by Amy Andrews
Ava nodded. He was right, of course, but there was part of her that didn’t want to let go.
‘I’ll see you around no doubt at the charity functions,’ Blake added. ‘The Christmas Eve fund-raiser is going to be huge. They’ve booked out the London Eye and I have a feeling Joanna’s going to be working her new patron like a dog.’
Ava smiled. ‘I look forward to it.’
Blake opened the door for her. ‘Goodbye, Ava,’ he said.
He could easily have leaned in and kissed her but, in his experience with Ava Kelly to date, he had trouble stopping at just one.
Ava nodded. ‘Thank you for everything,’ she murmured.
Blake grinned because the weather and the mood of the last twenty-four hours had been sombre enough without continuing it. ‘It was my pleasure.’
She grinned back. ‘And mine.’
And then she ducked into the car and he shut the door after her and she started it up and within a minute she was watching him grow smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror.
The bubble had well and truly burst.
* * *
And for two long months she didn’t see him. The frenzy and the endless speculation about Ava and Isobella had died down thanks to an A-list celebrity cheating on his wife, and the whole tawdry affair blew over. Ava went to America for ten days, and scored the new commerical. She did the talk show circuit—now more in demand than ever—and she and Reggie made inroads on her calendar for the next year while cultivating new contacts.
She flew to Milan and then on to Paris. All the designers wanted her because of her rekindled buzz and Reggie made sure they paid. But when she strutted onto the catwalk and caused a mini-sensation thanks to her recent notoriety the cameras popped and people noticed what she was wearing.
September became October back in the UK and all trace of that blissful bubble of sunshine on the English canals had vanished. The weather was bleak and dreary. Cold with endless drizzle that seeped damp into everything including the marrow.
Ava thought about Blake constantly. Wondered what he was doing. Wondered how his holiday had gone. If he was back at work yet. She picked up the phone to call or text him a dozen times a day. But never followed through.
Which was just as well—she was too busy anyway. There weren’t too many nights she wasn’t out and about on some dashing escort’s arm—openings, galas, red-carpet events. If it was on and it was big, thanks to Reggie and Grady Hamm, she was there.
Not that she spent the night with any of her escorts. Her intentions were always open but as the night progressed she’d spend more and more time comparing them to Blake and it didn’t seem to matter that they’d just been named in the top one hundred beautiful people or had landed a lead role in a Hollywood blockbuster.
None of them measured up.
She knew Blake was just an anomaly and had he been around he’d tell her she was just obsessing about him purely because she couldn’t have him.
But that didn’t make him, or the lack of him, any less distracting.
And then Remembrance Sunday dawned, another fittingly bleak day, and Ava lay in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin, not even bothering to get up. She wondered if Blake was attending a service somewhere. Maybe hanging out in a pub with some of his army mates?
Maybe getting quietly drunk on his boat?
* * *
It was only a knock at her door around ten a.m. that roused her from her lethargy. For a moment she even contemplated not answering it, but hauled herself out of bed, throwing on a polar fleece gown, welcoming any distraction.
Or at least she’d thought so until she opened her door to find her mother, conspicuous by her absence these last couple of months, flirting with the press with all her brash blonde falseness. She’d been on Ibiza when Ava’s house had been shot up and, apart from that one phone call, this was the first Ava had seen or heard of her for six months.
Sheila Kelly air-kissed Ava’s face for the sake of the cameras and swept inside requesting a tour of the renovations. Ava shut the door on the ‘give your mum a kiss, Ava’ calls coming from the little clutch of paps and girded her loins.
She complied to her mother’s request but was mentally preparing herself for the catch. For the ulterior motive.
Sheila cooed appreciatively at all the big-ticket items—at the roof and the pool and the acres of glass and steel—but sniffed dismissively at the homey wooden kitchen.
‘You could pay a personal chef on what you earn,’ she tutted.
And there it was, the entrée her mother was clearly looking for. Ava waited patiently for her mother to come out with it. ‘Paul rang offering me another book deal,’ she announced casually.
Ava barely supressed a snort at the mention of her ex-agent’s name, now doing shonky off-shore deals in the literary field. She didn’t understand how her mother could still associate with him. Ava reached for her handbag that was on the kitchen bench. ‘How much this time?’ she asked, pulling out her cheque book.
‘A quarter of a million,’ Sheila said. ‘Since your little...scandal with Isobella, the price for a tell-all memoir has gone up considerably.’
Ava gritted her teeth. She paid her mother a generous allowance every month that kept her in houses and holidays, but she stopped by at least a couple of times a year for a top-up.
‘I should just write it, darling,’ Sheila said. ‘Paul said it could be very lucrative for me. I wouldn’t need to depend on you then.’
Ava snorted—she bet he had. ‘No,’ she said, signing the cheque. ‘No tell-all. You write a single word and I will cut you off.’ She tore it out of the book as noisily as she could.
Ava didn’t care what her mother wrote about her—her twisted version of the truth. Ava knew the real story. But she didn’t trust her mother not to tell lies about her father and that she couldn’t tolerate. She wouldn’t let her father’s memory be besmirched.
‘There’s no need for that,’ her mother replied waspishly as she took the cheque.
Ava folded her arms. ‘Good.’
They stared at each other for a moment, then Sheila said, ‘I’ll be off, then.’
Ava nodded. Of course. Her mother had got what she’d come for. There was no hug or air kisses this time—no cameras inside the house.
She watched as Sheila headed to the door and let herself out, surprised to find her hands were shaking as she put the cheque book back in her bag. A sense of being alone in the world assailed Ava, which, given how many people she had around her, was absurd in the extreme.
But she cursed her mother anyway, stupid tears in her eyes.
And before she knew what she was doing she was tracking back to her bedroom, picking up her phone off the bedside table and scrolling through her contacts.
Blake answered on the second ring. ‘Hello?’
Ava shut her eyes, feeling foolish for having even rung him now, but his voice sounded so good.
‘Hello?’
‘Blake...’
There was a very definite pause at the other end before he said, ‘Ava,’ in a voice so wary she could practically cut the trepidation with a knife.
The tears built more insistently behind her eyes and she was glad she had them closed.
‘Are you okay?’
Ava shook her head. ‘No. Can you come over?’
* * *
Blake knew it was a bad idea when he left his boat the second her husky request was out. He knew it was a bad idea as he pulled up in front of Ava’s house and four different cameras took pictures of him and one of the paps said, ‘Hey, aren’t you that builder guy?’ He knew it was a bad idea when she answered the door in nothing but her dressing gown and a haughty look.
But it didn’t stop him stepping inside when she pulled the door open. And it
didn’t stop him wanting to kiss her. It sure as hell didn’t stop him actually kissing her when she shut the door, the haughtiness evaporating as she reached for him, and put her mouth to his.
Later he would come to know it as the FFK—the first fatal kiss—but in that moment nothing mattered. Not the two months of separation, not endless footage of her with other guys, not the giant divide in their lives so aptly demonstrated by the cameras on the other side of the door.
He just sucked her in, his senses filling with the smell and the taste of her as he pushed her hard against the nearby wall and devoured her mouth as if it were his last meal.
He groaned as she opened to him, kissed him back with equal vigour. He’d missed her—the feel and the smell and the taste of her. He’d missed her snooty little smile and the way she ate her food and her sexy, frilly lingerie hanging everywhere.
He missed her complete lack of inhibitions.
He missed the way she kissed—wide open and full throttle. The way he didn’t have to duck and she didn’t have to rise up on tippy-toe to align their mouths. The way her mouth was always just right there level with his and, God help him, always one hundred per cent willing.
Ava clung to Blake as the kiss went on and on. She hadn’t realised how much she’d been starving for his mouth until it was on hers again.
And now it was time to feast.
‘God, I missed you,’ she said, pulling back slightly, their gazes meshing as she tried to catch her heavy breath, each oxygen molecule drowned in lashings of Blake.
Which was true—but not the full truth. She’d more than missed him. She loved him. As soon as she’d opened the door to him—no, before that—as soon as he’d knocked, she’d known.
Because he’d come.
She’d asked and he’d dropped everything to be here. No questions. Just action.
There’d only been two men in her life who’d done that for her and she loved both of them too. One was her father. The other was Reggie.
And now there was Blake. Her big, brave, wounded warrior who had come without hesitation when she’d called. Who was looking at her with desire and lust but also with a healthy dose of wariness, his barriers fully up, clearly not loving her back.
So there was no way she could tell him—she’d learned a long time ago not to give any man that kind of power over you.
But she could show him.
She could love him with her body. And whisper it in her mind.
Blake sucked in a breath as the noise of his zip coming down sounded loud enough to be heard outside. He bit back a groan as her hand brushed his erection, reaching down to stop her, shutting his eyes as he dragged himself back from the lure of what could be.
His head spun with the effort and the sweet intoxication of her. He hadn’t come for this.
No matter how much he wanted it.
Nothing had changed between them. If anything it had reverted to what it had always been. Ava crooking her finger and expecting him to come running.
Which he had.
He’d told her once he wasn’t going to be her plaything and he meant it.
He captured her hand and pulled it up, trapping it against his chest as he leaned his forehead on hers and drew in some unsteady breaths. They both did.
When he felt under control again he eased back a little and said, ‘What’s this about, Ava?’
Ava felt all the desperation leach out of her at his calm enquiry. She let her head flop back against the wall. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her voice annoyingly husky. ‘My mother was here. She always makes me a little crazy.’
‘What did she want?’
Ava’s gaze met his. ‘The same thing she always wants. Money. Paul, who’s now in publishing, keeps waving a tell-all book deal under her nose and I keep matching his offers.’
Blake’s jaw clenched against a wave of disgust. What pieces of work they both were. ‘Did you give it to her?’
Ava shrugged, hugging herself against how tawdry it all sounded. ‘I’ve got the money.’
Blake shook his head at her wretchedness, his need to smash things duelling with her need to be comforted. He’d tried to forget in their two months apart how truly alone she was in the world but here it was in full Technicolor.
Sure, she might not have been short for an escort to a film premiere but she had no real family to look out for her.
Except Reggie.
And now him.
He took two calming breaths, then closed the short distance between them, his hands sliding to her hips. He could be outraged later. For now she really did need him.
He stroked a hand down her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What can I do?’
Ava gave him a half-smile as she slid her hand onto his arm. ‘Right now? You can help me forget about my mother.’
Blake dropped his gaze to her mouth then flicked it up again, his resistance completely shot. ‘Just once.’
Ava’s smile broadened. ‘Absolutely. But she’s a very hard woman to forget. Might take you all day.’
Blake grinned.
THIRTEEN
Two weeks later Blake was up late working on a kitchen design for a client when he heard dainty footsteps on the bow and then a familiar little knock and his pulse kicked up in anticipation.
They shouldn’t still be doing this.
But they were.
He was still helping Ava forget her mother—every single night. All night long. They didn’t seem to be able to stop no matter how much they said they were going to as she left each morning.
It was that first fatal kiss that had done it.
He’d been fine resisting the notion of her for two months—finishing his holiday, going back to work, getting on with his life. Fine with her image seemingly everywhere. Fine with opening the paper and reading about her. Fine to be the friend Ava had referred to in her media statement on her return to London, which hadn’t lessened the speculation as to how she’d managed to lay so low for a week.
But then she’d kissed him and a wellspring of craving had erupted inside him and he could not get enough.
He certainly couldn’t stop.
He’d broken the seal on his resistance and there was no way he was getting that sucker back. It had flown the coop and there was no hope of recapturing it.
But the worst thing was, it was more than sexual—how much more he didn’t want to think about. He just knew he actually looked forward to her company—something he’d have never thought possible a few months ago.
It was as if there were two different Avas—the public persona, Keep-out Kelly, who left them wanting more with her touch-me-not smile and her ball-breaking business sense. And then there was the private persona. The one who let her guard down. The one who tramped onto his boat every night fresh from some red-carpet event schmoozing with the A-list eager to be with him. The one who cooked gourmet snacks for him in her underwear, who burped after she skulled half a can of beer, who smiled at him with her touch-me-everywhere smile.
Who left the boat every morning looking a hot mess and didn’t seem to care.
Maybe that was part of the allure, the continuing of what they’d had for that week out on the canals. Where she could be nobody and they could be lovers and no one was around to care. No paps taking her picture or fans asking for her autograph.
Just him and her and their bubble.
* * *
The knock came again just as he’d almost reached the door and a muffled, ‘Open up, I want to do unspeakable things to your body,’ had him quickening the pace.
‘I beg your pardon.’ He grinned as he pushed open the door to a freezing London night to find her standing huddled into a long black coat buckled at the waist and her collar up to keep her neck warm. ‘I object to being so outrageously objecti
fied.’
‘Oh, really?’ Ava said, raising an eyebrow, unbuckling her coat and opening the lapels to reveal her nudity.
Blake’s eyes widened as he forgot all about the bracing cold pushing icy fingers inside the boat, his gaze fixed on the hard points of her nipples.
‘Now can I do unspeakable things to you?’ she demanded.
Blake grabbed her hand. ‘I am all yours,’ he said as he pulled her inside.
* * *
Half an hour later they were lying in the dark together. Blake was drifting his fingers up and down her arm enhancing Ava’s post-coital drowse. The urge to blurt out her feelings was never far away but something always held her back. She thought Blake might feel the same way, or at least feel something more than sex, but things were so perfect—she didn’t want to rock the boat.
Literally or figuratively.
‘I love this boat,’ she said instead, rolling onto her side and snuggling into him. ‘It’s like my secret hideaway.’
Blake smiled. ‘Mi casa es su casa,’ he said and surprised himself by how much he meant it. She was welcome here any time.
‘It was my hideaway for a long time. It was like a...lifeline or something...somewhere to lick my wounds.’
Ava brushed her lips against his shoulder. If anyone had needed a place to lick his wounds it had been Blake. If she’d gone through what he’d endured, she’d still be holed up in a drunken stupor.
‘You mentioned once that you’d received some news that made you realise there were worse things than having one leg. Do you mind me asking what it was?’
Blake stared at the ceiling for long moments.
‘One of the guys in my unit...he had the same thing happen to him about six months after me, lost a leg. But...’
Blake hesitated. He’d never told anyone about this. But it felt right unburdening himself to Ava, especially in their private little bubble.
‘He also had his genitals blown off.’
Ava gasped, rising up on her elbow to look down at him. ‘That’s...terrible.’