The Avoidance of Love (The Daniels' Sisters Book 2)

by J. L. Monro

  My beating heart came to a complete halt with the aggressive banging on the door.

  “MARA!”

  “How did he get here so fast?” I was panicking.

  “It was probably pre-recorded earlier today.” When did he get so calm.

  “MARA!”

  My grandmother came into the living room. “Mara, do I need to call the police?”

  I got to my feet, stumbling a little. “No, Grandma, I’ll go answer it.”

  My throat was dry. I had no idea what I would say even if I could manage to speak. I gingerly opened the door.

  “Hey.” God, he looked so good.

  “Hi.” Well, that was progress. I could speak at the very least.

  “I want you to come home.” I was about to speak when he raised his hand to silence me. “Let me finish what I have to say.” I gave a short nod to let him know to continue.

  “I’ve missed you so badly it burns, Mara, and I know that’s my own fault. You did the right thing by walking away. I’ve quit racing because I just want to be with you and I don’t want anyone or anything to get in the way of that. You deserve everything and I want to give it to you. I’m going to love you so hard you won’t be able to get rid of me. And when you try to run . . . which I know you will . . . I’m gonna tie you to our bed and love you just that little bit more.”

  “You quit racing.” My voice was stuttering.

  “Is that all you heard? That I quit racing.”

  “Yeah. And some stuff about loving me.” I was smirking and he was frowning.

  “You keep laughing. Just remember that you wear the trousers in our relationship now. I’ll be your house husband.”

  “And what does that mean, Jace?” I knew he had more than enough money put away that he didn’t need to race anymore.

  “That means after we’re married and forever more, whenever you come home from work, it’ll be my job to make you forget your day.” His arms snaked around me, both hands grabbing my bum cheeks to pull me closer into his body and his semi hard cock.

  “You haven’t asked me to marry you.”

  “What part of forever don’t you understand? Come home and let me give you a demonstration.” In a smooth and quick motion, he had me in a fireman’s lift over his shoulder. Coops and Lana stood behind me hooting. Both my grandparents had been standing there watching and listening as well. They all waved as Jace carted me off to his car. “Say goodbye to your family, Mara. We’ll see them only after I’ve shown you how much I’ve missed you and put a rock on that finger of yours.”

  I looked up at my family’s smiling faces and waved.

  “I love you, Jace.”

  “I love you more, BonBon.”

  “JACE, HURRY UP. We’re going to be late.” Dana and Deacon were flying over from America to visit before she gave birth to her new baby. They already had a baby girl called Helen. Dana had named her after our mother to help keep her memory alive. I don’t think she had counted on being pregnant again so soon. When I last spoke to her, she was convinced this would be the last one. Deacon on the other hand seemed positive there would be at least two more.

  “I’m coming,” he was grumbling. “ Pardon me for not being in a rush. Whenever your sister visits you practically move back home with your grandparents and spend every night drunk with them. I get no fucking action for the whole time.”

  He was such a baby. “My sister hardly visits so I want to make sure I spend the most amount of time with her and my niece and nephew.” I wouldn’t be drinking this time and there was a big reason why. I had found out a week ago that I was two months pregnant myself. I couldn’t be happier. I had more or less accepted that, at my age, I probably would never be a mother.

  “I suppose I should be grateful your sister keeps popping those little parasites out. It means we don’t have to have any and as soon as she fucks off, I get you back to myself again. No. Sharing.” What? Jace and I had never spoken about kids but I had assumed he wanted them or we would at least have a conversation about them.

  He’d insisted we get married within a week of me agreeing to go back home with him after the whole Brielle fiasco. At the time, it had suited me fine because I had thought that a small wedding with two witnesses matched my persona.

  Over time, I realized it only fit with the old me that kept everyone away. I would have liked a huge wedding with family and friends. That ship had now sailed, but usually the next thing you do after getting married is have children. I had four sisters. I’ve always had siblings around me; surely, Jace would understand my need to have children.

  My nose was starting to tingle which let me know I was about to cry. I was so mad at him. Mad at him for what he had said and mad for him not knowing what I wanted without me having to tell him.

  “What if it wasn’t just us, Jace?” I stared at him now.

  “What do you mean? I like it when it’s just . . .” He looked at me now and really saw me. His eyes settled on my waist. You couldn’t really tell I was pregnant; the only difference was my boobs, and those had definitely increased. The high sensitivity had tipped me off in the first place. My chest was where he looked next.

  “Oh fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” He was panicking. His first instinct was to panic.

  The tears were free falling now. “You don’t want a baby with me. You don’t want one ever.” I was in a full meltdown. I wanted my sisters and my grandmother. I went to grab my bag and keys.

  “BonBon, wait. Let’s talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about Jace. I’m going to see my sister. You can stay and do whatever the hell you want to do.”

  My sisters almost made me forget about Jace. They were all so happy for me. Well . . . Lana started sing the chorus for Another One Bites The Dust, but she gave my non-existent bump and me a kiss after.

  I was in the middle of the dinner when someone knocked on the door. If that was Jace, he was going to be sorry. I didn’t want to talk to him and I’m sure my sisters wanted to strangle him after his response. My grandfather had said he was probably surprised and just needed time to digest the information since the baby wasn’t planned, but he piped down when we all glared him into leaving the room.

  Lana got up to answer the door.

  “Did anyone order thirteen dozen roses, thirteen extremely large psychotic looking teddy bears, and thirteen boxes of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat?” ” she shouted.

  I couldn’t fight the smirk crawling across my face as I remembered the last time I had received those gifts. That was Jace’s signature way of apologizing and the final treat was definitely worth forgiving him.

  “Damn sneaky asshole.” He knew I had no resilience against this apology. “Can’t stay mad at that kind of shit.”

  Lana came back to take her seat next to me. “I’m guessing from the look on your face that all will be well when you get home.”

  Jace out did himself with his apology. He claimed he was just taking advantage of my extra horny hormones but I didn’t care.

  We talked about the baby. Jace told me that since I had never mentioned children, he accepted that I didn’t want any so he didn’t give it more thought, but he was more than happy and if I wanted to have more after he would be more than compliant in putting in the effort for us to achieve that goal.

  What surprised me was that he brought up the subject of our wedding. He knew we hadn’t had a traditional wedding. In two weeks, we would be renewing our vows in Florence where he realized he was never going to let me escape him.

  My whole family had travelled out to Italy for our wedding. I didn’t even know how Jace had managed to arrange everything until we got there. He had called Alex, the man he had nearly got into a fight with over me, to help him. Alex and I had kept in contact and so had his cousins, Max, Gio, and Nico.

  The day before the wedding, they had arranged for a party at their restaurant. It was wonderful. Part of the reason Jace had arranged it in a hurry was because he knew Dana wouldn’
t be able to fly again very soon and I would want her there.

  All night, Nico had been flirting with Tara. My poor sister had been about as red as her hair all night with all his chat up lines and sexual references he had directed at her.

  Tara was now engaged, but we had met her husband-to-be and none of us were impressed. He was an arrogant prick from where she worked. So, none of us tried to help her avoid his advances and her blinding engagement ring didn’t seem to make him hesitate either.

  Jace tore me away from watching my sister and pulled me up to dance.

  “Are you happy, Mrs. Bryce?”

  “Very happy, Mr. Bryce. Thank you for doing this for me.”

  He gently kissed me. It was full of love and tenderness. “I’m not selfless, BonBon. When you’re happy, I’m happy. When you’re ecstatic . . . I get to keep you in bed and not leave for days.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. I spent the rest of the evening dancing with my family and my husband. We couldn’t stay late as the wedding was in the morning and Lana was already throwing a massive fit about us seeing each other the day before the wedding. I told her that it didn’t count since we were already married. She still didn’t want me having bad luck, so I complied and followed her to return to our hotel.

  I gave John a kiss on my way out. He had done well at rehab and was now completely sober. At first he hadn’t wanted to come back to live with Jace and I. I could understand his reasons but it all came down to his pride and to me that was no longer a good enough reason to make any decision. I’d worn him down and he’d moved back home with his son.

  “Have you seen Tara?” If things didn’t start running like clockwork soon I was pretty sure my sister was going to explode. The last time I had seen her, she was dancing up a storm with Coops trying to avoid Nico in vain. Coops hadn’t really helped by pushing her back into Nicos direction whenever possible. My assistant and best friend was consistent in being a traitor.

  “No. Maybe she went out for air.” We walked outside; Dana waddled after us. We were all staying in one room so we could get ready together.

  “I heard talking round the side of the building. Maybe she’s there arguing with Nico again.” Dana was laughing. We had never seen Tara particularly flustered over any man. She took the logical approach even where they were concerned. They had chemistry, or they didn’t. They were going to have sex, or they were not. She had a mind box for everything.

  We strolled to the corner, and all came to an immediate halt. We found Tara all right. Up against a wall with Nico. It was feral.

  “Back away. Back away.” Dana whispered. We all moved in unison at once.

  “I don’t think I can unsee that.” I felt ill, and it wasn’t morning sickness. “I can’t unsee it.”

  Lana looked just as disturbed. “Well, this is going to be interesting.” She looked down at her phone and held it up for me to see the text message.

  Adam: Tried calling Tara. Phone must be switched off. Please let her know I will attend the wedding after all and will see her in the morning.

  “Her fiancé is on his way.”

  I just want to say thanks to my special people . . . Jemma Scarry, Rachael McClusky, Louise Kemp and Jodi Negri. If you guys hadn’t kept pushing me to write Mara’s story I might have taken another two years!

  Love you guys! x