by Dawn Martens
Chapter 19
Present
Ava
Cameron gets a phone call on our drive home, and he pulls over, telling me he doesn’t like driving while on the phone. He gets out of the car, pacing slightly. I almost want to roll my window down to listen to what’s being said, but I don’t.
My phone dings with a text, and I see it’s Kristi.
What the fuck? You text me that shit instead of calling me? – K
I called you to tell you, but you had to go. – A
Yeah, and you wouldn’t answer my calls or texts after you sent that. – K
I know. I’m sorry. - A
Well, shit, can I call you now? –K
Busy now, but I’ll call you when I get a chance later today. Promise – A
You better – K
I tuck my phone back into my purse, knowing I won’t be calling Kristi later today. I can’t talk to her, not until Alana tells me what the hell is going on.
Cameron gets back into the car with a grin, and we drive off. Something about his grin pisses me off.
Getting on the highway to go home, my phone rings, and, of course, it goes right to my car since I have it all connected with Bluetooth. I hit go on the dash.
“Ava?” Sam’s voice fills the car when I say hello.
“Yes?” I ask timidly. Cameron is sitting right next to me, and I don’t know if I want to have a conversation with my lawyer with him around.
“We’ve run into a problem. Are you pregnant?” he asks.
I don’t say anything for a moment, and Cameron speaks up. “Mr. Mayer? This is Cameron. Yes, Ava is pregnant.”
Sam clears his throat. “Sorry, Mr. James, I wasn’t expecting you to be around. Can I take this as you are working on your marriage and the divorce is off?”
“Yes,” Cameron says firmly.
I say, “No,” at the same time, glaring at Cameron, but he just smirks.
“Well, um, Ava, I’m sorry to tell you, but this case is being delayed. It’s been approved by a judge that no divorce, or anything of the sort, will be approved or even looked over until after your pregnancy. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Sam says. “Call me once you have the baby and let me know what you want to happen. I’ll help you in any way I can. Have a good afternoon.” He clicks off, leaving me fuming.
“You did this,” I snarl out.
Cameron shrugs. “You left me with no choice.”
“No choice?!” I scream. “You only married me to keep your company! Did you not learn anything from Lana? No, you didn’t, obviously. Plus, you have been with Becky lately. She’s fucking pregnant! Why would we still be together?” I shout the whole time. I bring up Lana because she went through something similar with her ex-husband.
He grips the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles going white. “We’re not going home. We’re going out to eat, and you’re going to listen to me,” he declares.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I tell him.
“Yes, you are, and you will sit there, eat, and listen to me. You won’t say a God damned word while I’m talking.”
Cameron
I pull off the highway at the cut-off to Gasoline Alley, and Ava goes quiet. I find a small diner on the strip and pull in. This will have to do.
We walk into the diner, and Ava is stiff with my hand on her lower back. An older woman greets us at the door and smiles. “Just two? Booth or table?” she asks.
I smile back at her. “Booth please, and yes, just us two.”
“Right this way,” she says, after picking up two menus.
We follow her to a back booth and Ava slides in. I follow right beside her instead of sitting across. She glares at me, and the hostess just smiles, passing us the menus.
“Sheila will be out in a few to get your drink orders.” She walks away, leaving us alone, even if it’s just for a moment.
“I lied to you,” I start.
“What? Lied about what?” she asks.
“The day of our wedding, what I said to you, it was all a lie. What I said to Becky was all a lie.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, confused.
“I love you, Ava. I realized about a year later I did, but I also knew I cared about you on our wedding day. I can’t say I loved you since day one, but I can say that my feelings for you grew into love.” She stiffens at the declaration.
“Wait, but what about Becky? And why didn’t you just say something at the beginning?”
“Honestly? Because I’m a dumbshit.”
Ava giggles slightly.
“Can I get your drink orders?” a young teenager, chewing gum as if she’s a cow eating hay, asks us.
“Just water please.”
“You ready to order, or should I come back?” She snaps the gum.
“I’ll take the club sandwich on white, no tomatoes,” I tell her.
“I’ll take the chipotle chicken club, no tomatoes, extra sauce,” Ava orders.
Our waitress walks off, taking our menus with her.
“Okay, back to what you were saying before. Expand,” Ava demands.
“When I first met you, your ass drew me in, then your eyes. After, it was the way you held yourself. I knew that, not only could I get Becky to stop pestering me to marry her, I could also fulfill my father’s terms of the will. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of you as a means to an end,” I confess to her.
“Okay,” she says slowly.
“I tried, Ava. After the first year, I tried. All the movies we saw together; the dinners I took you to with me... You might have thought it was your wifely duty, but before, I only took you to a handful of them. After I started actually wanting you, loving you, I made you come to them all.”
She nods, her face clearing slightly. “Okay, but I’m kind of stupid sometimes and don’t see things that are right in front of my face.” She bites her lip. “So you should have just come out and told me.”
“I’m a guy. I wanted you to come to me first. Looking back, I shouldn’t have let that happen. It’s why I finally made a move.”
She giggles, and then as quickly as it started, it stops. “Wait, why was Becky still around then?”
I rub my face. Before I answer, our food comes out and we dig in. Between bites, I answer her. “I had a merger with her father. He was friends with my dad, but Dad hated Becky. It’s why it was stated loud and clear to me and Mom that, if I married Becky, I’d lose the company instantly.”
“Okay, but she was around for years still.”
“Yes, she was. At first, it was because of her father. Then, it was because I wanted to make you jealous. Until the night you met Zach, I thought it was working, but instead, I found out that you’d been suffering because of her.” I take a bite and a gulp of water. “Once I knew, I told her to get out, not to come back. I haven’t spoken to her again until a few months ago.”
“Is the baby yours?” Ava asks softly.
I slap the table and a few people look over. Ava jumps. “For fuck’s sake, Ava. When we started, actually started, you were it for me. I never touched or even looked at another woman. So, no, the baby isn’t mine. She tried to say it was, and her father demanded I get the ball rolling on our marriage. But I said no. That’s that, Ava. I promise you.”
She stares at me silently and nods. “I believe you, and I’m sorry. It’s just hard. We’ve been through a lot. You’ve hurt me.”
“If I could take it back, I would, all of it.”
She nods with a weak smile.
We go back to eating, finishing in silence. I hope like hell I got through.
Chapter 20
3 years into marriage
Cameron
I storm out of Ava’s room pissed. I look at Zach, who is standing on the other side of the door, and glare at him. He just smirks. Makes me want to clock him. “She’s my wife. Remember that,” I warn him.
His brows shoot up. “Maybe you should remember that while you’re out fucking Bec
ky and every other girl you are seen with,” he shoots back.
“Mind your business.”
“Far as I can see, Ava is my business right about now.”
“You touch her, I’ll end you,” I threaten, feeling my fists ball, ready to punch his lights out.
“I’d like to see you try,” he says back.
I clench my jaw, a muscle ticking, knowing now isn’t the time or place, and storm off back to the party downstairs.
Becky spots me the instant I make it down, flocking to me, as usual. She rubs up against me, purring, and it sets me off further. “We’ll be talking when everyone leaves,” I growl at her.
She stares at me in shock. “You’re seriously going to believe that crap those two just told you over me?” she asks incredulously.
“I said, we’ll talk later,” I tell her again.
She nods. “That’s fine, baby. I have mingling to do anyway,” she says and saunters off.
I go over to Mr. Veldhuizen, and we talk business because I have no other choice. I tune him out, though, once I see Zach and Ava coming down the stairs. She’s in jeans and a t-shirt. Damn, she looks amazing. My eyes zoom in on the two of them holding hands. The vein in my neck pops out and my blood boils.
“Your wife isn’t very discreet,” Mr. Veldhuizen says. “None of that matters, though. I’m sure the next few years will pass quickly, and you’ll be free to be with Becky.”
I brush his comments off and continue to watch in anger as my wife walks away with another man. Is this how she has felt on the end of my indiscretions? Is it this hard for her?
Checking the time on my watch, I announce it’s time for everyone to leave and ask Becky to stay behind. I shouldn’t have said that out loud, since now, I’m being shot dirty looks from just about everyone in attendance, except for Becky’s father, who looks thrilled.
“Start the cleanup,” Becky snaps at the team that was hired for after the party, and then she storms to me. “Ready to talk?”
“Yes, come to my office.”
I don’t bother closing the door before start in on her. “You’re never welcome into my home again.”
“What?” she breathes out in shock.
“My wife is not comfortable around you, and I’m rectifying that. You have made it so that my wife has no choice or say in anything that goes on in her own home, but you won’t be doing that anymore. To be honest, the bitch you’ve turned into since I married her is grating on my nerves. Our friendship is over. I don’t want to see or hear from you again.”
“What the hell, Cameron? I don’t understand where this is coming from. We were going to get married, have a life together, and because of that will, we got sidetracked. But in just a few more years, we will be back to how we once were,” she says, whining, missing the point.
“As I said, things change,” I tell her, leaving no room for argument.
She stares at me in shock, her face quickly changing into disgust. “You like her,” she states.
“No, I don’t. I’m in love with her.”
The noise Becky makes sounds as if I just punched her in the stomach. “But no, you can’t. You love me.”
“Don’t love you. Never did. We worked and then we didn’t.”
“Fuck you, Cameron. Fuck you.” She smacks me hard, backhanding me across the face before she storms out. Minutes later, I hear the front door slam so hard, a picture hanging up by it falls to the floor.
I love it when trash takes itself out. I’m such a dick for keeping her around as long as I have.
I rub my jaw as it swells and go into the kitchen for a frozen bag of peas to soothe the ache. Now to wait for Ava to come home. Thinking of what might be happening between her and Zach is killing me, and it is all my fault. I did this to her, to us.
Chapter 21
Present
Ava
We make it home in silence, and I’m just trying to take everything in that Cameron told me. Looking back, I guess there were signs that he was into me. I always just brushed them off since he made it clear on our wedding day we wouldn’t be anything more than friends.
All of our hanging out times, just watching TV together, eating together, him asking me about my books, all of it… I guess, yeah, looking back, he was trying, just, at the time, I thought he was just being friendly. It’s why he was so angry when I started dating Zach. Cameron thought he was getting somewhere with me, only to be shown he wasn’t making any headway at all.
Now, I sort of feel bad. I think about what he said about Becky, and how he never touched her, and I believe him. So, again, I feel like a total cow. I didn’t stay and talk with him; I just ran away. But at the same time, our six years were up, so of course I left.
“Ava,” Cameron calls as I’m walking to my room.
I turn around. “Yeah?” I ask hesitantly.
“Tomorrow night, do you think we could go somewhere else for the night? Just the two of us?” he asks.
“Like out to dinner or something?” I ask him.
“No, alone,” he stresses. Oh. I feel my face heat up, and then I nod. “Good. I’ll leave you alone for tonight, but tomorrow, you’re mine.” He kisses my forehead and walks away, leaving me to rush to my room to grab my things for a shower.
I haven’t shaved, or anything really, in a while, not since I left.
I finish up in the shower, only nicking myself twice, and hurry back to my room. Sitting on my bed, I start thinking about everything Cameron said. He once said all the right things to me, before, promising a life together, but those were quickly broken.
After throwing on a pair of PJ bottoms and a t-shirt, I lie down on my bed and click the TV on. I settle for watching some reruns of Pretty Little Liars and turn onto my side. My phone dings with an email, and I grab it.
Avalynn,
Hey, sweetie, just wanted to let you know, I finished the first round of edits for Crazy In Love. I’m now sending it to my beta team. Once they are done, I’ll do a second round of edits and then send it back to you to go over.
Should only take two weeks. I’ll let you know.
But the reason for this email is to let you know, this book is your best work yet. Absolutely amazing!
Talk later,
Maryann
I smile and set my phone down. It took me nine months to write that book, mainly because I kept adding way too much to it. Cameron kept giving me ideas, so instead of it being just a simple romance, it turned into an Erotic Romance.
Thinking about Cameron, I smile. His words might have been fake before, but I think he’s being real now. If he is, then I’ll gladly give him all of me. I just hope Becky stays gone, and that Cameron was telling me the truth that he didn’t father her child.
Only time will tell, I suppose.
Cameron
I’m about to go into my guest room when Jeff stands in front of me, arms folded across his chest. “Well?”
I smile. “We won’t be here tomorrow night. We need some alone time. We’ll be back Wednesday morning,” I tell him.
He grins at me. “About damn time. I need my house back. I can’t have Loretta the way I want when Ava’s here because she’s a cock blocker,” he grumbles.
“I did not need to know that,” I mutter, going into my room. I know they have sex, but talking about it with him is entirely different. I’m sure he doesn’t want me talking about banging his daughter.
Once in the guest room, I make a few phone calls to make tomorrow night amazing for Ava. Then, I Google the hell out of pregnancy. I want to make sure that the plans I have for her tomorrow night are okay.
My phone starts ringing, and I see Becky’s name light up. “What, Becks?” I growl into the phone. I need to block her number.
“Where are you? I’ve been to your office, and that bitch wouldn’t let me even leave a message, after saying you weren’t there. I go to your home, and your stupid maid slammed the door in my face once she saw me. And your mother came to my house and yelled at me
. I need to talk to you,” she whines.
“Too bad. I’m busy with my wife.” I kick my shoes off and unbutton my shirt, settling in for the night.
She groans. “Are you seriously still on about that?” Is she seriously asking this right now?
“I’m never going to be off of ‘that’, as you put it. She’s my wife, and she’s having my child,” I inform her, hoping she finally understands that there will never be anything between the two of us.
“She’s what!? You have got to be kidding me. I’m not raising that brat, Cameron!” she screeches, getting upset.
“I wouldn’t let you, anyway. You’ll never get near my child.”
“So you’ll be signing your rights over?”
“What the fuck, Becky? Of course not. Ava and I will be raising our child together. As I said before, I will not marry you, ever.” I hang up before she starts talking, and then quickly shut my phone off.
Groaning, I lie on my bed. I have a feeling this isn’t the end of me hearing from Becky. I don’t need this shit right now, not when I’m fighting to save my marriage.
I turn my phone back on and call Mr. Veldhuizen. “’Lo,” he answers, sounding as if I woke him.
“Sir, it’s Cameron. I just got a phone call from your daughter, and I’m telling you now to discourage her from calling me again. I’m trying to spend time with my wife and our unborn child, and I refuse to talk to Becky when she is clearly not thinking properly.” I tell him how she was talking out of her head, unable to hear reason.
He sputters for a few seconds before gaining his composure. “How dare you call me to discuss my daughter like this, and what did you just say? You and your wife are expecting?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, this will make the divorce proceedings much harder,” he grumbles. “You should have kept it in your pants, Cameron.”
“There will be no divorce. I don’t know why you think, or why Becky thinks, that there will ever be anything between us, but I’m not going over this again. I love my wife, and I’m not leaving her.” I click the off button and turn my phone off for good. They are both crazy.