I gasped. My body responded. Butterflies erupted in my stomach and my breathing sped up. James kissed me like he’d never kissed me before – like he was finally coming home. And it felt like that, too. I felt his body harden against mine, our feelings translating to lust. His hand slipped around my waist and he pulled me as tightly against him as he could. He leaned forward, bending me backward slightly.
His other hand slid down my neck and onto my breast. I wasn’t wearing sexy clothes but in his arms, I felt like a queen, a model, a goddess.
His fingers fumbled with my jacket. I helped him get rid of it. My shirt was next. The gentleness we had started out with slowly disappeared, replaced with an urgency I’d never felt before.
I unbuttoned the buttons on the collared shirt James was wearing. He pulled his arms out one by one, eager to get out of it. It fell on the office floor, forgotten. My shirt came off and I was in just my bra, my skin against his, searing, aching. His hands fiddled with the clasp at my back and I helped him take off the bra. He pulled down his jeans and I got rid of mine so that we were both naked in front of each other.
James stopped and stared at me.
“It’s always so surreal with you,” he whispered. “I’m always scared you’ll disappear afterward.”
I shook my head. This time, I wasn’t going anywhere.
James kissed me against, pressing his naked body against mine. His erection pressed against my lower abdomen, trailing a slick line across as he moved. He guided me backward until my back was against the wall. I gasped. The wall was cold. I didn’t notice it for very long.
James lifted one leg with his hand and I hooked it around his hips. He positioned himself between my legs, bending his legs to accommodate our height difference and pushed into me. It was direct and without ceremony or foreplay. We didn’t need it.
He wanted me and I wanted him. I’d been aching for him for so long that this was the release I’d needed. He pulled out and pushed into me again, moving his hips against mine, doing me against the wall. I breathed hard, my mouth close to his ear. He might have been drunk but he knew exactly what he was doing. He was focused and right there with me when the orgasm started building inside me. My core clenched, my legs went numb and I had to rely on James to hold me up. He put his hand on my other leg and lifted me up, pinning me between his body and the wall so I didn’t have to concentrate on keeping myself up.
The sex was rough against the wall but I didn’t care. James was inside me, he wanted me and I wanted him and that was all that mattered. I didn’t know what tomorrow would hold, how I would work everything out, but right here, right now, this was what I wanted.
James carried on pumping into me until I orgasmed. It came out of nowhere and washed over me, making me cry out. I was glad that he’d held me up. I wouldn’t have been able to control my body enough not to fall.
When I hung limply in his arms, James held onto me and turned away from the wall. I used my legs just enough so he could put me down on the floor before he laid me down on the carpet. He crawled over me, kissing me all over my body. He was still hard and I opened my legs for him. I wanted him to finish, too. He kissed me deeply before he positioned himself at my entrance again and pushed into me.
I was sensitive now that I’d orgasmed and I felt every movement he made, every inch as he slid into me again. I gasped when he did.
He looked me in the eye as he moved in and out again, picking up his pace. This wasn’t the same as it had been before. The first time, we had been young, in love, unsure. After that, when I’d come to Tampa, it had been like grasping in the dark for something to hold onto. It had been fucking more than anything else.
But this… it felt like more. It felt like it could be what I’d always wanted it to be with him. He moved inside me and he looked into my eyes and we were one. I didn’t know where my body ended and his started.
Slowly, the pace became primal. He switched gears and instinct took over. The rhythm was mesmerizing, intoxication, and he pumped into me. I got lost in the sensation, echoes of my orgasm returning. The carpet, plush as it was, grazed my back and the sounds of our sex, the smells, filled the office. I didn’t care. It was James on top of me, inside of me, and I wanted this.
I felt him get bigger and his strokes become faster and shorter. When he finally released his face was pure concentration and he groaned. He jerked against me, burying himself deep inside me and emptied himself out. I gasped, feeling my body tug at him, another orgasm flowing through me when least expected it.
This was sex was supposed to be. This was what I’d been missing all those years. I got lost in him and he was lost in me and I didn’t want to walk away afterward. I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to do date nights. I wanted to move in together. I wanted to do gifts and love letters and everything I had hated with every other man in my life.
It had always been James.
When he softened he slid out of me and I felt him. I winced.
“Sorry,” he said, softly. I shook my head and sat up. I looked down at the carpet between my legs.
“We’ve made a bit of a mess,” I said.
“The cleaning service will get it,” James said. He grabbed a box of tissues from his desk and handed it to me.
“You can clean yourself up. Let’s get dressed, and then come home with me. Stay at my place. Don’t go to a hotel.”
I looked into his eyes and nodded. This was what I wanted.
James was what I wanted.
Epilogue
James
Six months later
“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked Ava. She stood in front of the mirror, putting on her makeup. She turned to look at me.
I’d put on khaki pants and a white polo shirt with brown shoes.
“I feel like I look terrible. Like my Dad.”
Ava laughed and shook her head. “I only ever met your dad once but you definitely don’t look like him. You look handsome. I like it.”
I looked down at my clothes and sighed.
“Okay.”
I sat down on the bed and watched Ava finish getting ready. She’d moved in not long after she’d come back to Tampa. At first, it had just been because I’d wanted her with me rather than in a hotel. Later, when she’d gone back to Chicago to get her things and arrange her move down here, I had asked her to keep staying with me.
It had been natural. Having her in my room, getting ready, seemed like it had always been like this.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” I said. She wore a yellow sundress that she said was a Lily Pulitzer dress – whatever that was – and her dark hair was down to the middle of her back, now. She turned and smiled at me.
“I’m putting wedges on with this.” She held up a pair of shoes to show me what she meant. “You don’t think it’s too dressy?”
I shook my head. “Nothing Charlie does is casual.”
She nodded and slipped the shoes onto her feet. She wore minimal makeup and the gold jewelry I had gotten her as a welcome-to-Quad-Corp when she’d started working for me.
She’d been working for me – with me – for the past five months and it was working out. Caleb had helped me buy Amanda out. Instead of me paying him back, he had become something of a sleeping partner. His involvement was more permanent than that of a financial advisor and it worked.
I’d heard somewhere that Amanda was no settled in California and in the process of starting up a new company. I could have made her seem like the bad guy in it all – with my reputation I sure had the leverage for that kind of thing – but I wasn’t cold-hearted and selfish the way she was. Maybe it made me weak in some ways, but I wasn’t going to change and I didn’t want to do to her what she could have done to me.
Maybe I should have. I guess I would never know.
I hadn’t heard of Derek Burgess again. Maybe he had gone with Amanda. Maybe he had sunken back into a normal accountant life.
Ava had taken over all the finances for the company and she played an open hand with me, showing me what happened at all times. I was still getting used to having a business and a personal relationship with her, but we were making it work.
It hadn’t been easy to reverse the mess Amanda had made. She had started years ago and the damage had been large, but with Ava on the team, it was turning around. I hadn’t known how to handle it correctly without throwing it all open and losing the company. Ava knew how to uncook the books slowly and in time we would have a clean slate. Until then it was crossing our fingers and hoping we could get away with it. It was a big risk. I had hoped we could handle it better but I didn’t have any other suggestion.
Quad Corp was on its way to being the most successful company it’s ever been. If we could keep our heads down and keep things under wraps until we’d managed, we would be home free, eventually.
“Are you ready to go?” Ava asked. I swallowed and nodded. “Don’t look so nervous,” she said.
I was nervous. Charlie had gotten engaged to Marlene and we were headed to their engagement party. I had kept Ava far away from Charlie since she’d arrived. He’d heard of my involvement with her but I hadn’t wanted to unleash the wrath on my family just yet.
We had both been invited to the engagement party – I had the feeling it was to scope Ava out as much as it was to celebrate their engagement – and I was scared that they would eat her alive.
“You don’t know Charlie,” I said.
“If he’s anything like you, I can handle him,” Ava said and winked at me. I smiled and shook my head.
We drove to Charlie’s estate and I parked the car. I walked with Ava to the front door where we were greeted by the butler and escorted to the tea room where everything had been decorated to congratulate the happy couple. There was a lot of family present.
I hated family.
“There you are,” Charlie said, coming toward me. Marlene hung on his arm all smiles. She was dressed in a white lace atrocity that I didn’t care for.
“I’m Marlene,” she said to Ava.
Ava smiled and introduced herself politely.
Charlie frowned at Ava the moment she said her name.
“Wait a minute,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “This is your Miss Fischer?”
I nodded.
“She looks familiar.”
He scrutinized her face. Ava glanced at me.
“We met in Apalachicola, a long time ago,” she said to Charlie. “I don’t know if you remember…”
Charlie barked out a laugh. “I can’t believe it!” he cried out. “You’re dating the sea urchin again?”
Ava snapped her mouth shut and paled. I was suddenly angry.
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that,” I said. “She’s my girlfriend and my colleague. I expect you to respect her and treat her like she’s one of us.”
Charlie laughed, a little more unsure of himself. I had never snapped at him like this. I had never stood up for myself the way I just did.
“Come on, James,” he said, still chuckling. “You can’t be serious?”
“I am,” I said. “Dead serious.”
Charlie swallowed and hesitated for a moment.
“Okay,” he finally said and shrugged.
“Congratulations on your engagement,” Ava said carefully. Marlene smiled, unsure.
“Thanks,” she said before Charlie whisked her away.
I turned to Ava.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “This was exactly what I feared.”
Ava shook her head and forced a smile. “You’re my hero,” she said. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
I nodded. I would do that for her anytime. She had become my everything in a very short time. I hadn’t known what love was when I was just eighteen but I had met her and she was the one I’d wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
And now, almost sixteen years later, that was exactly what I was going to do.