by Shandi Boyes
Isaac’s stern eyes bounce between mine, but he remains quiet, allowing his eyes to demand an explanation.
“I have a son,” I enlighten him.
Even in the seriousness of our conversation, I can’t stop the smile tugging on my lips. Isaac’s strengthen posture weakens, and he eyes me as if he misheard what I said.
“Ava was pregnant before I snatched Roberto from the compound,” I explain, still smirking.
Isaac inhales a quick breath before shaking his head. “No, she couldn’t have been. I had a member of my family keep an on Ava the weeks following your disappearance. I wanted to ensure Col wasn’t aware of her significance to you.”
I curtly nod. “I know that.” Isaac would have ensured Ava was safe. “Ava didn’t discover she was pregnant until she was nearly six months along. Joel is my son, Isaac. Even without a DNA test, there's no doubt in my mind.”
Isaac swallows harshly before scrubbing his hand along his jaw. After a small stretch of silence, he paces around his desk and takes a seat in his leather chair. This is the first time I’ve seen him look wholly stumped. He’s not used to being divulged information second hand. He's normally the informant of vital information, not the receiver.
His leather chair creaks as he leans back and lifts his eyes to me. “If I’d known, I would have never--”
“I know,” I interrupt, taking the chair across from him. “I didn’t kiss Izzy because I thought you hid my son from me. I kissed her because I didn’t take the time to properly judge the repercussions of my actions.”
The deep V groove in between Isaac’s eyes smooths. “I’ve warned you before. Haste decisions--”
“Cause unforgiving mistakes.” I fill in, nodding.
I rest my ankle on my trouser-covered thigh. “I don’t expect you to ever forgive me. What I did to you was wrong, but I need you to understand why I did it. I was hurting as I thought Ava was going to take my son away from me. I let my anger get the better of me… as did Izzy.”
Isaac shifts his eyes to the side of his office, like he can see Izzy through the walls separating them.
“I made a foolish mistake, and stupidly threw Izzy under the bus with me. You don’t need me to tell you this because I can see in your eyes you are already aware, but I’m going to say it anyway. Izzy is your Achilles heel, just like Ava is mine.”
Isaac returns his eyes to me. The catastrophic storm brewing in his eyes earlier has been downgraded to a tropical shower.
“I wasn’t man enough to talk to you last week, but I’m man enough to admit I made a mistake. I'm sorry for what I did to you, Isaac. For breaking your trust, and for messing around with the best thing that has ever happened to you. I don’t expect you to accept my apology, but I hope one day, you’ll understand if I had the chance, I'd go back in an instant and fix all the wrongs I’ve done. Not just this week, years ago as well.”
Isaac inhales a ragged breath as he stands from his chair. He paces around the desk and props his hip on the side. His arms are crossed in front of his body, and his jaw is ticking, exposing his agitation, but the pain in his eyes has eased from my confession.
“I’m only going to say this once, so you better listen.” His voice is rough, like his throat is raw and bleeding. “I was once told family isn’t the people related to you by blood. It is the people you chose to be a part of your life that makes them family.”
I smile and nod. I’ve quoted that saying to him numerous times the past five years.
“No matter what happens, Hugo, you'll always be my family.” He coughs, clearing his throat of any encumbrance. “But in saying that, I'll fucking kill you if you ever touch Isabelle again,” he warns, glaring into my eyes to ensure I'm aware his warning is not an idle threat. If I so much as touch a strand on Izzy’s head, he will slit my throat.
I swallow the brick lodged in my throat before nodding. Smirking at my agreeing gesture, Isaac pushes off the desk and takes his original position behind it. After running his eyes over a barrage of paperwork in front of him, he lifts them to me.
“Are you planning to sit there all day?” When I shake my head, he says, “Then get the fuck out of my office. Some of us actually have to work for a living.”
Even exulted by Isaac using part of a quote he said to me many years ago, my brows furrow. I’m happy I’ve repaired some of the damage I instigated between Isaac and me, but I can’t just step back into my old role. My family needs me, but even more important than that, I need them.
Sensing my hesitation to leave, a smirk etches on Isaac’s mouth. It is only small, but it is enough to appease some of the guilt maiming my heart.
“Go back to your family, Hugo” Isaac responds to my silent thoughts. “Mark might have pulled in the female clientele back in the day, but he's shit at operations. My clubs in the New York region are taking a hit with him behind the wheel. Maybe with someone steering him in the right direction, I might not have to fire his ass.”
A broad grin stretches across my face. I’m not bragging, but when I was at the helm of operations in New York five years ago, Isaac’s clubs saw substantial growth. Alright, maybe I'm bragging.
When I stand from my chair, Isaac gestures his head to the door. “Make sure you say goodbye to Isabelle before you leave.”
He tried to suffocate it, but I didn’t miss the slight smear in his tone, but I appreciate his effort in lessening the vehement jealously he has when it comes to Izzy and me being friends.
Never being the talkative type, Isaac returns his eyes to the paperwork spread on his desk as I amble to his office door.
“Hugo,” he calls out just before I exit.
I crank my neck. “Yeah?”
His gray eyes stare into mine. “You should consider upgrading your suit. It just looks tacky walking around in a thousand dollar suit when you have over two million dollars in your bank account.”
I stare at him, more confused than ever.
Isaac stands from his chair and walks around his desk. “Those checks belonged to you. What I did for you and your family wasn’t under the stipulation that you had to repay me. I did it because I wanted to.”
A smile curls on my lips before I curtly nod. Isaac has always been generous, but I never felt right accepting his money. For the past five years, he has fed me, sheltered me, and kept me safe. What more did I need than that? So instead of cashing his checks he printed every month, I shredded every one of them, with the exception of the original one he gave me over five years ago. I kept it as a memento of how far I’d come, and what I’d given up to get here.
My eyes lift from my shoes when Isaac finalizes the distance between us, stopping directly in front of me. “Ravenshoe has grown substantially the past few years.”
I nod. Under Isaac’s guidance, it’s grown phenomenally in the five years I’ve lived here.
“A rapidly developing city could use a world class dentist,” he suggests, his tone rapidly changing from my boss to my friend.
A vast grin stretches across my face. “I’ll talk it over with Ava. See what she thinks.”
I don’t have a chance in hell of hiding the excitement in my voice. Although Rochdale was where I was born and raised, Ravenshoe became my home the past five years. It wasn’t the location that earned it that title. It was the people who live here. People like Isaac.
Spotting my slack-jawed expression, Isaac smirks. “I’ll have my team look into suitable locations. Just in case Ava is interested.”
Not giving him the time to react, I throw my arms around his broad shoulders and give him a quick bro hug. Although he stiffens, he doesn’t pull away from my embrace. That is good enough for me to accept.
My brows meet my hairline when Isaac strengthens his grip around my shoulders. “If Ava is your Achilles, pull your head out of your ass before you lose the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I crank my neck back and peer into his eyes. “You were close, but I said ‘pull your fucking head out of your ass b
efore you lose the best thing that’s ever fucking happened to you,’” I say, quoting what I said to Isaac the night he was arrested by Izzy.
Isaac shrugs his shoulders. “Extending your vocabulary with offensive language doesn’t make you any more of a man.” His lips curve into a smirk. “Besides, my memories of the night are a little fuzzy, hazed by a liquor bottle or two.”
I chuckle. “True,” I drawl out. I’d never seen him so intoxicated.
When he lowers his arms from my shoulders and locks his eyes with mine, his amorous gaze spears me in place. It is the same spark he had in his eyes when I collected him from the airport the day he met Izzy. The glimmer that told me he had just met his match.
“Don’t waste a day, Hugo. Because when you breathe your last breath, it won’t matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away.”
Twenty-Three
Ava
My office chair gives out a squeak when I slump into it and swivel around to face the window in the corner of the room. I’ve officially been operating my practice for the past week. Thankfully, for the most part, the experience has been positive. With keeping my prices reasonable for the average Rochdale community member, I’ve managed to secure a handful of new patients. I even snagged a few loyal clients from Gardner and Sons who prefer the appeal of quality dental work over a lavish office space. Although it has been a good trading week, I have a long way to go before I’ll be turning a profit.
“Even Bill Gates had to start somewhere,” I mumble to myself.
A soft sigh spills from my lips when I peer down at the screen of my phone and discover it is void of any missed calls or text messages. Ever since our exchange of text messages earlier this morning, Hugo has maintained radio silence. The craziness of my day has ensured I only sneaked peeks at my phone every thirty minutes, instead of every minute of the day like I did the months following his disappearance. I’ll be the first to admit it will take me some time to adjust to Hugo’s conflicting work schedule, but it’s a compromise I'm willing to make if it maintains his relationship with Joel and me.
Hugo has only been gone a little over twenty-four hours, and I’m missing him like crazy. Even though we are not an “official” couple, my moods have already become dependent on Hugo’s presence, which sounds like a terrifying notion. After being controlled by my father, I grew up striving for independence, often vowing no man would ever have that type of hold over me again. Although some may see my dependency on Hugo in such a short period of time as a negative, I see it as anything but. The fact Hugo and I have years of friendship as the foundation of our unique bond undoubtedly proves our relationship isn’t based on propaganda. It is based on mutual respect and admiration.
The past week has been surreal. Hugo stepped into the role of devoted spouse and father without a single qualm seeping from his lips. He’s mastered the school drop-off without getting any citations from the parking mothers who govern with an iron fist, and he even attended a PTA meeting with me Tuesday night. Although I'll admit, from the blank, desolated look he wore during the entire meeting, I'll have more chances of getting him to sit in my dental chair than through another PTA meeting.
Although Hugo has only been back in my life for two weeks, it feels like years have passed. Our relationship has always been like that. Small moments make a lifetime of memories.
Don’t read my admission with foggy glasses, though. I know Hugo is anything but perfect, but for years, he has been my drug of choice. And just like every addictive drug, he’s been the cause of life-altering highs and devastating lows in my life, but like all things in life, I greedily accept the good and wade my way through the bad. It is the sacrifice every woman makes for the man she loves.
I rub my throbbing temples before stretching my arms above my head. After an exhausting day, I’m dying for a long, hot shower and a nice glass of wine. I place my phone on my Ikea desk and crank my head to the side when a knock sounds on my office door.
“Come in,” I say, my high tone, exposing my interest. It is a little after six PM on Friday night, so my office doors are officially closed for the weekend.
My excitement dampens when Belinda glides through the door with a imploring look on her face. “I know we are closed, but we’ve just had an emergency case come in. Do you think you could squeeze them in?” Her nose screws up as she stares at me with pleading eyes.
Even though I'm beyond exhausted, and I’ve reached my quota of peering into smelly mouths for one day, it would be injudicious of me to turn down a prospective new client. Strength and growth only come through continued effort and struggle.
I raise my eyes to Belinda. “Sure, just give me five minutes so I can advise Mrs. Mable I’ll be late collecting Joel, then send them into the exam room,” I instruct.
A big grin carves on Belinda’s mouth before she nods and exits my office, closing the door behind her. I leave a quick message on Mrs. Mable’s home phone when my call is sent to voicemail. I’m not shocked by her failure to answer. She can barely hear Joel’s earth shattering screams, let alone a telephone ringing.
I'm scrubbing my hands in the sink of the washroom when the exam room door attached to my office creaks open.
“Hi, I’m just washing up. Please take a seat in the dental chair, and I’ll be right with you,” I call out, snagging a paper towel from the dispenser mounted on my right.
After thoroughly drying my hands, I crumble up the paper towel and throw it into the bin before walking out of the washroom. The ghastly dentist smell I’ve always hated hits my senses when I pace into the sterilized treatment area at the side of my office. The space is deadly quiet; only gloves being removed from a cardboard box is heard.
After tying a face-mask around my head and putting on my gloves, I amble further into the room. My breath hitches halfway between my lungs and my throat when I discover who is sprawled on the dental chair. I cough and wheeze, struggling to breathe through the saliva now sitting in my lungs instead of my throat.
The panty-melting smile on Hugo’s face sags when he hears my breathless coughing fit.
“Are you okay?”
Through watering eyes, I nod. I try to speak, but the shock of seeing him sitting in my dental chair is too great for me to harness. My mouth can barely move, let alone relinquish words. Hugo hates dentists. Not a small dislike, he openly admits that he hates, HATES, them. Even putting aside the shock of his sudden arrival in my office, I only dropped him at the airport yesterday afternoon. And although I wished for him to return soon, I never fathomed it would be the very next day.
Rolling my shoulders, I level out my erratic breathing and try to portray that I am a responsible, career-oriented twenty-nine-year-old woman, not the teenage, braces-mouthed girl Hugo’s presence always incites. Although my posture is alluding to professionalism, my shaking steps and quickening pulse thrumming in my neck is giving away my deceit.
“What has brought you to my practice today?” I ask, finalizing the last three paces between us.
I manage to catch my eye-roll halfway over the dimness displaced in my words. Anyone would swear I’m performing dental work on Beyoncé for how much my voice is juddering.
“I have a toothache on my lower left molar,” Hugo mumbles, his words low and croaky.
And just like that, professional obligation to my patient overtakes my nerves.
The butterflies impinging my stomach settle when I notice a beading of sweat glistening Hugo’s forehead. He appears even more rattled than me. After switching on the dental operatory light above my head, I take a seat on my swivel chair and roll in close to Hugo’s side. He remains as quiet as a church mouse as I adjust the height of the dental chair. His lips tug into a seductive grin when I clamp a drool cloth around his neck and hand him a pair of protective glasses. His cheeky smile is wiped straight off his face when I gather a dental mirror and probe from the sterilized stainless tray at my side.
“Open up,” I instruct when I spot his
clamped-shut mouth.
Through quivering lips, he does as instructed. Leaning over, I glance into his wide-opened mouth. My lips purse. For someone who loves sweets and hates dentists, Hugo’s teeth are beautiful. He must be a regular flosser.
After a deep exploration of his mouth, I fail to locate anything that would cause him any concern. There are no cavities or shadows that allude to an internal problem; his mouth is clear of any signs of an abscess, and his gums appear healthy. Perhaps it’s a sinus issue? More times than not, some dental pain is associated with severe sinus infections.
“I can’t see anything pointing to a reason why you're experiencing pain. Can you explain what the pain feels like?” I ask, mumbling through my face-mask.
Placing my probing tools back onto the tray, I yank down my mask. “Sometimes sinus infections can cause--”
My words stop, halted by a delicious pair of cinnamon-flavored lips. After licking the seam of my O-formed lips, Hugo’s tongue dips into my mouth to explore every inch with more vigor than my cavity search of his mouth undertook. His tongue dances with mine in a toe-curling kiss that renders me breathless. He kisses the living bloody hell out of me, bestowing me with a kiss that makes every other kiss I’ve experienced pale in comparison. He holds nothing back, and neither do I. I’ve wanted this, and so much more the past week, but no matter how many corny one liners, seductive poses, or inappropriate teases I did, nothing could deter Hugo from his resolve to give me time to process my failed relationship with Marvin.
In all honesty, at the start, I was confused about my ease on leaving a relationship without feeling a morsel of remorse, but after spending thirty minutes having a deep and meaningful in my car with Mrs. Marshall, any doubts festering my mind vanished. The facts were as clear as the sun shining in the sky. I never loved Marvin. I’ve always loved Hugo – even after years of absence and more tears than I can count. A minute, an hour, or a week of deliberation will never change that fact. Hugo is my one and only true love.