5

CHAPTER FIVE

AVA

Paris swallowed me whole.

The apartment was small. It was a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen the size of a closet, windows that looked out onto a narrow street in the Marais. But it was mine. Paid for by a man I barely knew, in a city where no one knew my name.

For the first month, I barely left.

I slept. I cried. I stared at walls and let the grief consume me in waves. Some days I couldn't move, other days I paced for hours, replaying every moment, every betrayal and every lie I'd been too blind to see.

By the next month, I opted for a new look. I made my hair shorter and changed the colour. I changed the way I moved. I now moved with confidence, moving through rooms like I owned them.

The grief had settled into my bones, became part of me, but so had something else. A cold, quiet rage that fueled everything I did.

I built an empire from nothing.

Daniel's introductions helped, but the rest was me. I kept learning, watching and waiting. My investments multiplied, my network grew, and people in certain circles knew better than to cross Ava Ross.

But at night, alone in my apartment, I still dreamed of blood on the streets of London.

Daniel visited every month and each time, he came with more evidence, giving me more reasons to hate people who had destroyed me.

But I also noticed one thing. I was finding it harder to say goodbye to him.

December arrived with snow and the kind of cold that seeped through bones. Daniel appeared at my door on a Friday evening, snow dusting his dark hair, carrying the usual bag of files and something else… a bottle of wine.

"You look frozen," I said, stepping aside.

"London's worse." He shrugged off his coat. "Thought you might want company."

I looked at him, getting lost in the warmth of his brown eyes. He held my gaze, and I could see something that wasn't there the first time I saw him.

"Company would be nice."

We ate dinner at my tiny table, talking about everything except Julian. He made me laugh. It felt foreign and wonderful and terrifying all at once.

Afterward, we stood at my window, watching snow fall on the Marais.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"For what?"

"For not giving up on me. For coming back. For—" I stopped and swallowed. "For making me feel human again."

Daniel turned to face me. The snow light caught his features, softening them.

"You've never stopped being human, Ava. You just forgot for a while."

I looked up at him, feeling need stiring in the pit of my stomach. He was close, but he wasn't close enough. So I changed that.

Throwing my arms around his neck, I pulled him into myself and crashed his lips against mine.

His lips moved against mine, hungry and wanting, like a man who'd wanted heard and couldn't wait one second longer.

Heart travelled through my body and settled at my core, doing perfectly the job of the house heater. I pressed more into him, feeling his bulge poking my stomach.

His hands slid around my waist, the other hand settling on my ass as he grabbed me. I moaned into the kiss as we stumbled away from the window and hit the wall.

"I've wanted this," he murmured against my throat. "For years… I've wanted—"

"Then have it."

His mouth found mine again, desperately and hungrily. Everything I'd been holding back surged forward—the loneliness, the grief, the need to feel something other than rage.

The overwhelming feeling to have his dock buried so deep into me I'd forget the reason I was planning a revenge against his brother.

His hands traced my sides, my waist and pulled me harder against him. I arched into his touch, letting myself feel his hard dick ress even harder into my stomach.

I don't know how, but we found out way to the bed, clothes scattered somewhere on the floor of the tiny apartment. And when finally, his dick slipped into me, I reconfirmed the theory that he was better than his brother in every way.

Later, as we lay tangled in my sheets, his arm around me and my head on his chest. The rise and fall of his breathing matched mine.

"I should have told you sooner that I loved you," he said quietly. "Before all of this. When you first walked into that house and smiled at me, I should have—"

"You couldn't have known."

"I could have tried."

I lifted my head to look at him. "You're here now. That's what matters."

He kissed my forehead. "What happens next?"

"Next?" I traced a pattern on his chest. "We keep building, keep planning, and when the time comes, we destroy them."

"Together."

"Together."

The next morning, I needed to unload my head.

Daniel was still asleep, exhaustion finally catching up with him, so I left a note and walked into the Paris morning. The snow had stopped, leaving the streets clean and quiet.

Perfect for thinking.

I wandered without direction, letting my feet carry me where they wanted. I walked past cafes, boutiques and galleries displaying art I couldn't afford to care about.

Then I stopped.

A bookstore on the corner caught my attention. It was the kind of place I used to love before everything fell apart.

I went inside.

The smell of paper and coffee wrapped around me like an old friend. I wandered the aisles, running my fingers over spines and letting myself forget for just a moment.

Then I turned a corner, unsuspecting of the person about to take the same corner with me. We ran head straight into each other, and when I looked up, the world stopped.

My heart slammed against my ribs as my lungs forgot how to work. Every instinct screamed at me to run because staring right at me was my very own ex-husband.

The book finally slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a sound that echoed like a gunshot.