Instinctively, Ava drew back a step. Her fingers tightened in the metal bar of her umbrella.
The smile slipped. It vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. His entire body straightened or maybe it was just the lift of his chin.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “He’s right you know. John Paul. I am dangerous.”
He turned then, and for a panicked moment, she almost grabbed him.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
“Go home,” he said back. “Little girls shouldn’t play with monsters.”
Ava didn’t understand that. “Will I see you again?”
“No.”
She believed him. It was in the harsh lines of his frame as he stalked off. It was only after that she realized she still didn’t know his name.
“Did you learn his name?” Ilsa watched her from over the curves of her bent knees, green eyes wide and curious.
Ava chuckled. “Almost two months later.”
Ilsa blinked. “He really didn’t come back?”
“No, he did.” Ava grinned at the girl. “He came back the next day, and the next. Every day for the next eight years.”
Ilsa’s head lifted. “Did you talk to him?”
Ava nodded. “Not at first. He stayed on his side of the street and I stayed on mine, but somehow, we wound up on the same side.”
“Which side?” the girl pressed softly.
Ava shrugged. “Mine, I think.”
Ilsa beamed. “You won him over!”
Ava laughed. “I guess I did.”
It hadn’t been easy. He’d been so determined not to come anywhere near her that every time she’d tried, he’d tensed like a rabbit sensing a wolf.
“Are you really not going to talk to me?” she’d shouted one day from her side of the street. “At least tell me your name if you’ve elected yourself my shadow.”
He’d only stared at her with that same quizzical frown, like he couldn’t quite figure her out. It was the same look he always wore. Sometimes, it was hidden behind his glasses, but she could see it in the way his lips kept mashing together, as if whatever he was concluding about her, lacked something. Like she lacked something.
“It’s weird!” she’d said. “I don’t bite.”
He hadn’t been convinced.
It was in that moment she realized he wasn’t going to make the first move no matter what she said or did. He was content just standing in the shadows, separated by that stupid road. It was up to her if their friendship was ever going to go anywhere.
She’d stalked over, ignored the way he’d stiffened, and planted herself in front of him with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed.
“Well?” she’d said. “Here I am. I crossed the street. Nothing happened.”
“Were you expecting something to happen?” he’d countered almost lazily, but with a tension she could see around his mouth.
“You seemed to. Did you think it would eat you? That a great, big monster would leap out and snatch you up before you got to me?”
He’d studied her carefully. “I am the monster,” he said at last.
Ava had snorted in disgust. She’d rolled her eyes and his had widened.
“Not this again. You’re not so big. I could easily beat you in a race.”
He had simply stared at her, almost like she’d smacked him.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” she countered when he said nothing.
“I graduated this summer.” His voice had dropped several notches and wavered with confusion that confused her.
“And you’re spending your days following me around? Haven’t you got any friends?”
“No.”
Ava had considered this a moment. “I haven’t got any either,” she’d confessed. “The teachers say I exhibit antisocial and destructive behavior, but they’re all idiots.” She’d offered him a half grin. “Maybe we can be friends.”
“Why?”
She’d shrugged. “Because I would rather introduce you as my friend than as my stalker.”
She had never seen anyone look more appalled. “Introduce me? To who?”
“To whom,” she’d corrected smartly. “And I don’t know … people, I suppose. What if we were at the movies and—?”
“Why would you be talking in a movie?” he’d interrupted.
Ava had blinked. “Don’t you?”
“No! It’s for watching … silently.”
“What fun is that? I like discussing it while it’s happening.”
His face had bunched up in absolute disgust. “You’re one of those people I always want to hit with my popcorn bucket.”
“Hey now!”
He’d scoffed and shook his head. “We are never going to the movies together.”
“Fine!” She’d folded her arms. “I don’t want to go to the movies with you anyway.”
They’d fallen silent as a car roared past. It hadn’t stopped or slowed, but Ava had recognized one of John Paul’s neighbor behind the wheel. She’d waved and Ava had waved back. Then she was gone.
“Why do they say you’re destructive?”
“I’m not.” She’d looked at him, exasperated. “I hit a boy with a chair one time and knocked him out, but only after he and his friends had shoved me into the puddles nearly every day for a bloody month and I was forced to wear dirty clothes for the entire day. Retaliation, apparently, isn’t proper behavior. I think he had it coming.”
“With a chair?” he’d blurted. “You are crazy.” A grin had ghosted his mouth. “I would have stabbed him with a pen.”
Ava had laughed. “And I’m crazy?”
Things had changed between them after that. He no longer kept to his side of the street and she got to see the boy behind the yellow eyes. Their mutual need for someone had pulled them into an odd sort of friendship that extended well into her teens and his early twenties. He’d become her best friend, her confidant, the one person she could trust to never fail her. She liked to think she’d brought something to his table as well, though she could never guess what that was. It had always felt like she was getting the better end of the friendship.
“There was a boy I liked back in Germany,” Ilsa murmured. “Alois.” She smiled a little. “He had glasses and a million freckles, but he was always nice when other kids were making fun of me.” Her smile faded. “I’m never going to see him again.”
It was becoming increasingly difficult keeping morale up when she was the only one. The very air smelled of defeat. Even Ava was having a harder time than usual reminding herself this wouldn’t be the way she died. It was harder still to remember Ilsa was just a little girl.
It was horrible, the annoyance that always surged up every time the girl brought down Ava’s mood. She was constantly trying to keep herself from grabbing the tiny blonde and shaking her, and telling her that she wouldn’t let anything happen to her, that they would get out of this. There wasn’t a single flicker of doubt in Ava’s mind that Dimitri and John Paul weren’t looking for her at that very moment. They would find her and she would get Ilsa back to Germany and the freckle faced Alois.
But she kept her mouth shut and focused instead on the hum of the motor vibrating up the wall against her back. It was a strange sort of comfort, but it was all she had.
“Ava, stop it!” The agitation reverberated through the clenched force of Charlotte’s teeth. The only thing missing was the sharp slap of Charlotte’s hand, but Ava could see the whitening of her mother’s knuckles around the Gucci clutch, a sure sign the woman was barely containing the urge.
“I’m not doing anything,” she muttered, too restless to take her mother’s fussing seriously.
She peeked at her watch again.
“For Christ sakes! Ava!” Charlotte did slap her then, a flick of her dainty wrist that stung against the back of Ava’s hand.
“Ow!” She rubbed anxiously at the three strips of whi
te rising out of a hue of red. “I haven’t done anything!”
“I swear, you look at that stupid thing again, I will rip it off and—”
“There’s my girls.” John Paul appeared seemingly as though he’d been summoned by the sheer force of Ava’s mind. He looked at the spot Ava was still rubbing at, at the welts, and focused on his wife. “What’s going on?”
Charlotte huffed and stuffed her clutch between her ribs and elbow. “It’s that ridiculous watch you bought her. She won’t stop staring at it. It’s rude.”
Ava glowered. “It’s not ridiculous.”
John Paul settled a loving hand against Charlotte’s lower back. “Darling, it’s her party.”
“Exactly!” Charlotte hissed, careful to do so while maintaining a beautiful smile. “She’s eighteen, not two.”
Exhaling, Ava looked out over the crowd and the sea of faces she barely recognized. The majority were friends of John Paul, people she’d met in passing, but had no real thoughts towards. The rest were people Ava didn’t care if she ever saw again. But they were all there for the same purpose, to celebrate the day of her birth while simultaneously rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s most powerful people. It was more the latter. No one really cared who Ava was or why she was there. Most barely even glanced at her.
“I need a drink.” Her mother turned to John Paul. “I think I’ll get one in my room.”
It was ridiculous. Waiters were circulating the room with silver tray laden with flutes of champagne. All she had to do was wait. But it was clear her mother had had enough of the evening. She’d come. She’d smiled and shown her support and happiness at having a grown, legal daughter. Her job was complete. There wasn’t enough bribery in the world to persuade her to stay.
This was the night she had been dreading since the day of Ava’s birth. It was the night the entire world would know that Charlotte Morel was no longer young. She was no doubt on her way to spend the remainder of the night in a blissful, drug induced hue. No one would see her for days, weeks even. Then she’d sweep out of the room, a glowing radiance off to some exotic place for some recovery.
Ava was happy to see her leave. While she hadn’t been counting down those minutes, it had certainly come up a time or two.
“Of course.” John Paul turned away from the woman at his side and focused on Ava. “Will you be all right—”
“Of course she’ll be all right,” Charlotte snapped. “She’s an adult now. Completely grown. She can legally leave now.”
From the moment it had come to light that Ava was her daughter, Charlotte had practically counted the days until the time when Ava would leave and give Charlotte back her life. It was a very fine razor blade she walked, Ava thought miserably.
“Nonsense.” John Paul frowned. “There is no need for her to go anywhere until she’s finished school and started a successful career.”
“It’s fine,” Ava interrupted. “I have plans to see the world, anyway.”
“Of course you do,” Charlotte muttered under her breath before turning away and making a quick exit.
“Don’t listen to her.” John Paul set a hand on her arm. “It’s your life now. Do what you want.”
With a loving squeeze, he followed his wife from the room.
Ava watched them go wondering yet again how someone like John Paul could stand being married to someone like Charlotte. The mysteries made no sense. She wasn’t rich or influential, at least not as rich or influential as he was. She wasn’t kind, generous, or loving. She was awful and brought nothing to the table, but he stayed.
Shaking her head slowly, she glanced at her watch. The tiny hands sitting precociously on the twelve had her heart jumping. Her skin prickled with a familiar sort of anticipation and her stomach cinched.
It was finally midnight. It was time. It was the moment she’d been waiting for nearly her entire life.
Lip caught between her teeth, Ava skirted the dancefloor. There was no need to creep when no one was paying any attention to her, but she moved quickly, quietly on the balls of her feet, careful not to let her heels touch the marble. One hand held tight to the soft fabric of her soft, crimson dress, elevating the hem off the tops of her strappy sandals.
The French doors had been left open to the remaining few warm nights of August. The balmy temperature whispered into the room, carrying with it the subtle scent of her mother’s garden and the approaching thunderstorm they’d been promised. The sky was a subtle black edged in a light, glowing blue where the moon hid behind a shroud of clouds. It was the perfect kind of night to trace the curving paths through the acres of manicured lawns and shivering trees.
They rustled as she hurried beneath them, heels clipping on stone as she followed the familiar trail. Fairy lights glimmered between the leaves, making up for the lack of stars and filling the moment with an ethereal hue that only fueled her anticipation. Solar lamps lead the way along the edges of her path, dipping and bending as the stones did. Not that she needed the guidance. She could have found her way if all the lights of the world had gone out and absolute darkness ruled supreme.
The guesthouse was rarely used by anyone outside the family. The estate was large enough, with plenty of space for guests, but Ava had always loved the two story cabin style with its simple décor and beach house feel. Plus, it was as far from her mother as she could get most days when she’d been younger. It had been her own personal little home. Her place of sanctuary. But it was also the one place no one ever thought to come looking for her, which always made it ideal for other things.
The glass doors swung inward without a sound. She shut them quickly behind her and turned to the silhouettes of slumbering furniture. In the semi darkness, each one reminded her of a lurking monster.
“Dimitri?” she murmured into the eerie quiet.
Her own voice echoed back, small and uncertain. She started to check her watch again, wondering if maybe it had lied to her when his voice broke through the silence.
“Ava.”
Her heart leaped even before the shadows parted to reveal him. They became the heavy drapes of a play, bending and slipping away to expose the beautiful poetry that he was. Ava’s breath caught even as he closed the distance between them and came to stand before her.
“Sz dnum rohzdeenyeh,” he murmured, wishing her a happy birthday.
Pale light toyed in the glossy locks swept back from his gorgeous features in thick waves. They glinted off the ends where they curled over the collar of his leather floor duster. The front hung open over the tight material of his white t-shirt and the dark cargo pants. Not many men she knew could pull off the Bohemian-gypsy look, but on him, it was perfect.
“You made it.”
An elegant eyebrow lifted. “When have I not?”
He had a point.
“All right.” She extended her hand, waiting dramatically for it with her palm open. “Where is my present?”
Heavy lashes dipped and his gaze fixed on the vulnerable flesh of her wrist and the tiny pulse beating rapidly under the pale skin. It was such an uninteresting spot and yet, standing there with it exposed, rushed her with a wave of embarrassment, the sort one felt when getting naked in front of another person the first time. The intimacy behind such a small gesture nearly made her pull away. Then he was reaching for her hand and she froze.
Long, blunt fingers cradled the back of hers like five, hot strips. She was drawn closer with a gentle tug until her curled fingers grazed the center of his chest. The heat of his skin burned through the thin material of his top, singeing her. Her fingers flexed involuntarily in his grasp, a startled bird too frightened to stay still, but too transfixed to leave.
His gaze sprung to hers, hot and wild behind the gold. His grip tightened by a fraction, a warning that she wasn’t going anywhere. She wanted to tell him that wasn’t possible. She wanted to tell him that nothing short of instantaneous death would have pulled her away from him.
“Have you decided what you want
?” he countered quietly. His husky rumble glided along the naked skin of her back, making her painfully aware of just how little material actually made her dress.
It had been her idea, not as an act of adult rebellion, but she’d seen it and had immediately thought of him and the predatory glimmer he always got when she showed too much skin. He didn’t think she noticed, but it was a charge in the room that was impossible to ignore. It was a heat that prickled along her skin and made her aware of parts of herself she never noticed otherwise. The dress, the red swash of fabric barely restrained to her shoulders by pieces of thread, was a reminder to him that she was finally legal. That if he’d been hesitating because she was younger, it was no longer a problem. He could finally have her.
Now, she was nervous enough to pee herself. It had all been so clear in her head the entire week, so absolutely planned to the detail, but now, when she stood before him, partially naked, semi aroused, and ready to make the plunge, every nerve ending wanted to run.
“What do you want, Ava?”
The guttural question sent a shower of tingles erupting in the pit of her stomach. It was an intense spike of desire she hadn’t been prepared for. Her body clenched in a greedy, desperate sort of way that filled her cheeks with color from her dress. The excruciating pain thrummed through her in a sweet, silky caress that tore at her senses. The place between her thighs throbbed, a persistent and angry sensation that nearly made her cry out.
“I’ve thought about it,” she blurted, willing her stiff, dry lips to form words she had to struggle to find in the mess of fog in her head. “A lot…” The words rushed out of her in a choked gasp. “I’m eighteen now,” she went on, quicker now as her nerves threatened to revolt. “Legal everywhere in the world. An adult…”
“Yes,” he whispered softly, gaze never wavering from hers.
“We … you and I, we’ve done everything together, right? We … we’re a team, right?”
“Ava.” What little spaced remained holding her sanity in place was conjured by a single, forward step from him. The hand he held was lowered, removing all obstacles between them until there was nothing but a soft merger of their clothes brushing together. “You’re rambling.”
The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) Page 19