All Chapters of NOT A DOORMAT ANYMORE : Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

Ava's POV I didn't move.I sat on that bench with the phone pressed to my ear and the glass tower rising directly across the street and I thought about the fact that he was somewhere inside it right now. Above me. Looking down at a city he'd built himself into, holding a phone, waiting for me to speak."Miss Arande." His voice again. Slightly sharper this time. "I don't repeat myself."I pressed the notebook harder against my knees and wrote fast, one line, then held the phone closer and tapped the mouthpiece twice with my fingernail.A pause."Are you unable to speak?"I tapped once. The way I used to do with nurses. Once for yes. Twice for no.Another pause. Longer this time."You communicated through written notes downstairs," he said, I could hear him rethinking in the half second of silence before he continued. "You can hear me."One tap."You'd like me to ask yes or no questions?" One tap.Something shifted in his tone. "All right," he said. "Who are you?"I had anticipated t

Ava's POV He let the silence run for a long moment then he opened the folder on his desk and turned it to face me. "About Maxwell Ashton."I looked at the page. It was a printout of something internal. An email chain, partially redacted, with Ashton's name appearing three times in the visible portions."My team pulled this last night after your call," Marcus said. "It doesn't confirm everything you told me. But it confirms enough that you're sitting in that chair instead of being referred to our legal department."I held his gaze and nodded once."So." He closed the folder. "Before we go any further. How do you have this information?"I reached into my bag and pulled out my notebook and a pen. I had prepared for this question. I had written four different versions of the answer and crossed out three of them.The one I kept was the only one that was true without being something he would believe.I wrote it and turned the notebook to face him.I can't tell you how I have it, not yet. W

Ava's POV I woke up at five forty-three, which was really early from the usual time I woke.The room was still dark.I lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening to the house breathe around me. The distant tick of the hallway clock. The almost silent hum of the refrigerator two floors below. This was the only hour the house felt real.I sat up and reached for the notebook on the nightstand and opened it.Not to the why me page. I turned past that deliberately, and found a clean page toward the back.I wrote for twenty minutes.Not the proposal. Not the Hale timeline or the Ashton details or any of the organized information I had been building since the night I found that headline.Just thoughts. Unplanned and honest in a way I couldn't afford to be anywhere else. The cost of last night's performance. The texture of watching Vivian's eyes go to that door. The way Marcus had asked why me and the way the question had followed me through three hours of pretending to be so

Ava's POV The address Marcus had sent was in the quieter part of the city. The car he'd sent, I had refused at first, then accepted when I calculated how long the bus would take and remembered I had a timeline, pulled up in front of a townhouse that was large. A small tree in the front that had been there long enough to belong. I sat in the car for a moment after it stopped. This was where I would live. For one year, behind a contract and a signature, this building would be my address. The place I came home to. I got out of the car. Marcus answered the door himself. No staff member. No Claire with her charcoal blazer and economical walk. Just Marcus in a dark sweater and trousers that were slightly less formal than anything I had seen him wear before, which on him still looked completely composed. He looked at me for a moment. "You found it," he said. I nodded and held up my phone where I had typed: Your driver found it. I just sat in the back. Something moved at the cor