by Bella Grant
Under his guidance, she thrived in all areas of her life. Her work at the café was impeccable, since she grew into her leadership role, and she had the mental stamina and confidence to direct the other employees as needed. She excelled in school, and now that she had focused her interests into one concrete goal, her degree seemed much more attainable. For the first time in her life, she felt in control. All she’d had to do to get there was give up a little of her control to Carter. By relinquishing her independence to him, she had gained it in every other part of her life.
Their life at home was happiness punctuated by brief moments of tension that typically occurred after she’d spent an hour video-chatting or calling Mateo. She noticed when she relayed their conversations to Carter, he seemed colder and more aloof than usual. Ava couldn’t understand what it was about Mateo that bothered him, since they were practically siblings and he was her best friend. But whatever story she relayed about him was met with a chilly disinterest, and she struggled to comprehend how or why Carter would dislike him.
After one such fight, a month and a half since she moved in, she considered spending the night in the guest house. After a leisurely Sunday afternoon of sex and a nap, Ava woke up and started the shower in Carter’s enormous bathroom. When she crawled back in bed to rouse him, she felt a heaviness in her chest from the absence of Mateo. Looking up at her, Carter stroked her smooth cheek and asked, “What’s wrong, darling girl?”
Ava shrugged and tried to shake away the sadness pressing on her heart. Perhaps it was because the rest of her life was better than it ever had been that she felt the absence of her best friend so acutely. She wanted to share this with him, to show him that everything he had ever wanted for her, his unofficial little sister, was coming true. She wanted him to share in her happiness and know the man who had given her all of this.
When she tried to explain this to Carter, he stood up abruptly and walked away, getting in the shower without her. She followed him, unsure what bothered him so much, but she could tell that her words were grating to him.
“I don’t understand why you’re being like this,” she said finally, staring at their feet in the large glass shower, unable to look him in the eye. It hurt her to displease him, but it also hurt to disavow her friendship. She couldn’t ignore Mateo. He was her brother. For most of her life, he had been her everything. The fact that Carter, the man she loved, didn’t want to know that part of her stung, and she felt the tears well against her lashes, washing away in the stream of the shower water.
“Like what?” Carter asked coolly.
“So dismissive of me when I talk about Mateo!” she answered, frustrated by having to explain it. “What’s your problem with him? I seriously don’t get it. I do everything you want. I let you tell me how to dress and act and please you. He’s my best friend and the only family I have. When you ignore me when I talk about him, it makes me think you don’t want to share that part of my life. It hurts me, Carter. Can’t you see that?”
Her words seemed to strike a nerve in him, because he looked down at her suddenly, his face filled with regret. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “It isn’t easy listening to you talk about him all the time like that. I know he’s important to you, but you wouldn’t be the first woman to step out on me, and I guess I’m a bit sensitive to it. But I’d rather share that part of your life than not.”
“Are you…jealous?” Ava asked, confused. The thought had never occurred to her. Carter was far too self-possessed to ever show any signs of weakness, and as far as she had seen, nothing could ruffle his feathers. The thought that he might be upset by her friendship was something entirely new, and it dawned on her that perhaps he didn’t dislike Mateo, but simply jealous of him.
“Maybe a little,” Carter answered, pulling her hand to his mouth and kissing it. “Bear with me, okay? I’m not good at sharing, and I want you all to myself. But he clearly has a strong hold on you, and I’m not good at dealing with that.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” she asked, feeling her heart flood with compassion for him. “You’ve made me so nervous. I wish you could meet him. You’d see immediately that there’s nothing there but sibling love. He’s my brother, Carter. You’ve got to understand that.”
“I do,” he said. “Or I’m trying, anyway.”
He pulled her close and enveloped her in a hug. His long arms wrapped around her small body, and after holding her for a moment, he picked her up and pressed her against the shower wall with her legs wrapped around his waist. She felt him grow hard against her warmth and after a moment, he reached down to position himself against her, pressing inside her wet center until he was buried. With his cock deep inside her, Ava wrapped her arms around his neck and let him take her, pressing her tight against the cold tile wall, fucking away all the anxiety and jealousy that had built up between them for the past several weeks.
When he came, Ava nuzzled her face into his neck. “Do you think I’m spending too much time here?” she asked nervously. “Am I becoming too dependent on you?”
“Never,” Carter answered without hesitation. “We belong to each other.”
“Do you realize I’ve never actually slept in the guest house?” she asked. “Since the first day I got here, I’ve lived with you. Is that weird?”
“No,” he answered, kissing her forehead. “Don’t question it. Just exist.”
“Okay,” she replied, nodding her consent. But something inside her worried. Life was too good, too perfect. How could these feelings be sustainable? She’d had more happiness in the last six weeks than she’d experienced in her whole life, and at some point, it had to run out.
When she tried explaining these feelings to Mateo over video chat, he disagreed. “I don’t buy it,” he said. “Happiness isn’t finite. You have a good life now. I think you should get used to it. Quit waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it does, it does. But if it doesn’t, you’re squandering the time you could be happy by worrying about some future unknown. Just enjoy it. You deserve to be happy.”
“You sound just like him,” she replied, smiling to herself. Carter has no reason to worry, she thought. She was in love with him and no one else, even though she hadn’t told him so. Things were moving too fast to tell him that. She had never felt this way for anyone before—not romantically—and she didn’t know how to go about it. But holding onto those words felt like a safety measure of some sort, a security net should the bottom fall out and she find herself falling into the unknown.
She wanted to listen to Mateo’s advice and throw herself in the moment. Part of her truly felt she deserved to be happy. But the other part of her—the part that had touched the stove and been burned one too many times—knew better. To let herself go meant being vulnerable, and the more vulnerable she became, the more it would hurt when it ended. And in her experience so far, things always ended.
Ava took a deep breath and refocused on what Mateo was saying about his law school exams and papers, and the people he’d met. She felt so far away from him, and his life in Boston was unknown to her. The person she talked to was half a stranger now, and she feared that if she didn’t see him soon, their lives wouldn’t overlap at all.
“I miss you,” she said wistfully, blinking back a tear before Mateo could see it. His face was grainy in the video chat, and she didn’t know what else to say. “I’ll let you get back to your studies. It was good talking to you. I hope I see you soon.”
“I miss you too,” Mateo replied. “We’ll see each other before long. I’m sure of it.”
Chapter 19
Carter
As the weeks progressed, Carter found himself increasingly invested in his relationship with Ava. His life seemed to accommodate her presence like it was designed for her. Their days were divided between the personal and the professional, and he didn’t need to remind her to keep their work professional. She understood how to behave, and although they found moments to slip away during their days at the café, she was alway
s discreet.
At work, Ava excelled. Carter wondered if it was their time together that made her bolder and more confident in what she did and who she was. The thing that concerned him was that eventually he would have to leave, move on from this store and split his time, traveling between his new franchises. At some point, things would be sufficiently functional without him, and the progress of his business necessitated that he move on.
Without Ava, he wasn’t sure he could do that. His home was here, of course, and he couldn’t wrap his mind around the thought of living without her now. She was as much a part of his home as he was, and without her, he might as well sell it. But he couldn’t ask her to spend weeks alone there, waiting for him to come home from some open-ended business trip to Hawaii, Vermont, Michigan, or Florida. The thought ate away at him in the early hours of the morning as she lay in his arms, her face resting on his chest.
He had money and success and power. But he had never truly felt happy until now, with her. That was too much to give up. So he did his best to push the thought of progress out of his mind and kissed her awake until her eyes fluttered open and gazed into his.
“Good morning,” she said sleepily, rubbing her hands over her face.
“Good morning, my darling,” he whispered into her hair. “Would you like to go for a swim?”
“But it’s so early?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
“That’s when the water feels best,” he countered, throwing the sheets off them. “Come on. The weather will be too cold soon. And the pool is heated. Don’t be a chicken.” He gave her a wink and tickled her until she squealed happily and chased him from the bedroom, down the stairs, and to the patio.
There, he stripped off his clothes, and after a quick look around to make sure no staff were around to catch them, she dropped her silk pajamas to the ground, and with a whoop, she dove in after him. The water was cold against Carter’s skin, but the sight of Ava diving into the pool made him feel warm and happy and alive. The solitary swims he used to take at night felt like a distant memory, and he couldn’t think of a happier moment than this, watching his beautiful girl swim towards him, her perfect body naked and dappled with water rays as the sun plunged below the surface, her eyes shining brightly in the pink morning.
Catching her about the waist, Carter pulled her through the water to him. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and he held her effortlessly, her body buoyant in the water. “Good God, you’re beautiful,” he said softly, looking into her lively face. She panted from the swim. The water was more invigorating than any cup of coffee, and he knew she felt something for him that she didn’t say.
He wanted to tell her he loved her, but there was an undercurrent of fear that he caught in her during unprotected moments like this. He wasn’t sure what it was or why it was there, but he understood it as best as he could. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for him, he knew that. Something else entirely was at play beneath her face, a reaction she had been conditioned to over the course of her life, and Carter guessed she was especially prone to this fear when things were good. He understood it, even if he didn’t know how to fix it.
Right now, as the water lapped against their bodies and she looked so penetratingly into him, all he wanted was to make her happy and remove the fear that crept into her heart. He wanted to show her how much he cared without scaring her away. And although he had taken some issue with Mateo, especially at the beginning of their time together, he felt it was better to confront the issue head-on than skulk about it, worrying that perhaps she was in love with him. She claimed he was her brother, and Carter could respect that. He simply needed to meet the guy to be sure of it himself.
“Ava, I’ve been thinking,” he began tentatively, studying her face. “How would you like to take a trip?”
She cocked her head to the side and looked at him curiously. “Why would you ever want to leave here?” She laughed. “This is paradise. What could be better?”
“Well, it would be something of a work trip,” Carter explained. “I’m thinking about opening a new café on the East Coast. Maybe…Boston?” He smiled slyly as he said this, and watched her face fill with enthusiasm.
“Mateo’s in Boston,” she said excitedly.
“I know he is,” Carter answered, leaning down and kissing her deeply. “I’d like to meet him, if you’re up for it.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Ava said. “I miss him so much. I can’t think of anything better in the world.”
“I can leave Danielle in charge,” he thought out loud. “It would be a week at the outside, probably less. A very quick trip. And I’d like you to see the new café I’m thinking of opening. I want your opinion on it.”
“Can I really go with you?” she asked, disbelieving. “I’ve never traveled anywhere before.”
“You’ve never been on a plane?” he asked incredulously.
“No, never,” she answered.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” he replied, his eyes twinkling. “I think you should get in touch with Mateo. Find out when he’s free for a visit, and we’ll make a trip of it. The sooner the better. Next week, if possible.”
Carter tried to keep the hesitation from his voice, but part of his sense of urgency was his own peace of mind. Ava was devoted to Mateo. Carter knew he was being irrational, already too familiar with the element of jealousy that liked to creep into his thoughts when he watched her drop everything to take his calls or spend hours on the patio, video-chatting with him. He didn’t doubt her devotion to him or what they had, but to know that some other man held as much of her heart as he did was disconcerting.
He had no doubts about Ava’s feelings for him. Every day, she gave herself more fully to him, submitting to his desires. If anything, he had doubts about Mateo. He couldn’t imagine any man willingly giving up a girl like her, and he wondered whether things were truly as innocent as they seemed to be on Mateo’s side of things. The trip to Boston would give him a chance to see how they interacted together, and to see if he perhaps had competition in her best friend.
That night, he locked himself in his study and called his therapist. When Michelle answered, Carter was unable to articulate his feelings as adequately as he had wanted. “I don’t know what is bothering me,” he said, the thought nagging at him. “I know she’s mine. I know she wants to be with me. Nothing about her has given me reason to think otherwise. But this guy…he’s a complication.”
“Could it be that you don’t understand how her heart can care so much for two different people? Do you think that her affection for him is taking away from her affection for you?”
“Perhaps,” Carter answered thoughtfully. “Each day, I notice improvements in her. She knows what pleases me and displeases me. She wears the clothes she knows I like. She’s coming into her own at work and excelling at university. She’s becoming the woman I want her to be. I just can’t reconcile her submitting to me with this part of her that he holds.”
“You may never have that part of her,” Michelle replied. “But what you do have she has given you willingly. Life is a balance, Carter. You’ll need to accept that eventually. Is it worth it to drive her away because part of her lives in someone else?”
“No.” He sighed, leaning back in his desk chair. “I know you’re right, and what you’re saying is logical. But I can’t seem to keep my jealousy in check, and I’m struggling to avoid taking it out on her. That’s why I’m meeting him.”
“You’re doing what?” his therapist asked, surprised.
“I’m flying us to Boston and we’re meeting him. I’m going on business—not that I needed to, but I want to do this for Ava. And I need to do it for myself, too. I need to see for myself that there’s nothing romantic between them. I need to know if she’ll be the person I want and need her to be.”
“Well, I imagine I’ll be hearing from you after your trip, then,” Michelle replied. “Best of luck, Carter. I hope things go well for you.”
> “I hope so, too,” he said, hanging up.
He took a moment to compose himself and went in search of Ava. She was perched at the kitchen counter, her textbooks open all around her and a highlighter in hand. When she saw him, she leapt off the stool. “I talked to Mateo!” she burst out excitedly. “He has a few days free next week, and he’d love for us to visit! I told him all about you, and he said he can’t wait to meet you! Are we seriously doing this? I can’t believe it’s happening. I’ve missed him so much.”
Carter felt her words like a slap. She didn’t intend for them to hurt, but they did and she couldn’t possibly understand why. He hardly understood, and it was his own fucking issue. He managed a smile to reassure her. “I’ll book the tickets,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “We’ll fly out on Wednesday.”
The next few days were a whirlwind of arrangements. Carter contacted his real estate broker in Boston and arranged for a showing of a few acceptable locations on Newbury Street and the surrounding areas. His plans to open a location in Massachusetts was a bit ahead of schedule, but the urgency he felt in settling the issue with Mateo made the complications of his timeline seem minor and manageable. Until he was sure of Ava, he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else.
While Ava managed the floor at the café, Carter closed himself in his office and booked a suite at the Four Seasons in Boston for the five nights they would be in town. He made reservations for dinner with Mateo, arranged for a town car, and purchased their first-class airline tickets. Since Ava had never traveled before, he wanted her to experience it in the best way possible, his gift to her.
He didn’t tell her any of the details of the trip, and she didn’t ask. She had learned to accept his silences and understand that she would get what he wanted to give her, when he wanted to give it to her, and to be patient until then. Her obedience pleased him, and it made him want to give her his all.