Chapter Twenty- One - Ava

I don’t want him knowing Anatoly was my main client for the day so I take my time in my office pretending to work through files, but the reality is, I can’t think straight. I’m falling apart, unlocked love coming to the surface.

How can I still want him after the way he treated me? But from the first moment Dimitri took up space in the boardroom, he sucked the air out of it with his dominating presence. His features are the same. His dirty blond hair cropped, and his beard grown out, but shaped. Shit. Was that a ring on his finger? Pouring myself a drink, I hyperventilate, thinking I’ve wasted enough time, and I should head to my car and go home.

Mark isn’t a micromanager, and if anything, he’s going to email me and ask how the meeting went. I handled myself as best I could, but as I gulp down the cool water, I don’t know how I’m going to prepare myself for the next meeting.

He looks more than good. His gray suit clung to him as if it were custom made to cling to his muscles. Those icy blue eyes were as captivating and deadly as ever. That’s why I avoided his gaze as much as possible during the meeting, but the heat in the room couldn’t be denied. Viktor maintained his neutrality, but the timeline of his facial expressions gave him away.

Thankfully, I don’t think Anatoly noticed the tension. That would have been my worst nightmare. Shit. I’m suffocating in here. I need to leave. The glass of water topples over on my desk, spilling over important documents. Picking up the glass, standing it upright, one of my colleague’s passes by. Taking a breath, I wait until they pass, working out a game plan.

“Shit!” I can re-photocopy the documents and it’s not a big deal, but I’m scared. I don’t think for a minute Dimitri is going to just leave it there. His anger cut through the room like the sharpest knife and all of it directed at me for something I didn’t do.

Done for the day, I pack up my things heading down to the basement parking lot, thinking I might have gotten away with it. I run a hand over my chest, my heart pounding regardless. As I exit the elevator, the basement is devoid of noise—silent, except for the click of my heels as I cross over to my vehicle. A pulse thrums in my neck, perspiration on my brow, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel safe. There’s a lurking feeling, and the exact same feeling I had when I ran through the woods during that rain-soaked night at Raven’s Peak.

Please. Don’t let this be a re-run. I hate this feeling, but it grows, expanding into its own entity as I pick up my pace, practically jogging to my car, but the rapidly approaching footsteps behind me, let me know I’m out of time. Holy shit. It’s him.

“Can’t run. I told you what I would do,” I hear a stern voice echo as I steal a glance around the parking lot for random allies and finding no one. Only a car on its way out, the gate opening to the light. I think about flagging it down, but it’s already gone.

There’s a large concrete pillar between me and my car, and Dimitri catches up with me, flipping me around, pinning me to it, my head thumping against it. His hand is fisted around my top, his face contorted in ugliness, the monster I first met returning.

“Dimitri! Get your hands off me,” I scream, but he doesn’t let go, until I employ the self-defense tactic on him that he taught me—thrusting the palm of my hand deeply into the base of his nose, slamming as hard as I can, and elbowing him in the ribs. Dimitri’s head whips back, as he holds his face. But it’s not that the blow was that lethal, although it shocked him enough to start reeling on his feet, and stumble around for a second or two. If I can’t run from him, I can at least defend.

Dimitri cracks his jaw, his face breaking into a wide grin as he tests its mobility, sniffing, but shaking it off. Wide-eyed at his swift recovery, I hold the keys to my car firmly in my hand.

“Not bad, Ava. You learned something from me. But that’s not good enough to keep me at bay. I warned you, didn’t I?” he returns licking his tongue around his mouth.

“You warned me about what?” I snap back. I’m not the scared twenty-two-year-old he met years ago. Nope. I’m stronger—more resilient, and not only has Dimitri taught me about the world, so have others. I’ve taken my hard knocks and can stand my ground.

Dimitri’s cold blue eyes don’t scare me anymore. “I warned you that if I saw your face again, I would show no mercy.”

Scoffing, I readjust myself, one side of Dimitri’s face covered in shadow. “Is that right? Well, here I am, what are you going to do? Kill me?” I taunt, knowing he has a heart; it might be an icebox, but I know a deeper, more vulnerable side to Dimitri that nobody has seen.

“Nah,” Dimitri says, cracking his knuckles pacing in front of me, trying on his intimidation tactics. “That would be too easy. I want to see you suffer first. That’s much more appealing to me.”

The deep echo of his threat chills me, but I can’t back down from him, no matter what. “The last time I checked, you came to me, not the other way around, so it’s game off.”

“When you saw my name on the contract, you should have given it to someone else,” he rasps, coming closer, but I pull out my phone punching in a number.

“Why would I do that? You flew to L.A. I didn’t come to Chicago. And I didn’t pick the client. It was given to me, and trust me; if I would have known beforehand you were the time waster I would be dealing with, then I would have canned it immediately.” I put enough venom in the sentence for it to visibly affect him. Good. I want him to hurt for all the years I did, and still do.

“I don’t give a fuck! I told you if I ever saw your face again—”

“Dimitri, I was being what’s called a professional. You should try it sometime. I was doing my job, and you should learn to keep the past in the past,” I retort in a smooth, confident tone, holding his eye contact without flinching.

Dimitri glares at me, not moving a muscle, but if he was going to do anything, he would have already made his move, I figure. “You betrayed me, Ava. You fucking lied to me.” His voice shakes, leaving me confused.

He still thinks I would do that to him. Hurt him like that. After all I gave up….

“Betrayal only comes after trust is lost, but in our case, you never trusted me in the first place. You came to take from me, remember, Dimitri? That contract you’re about to sign! In there!” I add, raising my voice as Dimitri steps closer, his face changing, but the darkness growing.

Voices and laughter fill the parking lot, giving me enough saving grace for Dimitri to back off. “This isn’t over, Ava. You and I, we’ve got unfinished business.”

“Oh really? I’m shaking like a leaf.” Clicking my car door open with the remote beeper, I turn for only a split second seeing a huge grin on Dimitri’s face, and it’s either he’s amused by my sarcasm or is planning the greatest and deadliest revenge of all time.

That’s the thing with Dimitri, you can never tell. Sucking in a deep breath, I will my hands to stop shaking. I keep my eyeline on the people in front of me walking across the threshold of the parking lot. Some of them are laughing as if they don’t have a care in the world. Others’ faces are glum as if they’re leaving a job they loathe. One is walking with a briefcase, his shoulders slumped inwards. All I have to do is concentrate on anything else, then I can get through this.

As my bottom lip quivers, I hit the keyless drive reversing out of the parking lot, the tears rising to dangerous heights in my eyes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry over a man who doesn’t believe you when you tell him the truth.

But I can’t help how I feel. The tears roll as I head out in the afternoon L.A. light, and the worst of it all is the pain that sits in the base of my heart. There’s an ache that can’t be reconciled and it’s Dimitri’s fault. I might be scared of what he’s going to do, but it’s that—the intense pain of loving somebody who doesn’t love you back that’s the worst for me.

I thought I could handle his boardroom antics and that would be the last of it. I just had to grin and bear getting through looking at his face for one meeting, but no—there has be a second meeting where I keep up the pretense.

We could have really had this beautiful life together. Together we were like two peas in a pod. I kept him grounded and happy, and he introduced me to grand new experiences, opening me up to a world unknown. In the beginning I liked all the fancy dinners and meeting new people, studying high society and wondering what their lives were like behind closed doors. And all the shopping sprees and eating at all the new restaurants that I would never be able to afford in Chicago. I had the world at my feet, and if I didn’t want, I wouldn’t have had to lift a finger. Dimitri told me so.

“You can do whatever you want, but I know how determined you are to finish your law degree, and I admire it. I want to give you the option, however, it’s there.”

I remembered him saying it, and I’m glad I never took him up on it because where would I be now? But that’s not what I loved the most. No, what I loved the most was when it was the two of us watching movies, discovering each other’s favorite songs, walking along the streets of Chicago and just reveling in each other’s company. The way we made love… I merge onto the off-ramp to my turn-off for home, stopping the tears. I can’t let Ethan see me crying.

As soon as I see my boy’s face in my mind, I stop… forgetting about Dimitri. For he can never know that I have a son. It would complicate things, and they’re already bad enough. I pull into the underground parking lot of my apartment with a steel resolve.

Never can he know. Never.