The Avoiding Series Boxset

by K. A. Linde

  “I don’t know.”

  “Seriously?” Chyna asked. She planted her hands on her hips and practically glared at Lexi. “You don’t know what you want?”

  “I mean…I know what I want.”

  “Then, just forget all the other bullshit. Forget all the drama—Ramsey, Jack, Bekah, Parker, Elisa, John. Just forget it. Tell me.”

  “I want Ramsey,” she said automatically.

  “I told you to forget about the bullshit. Don’t feed me cookie-cutter answers. I know that you love him, and you agreed to marry him, but that doesn’t tell me what you want,” Chyna cried. “Why does this have to be so difficult? You know what I wanted most of my life?”

  “One-night stands?”

  Chyna gave her a stilted laugh. “I wanted my parents to leave me alone. I wanted to forget about how much they fucked me up when they got divorced. I wanted their memory not to taint every relationship…every thought of a relationship…even a friendship. And you know what? Then, I found you. They can’t touch you. So, I won at least part of that even if I have to fight the rest of it daily. I won. They didn’t. I got what I wanted. I found a best friend who didn’t treat me like they did, who treated me like a person. I’ve made mistakes…I mean, every once in a while,” she said, raising her eyebrows with a smirk on her perfect lips. “But I knew what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to settle for less than that.”

  “While I appreciate the sentiment, are you going to tell me you didn’t settle for less than that all of those years you were sleeping around with half of Manhattan?”

  “I wasn’t looking for a relationship then. I’m sure I wouldn’t have found one with the guys I was taking home. Aren’t you surprised I’m getting married?”

  “A hundred percent,” Lexi said without skipping a beat.

  “Bitch!” Chyna cried. “Anyway, this isn’t about me. I was stupid, and I didn’t go after what I wanted all the time either. I fucked it up with Adam twice, but once I realized that he was it, I haven’t looked back. I just know. It’s like after Marco blacklisted me for over a year. I just didn’t give in to his demands, but I still went after modeling. I never stopped. Then one day Corsa calls me back, says that Marco lifted the blacklist, and that she wants me for fashion week. I won. I got what I wanted. So, cut the bullshit and talk to me.”

  Lexi took in a shuddering breath. Chyna wasn’t messing around, and Lexi couldn’t act like it was all a joke any longer. Just considering everything Chyna had said made Lexi want to burst into tears. Because the truth was that her head had been so fucked-up for so long that she didn’t even know what she wanted.

  She thought that was Ramsey. She had certainly been saying it was Ramsey for long enough. He was perfect. He loved her fiercely. He wanted what was best for her. There was absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be with a man like that. How could she resist a man who treated her like that?

  But then, there was that feeling…that moment…that ate away at her heart. Doubt. Chyna had hit the nail on the head. She had been with Ramsey for almost three-and-a-half years now, and she still couldn’t say whether or not she actually trusted him. It felt ridiculous—absolutely ridiculous. How could she waver about someone when she had been with him that long?

  But it still sat there—that seed of doubt—creeping up her spine, spreading out through her nerve endings, paralyzing her when she least expected it.

  “I want to…stop feeling like I have to try so hard,” she finally whispered. “I feel like I’ve spent all this time just trying to hold in everything. I can’t be irritated about Parker because I’m friends with Jack. I have to just forget about Elisa because the company wants to forget about Elisa. I have to just accept the man who works a country-club life because he did it for me—when I never asked for any of it! I just have to accept that Ramsey did everything for me because he loves me. I just have to accept that Bekah is trying to tear Jack apart when all I want to do is make it right. I can’t seem to do anything without my past creeping up and smothering me. Above all else, I just want to forget about my past and live my present. Why is that so fucking hard?”

  She hadn’t been able to hold in the tears. God, she hated that. But they came to her anyway, and she buried her head into her hands, trying to force them to stop.

  Chyna sighed, and Lexi felt the couch dip in when Chyna sat down next to her. She rubbed Lexi’s back, and they let her tears run their course.

  “I think the problem isn’t that you can’t forget your past. It’s that you don’t really want to,” Chyna spoke finally.

  “What?” Lexi asked, swiping the back of her hand against her cheek.

  “Your past shapes who you are as a person. It’s made you into the person you are today. Jack left his mark on you, and Ramsey left his mark on you. Scars can last forever.”

  “I know that it shaped me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change.”

  “Of course you can change,” Chyna said, clearly trying to hold in her usual cattiness. “Everyone can change, and I think you have. I just think that the one thing you haven’t changed is running from the things you want. It’s like you think you’re not good enough, like you don’t deserve the world and more—but you do.”

  Lexi brushed off Chyna and stood. She made a full circuit of the living room before making up her mind about what she wanted to say.

  “You tell me all of this—you say that I run from what I want, that I deserve more, but I don’t know what else I could do to make that a reality. I’ve pushed myself completely into this relationship. I moved to Atlanta. We moved in together. We’ve gone through highs and lows, ups and downs, sideways and back ways—”

  “I don’t need to hear about your sex life,” Chyna said, arching an eyebrow suggestively.

  Lexi chuckled but continued on, “I’m just saying that I have tried everything and more to make this relationship work. Doesn’t that prove that’s what I want? Doesn’t that prove that I deserve to have some semblance of peace and happiness?”

  “You’ve put everything into this relationship?” Chyna asked softly.

  “Yes!” Lexi cried, exasperated.

  “Then, just answer my one question,” Chyna said, moving to stand directly before Lexi. “Why haven’t you been able to let Jack go? Through all of this…he’s still here.”

  “I’ve let him go. We’re just friends.”

  “He told you he loved you and wanted to take you home with him. I don’t have friends like that.”

  “Are you trying to push me toward Jack? He got married! He married Bitch Bekah!”

  “And now, he’s divorcing her! I’m not saying that you have to run back to Jack…again. I’m just telling you to think about your life, Alexa. I’m telling you to be a grown-up and realize that some of what you’re going through might just be your own fucking fault! You might love Ramsey and have put everything into this relationship, but you’re only fooling yourself when you keep saying that you and Jack are just friends,” Chyna said, pushing Lexi’s shoulder in a rage. “I think that’s what pisses me off the most. You can have it, have all of it, what everyone searches for, but you do everything in your power to fight it!”

  Lexi sagged visibly, feeling the weight of Chyna’s words. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

  Pushing open the door as quietly as possible, Lexi eased into the apartment she shared with Ramsey. She had bumped up her flight from New York and taken the red-eye back that night. Chyna had tried to get her to stay longer, but Lexi knew where she needed to be tonight. She had taken off the weekend to work with Chyna on wedding plans, but Lexi really needed to be here, working on things with Ramsey.

  She needed to see him, to touch him, to hold him, to remember why she loved him so damn much. She didn’t normally need that reminder. She didn’t have to be around him at all times to feel those three-and-a-half years envelop her like a blanket. But tonight—well, tonight was different. Chyna had made her all topsy-turvy, and she wanted to be right-side up again.
She wanted her initial gut reaction, the one she had been saying over and over again for three years, to be instinctual, to always be at the tip of her tongue. She didn’t want to think about anything else. That was what she wanted.

  In that moment, she didn’t care if she was lying to herself about it.

  She shut and locked the door behind her and then tiptoed upstairs through the darkened apartment. She had left her bags in her car since she didn’t want to have to haul them upstairs in the middle of the night. All she wanted was to see Ramsey.

  Her feet carried her to the end of the hallway. She stood in front of the closed door to their bedroom and took a deep breath before pushing it open.

  Ramsey was lying on his side of the bed, curled in, facing where her body normally lay next to him. He looked so calm with the covers falling half off his bare muscular torso. She smiled at the familiar picture—one that she had grown accustomed to and taken for granted. She got to sleep next to him every night. Even when she staggered into bed, exhausted, she still felt the warmth of his embrace and the acceptance between them. Those were the things that mattered.

  Lexi easily stripped out of everything but her underwear and crawled into bed, next to him. He didn’t even stir as the bed dipped under her weight. Moving forward, she pressed her chest against him and then her whole body. Without even opening his eyes, his arm came around her, holding her gently in place against his body.

  She trailed her hand up the definition in his six-pack, to his built chest, up his neck, and then to the strong jawline. At first, her lips landed on his lightly, but then her increasingly demanding kisses began rousing him from slumber.

  His fingers digging into her back was the first indication that he had awoken, and then his lower half pressed into her before finally his lips parted to let her tongue inside his mouth. They kissed passionately, desperately, as she fed him every emotion locked away in her body. He didn’t hold back either as he began a slow grind against her. She could feel him stiffening through the thin layer of clothes separating them.

  “Baby,” Ramsey growled against her mouth, rolling her over and pressing her firmly into the bed.

  “Mmhmm…”

  “You’re home early.”

  “I needed you,” she said, giving him the most honest answer she had.

  She needed the physical connection now more than ever before. She needed the reminder tonight that she was making the right choice.

  “I love to hear that,” he groaned. He spread her thighs and eased down between them, continuing to grind against her.

  “Make love to me,” she all but whimpered as his cock pushed against the thin material of her underwear.

  Removing their last layer of clothes, Ramsey settled back down between her legs and took her for his own. She felt him pull back and meet her again and again, and she tried to keep her mind in the here and now.

  This was what she wanted. She wanted to have this feeling, to know he was hers and she was his. To feel him and know that she was going to have this for the rest of her life…that this was what she wanted for longer than that.

  She could feel him straining to release, and her walls were tightening around him, quaking at his measured thrusts.

  She loved this man.

  She fucking loved this man.

  They might have their problems, but every couple had problems. She could get past everything that had happened. She could deal with the problems they had faced, like she had been since the beginning. Because here and now…was the right decision.

  She wasn’t going to fight him on this.

  And she didn’t as he pushed her over the edge, sending waves of pleasure from her core to the very tips of her fingers. She closed her eyes, savoring that feeling, and then she let her body relax back into the bed. Ramsey collapsed over her before pulling out.

  “I love you,” he said.

  He kissed her lips and then slid off the bed to head into the bathroom.

  Her endorphins spiked and then released. It was like she was hitting the bottom of a sugar high. She rolled over and buried her face into the pillow.

  If this was how she was supposed to feel, then why did she have to keep reminding herself she was happy?

  DECEMBER—TEN MONTHS EARLIER

  Atlanta was a bustle with tourists throughout the holiday season. Traffic clustered the interstates, the malls were packed with Christmas shoppers, and everywhere Lexi went, the city was full of Christmas cheer. It was unseasonably cold for the South. These low temperatures didn’t normally hit until the end of January or early February, and they lasted only a few weeks at most. She was surprised to be constantly clad in her New York attire of sweaters, knee-high boots, and peacoats. She loved the layers, but she was already missing the summer.

  The law firm had given her two weeks off around Christmas, and she had no idea what to do with herself. Last Christmas, she’d had three days off. She figured the extra time off came from paying her dues…or maybe they had just seen how much of a wreck she had been recently. It certainly didn’t help when her relationship woes had made it into the news.

  When Elisa had been hauled out of Opera that night two months ago, she had been arrested for trespassing. The local Atlanta news had reported on the event, including a picture of Ramsey and Elisa together outside of the venue. It had been all sorts of humiliating.

  His father had been worried about the backlash against the company and ran a series of press releases, trying to do minimize the damage. But aside from the embarrassment, it hadn’t done anything to the medical wing. In fact, it seemed to get the word out even more, and the new building was flooded with people. Lexi just hoped the company didn’t try to use personal scandals to get more business after this.

  The one benefit from all of this was that Ramsey had been incredibly chill about everything in her life. Going to lunch with Jack was no big deal. Spending time with Brandon didn’t irk him. She didn’t know if he had just let go of his concerns or if he just didn’t want to put her through anything else after that. She wanted to believe that he trusted her, so that was what she was going with.

  Either way, it was a relief not to have to worry so much. Ramsey had always said that he didn’t care about Jack and Brandon or anyone else as long as they kept their hands to themselves, but she had never really believed him. After that incident with Elisa when Lexi had been left standing in the middle of Opera with a glass of vodka poured on her, then Jack saving her from Bekah, and no one but Cierra and Parker to look after her—well, things had changed.

  And it seemed that the change was needed.

  Even when she had hung out with people when Ramsey had said he didn’t care, she had still felt like she was tiptoeing around him in some ways—but not anymore. It was like someone had flipped a light switch.

  So, when John called her out of the blue, she actually answered the phone. If Ramsey was going to be cool about everyone else, then surely, she had nothing to hide regarding John.

  “There’s a name I haven’t seen on my phone in a while,” Lexi said when she answered.

  “Babe, I’ve missed your voice,” John said seductively.

  “You don’t strike me as a man who wants a talkative woman,” she joked.

  “Just you.”

  “Oh, ha-ha!” Lexi rolled her eyes. The man never gave up. “What did you really call me about?”

  “It’s cute how you think I’m joking.”

  “It’s cute that you think I’m that oblivious.”

  John chuckled through the phone. “I don’t, not at all. I’m actually just coming into Atlanta for the weekend. Bridges kept me on for the main contact for the medical wing, and they’re due for a sixty-day inspection checkup. I heard that you had the week off, and I wanted to see if you’d be interested in keeping me company.”

  “How the hell do you know if I have the week off?” Lexi asked, sitting up straighter. Christ, how did he always know things about her?

  “You do, don’t you?”r />
  “Yes, but how do you know?”

  “That hardly matters.”

  “It’s just weird that you always know these things. Who do you talk to? Is it Adam or something?” Lexi probed.

  “Do you just not want to spend time with me? Is that why you’re stalling?” he asked with a laugh. “I hardly believe that, or you wouldn’t have picked up my call.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “Or is it your boyfriend who doesn’t want you hanging out with me? Is he trying to avoid another company scandal like his big fuck-up with that Elisa chick? Shouldn’t he have known better than to go outside with her that night?” John asked, tsking softly under his breath.

  Lexi ground her teeth together. Elisa. Just the name brought bile to her throat in these circumstances. She was a step below Bekah on the hatred scale.

  “You’re not making your case at the moment,” Lexi grumbled.

  “So, it is the boyfriend then?”

  “No,” she snapped. “Ramsey doesn’t care who I hang out with because he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Of course he doesn’t, babe,” he said.

  She could almost see his smirk.

  “Then, you’ll have no reservations about spending some time with me while I’m in Atlanta, all alone, right before Christmas.”

  And that was how Lexi ended up touring the Bridges medical wing with John the week before Christmas. It had been fully functional for just over two months now, and as far as Lexi could tell, it was running smoothly. Ramsey didn’t complain half as much as he used to before it had opened, so she assumed things had fallen easily into place.