Illicit Affairs by Holly Dixon

Twenty-Six

A throbbingache ran across Ava’s temples as she awoke to an empty bed, piercing white sunlight, and a terrible feeling in her gut. That feeling manifested itself into the form of Peter getting dressed at the end of her bed. Out of habit, Ava turned to her side, expecting an unwanted cup of coffee to be sat next to her bedside, but there wasn’t one.

“Morning.” Peter smiled, yanking his zipper up before slipping on his jumper.

“What time is it?” she croaked, her fingers touching her throat where it felt like she had gargled vodka and shards of glass.

“Seven in the morning, go back to sleep, you look a little delicate, petal.” He chuckled as he rolled his top down over his modest abs.

“Mmh, you could say that again.” Ava groaned, rubbing at her eyes and yawning as she sat up in bed. “Off so soon?”

“Yeah, I’ve got breakfast with some mates,” Peter told her but there was something about his tone that made Ava doubt him.

“Oh, alright, I was going to see if you wanted breakfast with me today…” Ava surprised even herself with this, but Peter’s reaction was one of bewilderment as he blinked at her like she had just offered her hand in marriage.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he approached her with a sympathetic smile. “Look, Ava…what we have is really fun, but this isn’t good for either of us. I can’t keep doing this to myself, and honestly, I can’t keep doing it to you too.”

“Oh…”

“Workmates, yeah?” he asked, cupping the side of her face.

Ava couldn’t understand the sinking feeling running through her. She honestly didn’t care that Peter wanted to end their hook-ups, but something was aching inside of her at his rejection. She pushed a fake smile to her lips and said, “Of course,” before watching Peter turn around to leave but stop as though he had suddenly remembered something.

“Actually, before I go”—he pulled out a document from his back pocket and approached Ava—“would you mind signing this?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s just the missives you typed up for me the other day, you forgot to sign them off and I’m on my way to post them today.” He smiled, setting the folded piece of paper in front of her and handing her a pen.

“Yeah, no problem.” Ava yawned, one hand rubbing her tired eyes as the other signed her name at the bottom of the document.

“Perfect, you’re a legend, ol’ girl!” He grinned and leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll see you at work on Monday. Try to nurse that hangover, yeah?” Peter chuckled and soon left her apartment, thereafter leaving Ava feeling an odd sense of abandonment. Why did she suddenly feel like broken goods?

All weekend,Monday had loomed like a lone dark cloud during a heatwave, time seeming to jump-cut like a buffering video until it arrived. Ava had been dreading this moment as she walked into the office and sat down at her desk. Her hangover was still lingering after a weekend of banishing her sisters from visiting due to the “flu” and instead lounging in bed watching Friends and avoiding the fact that she was another year closer to thirty with nothing to show for it.

She hadn’t been sat at her desk for longer than a few minutes before the intercom beeped and Nate was summoning her into his office.

“Fuck off,” she uttered under her breath before leaning forward and yanking the plug out of the machine. As expected, moments later, Nate was stood in front of her desk, and her eyes reluctantly peered up at the dishonest scumbag. Her stomach twisted as her gaze landed on him. His stubble looked grown out and there were dark crescents under his eyes, but he still looked more handsome than ever.

“Ms. Archer, I need you in my office.”

“I’m busy,” she clipped out and flicked through the paperwork on her desk.

“The filing can wait, I need to speak with you urgently in my office.” Nate’s tone was stone cold, his face an iceberg lost at sea as he walked back into his office and expected her to follow. However, that brat did anything but follow—she walked right past his damn door!

A frustrated snuff left his nostrils as he went after her, following her down the hallway, watching her struggle with her arms full of folders as she headed towards the archive. The moment she stepped inside what looked like a mini library with shelves lining the room, Nate shut the door behind them both.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ava jumped, startled by his presence as she peered over the top of the binders in her arms.

“Well, I need to talk to you and it’s a bit hard when you won’t answer your texts or calls!”

“It’s almost as if I blocked your number for a reason,” she chided sarcastically, her knee coming up to balance the folders but inevitably dropping them as they clattered to the ground.

“Leave them,” Nate ordered when she started to fumble, but of course, she would ignore him and clumsily try to pick them up. He didn’t have time for this shit and stormed over to her, yanking her up by the elbow as he reiterated, “I said leave them.”

“You have three seconds to get your bloody hands off of me before I—”

“Why was Peter Taylor at your apartment on Saturday?”

A dumbfounded look slapped Ava across the face as she gawked up at Nate. “How the hell did you know about that?”

“Answer my question.”

“I was fucking him,” she said provocatively, leaning her face closer to his as a dark smile crept onto her red lips. A possessive growl snarled from Nate’s nostrils, a sound that would have made Ava like putty in his hands, but that was before she found out he was a dishonest man. Scum, like the rest of them, hence why they weren’t worth her time.

“That so?” he challenged, the anger evident on his reddening face as it was in his tone, his thick American accent growing sharper and rougher. “Was he as good a fuck as me?”

“Careful, sir, your envy is showing.”

“Oh, sweetheart”—Nate chuckled a deep, sardonic laugh—“it ain’t envy. Envy implies I want something that someone already has.” He yanked her elbow closer until he was pressed up to her front and inches away from her face. “I am jealous because that prick is tryna take what is already mine.”

“I don’t belong to anyone, certainly not you.”

“Yeah? So, you just fuck whoever ya want, when ya want, like a little slut—that it?”

“Oh, because it’s always the woman that is the slut, right?” Ava barked now as he nipped at a nerve of hers. “A guy can fuck whoever he wants, whenever he wants and he is seen as nothing more than playing the field, a right lad! But the second a woman wants her sexual freedom, she’s what? A common fucking whore?!”

Nate saw that he had struck a nerve, but this conversation was going way off course and he had to steer it back. As nuclear as it made him to imagine another man’s hands touching her porcelain skin, he knew she was right, and he knew he had no damn place getting mad at her for it, but he couldn’t stop himself. That redheaded punkass didn’t deserve to touch her goddess body…then again, neither did his own piece-of-shit ass.

“Did you like the lilies?” he asked, frowning when Ava’s face twisted in confusion.

“Wait, you got me the flowers?”

“Yes, I left them on your doorstep as you weren’t answering your door, and before you say it, yes I know breaching your privacy isn’t ethical but I needed to speak to you and fix this.”

Ava growled for one reason alone—all men were complete lying assholes it seemed.

“There is nothing to fix; you’re married, end of discussion,” she seethed, finally yanking her elbow out of his grip and turning to leave.

But Nate wasn’t taking no for an answer as he grabbed her wrists, spun her around, pinned her front against a filing cabinet, and restrained her arms behind her back.

“Seriously, is this the only way I can get you to listen to me?” he growled, pressing up behind her as she squirmed and threw a tantrum, demanding to be let go.

“I’ll scream, you fucking demented, ignorant, stupid, lying, dishonest piece of—”

“Are you finished?” he interrupted, but that phrase seemed to pour gasoline over an open flame as she roared hellfire at him. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he groaned, adjusting his grip so both of her wrists were secured in one of his large hands and his other came down over her mouth. However, as her teeth sank down upon his palm he recoiled and shook his hand, wanting to roar as she laughed at his pain.

Enough was enough.

His hand wrapped around her hair and pulled her head back as he moved his lips to her ear, trying to not let her scent make him drunk, his voice softer than that of his touch as he whispered, “I’m begging you, please just listen to me, Ava?”

Ava didn’t know if she was just messed up in the head but a part of her was secretly excited by this sudden change in dynamic between them both. Her heart was racing, pushing the blood south as her breath hitched in her throat. She would never admit it, but fuck did she miss him. “You have one minute to bore me with your excuses.”