by Lauren Layne
“Why did you let me?” she asked, her voice small. “I need to know.”
He turned around, prepared to lay into her about how she didn’t have the right to ask anything of him. He’d already given her everything.
But then he saw the vulnerability on her face, and all he could see was a woman who’d never been loved, not really. A woman who had everything she’d ever wanted within her grasp but who wasn’t really sure it was what she wanted after all.
He knew the feeling.
And though he knew it was the worst kind of mistake, he did what he hadn’t done that day two years ago. He acted on his instincts.
He pulled her toward him.
The kiss was hard at first. He meant it to be hard, punishing and fast, just to give them both a taste of what could have been, but when she made a soft noise against him, he couldn’t bring himself to push her away.
The kiss gentled, their lips brushing softly, their tongues teasing. Her hands slipped up his back and his found her face. The kiss went on endlessly, a quiet declaration of something neither would say out loud.
When he took her hand and led her to the bedroom, she let him lead her.
And when he roughly pulled her shirt over her head, pushing her pants down her hips, she let him do that too.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he didn’t bother with preliminaries as he took her the way he wanted. His knees bent, his head dipped, and he wrapped her nipple in his mouth, suckling her as she clutched at his head.
He moved to the other breast as her fingers fumbled with his belt, and he stepped back just long enough to take off his own clothes before wrapping an arm around her slim waist and pulling her back to the bed.
His eyes held hers as his fingers hooked into her panties, tossing them aside as he spread her thighs. His gaze held hers as he lowered until his shoulders were behind her legs and his mouth was inches from where she was already damp and ready for him.
She started to remove her glasses, but he stopped her with a curt, don’t.
Then he licked her, his gaze held hers until she cried out and arched her back, breaking the eye contact. He licked and suckled and teased, his assault rapid and relentless, only to stop when she was seconds away from release.
Her eyes were glazed with unfulfilled passion as he moved up her body, and when he kissed her, she returned his kiss sweetly and urgently.
He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman so badly, and yet once again, the kiss gentled in a way he hadn’t experienced before.
There was heat and urgency, and there was something else there as well, and instinctively he knew what it was…
Their bodies knew what their minds struggled to accept. This was the end.
Her legs parted and he settled between them.
He pushed into her slowly, their breathing shallow and rough as they each tried to make it last.
When he was buried all the way inside, he pressed his face to her neck and stayed perfectly still.
Ava.
They moved slowly, the mating slow and hedonistic as though they were in some sort of trance.
Her hands found his face, forcing him to look at her as their pace quickened. “Say my name, Luc.”
He tried to look away, but she wouldn’t let him. “Please.”
Luc let out a sound of outrage as he understood what she was really asking for. Forgiveness. A chance.
And he cared about her.
But he wouldn’t take the risk.
Instead of saying anything, he buried his face against her neck, exploding with a gasp.
He felt her convulse around him seconds later, their bodies shuddering together in a harmony that their hearts would never find.
Luc wanted to linger, and it was because he wanted to, he forced himself to move the second the aftershocks came to a stop.
He stood, pulling his pants back on without looking at her, quietly picking up her clothes, handing them to her without making eye contact.
“Luc?” Her voice was questioning.
“You should go, Sims.”
She sucked in a breath. “Seriously? What was this, a booty call?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t ask you here; you just showed up.”
Pain flashed across her face, but he refused to relent. “Sims, we knew what this was coming to. No relationship, remember? I’m not going to put any woman through being married to a cop, not knowing if he’s coming home each night. Especially not you.”
Her eyes narrowed as she stood, pulling on her panties and bra as she continued to glare at him. “Why especially not me, Luc? Is it the same reason why you showed up today, sacrificing your own reputation for the sake of my career.”
She was trying to coax him into an admission, and he sidestepped.
He gritted his teeth. “You got what you wanted, Sims. Did they offer you the anchorwoman position, or did you take your ammunition and go to a competitor?”
“They offered it,” she said quietly. “They were a little shocked at first, but they said it was too big of an exclusive to pass up, even if it’s not their original vision.”
His heart soared on her behalf just for a minute, but her next words shut him down.
“But I’m not going back to CBC.”
Huh? “Why, you get a sweeter offer somewhere else?”
“Nope. I quit.”
“You what?”
What the hell?
She lifted a shoulder. “Well I guess technically I haven’t quit yet, but I plan on it.”
“What the fuck, Sims. Journalism is your life. You were born to tell stories.”
She lifted her chin, met his eyes. “Maybe there’s something I want more.”
Something hot and hopeful surged through him, but he stifled it before he could identify it.
Luc turned away. “You betrayed me, Sims. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“No way, it’s too late for that, Luc. Don’t play this game. You don’t get to invite me in, make love to me like a man in love, and then decide you’re still mad at me after all.”
He left the room, but she followed.
“You want me to grovel, I will,” she said. “I should.”
“Yeah, you should, Sims.” He retrieved his beer, taking a reluctant sip.
She spread her arms. “Okay. Let’s go. I was wrong, Luc. So, so wrong. I knew something was weird about the Shayna Johnson incident weeks ago, and I should have asked you about it.”
He turned away.
She kept going. “And when I talked to Beverly Jensen and learned about what happened with Mike, I should have told you that too. And when I put the pieces together that your dad had called in favors—”
“Leave my dad out of it,” he snapped.
“I did leave him out of it,” she shot back. “Did you miss the fact that I never once mentioned your family’s involvement? CBC is pissed that I ‘forgot’ that part, but I would never do that to you.”
He snorted. “Right. Because you clearly have a moral compass.”
Her hand found his arm. “Luc, you’re the one that’s been telling me all along that you weren’t a saint. I’m not saying that I didn’t act selfishly. I did, and I’ll spend the rest of my life hating myself for it, but we set out to show the full picture of being a cop, and we did.”
“I can’t wait to get my gold star in the mail,” he muttered, shaking off her hand.
Her fingers came right back, wrapping firmly around his wrist and pulling him around. He let her.
“You’re a good cop, Luc. You didn’t do anything wrong. You know it, I know it, and the people that matter know it.”
She released him long enough to go to her purse, which she’d left by the door, and came back with a small recorder. She handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the audio of the video Mihail helped me record before I came here.”
He looked at her. “Sum it up for me.”
Ava licked her lips. “It’ll be t
he follow-up to the interview, in case CBC…twists things. In it, I explain everything I just told you. That neither Beverly Jensen, nor Shayna Johnson’s parents, nor any law enforcement officers find fault with anything that you do.”
He rolled his eyes, tossing the recorder aside, but she pressed on, her voice louder, stronger.
“I’ve already called contacts at competing networks that will air it, Luc. It’ll set the record straight. It’ll show the viewers what took me way too long to understand. That you’re America’s Hero not because of your acts, but because of your heart. That you’d be less of a hero if you didn’t beat yourself up every day for the death of a friend and a little girl. I tell them that—”
He closed his eyes. “Get out, Ava.”
“But—”
“Out!”
“Don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” she asked. “I’m trying to tell you I—”
“It doesn’t matter!” he yelled with a wild wave of his arm. “What did you think was going to happen, that you’d apologize and in a few months we’ll be curled up on the couch, watching your stupid TV series while planning our wedding? Fat fucking chance.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and he fisted his hand so he didn’t reach for her.
“There’s no future for us, Ava. I showed up today for you, yes. I care about you and wanted you to get what you’d sought so desperately to achieve. But that’s as far as we go.”
“But I said I was wrong—”
He held up a hand. “Don’t. We’re both getting what we want. You can still go be a superstar journalist. Go get your damned Pulitzer Prize, or whatever.”
“And you? What will you get?”
Luc moved toward his front door, opening it as he picked up her purse and held it out to her.
“Solitude.”
Ava gracefully took her purse out of his hand, chin held high as she accepted her banishment. “You’re being an ass, you know that, right?”
Luc shrugged. Don’t care.
Her eyes continued to hold his. “I love you. You know that too, right?”
Her soft-spoken words did something dangerous in the vicinity of his heart, and once again, he almost reached for her. Almost.
“I can’t, Sims. I can’t.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded once.
Then she walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I look horrible in coral,” Ava said, staring at her reflection.
Beth came up beside her, radiant in her wedding dress. She wrapped an arm around Ava’s waist. “You do, kind of.”
Ava gave her friend an exasperated look. “But you picked it out.”
Beth shrugged and took a sip of her champagne. “You know how some of those brides claim they don’t care about their gorgeous maid of honor upstaging them on their wedding day? Yeah, I’m so not one of them. Just be thankful I let your size two, shiny-haired ass stand next to me at all.”
Ava sighed and held out her glass for a refill. “It’s the least you can do.”
Beth waggled a finger. “Pour it yourself. Spilling champagne on my wedding gown at my wedding is acceptable. Charming, even. Spilling it on my dress a week before the ceremony? Trashy.”
“How does everything feel?” the tailor asked, coming over to where she’d been arguing with Beth’s cousin over how low the neckline of the dress could go without risking a wardrobe malfunction.
“It feels like I won’t be able to eat for a week,” Beth said, resting her hand lightly against the bodice of the gown.
The severe-faced tailor nodded. “Excellent.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Wonderful.”
“And you?” the tailor asked Ava.
“I’m good,” she said with a smile.
It might have been the biggest lie she’d ever told in her life. Ava was so far from good it wasn’t even funny. She hadn’t been good in…twelve days.
Beth’s face lost some of its glow as she took in Ava’s forced smile. “He still hasn’t called, huh?”
Ava shook her head and she refilled her champagne flute. “No call. No text. No courier pigeon. No Twitter, no Facebook.”
Beth made an angry noise. “It’s his loss.”
“Is it?” Ava murmured. “He’s right not to trust me.”
“Bullshit. You’re unemployed because of him.”
“No,” Ava snapped, using a sharper tone than she ever had with Beth. “That’s not what this is.”
Beth didn’t back down; her hands went to her hips, emphasizing the hourglass outline of her mermaid-style dress. “So you didn’t turn down your dream job as a show of faith for your non-boyfriend.”
“I turned it down because it wasn’t what I wanted.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open.
Ava understood the sentiment. Half the time her mouth still dropped open when she had the thought. But it was true. She’d been chasing the dream for so long that she’d lost sight of why she wanted the dream. And now that it was in sight…
“I don’t want to be a talking head, B,” she said.
“Well okay…I can’t say I’m going to argue. But why the change? It’d better not be because of a guy. We are so not those girls.”
“It’s not because of Luc,” Ava said softly, watching the bubbles sneak up the side of her champagne flute. “He was the catalyst, perhaps, but not the reason.”
“Not now,” Beth snapped at one of her other bridesmaids before pulling Ava farther toward the corner of the room. “Candice! I said not now!”
“You’re such a delicate bride,” Ava murmured.
“I’m a hungry bride,” Beth grumbled. “I had carrot juice for breakfast. I didn’t even know that was a thing. But don’t try to distract me. What changed?”
Ava shrugged. “The anchorwoman job just sounds…awful. The early morning, the constant need to look perfect. The high heels, all the sitting.”
“Okay, I’m with you there,” Beth agreed. “I’ve always thought it sounded like a wretched gig. I mean thousands, no millions, of people actually get to watch individual wrinkles develop in high definition. But that’s not what I’m asking. Last month you were all about it. This month, you’re not?”
Ava took a sip of her drink. Wasn’t that just the question of the day?
Year.
Decade.
“I don’t know,” Ava said finally. “I think I realized that I wanted the prestige of it all.”
Beth nodded. “I get it. And you wanted to show your Grade-A asshole of a father that you could do it without all of his string-pulling and mighty influence.”
Ava choked out a little laugh. “Shouldn’t I be lying on a couch for this sort of analysis, doc?”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered if your career ambitions weren’t born out of stubbornness more than actual interest.”
“Thanks for telling me,” Ava muttered. “You could have saved me a couple years.”
“Eh. It’s a sunk cost,” Beth said with a wave. “Move on.”
“From therapist to economist just like that,” Ava said with a snap of her fingers. “What’s next?”
Beth folded her arms. “Next? Best friend. What caused the epiphany, Ava?”
Ava forced herself to meet her friend’s eyes. “He did. And no,” she said, holding up a hand when Beth’s freckled face started to go irate. “I didn’t give up my career for a man, so don’t go all woman-hear-me-roar on my ass. I’m trying to tell you that for the first time in a long time, something mattered to me more than proving my dad wrong, more than sitting behind that desk.”
“And that thing is…Luc Moretti.”
“Yeah,” Ava replied quietly. “I want Luc more than I wanted the job. Which in turn got me thinking about why I wanted the job in the first place, and I realized…I didn’t.”
Beth’s shoulders slumped. “Love. It’s a bitch, huh?”
“Totally.”
“Do you need money?”
“No,” Ava said, grabbing her friend’s hands. “No, I actually got another job. Actually, it was Luc’s sister who provided the introduction. Starting in two weeks I’ll be employed by the Times.”
“As in the New York Times?” Beth asked, face confused.
“Yup.”
“Newspaper? Print journalism? Isn’t that…a change?”
Ava shrugged. “Yep. But it’ll allow me to do what I’ve always done best. Tell stories. And if I want to tell them while wearing no bra and yoga pants, they won’t care.”
“Can you even write?”
“Ye have little faith, friend. Yes, I can write. I’ve always written all my stories out before I turn them in to be truncated for TV media. I gave them some samples, and…they hired me.”
“Does this mean your and Mihail’s weird relationship is on the skids?”
Ava felt a little wave of sadness. “Yeah. He’s happy for me, but he belongs behind the camera. And not the point-and-shoot kind. We’ll still be friends, though.”
The tailor hovered, and Beth held up a commanding bridal finger. One more minute.
“Ava.” Beth’s voice went uncharacteristically soft, quiet. “Are you going to fight for him?”
Abruptly Ava felt the now familiar lump in her throat. “I don’t know how, Beth. I told him I love him and he all but kicked me out. Is it possible to get much more vulnerable?”
“Maybe he’ll come to you. Maybe he just needs time.”
“Yeah,” Ava said, forcing a smile. “Maybe.”
But she didn’t believe it for a second.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Luc, you’re being an ass, you know.”
Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.
Luc rolled his shoulders restlessly against the way his uniform chafed uncomfortably against his skin in the hot, crowded diner. “This coming from you?”
Vincent shrugged, looking perfectly comfortable in his white linen shirt. Most of the time Luc wasn’t jealous that as a detective, Vincent had the option of wearing plainclothes while the rest of the family had the standard-issue uniform.
Hell, for occasions such as this, Vincent probably would have done well to wear his dress-up uniform too.
