“Mr. Ward?” Clive says again as I pass his desk, his eyes wary.
I return my attention forward. “Thought I saw someone,” I say quietly, getting in the elevator and shaking off my paranoia as I’m carried back to the penthouse. I really am going crazy.
I close the door, lock it, and lean against the wood, looking up to the top of the stairs. I can hear her. Smell her. Home.
In the kitchen, I scratch around for two clean plates, then proceed to load Ava’s with a bit of everything, piling it up high, smiling, thinking we’ve both worked up quite an appetite today. Takeaway. My favorite girl. If only she’d have relented and said the words I need to hear, today could have been the best day of my life. I pause, thinking, as I lick some sauce off my thumb. The person outside the doors of Lusso was a woman. There one second, gone the next. I should have the cameras che…
No, I’m being completely irrational.
Ava. Where’s Ava?
I grab some cutlery and am just about to go get her when I hear movement from the door. As ever, I’m rendered incapable of anything when she’s before me. And now, drowning in my shirt, her hair a sexed-up mess, her face free from makeup, and her long legs bare, I’m suddenly not hungry for food anymore. “I was just coming to find you.” I spend a good, pleasurable while drinking her in. “I like your shirt.”
She looks down coyly, like putting that shirt on wasn’t tactical. She knew exactly what she was doing. Killing me softly. “Kate didn’t pack any slobby clothes.”
I smile on the inside. That’s because Kate didn’t pack her clothes at all. “She didn’t?” I ask as I finish serving up, ignoring her look that tells me she’s onto me. And yet she doesn’t challenge me. Doesn’t scold me for performing a ramraid on her bedroom. “Where do you want to eat?”
“I’m e...” She fades off, and I grin like an idiot.
“Only for me, yes?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes. It’s quite ironic. She’s not exactly easy unless I have my hands all over her. I collect the plates and water. “We’ll slum it on the sofa.” We head into the lounge and I let her settle, her legs tucked under her arse, the shirt riding up her thighs. Lord, those thighs. Wrapped around my waist.Feed her.I hand over her plate and relish in the deep inhale she takes as I find the remote for the TV and open the doors to reveal the gigantic flat-screen.
“Do you want to watch television, or would you prefer music and conversation?” I ask, watching her shoveling some noodles into her mouth. She freezes, and I smile as she swallows, ridding her mouth of the obstruction to speech.
“I’ll take music and conversation, please.”
Stupid me. I shouldn’t have asked. I should have put on the TV and settled down, not giving her the option to question me. Because that’s what’s going to happen. Questions. I look across to her, finding she’s back to shoveling food into her mouth, ravenous.
“Good?” I ask.
“Very. You don’t cook?”
“I don’t.”
She doesn’t even remove her fork to smile. “Why, Mr. Ward,” she coos, and I know something snarky is coming, “is that something youdon’tdo well?”
Yes, as well as being honest, apparently.“I can’t be amazing at everything,” I say mindlessly, gazing directly at her, hoping my pros outweigh my cons.
“Your housekeeper cooks for you?”
“If I ask her to, but most of the time I eat at The Manor.”
She nods, thoughtful, her mind evidently spinning. Here they come. The questions. “How old are you?”
I still, thinking, being presented yet again with the perfect opportunity to feed her curiosity. “Thirty,” I say quietly, tagging an “ish” on the end.
“Ish.”
“Yes.” I match her small smile. “Ish.”
She shakes her head mildly, only slightly exasperated, and goes back to eating, slowly working her way through the plate. My mind reels as I study her thoughtful state, wondering what’s running through that pretty head.
“Ava?”
She jumps, startled out of her daydreaming. “Yes?”
“Dreaming?”
“Sorry, I was miles away.” She sets her fork down, and I free her hands of the plate, putting it on the table with mine.