38. Adrian

Chapter 38

Adrian

M uch like his penthouse, David's office seemed so dark that it devoured everything in its presence.

Leaning against his desk and dressed in what could best be described as an almost pinstripe suit, he observed me as if I was someone new, as if I was something to balk at for simply striding in unannounced. But I came with a goal in mind and I wasn't going to let his irritated gaze and white-knuckled grasp on the sides of his desk keep me from that.

Because there, almost hidden in the shadow of him as she sat in his desk chair with her auburn hair swept up into a messy bun, was my reason for this. For everything.

Ava: I don't think he'll want to talk to you.

Ava: I've been in with him all morning sorting out stuff for my business and he isn't in the best of moods.

Ava: I don't understand why you want to try with him.

The last messages she sent me played over and over in my mind in her voice, circling, spinning. She met my gaze from across the room, her worried eyes tearing me apart just like her father but for far different reasons.

"You got a reason for bein' here besides staring at my kid?"

"Dad, stop," Ava groaned, her head tipping back into the seat. "We talked about this."

"I'm not bein' fighty, Aves, I'm just…askin' him a question," David grunted, but his eyes still shot daggers at me.

"I'm here for a few reasons," I explained. Letting my laptop bag slip from my shoulder, I deposited it on the side table, holding David's stare as I pulled out a few printed-off pieces of paper. "I figured you'd want to know why someone was taking indecent photographs of your daughter."

David's brows rose, and behind him, a silently curious Ava peeked around him.

My feet clacked against the dark wood flooring as I stepped across the office hesitantly, holding the papers outstretched. David practically ripped them from my hand.

"Dad," Ava hissed.

"I'm not gonna see somethin' I shouldn't in here, am I?" David asked, eyeing me warily before starting to scan the page. "Don't need that happenin' again."

"No, I've blacked everything out for both of you," I said.

"Dad, can I see…"

"Hold on, Aves," Dave grunted. He finished the first page before handing it back to Ava and starting on the second, and she took it gently from his grasp, her bump nearly knocking against the desk.

They both read in silence. I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall behind me, each second passing painfully slowly as I stood and watched them. My hands turned clammy as a bead of sweat dripped down the back of my neck. Everything that had torn my life apart was in those pages. Proof that the scandal wasn't our fault. Proof that it had never been about Ava at all.

"A member of my board of directors hired a private investigator. He was trying to catch me out in a scandal," I explained, desperate to fill the suffocating silence.

"Ah, so he succeeded," David snorted.

I tried not to grind my teeth. "He succeeded in nothing but exposing your daughter in a way she shouldn't have been and getting me to pull the plug on that conference upstate. He knew I'd take the fall for it and was hoping this would be the cherry on top to get the board to unanimously kick me off."

David passed Ava another sheet of paper as he kept reading through. "So you're tellin' me that my pregnant daughter had to suffer ‘cause you made an enemy on your fuckin' board?"

Ava glanced up at me from behind the desk, her face unreadable.

I cleared my throat. "He has since removed himself once this came to light, but unfortunately, yes. I apologize that this happened because of me and that Ava got wrapped up in this. It never should have touched her."

He passed the rest of the papers to Ava with a slow, deliberate motion, his fingers tightening on the edges briefly before letting her take them. He didn't say anything, just looked at me with that same wary, guarded expression I'd seen before.

Fuck.

Behind him, Ava tore through the pages, reading each one in its entirety.

I'd never handled silence well from David, but I was cracking under the mounting pressure that seemed to be going nowhere. Against my better judgment, I spoke again, purely to try and move the conversation along. "I'm sure Ava has already told you, but I wanted to make it clear that we intended to tell you together. We'd been trying to figure out the best way to do it."

"The best way to do it would have been to never fuckin' touch her in the first place," David grumbled.

"I'm not some porcelain doll, Dad," Ava said, her tone irritated as she went onto the next page.

"I know I broke your trust because of that. And I know that I can't expect to receive that back," I sighed, pushing a hand through my hair to get it out of my face. "I know I've made a mess of everything, for both of you. But we were trying to take things slow after the chaos that unfolded because of that event cancelation, and we'd decided together to tell you once the time was right."

Ava pursed her lips together as she looked toward me. Sitting there with one leg propped up on the chair, her knee bent up toward her chest, in a set of leggings and a paint-stained oversized band shirt that just barely gave a hint of her bump, I couldn't help but feel like everything was slipping away.

Because it was.

I'd fucked up horribly, massively, disgustingly—I hadn't trusted her. And the more I sat on the fact that she kept the pregnancy from me for weeks, the more I came around to her side on that, too. She'd put herself through literal hell on her own, sending herself so deep into it that she had panic attack after panic attack, purely to keep my level of stress one notch lower.

I should have trusted her. I should have trusted her from the beginning.

"We knew it would be a disaster either way," I said, my voice just slightly too hoarse for my liking. "There wasn't a part of either of us that thought you'd take it well, and that's fair. You have every right to be upset with me, David. Truly. I won't apologize for being with her, but I will for the way you found out. Your anger was and is entirely justified."

Ava set the papers down on the desk, her gaze flicking up to mine.

"Does he know?" I asked.

She shook her head. Not yet.

"Know what?" David grunted.

"Can I tell him?"

Ava looked between us, her lower lip catching on her front teeth. She nodded.

I hesitated for a second, the weight of what I was about to say settling in my chest. This wasn't how I'd imagined telling him, not under these strained circumstances. I'd hoped things would be lighter, but he was still standing there with his arms crossed, his body closed off entirely. "Twins," I said, gesturing toward Ava. "We're having twins."

I could hear Ava's shift in her breathing as she watched her father.

His reaction was subtle—there was barely a shift in his expression, but the flicker of surprise in his eyes was unmistakable. I pressed on regardless, hoping like hell I could get through to him enough to then get through to her. "Two girls, Dave. Granddaughters."

After what felt like hours spent in silence, he uncrossed his arms, his gaze dropping briefly as if the weight of that realization finally hit him. When his eyes met mine again, there was still wariness there, but something softer, too—a crack in the rigid frame he was putting on. His jaw worked as if he was holding back what he wanted to say. "Twin girls, eh?"

I nodded. "I understand that you don't want me anywhere near her," I continued, shoving down the nausea that boiled in my gut the moment he raised a single brow in my direction. "But I'm not going to leave her to the wolves or to fend for herself. I'll be there in whatever capacity she allows, be that a helping hand or a co-parent or a partner."

His mouth flattened before he opened it. "Ad?—"

"I can handle your consequences," I continued. "I'll sell my apartment if I need to, sell my business, sell my boat. I'll sell my fuckin' wine collection. It doesn't matter. I would rather have Lucas and the girls and her than any of it."

I could see Ava from the corner of my eye, but without looking directly at her, she was too out of focus to gather anything other than the fact that she was looking directly at me. I could feel the burn of her gaze on my skin, and although the vulnerability I was lying at our feet was going to eat me alive, I let it fuel me instead.

"I would choose her with or without your blessing, if she wants that." I swallowed down through gritted teeth. "You, probably more than anyone, would understand why I hesitated to answer your question last time we spoke. But I can tell you now that I love her. And whether she returns that feeling or not, I'm not disappearing anytime soon."

David's eyes lingered on me for a long moment, the silence heavy but different now, almost contemplative. I couldn't bring myself to look at Ava, couldn't even track her in my peripheral anymore. It was too much.

He nodded once. A slow, reluctant gesture, but a gesture nonetheless. "I shouldn't have threatened ‘ya," David said quietly.

That was the closest I was going to get to an apology, and I would gladly accept it.

"It's Ava's choice, then, with whatever she wants…"

David's voice cut off abruptly, and before I could process what was happening, I felt the soft warmth of arms wrapping around my neck, pulling me in. Ava stepped into me silently, burying her face in my shoulder, her nails digging into my jacket and the side of my neck. For a second, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe — too stunned by the feel of her against me, by the simple fact that she had chosen to close that distance between us, I didn't know how to react.

But the second I understood, I closed my arms around her gently, breathing her in, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the knot in my chest loosened.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered into her hair, my voice barely steady. "For everything, Aves. I'm sorry."

She only tightened her grip on me.

I looked beyond her, watched over her head as David's eyes clung to the two of us. That look of stone cracked just a little bit more, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward just enough for me to notice.

"If you're what she wants, Adrian, then ‘ya can have my blessing," he said, a heaviness in his voice that I didn't quite recognize coming from him. "Just don't fuck it up and I'll support it."