Dirtiest Little Secret

“That’s your own fault—”

“You ungrateful ass,” Ava yelled. She’d never raised her voice to her father. Not once in her entire life. Now it felt both vindicating and heartbreaking. “You’re telling me that if I’d stayed with Matthew, you would have promoted him to COO over your own daughter? I earned that job. I’ve been with this company my whole life. I worked here before I was even old enough to earn a fucking paycheck. You thankless piece of—”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” he barked. “This is a man’s industry, and you know it. When you were going to marry Matthew, it wouldn’t have mattered. The promotion would have benefitted both of you. You only have yourself to blame—”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” she yelled back. “If this is a man’s industry, why aren’t they running it? I do twice the work of Andrew, Axel, Matthew, and Conrad combined. I’m the one who pulled in six billion in sales over the last two years. Me.” She stabbed her chest with her index finger. “I’m the one who supplies this company with revenue. I’m the reason this is a Fortune 500 company. I’m the one who babies your biggest clients so they don’t go to the competition. I’m the one who consistently worked fifteen-hour days seven days a week up until a couple of weeks ago. And if I hadn’t fired Matthew, you would have put a narcissistic asshole in charge of operations. He couldn’t even stay loyal to me until our wedding day. How long do you think it would have taken him to fuck this company behind your back the way he fucked coworkers under his desk?”

Her father exhaled heavily and pushed from his chair. The light in his eyes turned conciliatory, but he was clearly still pissed. “Look, Ava, let’s just get through the transition, stabilize our relationships with vendors under the reorganization. If you continue to excel and show good judgment, we can revisit—”

“If I continue? I’ve done nothing but excel. If you can’t see that, it’s because you’re penis blind. Nothing I do will ever be good enough for you because I’m female.” All the anger she’d built up over the years exploded inside her. “I’m not going to stand by while you promote strangers over family, and I sure as shit won’t pretend I’m satisfied with a goddamned consolation prize.”

She was done. Done being taken for granted. Done being dismissed. Done with betrayal. She wanted something real in her life for a change. She might not know what that was right now, but she knew that it was not Jennings Steel.

“Fuck this.” Ava straightened and stabbed the air with a rigid finger. “I’m done. I quit. Good luck with that management transition.”

She turned and stalked to the office door. Beyond the glass, employees stood gawking over their cubicle walls.

“You can’t quit,” her father yelled. “This is a family business.”

Holding the door open, she met her father’s eyes again. “You just cut me out of the family. Congratulations, you finally got the three sons you always wanted.”

Ava endured all the shocked gazes on what felt like the world’s longest walk to her office. Her anger peaked, spilling over into hurt. Tears rushed her eyes, and she made a sharp turn toward the restroom. Relieved to find it empty, Ava locked the door behind her and braced herself against the marble counter.

“Keep it together.” She closed her eyes and took slow, deep, even breaths, but she was shaking. “Keep it together.”

When that didn’t work, Ava bore down to hold back the fury and the hurt—teeth clenched, muscles tight. She just needed to hold her breath until the wave passed. Until she could pop her head above the surface again and breathe without falling apart.

When the emotion ebbed, she slowly released her breath, clearing her lungs with deep gulps of air. But as soon as the oxygen hit her brain, reality returned. She’d just thrown away everything she’d ever known, believed in, worked for. What in the hell was she thinking? Was her father right? Was she making rash decisions? Was she hasty? Reactive? Emotional? Hell, look at what she’d been doing with Isaac. Maybe she didn’t belong at the helm of a Fortune 500 company.

The weight was too much. She broke, dropping to her forearms on the counter and sobbing in anger, disappointment, betrayal, hopelessness.

Once the burst of tears dried up, Ava felt numb. Numb was good. She’d take numb. It would get her from the bathroom to her office to her car. From her office to the car. From her car to her apartment. Where she could hide away until she’d gotten herself together. It wasn’t like she could run crying to her family. Both her brothers and her mother had agreed to this. Who could she trust if she couldn’t trust her family? How could they betray her like this, after all she’d done? After how hard she’d worked?

Ava pressed a hand to her eyes. “Stop.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Just stop.”

One step at a time. All she could focus on now was the next step—getting her personal things from her office and getting the hell out of this building.

12

Isaac swung his bike around a tight bend in the road on the way to his country house. He couldn’t quite believe he had Ava’s arms around his waist and her body pressed to his back again. Something was definitely bothering her, something about work, judging by the fact that she was playing hooky and didn’t want to talk about it.

But right now, he didn’t care. After three days and nights without her, he wasn’t going to do anything to steer her away. In fact, he was looking forward to the opportunity to show her a little more of himself.

He slowed and turned onto the drive leading to the house. Ava shifted behind him and peered over his shoulder.

“Oh, Isaac,” she murmured in the helmet’s microphone, her voice soft with awe. “It’s adorable.”

He pulled to a stop in front of the garage he’d finished building two months earlier. Turning off the engine, he tugged his helmet over his head and took hers as she handed it to him. “It’s got a ways to go, but she’s going to be a real charmer when she’s finished.”

Ava climbed off the bike and ran her hands through her hair, her gaze on the house. Every time he rolled up the driveway, he got that little thrill beneath his ribs. Four dormers added interest to the exterior and light to the bedrooms. Three fireplaces warmed the interior’s historical colonial charm. The wraparound porch with dual pillars accented the home’s country flair.

“Do you own the land?” she asked, looking around.

“Yep. Six acres. There’s a seasonal creek in the back and a view of the mountains. It’s really something in fall when all the leaves change.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and opened the original photo of the home. “This is what it looked like when I bought it.”

She squinted at the image a second before her eyes went wide. “No way.” She took the phone and lifted it to compare it to the house. In the photo, grass and weeds obscured the porch, ivy strangled two of the three chimneys, and rot ate out the eaves and porch pillars. “Holy shit.”

He chuckled.