Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
No Manor.
The glass turns slowly in my grasp on the bar, the water crystal clear as I keep my focus on it, watching the small ripples. Could I really let it go? Give it up?
Jesus, no, what am I thinking? I laugh out loud, shaking my head and that crazy thought away. My mobile brings me back down to earth, and I smile when I see who’s calling me, even if I’m more than surprised. “Ava?”
“The gates won’t open,” she cries, and my heart instantly drops into my stomach at the sound of her distress. What gates? Where the hell is she?
“Hey, calm down,” I order, getting up from the stool, my feet moving without me telling them to, instinct taking me out of the bar. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the gates,” she yells, hysterical. “I’ve been pressing the button, but no one’s opening them.”
She’s here?
I’m out on the steps of The Manor looking down the driveway before I know it, even though the gates aren’t visible from here. “Ava, stop it.” I feel in my pocket for my keys. “You’re worrying me.” My mind starts to race with reasons for her distress. Has Van Der Haus shown up? Coral, Freja, Sarah? My heart misses a beat. The woman I saw this morning? I take the steps down to the gravel in a few panicked leaps. Was it really her? Fucking hell.
“I need you,” she whispers on a ragged breath, forcing me to a stunned stop. “Jesse,” she sobs. “I need you.”
Panic chokes me, my legs breaking out into a sprint to my car as I fumble with the fob. “Pull down the sun visor, baby,” I say, breathless with worry. “There’re two buttons.” I get the door open and fall behind the wheel. “One for the gates to Lusso, the other for The Manor gates.” Slamming the Aston into gear, I pull off, tossing my phone on the passenger seat when it connects to Bluetooth. “Ava?” I say when I get no reply. “Ava, talk to me?” I can hear noises, banging and . . . sobbing. Jesus Christ. “Ava?” The steering wheel in one hand, my other raking through my hair, I race toward the gates. “Ava, please, talk to me.” A stressed sweat dampens my forehead, her cries so loud I can hear them over the roar of my engine. “I’m coming, baby.” I see her Range Rover in the distance, coming at me at speed. The brakes screech, she skids to a stop, and I watch in horror as she dives out of the car and runs toward my Aston. What the fucking hell has happened?
I slam my foot on the brakes and get out, using the top of the door as leverage to push off, sprinting to her, adrenaline feeding my urgency. Her body collides with mine, my arms pulling her in, holding her, hugging her hard. “Jesus, Ava.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, hardly able to talk through her shakes, her arms clinging to me tightly, grappling at my back, as if she wants to crawl into me.
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” she breathes into my collar. “I just needed to see you.”
I stare down at the ground in disbelief. “Fucking hell, Ava.” I try to wrestle her out of my body, but her hold is fierce. Unmoving. “Please, explain,” I beg, my mind spinning with endless reasons for her state, none of them particularly pleasant. “Ava?”
“Can we go home?” she asks, her words broken over her constant jerks.
She needs me. Just needs me. I know this woman inside out. Yes, I know she needs me, but this? “No,” I grate. “Not until you tell me why the fuck you’re in such a state.” I use brute force to pry her hold away from my back, putting her at arm’s distance and checking her over. For what? Wounds? “What’s going on?” Anger is overtaking my worry.
Her body convulses when she lets out a gasped sob, her eyes releasing a steady stream of tears down her cheeks. “I’m pregnant.”
Something enters by body so fast, some kind of force, I jolt violently.
“I lied to you,” she sobs quietly, following it up with an apology.
“What?” I whisper, stepping back. No. She’s not pregnant. The doctor confirmed it. She’s not pregnant. I’m shooting blanks. She went out and got absolutely obliterated on Friday night. Kissed another man! I’ve fucked her hard and wildly since. So hard and wild.
She can’t be pregnant.
“You make me so”—her breathing’s shaky, strained—“mad.” She can’t even look at me, her gaze directed at her feet. Disgrace is oozing off her. “You make me mad, and then you make me so happy.”
I make her mad? I make her mad, so she lied to me? And I can’t even feel any shame for my thought process, because my lies have always been to make her happy. This lie? She told it to intentionally make me sad. She told this lie in a mean fit of revenge. “I didn’t know what to do,” she whispers.