Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Was that why she’d been so quick to leave Ransom all those years ago? While she’d been doing everything she could to please him, deep down, had she been waiting for him to prove he’d never really loved her?
And he had. He’d pretty-womaned her. He’d ignored her dreams. And then he’d ghosted her.
Ava closed the gap between her fingers, shutting off her view of Gabby’s face. “What makes you think I’ve never had sex in my office before?”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
Of course. Ava had always been the consummate businesswoman. Then again, maybe there’d never been anyone with whom she wanted to have sex in her office.
Until Ransom came back into her life.
She felt Fernsby’s fingers on her hands then, prying them away from her eyes. And really, she couldn’t do anything but meet his gaze.
“How do you feel about him now?” he asked gently.
Fernsby? Gentle? But there it was.
Before Ava could even formulate an answer, Gabby chimed in. “You were so angry with him back then.” She cocked her head. “But I wonder if he’s still that same man. Do you think he is? I mean, he totally squashed your heart. I just want to make sure he doesn’t do it again.” She reached across the table, touched Ava’s hand. “I never want to see you as miserable and hurt as you were then. If you think he’s going to do that, then that’s what we need to talk about.”
Fernsby let out a low hmmm, then said, “The man has hidden depths that perhaps fifteen years ago he had not yet plumbed.”
“That’s the problem,” Ava said. “I don’t know if he’s changed.” That wound, just as Gabby said, ran deep. “There were times, as I built my business, when things got so hard that I wanted to quit. And part of the reason I didn’t was because I wanted him to know that I’d made my own dreams come true.”
Good grief. Even the success of her business might be tied to him. She’d never truly admitted that to herself until this moment. “After he erased me from his life, I never wanted him to think I’d simply collapsed into misery without him.”
Gabby smiled softly. “You might have been miserable, but you would never have collapsed. You’ve never let anything stop you.”
Ava’s voice trembled. “I just don’t know how to get over what happened. He offered me a job following him around the globe, like a temporary mistress. But while he was on his way up, so busy working to become this megastar, I was just getting started. When I said no to his offer, he was like, okay, things aren’t going to work. And boom. He was gone. He completely ghosted me for fifteen years.”
Fernsby—was that a hint of emotion in his gaze?—said, “I realize that he has a lot to make up for. And you have a lot to forgive.”
She nodded, picked up her champagne flute, took a sip, and finally said, “That was the worst. The total erasure.”
She’d always said it was the Pretty Woman thing that got to her. But even more, it was the ghosting. It was being erased. As if they’d never been together at all.
Fernsby touched her hand. “You told us the two of you broke up. But you were a bit scant on details.” His mouth stretched in a grimace as he said the word. “Not those details.”
He didn’t want to know how fantastic the sex had been. He didn’t want to know how utterly amazing the lovemaking had been in her office today. He wanted to know how it had all gone down.
Ava’s stomach clenched even before she started. “He was supposed to fly out that night to Paris. We wanted to enjoy a marvelous dinner before he left, so we cooked together. I was always his sous-chef, helping him.”
Fernsby nodded knowingly. “You were his helpmate. I’d be willing to wager that many of the recipes he later came up with were from those nights you cooked together.”
“I suppose they were.” Recipes made out of love, at least on her side.
While she’d tried never to stalk Ransom, there’d been times in a bookstore when she couldn’t resist opening a cookbook and had discovered many of the recipes were ones she’d loved making with him. The memories had hurt her even then.
Feeling herself going under with the pain of all the good memories, she plunged into the story again. “We were on dessert. Rice pudding with raspberry sauce.”
Every detail came to her, even the sweet taste of the raspberry sauce on her tongue mixed with the creamy flavor of the pudding. She felt Fernsby’s and Gabby’s gazes on her, both well aware that the memories had never been erased.
She pushed ahead. “And lattes.”
God, the delicious coffees he’d made for her. Just like he had that day in his office when she’d barged in and asked him to help her with the catering emergency. It had never been the sex that made her fall for him. It was all the other things—the cooking, the food he prepared for her, even the coffee beans he bought with her in mind. The trails they hiked in the hills, the ferries they took to Sausalito, Tiburon, Treasure Island. The times they’d walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, hand in hand, through packs of tourists. The late-night strolls through quiet neighborhood streets, the sound of voices and laughter rising up from Union Square or Chinatown or Fisherman’s Wharf or Ghirardelli Square. It was watching him with his grandmother and holding him while they’d grieved together after she passed.