Targeted: Newlywed Navy Seals Risk It All! (Truth and Lies Series Book 1)

by Pinki Parks

Allison launched herself into Ava’s arms and Ava breathed in her scent. She smelled of flowers and children’s shampoo. When Allison was born a few years ago, Ava had seriously considered having some of her eggs frozen. The expense was no problem, and she was a modern woman, grateful for all that science had to offer in terms of being an older mom. However, she still longed to be a mother naturally. Ava wanted to know what it was like to sit on the toilet and stare at a plus sign on a stick. She wanted the pleasant surprise of being able to call all of her loved ones one by one.

  In the years since Allison had been born, she promised herself that she would find someone to help her run the corporate office while she took a couple years off for her child. She’d also intended on waiting for the right guy but waiting for the right guy had turned into four, career focused years that left little time for dating.

  She stroked Allison’s cheek with the back of her hand and said, “How are you, sweetie?” She gave her another big squeeze.

  Allison smiled, and chirped, “Happy!”

  Vivienne cleared her throat and said, “She’s been calling everything happy. Stops speaking in complete sentences when she wants to seem cuter, she’s going to drive me to an early grave.”

  Ava peered into Allison’s big, cartoonish eyes and said, “You don’t need to seem any cuter, sweetie. You’re perfect.” Ava’s eyes traced the familiar dips and curves of Allison’s face, how she had Angela’s eyebrows and Vivienne’s perfect cheekbones. She smoothed the silky strands of Allison’s hair. Would a man ever give her a child that was an identical twin to her? She wondered if they’d have the same thick hair, what their father would like if she found a man that she wanted to tie herself to.

  A pang of pain shot through her chest. Correction, if I find a man that ever wants me as much as Tristan did. Ava stifled a sigh and rose to her feet. “I’m so happy I decided to come. Why don’t we catch up in a little bit? I’m exhausted.” She moved past Vivienne and strode through the wide, open concept living room. Her eyes ran over the dark grey colored, stylish throw blanket that had been tossed over the back of the long sofa, and the silver and gold and elephant statues that sat rested on the end tables on both sides of the sofa. Her parents had always had one of the swankiest looking homes when they lived in the city. Their distant relatives and family friends were fooled into thinking that her father brought in triple the amount of the salary that he earned each year.

  Ava slid her hands along the staircase and withheld a groan as her calves popped and ached each time she lifted her legs. She moved through the dark hallway until she reached a plain white door at the end of the hall. When her parents first moved to Hawaii, the room was supposed to be dedicated to guests, but over time, there was an unspoken agreement that this was Ava’s bedroom when she decided to visit.

  Ava slipped her hands around the doorknob and pushed the door open. The door resisted and creaked against the wood before it fell back to reveal the darkness of the room. The shades were tightly drawn and the bed, with its perfect sheets and undisturbed pillows, hadn’t been touched since she last visited.

  She exhaled and moved across the room, she yanked the curtains open and a burst of sunlight poured through the windows. The sun’s rays washed over her skin, New York hadn’t seen sunshine like this in months. Ava filled her lungs with air and pursed her lips as she exhaled. Palm trees and gentle waves were on the other side of the window, and she knew that it was time to leave her New York problems back in New York.

  The floorboards creaked, and Ava’s head snapped towards the doorway. Vivienne hovered in the doorway, Ava dropped her eyes towards Vivienne’s knees and Allison’s big bubbly eyes were nowhere to be found.

  Vivienne’s full lips spread into a cautious smile, she rested one of her hands against the doorframe. “You okay?”

  The question hung in the air like the mistake that no one wanted to claim. Ava lowered her eyes to the floor and spread her hands across her legs. She nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”

  She strode across the room and hovered in the doorway. Vivienne jerked her thumb towards the hallway and said, “Do you want to come into town with me? I know that you just got in, but you’ll be sick of Mom and Dad before dinner if you stay. They want to show you off to everyone in town.”

  Ava grinned and said, “Of course they do,” she walked over to her things and snatched her purse. She threw her phone in and swung her arm towards the door.

  “Lead the way.”

  Chapter 14

  The waves washed up onto the shore, the sand disappeared underneath the clear water. Ava’s toes crunched in the sand as she walked beside Vivienne. A small frown tugged at the edge of her lips and she turned her head towards Vivienne. The wind carried strands of her thick, dark hair and Vivienne’s soft blonde curls twirled in the wind beside her.

  Ava’s eyes narrowed as she examined her sister. Her long body moved along the sand casually, her feet dragged in the sand in a way that reminded Ava of a print model that was shuffling along for a commercial. Her long limbs reached up, and towards the sky as she stretched and her eyes were bright as she turned to Ava.

  “So, why did you really come home?”

  “What?” Ava lifted her foot over a rocky, splintered looking shell. She wore a mask of calm and tucked her hair behind her ears. She turned her head towards the sun, it’d been beating down on the right side of her face since they’d began their walk. I’ll have to try and get a decent tan while I’m here. No point in looking white as a ghost when I come back.

  Vivienne smirked and said, “I know that you want to see Mom and Dad, but only for a few minutes.”

  Ava rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, well, the questions start up after five minutes.” Ava’s voice came out in a half-hearted impression of her mother’s city accent, “‘Are you seeing someone?’ ‘When are you gonna take a step back?’ ‘I bet that a man hasn’t been in your pants in age’s’!”

  A small chuckle rolled out of Vivienne’s chest, and Ava’s low giggles joined her. Ava’s belly cramped as she slung an arm over Vivienne’s shoulders and said, “You know? It’s like she can’t wait to point out that I’m not married. I’m the first person in the family to make more than $100,000 a year and I’m still missing something.”

  Vivienne kicked up a wave of sand and offered, “I’m sorry.”

  “Keeps me humble.”

  The laugh lines in Vivienne’s face smoothed and she pulled her eyebrows together before saying, “So, what are you doing?”

  Ava snorted and slowed her footsteps. She knelt down and scooped a scarlet colored shell off of the ground. Grains of sand fell in between the spaces in her fingertips like flour through a sifter. “Do you mean who? Look, you try dating with my schedule,” she shook her head and closed her fist around the shell. “Nothing ever works out. If you want something serious with a guy, they’re just looking for fun. If you want something fun for once in your life, they want to marry you and move right into your apartment.”

  A wave of sand was tossed across Ava’s jeans as Vivienne plopped onto the ground beside her. She turned to Ava and said, “Who wants to marry you? I thought that I would have heard about that.” Vivienne sat back on her palms and tilted her head back and towards the sun.

  Ava shook her head. “It’s complicated.”

  Vivienne snorted and said, “Relationships are always complicated. Look at me,” she nudged Ava and said, “What’s so complicated that it made you run all the way to Honolulu?”

  Ava sighed and said, “It’s-that’s not why I’m here. There’s some stuff going on at work. And the whole man situation- I don’t know, it’s one of those situations where the timing isn’t right and it’s probably never going to be right.” It’s not like I have a time machine that makes me ten years younger or makes Tristan ten years older.

  A brief silence sat between the two of them before Vivienne smacked her lips together and said, “Well, I know that most m
en don’t leave an impression on you. If they do, it practically lasts forever. If there’s someone back home that’s made you run all the way to Honolulu, maybe the whole timing thing can be tossed out the window.”

  Ava narrowed her eyes and ran her eyes over Vivienne’s perfect body. If she didn’t know her, she’d be thoroughly convinced that Vivienne had never been stressed a day in her life. Of course, the answers are so simple to her.

  Vivienne turned her head and caught Ava’s gaze. “Trust me, after what I’ve been through with Allison’s Dad, I’d much rather take the compilation out of things.” She shrugged and kicked up another wave of sand as she jumped to her feet.

  Ava craned her head back and peered at Vivienne as she looked down the rest of the beach. She extended one of her hands to Ava and said, “We can probably get more shells like that one further down. You could take them back to New York with you.”

  Ava nodded and planted her heels into the ground as Vivienne pulled her to her feet. Ava swept her hands across her backside and watched as Vivienne hurried down the beach. The sand clung to her backside, but Vivienne didn’t make a move to wipe it off of her. She hurried forward and kept her eyes to the ground for more shells, sand fell off of her as she moved down the beach.

  Chapter 15

  Ava held her phone out to Valeria, who leaned forward and scrunched up her nose as she took in the image on the screen. The photo looked like something out of an ad campaign, Vivienne and Allison’s bare feet hovered in the air, the ocean raged behind them. Valeria grinned, the lavender color that she wore on her lips reminded Ava of a pair of oversized petals on a flower.

  “Your sister and her kid are so beautiful!” She crossed her arms over her chest, and towered over the phone, her five-inch heels threatened to throw her to the ground. Valeria turned to Ava and said, “I bet that you didn’t want to leave. It looks so beautiful there.”

  Ava shrugged and dragged her finger down the screen. She slipped her phone onto the edge of her desk. Just past Valeria’s head, she could make out the interns that hurried back and forth, binders blocked their line of sight, and a pair of them bumped into each other.

  Ava bit down on her lower lip. Come on, kids. One under the armpit, and two in your arms. I suppose every college grad can’t be like Valeria. Ava reached forward and squeezed Valeria’s shoulder. “Thank you so much for holding down the fort while I was gone, I would have gone crazy without a break.”

  Valeria held up both of her hands and shook her head. “No worries, we missed you, but we made it through. Besides, I think that your vacation was good luck for the company.”

  Ava raised an eyebrow and pushed herself off of her desk. “What? Why?”

  “You got a call from those clients you were chasing last year, it took me forever to find their account because your old assistant left the thing a mess-” Valeria paused here and punctuated her sentence with an irritated huff. “Anyways, they’d like to meet with you. I think they want to make a deal with you.”

  Ava chuckled and said, “It figures that when I escape the city and stop thinking about business, people want to do business with me.” After the loss they took from missing out on a deal with Howard Bell’s company, she’d been sure that they wouldn’t see another opportunity like that one for months. Ava flicked her wrist towards Valeria and said, “Set it up. I’ll meet with them later this week.”

  Valeria nodded and turned on her heel, her long skirt brushed against her ankles. Ava frowned and whipped her head between the window behind her and the door that Valeria was headed towards. “Valeria?”

  Valeria’s boot hovered in the air before her heel smacked against the ground. She turned her head and replied, “Yes?”

  “Go ahead and forward my calls to your desk for an hour or so. I’m going to take a long lunch.” Ava walked over to the coat rack that sat in the corner of the room and pulled her coat off of one of its branches. She shrugged her arms inside and said, “You can reach me on my cell.”

  Valeria nodded and hurried into the chatter that waited outside of Ava’s office. The sound of desk phones blaring and interns having arguments that they thought no one could hear swallowed up the entire floor. Ava kept her eyes to the floor as she moved towards the stairs. She flexed her hands as she bounced down the stairs and slid her gloved hand inside of her shallow coat pocket.

  Her heels clicked against the sidewalk as she stepped into the cold, the sound was eaten up by the chatter of a group of teenage boys as they hustled down the street. Ava lifted her head, quarter sized snowflakes blew past her, and clung to the onyx fibers on her coat. She narrowed her eyes and readied herself for the warm feeling of sweet mocha spreading across her tongue.

  “Get him! He’s got my bag, my mom’s gonna kill me!”

  Ava shifted her weight to her left leg as the gangly limbs of a teen boy flew past her. Without slowing her stride, she turned her head and spotted a smaller boy pumping his legs towards him. His bright red cheeks had been whipped by the cold air, and his eyes were wide with panic.

  Ava frowned as she moved to the side. Her feet came to a stop at the cross walk and her eyes followed the canary yellow coat of the smaller boy. She shook her head. It was impossible to tell a real emergency from a fake one, after living in a city known for its chaotic sounds and sights. Her eyes followed him until he disappeared into a crowd of well-dressed women, and her jaw fell open as a man emerged from within their group.

  On the other side of the street, Tristan strutted towards her as if he’d just come out of an ad for one of the designers that worked in town. He wore a brand-new coat, and black dress pants. His eyes were focused and serious as he clenched his fingers around a Styrofoam cup from Kellers.

  “Fuck,” she mumbled. Her hands flew to her hair, her fingers made a last-ditch attempt to smooth the loose pieces of black hair into a neater style. She drew her shoulders together and kept her eyes forward as she moved towards him.

  Small talk? I can ask him if he tried any of the new flavors that they’ve been pushing at Kellers. I could smile at him, like I miss him. Do I miss him? Her heart sounded like a drum solo, as her feet moved across the crosswalk, she decided on a coy smile. Just enough to let him know that she was doing alright, but not enough for him to say that she made the first move after they hadn’t spoken for a month.

  Ava readied her lips, and thought of a quick prayer, pleading that today wasn’t the day that her lips were chapped from the cold. She fixed her gaze on Tristan, and his eyes connected with hers. She’d prepared herself for a burst of warmth behind his eyes but his gaze was as cold as the wind that whipped around him. His eyes slid towards the crowd in front of him, and he disappeared inside of the crowd of shoppers.

  “Lady, you’re going to need to watch where you’re going! Are you slow or something?”

  “Ah!” Ava yelped as she slammed her palms into the bouncy belly of a man with bright red cheeks. His eyes were beadier than a rat’s, and he repeated, “Watch where you’re going!”

  Ava lowered her gaze as she hurried onto the sidewalk, she craned her head over her shoulder. The darkness of Tristan’s coat faded into a sea of bustling bodies. Ava held her hand to her chest, her heart thudded against her rib cage and the urge to whine rose up inside of her.

  What the hell? I’ve never been this upset over a guy- at least, not for a while. She turned her head, but she was only greeted with the busy sidewalk. Ava sucked in a gust of cold air through her nose and marched towards Kellers. She slipped into line, and mumbled her order, autopilot had taken over for her.

  Ava didn’t feel as if she was back inside of her body until she was standing outside of the glossy glass doors of Lawrence realty. A solid white paper bag with a double chocolate muffin inside dangled from her fingertips, her hands were wrapped around her coffee cup. The older man with bleach stained khakis lowered the scarf that clung to his mouth and said, “Miss? Do you need help?”

  Ava slid her eyes over t
o him and shook her head. “No- at least, I don’t think so.”

  The man considered her, he lowered his squeegee and set it onto the sidewalk. He rose to his feet and his bones popped as he pulled the door open and held it open for her, he chuckled and said, “You did need help. You were never going to ask me, huh? You business types are something else.”

  Ava’s eyes darted back and forth between the window cleaner and the lobby, and she mumbled, “Thank you!” and hurried inside, she held her hand up as one of the front desk receptionists rushed at her, “Miss Lawrence! Miss Lawrence! We receive-”

  “Forward the message to Valeria!” She called over her shoulder. Ava bounced up the steps and painted a calm expression on her face as she breezed past Valeria’s desk. Valeria fumbled with a couple of sticky notes that clung to her desk and jumped out of her chair. It spun around as she hurried into Ava’s office.

  Ava eased into her chair and ripped her muffin out of the bag. Her glossy, scarlet fingernail punctured it before she ripped it down the center. Valeria hovered a few feet away, she turned her head to the side as Ava devoured her ‘lunch’.

  Valeria cleared her throat and said, “Ava?”

  Ava plucked a chocolaty piece of muffin into her mouth and reached for her coffee. Valeria tossed a glance over her shoulder and moved towards the door. She moved it towards the frame as it softly clicked shut. Valeria whipped her head around and said, “Ava? Ava? You got a couple of big calls while you were out,” she slowly moved towards the desk and pressed her hands against the expensive wood.

  The corner of Ava’s lips turned down, and she dragged the back of her hand across her lips and cheeks. A thin layer of bright red lipstick came off onto her hand and an irritated groan slid past her gritted teeth as she said, “Can’t it wait? I’m not done with lunch. I just need an hour. Or two.”

  “I just thought that you might like to know. Is everything okay, Ava?”