My knees buckled, a sob bursting out of me before I could stop it, and I slid down the wet tiles of the shower, pulling my knees into my chest. For the first time since my mom had called to tell me Gem had died, I cried.
I cried as pressurized water bounced and rolled off my skin, disguising my tears in the shower, unable, even when in private, to admit, even to myself, that I was crying. Admitting that was like admitting my guilt, and right then I couldn’t bring that guilt to the surface. I was afraid if I did I’d never get to my feet again.
Perhaps I chose this particular dress to be dry-cleaned in defiance.
It was the dress Nick’s mother—who once upon a time had loved me like a daughter—had told me was inappropriate for the occasion. I’d worn it to the dinner my parents had insisted we attend the night before Gem’s funeral.
It was black, figure-hugging, with a conservative hemline tight around my knees. There was a small split at the back of the knees, but nothing risqué. I think what Mrs. Kane had found inappropriate about the dress was the neckline. It was sweetheart-shaped and showed cleavage. Problem was, I had boobs and plenty of them and I gave good cleavage no matter how high or low a dress was cut. This dress was supposed to be conservative.
My boobs didn’t know what the hell conservative meant.
Mrs. Kane had even side-eyed me at the funeral when I was wearing a black dress with a Peter Pan collar. If she wanted to blame anyone for my abundance of cleavage, she could blame my mom, who could have been Dolly Parton’s long lost hippy daughter.
I noticed Mom didn’t get the side-eye at the funeral in her long, floating bohemian dress with its revealing neckline. Not that Mom owned any article of clothing that didn’t have a low-cut neckline.
The memory of Mrs. Kane’s distaste for me and this dress somehow bolstered me. It tore through my grief and fired my anger. And I needed my anger more than I needed any of the rest of it.
“You’re beautiful, Ava, but it’s not enough. You feel empty.”
Those words Nick had spoken to me so long ago still haunted me. Still knifed through my gut. Then: because they hurt so much. Now: because I’d never defended myself. Back then there had been a part of me that believed the words were true.
Suddenly I remembered the Scot’s disdain for me all day. The way he’d judged me because of how I looked. That defiance in me grew, and as I readied myself to eat dinner alone, I rebelled by taking time with my appearance. Yes, maybe a long time ago I’d relied on my looks too heavily. But I was older and wiser now, and looking good wasn’t about anyone else. Doing my makeup, slicking red matte lipstick across my full lips, putting on three coats of mascara that made my big jade green eyes pop, using my curling iron to create loose waves in my long blond hair, pairing my black dress with black stilettos and their signature red soles—all of it was for me. It was me saying, Screw all of you. My physical appearance was just a small fraction of who I was. I was more than a pretty bauble to hang on the tree of a man’s world.
Tears burned in the back of my eyes and I blinked them away as I stared in the mirror. Years of moving on was not going to be obliterated by a few days in Arcadia.
When I was feeling stressed or distressed, I would run. Run for miles. Sweat it out. Let it all go. Running was my self-medication. But I didn’t have my running gear with me and I was in an airport hotel. Without my usual avenue of relief open to me, I decided getting out of the hotel room would just have to do.
Armor on, I swiftly turned away from the mirror, grabbed up my purse and key card, and left the room.
I made my way down to the hotel restaurant, giving the hostess a blinding smile when she asked me if it was a table for one. “Yes, please.”
The restaurant had a traditional look about it—dark wood furniture, dark wood floors, and intimate low lighting. I stared straight ahead, following the hostess to a small booth at the back of the restaurant. Suddenly feeling as though I was being watched, the skin on my neck prickled. Out of my peripheral vision I caught sight of a table of businessmen staring in my direction and put the feeling down to that.
“Is this okay? Or would you prefer a small table?” She gestured to one in the middle of the room.
But I preferred the privacy of the small booth. I slid into it. “This is great, thank you.”
She handed me a menu. “Your waitress, Emily, will be with you shortly.”
I thanked her again and dropped my gaze to the menu. My stomach grumbled loudly as soon as I saw filet mignon.
My waitress, a tall, willowy young woman with an English accent appeared to take my drink order. I asked for champagne, because screw it. After the week I’d had, I was treating myself to a goddamn filet mignon and a glass of champagne. Or two.
As I sipped at my glass of bubbly, I pulled my phone out of my purse and trolled through the work e-mails I wasn’t supposed to be looking at until my return.
However, the skin on my neck continued to prickle, distracting me. It wasn’t a wonder, then, when I felt someone approach my booth and stand over me. Slowly I lifted my gaze, annoyance already heating my skin when I found a tall, rangy guy in a business suit grinning down at me.
“Dining alone?”
I didn’t reply and let my deadpan expression do the talking.
It didn’t deter him. “That is a diabolical sin.” His dark gaze drifted down to my cleavage, which he blatantly ogled. My skin crawled. “I’m Matt. Let me join you.”
In hell, maybe. “Matt, I appreciate the offer. But I just want to have a quiet dinner alone. Thank you.” I dropped my gaze, returning my attention to my phone.
It took him a second or two—I could almost feel his confusion—but he eventually walked away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dear old Matt was likely thinking to himself, Why would a woman dress that way if she wasn’t looking to grab a man’s attention? And that there was one of the things still wrong with our society. There was this obnoxious misconception that women only dressed well to attract a mate. Hello! Some of us were just obsessed with clothes, shoes, and makeup and liked to look good, you know, for ourselves. Shocker.
So I wasn’t at all taken aback when the feeling of being watched didn’t dissipate with Matt’s retreat.
My toes curled inside my shoes with agitation as I felt another person approach. This time he slid into the bench across from me in my small booth. I lifted my gaze to the stocky blond guy who bore a faint resemblance to a handsome Australian actor. Clearly, he thought this made him irresistible, if the cocky, assured smile he shot me was anything to go by. “Sorry about my friend Matt. I tried to tell him a beautiful woman like you wouldn’t be interested in sharing a meal with a guy like him. I came to rescue you instead. I’m Chuck.”
Of course he was. I stared through him stonily. “Well, Chunk—”
“It’s Chuck.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t care less if your name was Tallulah. Like I told your friend, I just want to eat alone. If you wouldn’t mind …” I gestured for him to get out of the booth.
He leaned over the table, his blue eyes moving over me in a way that made Matt’s staring feel benign. “I get it. You’re alone. You feel vulnerable, a little defensive, but you don’t have to. I promise you I’m a nice guy who just wants to share a meal with a pretty woman instead of the assholes I’m on a business trip with.” He smiled.
I guessed I was supposed to melt now.
“Chuck.” I smiled sweetly and his eyes lit with triumph. “If you don’t get your ass out of my booth, I’m going to scream bloody murder.”
The grin promptly fled, replaced with astonishment. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“I’m not the one who sat down at a table I wasn’t invited to sit down at.”
“I think we’ve gotten off to—”
“Chuck. Get the hell out of my booth.”
Chuck flushed angrily and shuffled out of the booth, shooting me one last glare before he marched back to his table.
My heart pounded in my chest, my fingers trembling slightly as I reached for my glass. Confrontation was never fun. Some people might think I was the one who had turned it into a confrontation by being defensive—a bitch even—but I was watching these men from under my lashes. They were laughing as another one of them stood up, grinning my way, shrugging his suit jacket down as if readying for battle. So was I a bitch? Or was I fully in my rights to feel defensive and wronged when men treated me like prey?
Yes, I was absolutely within my rights.
I felt my stomach plummet as the next one began to walk toward me. This was a game to them. To see which one of them broke me.
Deciding I’d rather eat in my room alone than endure their assholery, I reached for my purse and began to shimmy out.
“Stay.”
My eyes flew upward at the familiar voice and a flip low in my belly betrayed me.
The Bastard Scot towered over me for a second before he slid into the bench opposite me. I could only stare at him, stunned. Somehow, I still wasn’t used to how striking and pale those blue eyes of his were. They held me fixed in their snare, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Was he the one who had been staring at me? Was it his eyes that made my skin prickle? Finally, able to relinquish my eyes from his, my gaze drifted over him. He was wearing a white shirt open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow so his right sleeve of tattoos was visible again. His blond hair looked a little darker and I realized it was still wet from the shower he’d obviously taken.
The thought of him naked with water rolling down that fine body made me flush hot, and I was more discomforted than ever that I could be attracted to someone I did not like.
“Better this than me layin’ one of those assholes out, no?” he suddenly said from his place opposite me.
My eyes flew over to the table of businessmen. The one who was standing threw us a disgruntled look before slumping back into his seat. His buddies shot my new companion displeased frowns.
I turned back to the Scot, utterly confused.
His expression was sour, and I realized why when he spoke. “My presence will deter them. We’ll just pretend we’re at different tables. But this way we can both eat in peace.”
Clearly I was putting him out so … “Why help me?”
“You might be a pain in the arse, but I wouldn’t let any woman be harassed. And I owe you. I don’t like owing anyone. This way we’re even.”
His words from earlier came back to me. “I hope you don’t expect a thank you.”
The Scot’s lips twitched, as if desperate to smile at my teasing. He got hold of that impulse, however, and didn’t reply. Instead, he sipped the whiskey he’d brought over to the table with him.
Tension immediately sprung up between us as we sat looking anywhere but at each other.
Really? We were supposed to sit there and ignore each other?
I rolled my eyes. “They’re not exactly going to be deterred if we look like two strangers sharing a table.”
His gaze returned from its perusal of the room to meet mine. “Believe me, they will.”
Considering how he dwarfed the booth, he was probably not wrong. But … well … the thing of it was that he was doing a surprisingly nice thing for me. I was weirdly not uncomfortable around him even though he was obnoxious and rude, and I think—maybe because of my physical attraction to him more than anything else—I wanted the chance to discover that he did in fact have a redeeming quality.
“I’m Ava Breevort.”
“No one said anything about exchanging names.”
I sighed. “Okay. I could continue to think of you as the Bastard Scot in my head, if you’d like.”
The look he gave me said he found me more than a little insufferable. Well, hey, the feeling was mutual. Still, he answered, “Caleb. Caleb Scott.”
“Why do men do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say their name followed by their name and surname. Is it just an unconscious desire to be James Bond?”
“I’m already regretting this favor.”
Redeeming quality? Really, Ava? “Well, Caleb, I didn’t ask for the favor and I didn’t need it. I don’t need some man to save me. I was taking care of it myself.”
“You were leaving, you mean.”
The businessmen had returned their attention to their dinner and one another. I shrugged. “If it had just been the one guy, I would have stuck it out. But they were obviously gearing up to make this a game, and I just wanted to eat in peace.”
“Why accept my help, then? Why not just get up and leave?” He seemed genuinely curious about the answer.
“Not all men are assholes. I know that. But those that are fall into different categories. You are an asshole but you’re not that kind of asshole—” I gestured to the men who had bothered me. “That makes you less of an asshole than they are and one I’m willing to put up with so I can eat my medium-rare steak and not whatever dry lump of meat resembling filet mignon they send up as room service.”
“Fair enough.” He took another sip of whiskey.
“So, what is it you do, Caleb?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Small talk?”
“I could keep insulting you instead, if you like?”
I thought I saw his lips begin to smile, but, again, he fought the reaction. Hmm. “I’m the CFO of the UK division of Koto.”
Shocked by this information, I sought to clarify. “The tech company?”
“The very one.” He gave me an arrogant, knowing smirk. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
“Honestly, no. That’s a pretty big job title you’ve got there. I heard Koto is becoming a real competitor for some of the bigger tech giants.”
Caleb’s eyes glittered suddenly with a fierceness I’d understand when he said, “We’re almost there. And we plan tae surpass them.”
“So you must enjoy numbers?”
“I’m good with numbers.”
I frowned. That wasn’t really an answer, but before I could remark upon it he spoke. “What do you do for a living? Personal shopper?”
“Close.” I shrugged, not letting his snide tone get to me. “I’m an interior designer.”
“Well, either you do very well or you’re a kept woman.”
My plans to not let him get to me flew out the window pretty quickly. Why was the latter even a choice? Did I really say he was any different from those other assholes in the restaurant? My mistake. “Because I flew first class?”
He didn’t even flinch at my snarky tone. “Aye. That, the designer shoes, and the diamonds in your ears and on your wrist.”
“Well, of course I’m a kept woman. And it’s not just one guy I spread for cash. I’ve got three sugardaddies. Lucky girl, huh?”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “You take offense tae everything.”
“Everything you say is offensive.”
“Ah, there you are.” Emily suddenly appeared at the booth, looking a little flustered as she eyed Caleb. “You switched tables.”
“Aye.” He held out his hand for his plate of food, which I noticed was also the filet mignon.
“There you go. Can I get you anything else, sir?”
“No.” He immediately started to dig in without a thank you.
I looked up at Emily and she gave me a pained smile. “I’ll be right back with your order.”
“Thank you so much.”
As she walked away, I eyed Caleb with a mixture of distaste and longing. Distaste for him, longing for his steak.
My belly grumbled loudly and I quickly drank the rest of my champagne. Caleb looked up from his plate, amusement in his eyes. Amusement that made him five million times more attractive than the haughty chill did. “Hungry?”
“Starving. Is it good?”
“Aye.” He grinned, one of wicked taunting, and took a huge bite.
Thankfully, Emily returned with my dinner before I could consider stealing Caleb’s plate out from under him.
> “Oh my God. Thank you,” I said, practically ripping it out of her hands.
She laughed. “You’re welcome. Can I get you anything else?”
“Champagne, please.” I tapped my glass with my fork.
“Would you like a bottle instead?”
If I was going to get through dinner with an arrogant Scot, I was thinking yeah. “Oh, yes, please.” I threw her a quick smile before I started cutting through my filet. I squished pomme purée onto the fork with the steak and rubbed it in the sauce before shoving a huge mouthful through my parted lips.
I closed my eyes and groaned around the tasty beef. When I swallowed, my eyes popped open in preparation for the next bite, but instead of going directly to my plate they got stuck on Caleb’s.
He was staring at me with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth, frozen, his features taut with tension while those ice eyes had melted into blue pools of heat. My breath caught in my throat. “What?” I whispered.
His eyes narrowed. “Do you always eat like you’re having an orgasm, or is the show just for me?”
Blush blazed across my cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“On the plane with your coffee. Now here with the steak?”
My cheeks felt hot enough to cook on. Did I really do that? “I … I just like coffee. And steak.”
What happened floored me more than his insinuation that I got the same kind of pleasure out of food and coffee as I did from sex.
Caleb Scott grinned.
And it was not a wicked smile or an arrogant smirk. Just a wide, amused grin that caused a strange flutter in my chest. “You really are something else, babe.”
I had wanted to find something likable about him to feel better about my physical attraction, but the sudden compression on my chest, the feeling of breathlessness that I remembered from when I first realized I had a crush on Nick, stunned me for a moment.
It scared me.
One moment of normality didn’t eradicate the last day of him being a total prick to me. I frowned, busying myself with my food. “Don’t call me ‘babe.’ ”
There was no response and we continued to eat in silence. When we finished up, Emily returned to take our plates and offer us the dessert menu.
Fight or Flight Page 5