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The little stunt she pulled?
“I didn’t pull any—” her words trailed off when she heard a click. “Hello?”
She looked at her phone. He’d hung up.
What a prick.
Tears filled her eyes before slipping down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure why she was crying. Frustration over the fact that she was going to have to deal with Jude for at least another fourteen years. Anger at herself for ever allowing herself to be in this position in the first place. She could take her pick of reasons to cry.
There was a knock at the door, and she expected to find Jacob on the other side asking for water. She wiped her face and took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth to try and pull herself together. When she opened the door, it wasn’t Jacob asking for water. Her mom was standing in front of her with a full glass of wine in one hand and a bottle in the other.
“I heard ya on the phone and thought ya might need this.”
Avery took the glass, lifted it to her lips, tipped her head back, and drained it in three gulps. When she lowered the glass, her mom didn’t skip a beat before filling it back up again.
“Thanks,” she said.
Blanche Bardot might not have been there for her childhood, and she might not be the most affectionate or effusive mother, even now, but since she’d come back into Avery’s life when she found out she was going to be a grandma, every time Avery needed her, she was there, usually with wine.
For that, Avery was eternally grateful.
* * *
Keaton stood at the sink and washed his hands as a knock sounded at the door. “Keaton?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Everything okay in there?” Heather asked.
He was glad it was Heather and not one of his nieces. They would have insisted on him opening the door.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he called out. “I’ll be right out.”
The toilet was the only place he could go where there weren’t cameras and he didn’t have to wear his mic. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in there, but apparently, it had been long enough that Heather had been dispatched to find him.
He’d ducked in there after the men had been sent back to holding to change and get ready for their first night of co-ed sleeping. If it was up to him, he’d curl up in there and sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was crawl into bed with Zara. Nothing against her, it was just that he didn’t sleep well when someone else was in his bed. With two exceptions, that is. Well, three including Mojo, but as far as people, there were only two.
Camilla and Avery. Those were the only two women that he’d actually been able to sleep beside. Usually, unless he was alone, he just laid in bed wide awake. He knew that it had to do with trust issues. Sleeping was when he felt the most vulnerable, and he didn’t like feeling vulnerable. Also, he had intimacy issues. And to him, sleeping in bed with someone was somehow even more intimate than having sex with them.
He wasn’t sure if the cameras filming them while they slept was going to make it better or worse. He hoped better.
After a few more minutes of stalling Keaton knew that he’d hid in the bathroom long enough. He took a deep breath, clicked the light off, and opened the door. He made it one step when he felt a hand flatten against his chest and push him back inside closing the door behind them.
Out of instinct, he grabbed the wrist the hand on his chest was attached to, twisted it, and secured it behind the person’s back. His hold on the wrist wasn’t hard enough to hurt, just hard enough that he had control of the person it was attached to.
He flipped the light on and saw that the person was Zara. As soon as he did, he dropped her wrist and took a step back. She didn’t speak, she was just staring up at him with a funny expression.
He waited for her to explain why she’d just bum-rushed him into the bathroom. When she didn’t, he prompted, “What are you doing?”
She blinked and then shook her head slightly. “Sorry, I got distracted. That wasreallyhot.”
“Pushing me into the bathroom was hot?” he asked.
“No, your reflexes,” she explained as she rubbed her wrist, and a visible shiver ran down her body. “And your strength. And your…control. I bet you are really good in bed. It’s probably all that grappling and MMA training.”
“Zara? What are you doing in the bathroom?” he prompted again, not feeling comfortable talking about his sexual prowess. “We’re not supposed to be alone together unless it’s being filmed.”
Keaton didn’t really give a fuck about the rules, but since Ivy and Iris were PAs who really wanted to impress Sabrina Denton, he decided he was going to toe the line for their sake. Also, he didn’t really feel comfortable being in a confined space with Zara.
