AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well observed.” I stop her in front of the freshly scraped door before I take her in.
“Why are we in Dexter’s office?” Turning to me, she tries to push us out. A disgusted snarl vibrating from her lips when I guide her further in with me.
“He’s gone.”
“Gone?”
I walk her to the new desk that Fran and Mom picked out to go with the new interior design. Something to keep them both from getting involved in my efforts to win Ava back.
“He’s no longer an employee.” Pulling her chair out, I sit her in it, crouching in front of her. “He hurt you, so I hurt him. It’s how it’s always going to be. No one hurts you, and if they do, I hurt them more. You understand?”
She nods with a swallow.
“This is for you.” I turn her to the desk, where the contract, between us and her father, sits. “The share breakdown is on the back.”
She flits to it, and I give her a moment to take it in. “You broke it down to shares?”
“It was the right thing to do. You have fifty-one, your father has twenty-nine, and I have twenty. I don’t own Monroe; we all do. And one day, your father’s share will be yours.”
“I don’t want it, Damon.” Tear-lined eyes blink up at me. “I can’t let you take that loss for me.”
“It’s your legacy, Ava, and you can make it great. But more importantly, I want our child to have that.” Perching on the edge of the desk, I take the contract from her. “Don’t let anyone steal your glory. Ever.”
She tenses at the knock on the open door, and when she finds the person there, a smile softens her face.
“Good morning, Miss Monroe.” Bianca walks in with the package I gave William earlier. “This just came for you.”
William stands at Bianca’s desk with a grin on his face.
“Thank you.” Ava takes the box and sits it in front of her, staring up at me with a bashful tip of her lips while her assistant leaves us again, closing the door. “It’s from you.”
“Open it.”
“Stop with the gifts, okay?”
“Just open the damn thing, Ava.”
Reticently, she does as she’s told and then she stares at the contents.
“I should’ve told you earlier.” Pulling out the lobster plush pacifier, she holds it to her chest with an apologetic cringe. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I was angry and upset and—”
“You had the right to be.”
“But I didn’t have the right to withhold our child from you.” One of her hands reaches up, holding my jaw. “You should’ve been the first person to know, and it should’ve been from me, not Lacie.”
There’s no argument from me on that point. That should’ve been a moment between the two of us with no one else in the middle. But at the end of the day, we’re both to blame for everything that happened. I kept her in the dark and she ran. There’ll be no more of that.
“If I’d been honest and open with you, you would’ve been the same with me. I can’t hold it against you. Not with how it all happened.”
“Still—” Her thumb strokes the hollow of my cheek. “—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. No more apologies, okay?”
Dropping her hand to mine, she brings it to her cheek and nuzzles into it. “No more secrets.”
