Spark: Book 1 (The Heat Series) Read online

  “It took you long enough.” Ava attempted to hand her the towels, but Victoria made no effort to take them.

  “No, you made the mess, you clean it up.” Ava walked around the desk and wiped at the water. It was barely a quarter sized drop but to Victoria, it seemed to be a Tsunami.

  “Now go down to the supply closet and see if you can find another calendar of this size. If not then you will have to put in a request for a new one. I can’t use this one now that you ruined it with your sloppiness.”

  Ava discarded the wet towels in the garbage can and went to the supply room. The sixteenth floor did not have any calendars, so she went to the seventeenth, none there either. Her last resort was the eighteenth floor and by the time she got there, she couldn’t hold back the tears. She ducked into the supply room quickly before any of the familiar faces saw her distress. She was digging through the shelves and not paying attention to what was behind her. She felt arms grab her shoulders, and it startled her.

  “Ohh.” She turned and came face to face with Xander.

  “Why are you crying?” He used his thumbs to wipe her tears. He flexed his jaw to hold back the anger as she told him the story of what happened with Victoria.

  “That bitch. I’m going to have a word with her.”

  “No, No. You can’t do that,” Ava begged.

  “Why not? Look at you! You’re a mess, and I don’t want to see you cry. It hurts me to see you so upset.” She buried her head in his chest. His comfort caused her to let it all out, and the tears streamed steadily down her face. He sat her down and dabbed at her tears with his handkerchief.

  “Shhh, shhh, don’t cry. It will be okay.”

  “It won’t. She hates me, and I don’t know how I’m going to continue to work for her. I can’t go and complain to Uncle Daniel; he will think I’m a baby.”

  “You are a baby. My baby.” At that moment, Xander made the decision to have a word with Victoria C. Carter. She wasn’t going to treat Ava this way without retribution. He just had to plan how he wanted to approach her. Ava got up, and he handed her the calendar. She entered Victoria’s office with the new calendar.

  “What did you do, make the calendar? What took you so long?”

  “I had to go to the…”

  “It was a rhetorical question.”

  Ava watched as she switched out the calendar, paging through the old one so she could transfer her appointment dates. Ava sat in the chair in front of her waiting for her to finish.

  “I went through your materials. At least you can do your job, even if are clumsy. You can leave.”

  Ava felt like she had been punched in the stomach. It was 5:10 when she gathered her things and left for the day. The only high point was that she bumped into Xander again, this time in the lobby.

  “Hey sweetheart, how are you doing?” Ava felt like crying all over again. He brushed her cheek with his fingers.

  “Don’t cry it’s going to be alright. I have some work to do, but I will be over in a little while.” He didn’t want to kiss her in the very public area, so he squeezed her arm and headed for the elevators. Ava headed for home, glad that tomorrow she could forget about work for two days.

  Xander was furious. What a nasty bitch and he was going to put a stop to it now. He exited the elevator on sixteen and headed to her office. She had her head bent down in a book when he knocked.

  “Ava, you can go home now. I don’t need you further.” Xander could hear the venom in her voice when she said Ava’s name. He cleared his throat causing Victoria to look up.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were my assistant. And you are?”

  “I’m Xander Wilder; I work on eighteen. I want to welcome you to the firm.”

  “Thank you, please come in.” Xander entered and shut the door behind him. Victoria continued to pen notes on her pad.

  “I want to discuss something with you.” He didn’t hide the contempt in his voice. “What is your problem with Ava Keene?” Victoria’s head shot up, and she stared at him.

  “What is it of your business? She is my assistant, not yours. I assume that you are related to Peter Wilder, and that is the reason for your intrusion into my office.”

  “Yes, I am, and Ava is related to Daniel Keene, but that doesn’t seem to make you any less nasty towards her. Now I will ask you again. What is your problem with Ava?”

  “My problem is none of your business. I would appreciate if you would stop wasting my time and leave my office.”

  “I’m not going to do that. What I am going to do is tell you that I had a conversation today with Michael Keene, Ava’s brother. Victoria stopped writing and gave him her full attention. “He told me what transpired several years ago between the two of you. His characterization of you was spot on. I’m going to warn you. Where Ava is concerned, you need to tread lightly. I would never tell you how to interact with your subordinates but the way you treat Ava is over the top. It does not sit well with me.” He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No, it’s just my gentle way of telling you that as you have made Ava miserable, there are ways to make you just as miserable.” With that Xander rose from his chair and opened the door. He turned to her before he walked out. “Have a good evening Ms. Carter.”

  Xander arrived at Ava’s a short time after his conversation with Victoria Carter. He hoped that she would heed his warning and change the way she dealt with Ava. If not then he would have to figure out a way to make her pay for her behavior. Ava opened the door for him. She was already dressed down for the evening in a t-shirt and yoga pants. On the counter, he noticed a bottle of Vodka and a glass with ice in it. It was unlike her to drink vodka. He went to the counter and poured some of the spirits in the glass and sipped it.

  He held the glass out to her. “Do you want a sip?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes red and swollen. “No, I had a couple of drinks before you got here. It was probably better than the alternative.”

  “What is the alternative?”

  “On second thought, let me have the glass.”

  He handed it to her and watched her drain the remaining liquid from the glass.

  “Before we get deeper into this I think there are things I need to tell you from my past. You might want to get your own glass and bring the bottle.”

  Xander felt his heart start to pound. He wondered how bad this was going to be. Ava filled the glass halfway and took a long swig. She is so small and has already had quite a bit of alcohol. How could she not be drunk? He sat down next to her after filling his glass and stared at her. He was correct; her words were slightly slurred, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. She started her story.

  “My mother died when I was fourteen, but you knew that. She was my protector from my sister Brooke who was pretty mean to me my entire life. After mom died the verbal abuse from Brooke got worse. She did everything she could to make me feel bad about myself. Michael tried to intervene, but usually, she would let up only when he was around. That was when I started to gain weight. That first year after losing my mother I gained fifteen pounds with another thirty-five pounds to follow. I also had my braces put on that year, and my glasses didn’t help matters. So you can imagine I had a pretty bad self-image.” She took another long swig of her drink as if to give her courage to speak the rest.

  “Brooke went to away to college, and I was able to regain some of my confidence until the summers when she came home. Growing up with a handsome brother like Michael, who all the girls wanted, and a gorgeous sister like Brooke, who had her share of men, didn’t help my feelings of being the ugly duckling.”

  Xander winced when Ava spoke those words, and he tried to put his arm around her. But she pulled away.

  “Please don’t touch me.” He quickly withdrew his arm as if he had been burned.

  “By the time I reached college, I had lost a few pounds and felt better about myself. I had graduated almost at the top of my class in high sch
ool and followed Michael and Brooke to Cameron University. My roommate was very nice, and I had made some friends. Then towards the end of freshman year, my dream came true or so I thought.” Xander braced himself for what she was about to say for he knew some of the story.

  “I had a crush on this guy, Vance Albridge in high school. He was on an athletic scholarship at Cameron for football. He never looked at me in high school. But at the end of our first year at Cameron, he showed an interest in me. The last three weeks of my freshman year were bliss. He took me out to dinner, the movies and a few parties at his frat house. Then he told me that he had a big end of the year party at the frat house. He told me to dress up and show up promptly at eight. My roommate kept warning me that she had heard of a horrible contest at this fraternity. I thought that Vance would never do that. He liked me too much and had told me many times.

  I showed up and noticed that there were a lot of unattractive young women there as dates. By the time it started to dawn on me it was too late. I was being crowned Miss Ugly Princess. Vance was nowhere to be seen and then I saw him standing on the stairs laughing along with everyone else. I ran out of there feeling horrible about myself, worse than Brooke had ever made me feel. I could never go back to Cameron and came up to New York to live with Uncle Daniel and Aunt Mavis.”

  Ava slid the glass off the table and swallowed the last of the vodka from it. Xander waited for her to continue because he knew there was more to the story. His head started to pound, and his mouth felt like he had cotton in it. “I came up here immediately after I left Cameron. I was so distraught that Michael went to pick up my things from my dorm. I didn’t tell him exactly what happened because I couldn’t. I felt so embarrassed for being so stupid. No one knew. In fact, you are the first person to hear the full truth. When I arrived here, I had to go to the emergency room three different times. I started having severe anxiety attacks. I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt tight. I was referred to a therapist, Dr. Newman. He helped me understand what was going on with my body and taught me techniques to bring myself down when I have an attack. But they don’t always help. I sometimes take medication.”

  Xander felt horrible listening to something that he had helped cause. He probably should have come clean immediately following her story, but he didn’t. He saw how torn up she was and to find out what he did could be devastating. He would have to wait, but he needed to tell her soon. He said nothing because he wasn’t sure what he could say to make her feel better. He picked up the glasses from the table and washed them. When he got back to the couch, Ava was sound asleep, her breathing loud and even. He went to her bedroom to pull the covers back on her bed. Then he carried her and placed her in it.

  He felt nauseated and tried to push it away. The strain of what she told him was too much, and he ended up vomiting in the kitchen garbage. As he changed the bag and took it out to the garbage chute, he thought about the first time he had seen her in New York. It was only a month after she had left Cameron from which he had just graduated. They had been at her uncle’s barbecue. Her cousin Rachel had introduced them, and Ava had shown no recognition on her face of ever meeting him. She was a little thinner then he remembered but still had her braces and glasses. She barely said a few words to him. The entire time he was there he wanted to speak to her and found himself seeking her out several times through the crowd. He never did speak with her again that day. He was leaving for vacation, then his first year at Duke Law School and didn’t have time to pursue her.

  Ava woke up at four with a splitting headache. Her stomach was hurting, and before she could make it to the small bathroom, she vomited on the floor. The door to the bedroom was open, and Xander was standing in the doorway.

  “Let me help you.”

  Some the vomit had dribbled off her chin and onto her shirt and yoga pants. As he removed the soiled clothes, he saw she wasn’t wearing panties. He wasn’t about to fight panties on to her so put a t-shirt on her and covered her with the quilt. When she was taken care of he got some paper towels and disinfectant to clean the floor. By the time he finished she was fast asleep again.

  Late Saturday morning, Ava woke up with a vicious headache and didn’t remember much of anything from last night. She looked at the other side of the bed, and it hadn’t been slept in. Where was he? She called out to him.

  “Xander?” She waited and listened. Could he be in the bathroom?

  “Xander?” Nothing. She got up and went as far as her pounding head would allow, only to the doorway. No Xander. She got back into bed and heard the jingle of keys. The door to her apartment closed. “Xander?”

  He entered her room with a fresh bottle of Gatorade and handed it to her. “Drink this. I went out for some because I thought you would need it today. How are you feeling?”

  “Like someone smashed me in the head with a baseball bat.”

  “Hmm, that is not good.”

  “Drink the Gatorade. You’re going to need plenty more to get rid of that headache you have.”

  “Why am I not wearing panties?” He smiled wickedly at her “Xander!”

  “Because it was either that or try to wrestle a pair on you. I’m better at removing them from my girlfriend than putting them on.”

  “Oh.” Ava giggled until it made her head hurt too much. She sipped at the Gatorade and Xander handed her two aspirin. He was on his way out to the living room when she asked if he could stay with her.

  “Why didn’t you sleep with me last night?”

  “I wanted to respect your wishes. You told me not to touch you.”

  Ava could see the hurt look on his face. “I know I did, and I’m sorry. It has been a very sensitive thing for me since it happened.”

  “Do you want to discuss it?”

  “Not really. I just wanted you to know that I have anxiety, and sometimes I take medication for it. What happened at Cameron is why I haven’t dated much. I have trouble trusting people. I trusted Liam and look where it got me. The minute I put my guard down, I was screwed over. I’m trying not to be that way with you.”

  “I promise, to be honest with you.” Xander knew that he needed to tell her everything. He didn’t want to hide his secrets from her because eventually, they would come out some way, somehow.

  “I know and thank you for taking care of me the past few weeks.”

  “It’s what you do for someone when you love them. Hell even when you like them you do that.” He slid into bed and lay with his back against the headboard. He pulled her over, so she was between his legs with her back against his stomach. He turned the TV on, and she fell asleep again. They spent the rest of the day and most of the night in her bed. Xander played nursemaid, waiting on her hand and foot. He took care of Riley and cleaned some of her apartment.

  In the evening, he made her eat some yogurt he had purchased along with the Gatorade. He was growing concerned because she seemed to be losing more weight and her eating habits were atrocious as long as they had been together. She wasn’t as curvy as she had been a few weeks ago. Her waist had shrunk, and her hips seemed smaller too. He secretly thanked the gods that her beautiful breasts had maintained their fullness even with the weight loss. He often wondered how large they would become if she ever got pregnant. Xander Wilder was a breast man.

  When he got into bed with her, that night he was restless. He had a lot on his mind. He listened to Ava whimper in her sleep, slipped against her body to calm her, and her whimpering stopped. Then he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning Ava was up well before Xander. She felt much better than yesterday. It would be a long time until she drank so much and gave herself a colossal hangover. She went to the apartment and noticed that Xander had cleaned. Not only that but he had stocked her refrigerator with groceries. He had purchased plenty of food for breakfast and as a thank you, she set to work making him breakfast in bed. He came into the kitchen before she finished and ruined the surprise.

  Later they sat on the couch doing the New Yo
rk Times crossword puzzle and bickering over an answer to a clue. Dinner time was approaching, and Xander asked her what she wanted.

  “I’m not hungry, but you can get something for yourself.”

  This caused Xander distress. “Ava, you have to eat. You are losing too much weight, and you’re going to get sick.” He noticed the look on her face like she was in pain. “What is it?”

  “I am dreading tomorrow. Victoria is a horrible person, and I can’t deal with her. I don’t want to ask for a reassignment, but I might have to. I haven’t taken my meds in awhile, and I am trying to limit when I do. If she keeps pushing me the way she did last week I will be on them daily.”

  “I have a confession to make. After I saw you crying on Friday, I decided that I needed to have a discussion with her.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t. Now she is going to think I am a whiner and can’t handle things.”

  “Ava, hold on and let me explain. I called Michael on Friday afternoon. I asked him if he knew Victoria and he said he did. He dated her several years ago.”

  Ava’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God. I knew she looked familiar. She dated Michael one summer and if I remember it didn’t end well.”

  “Exactly. I called her on it, and she had nothing to say.” Xander told her the entire conversation he had with Victoria. “I’m sorry I went against your wishes but do you know how painful it is to watch you cry like you did. I hope I never see you cry that hard again.”

  Ava leaned over and kissed his cheek. “How did I get so lucky to have you as my boyfriend? Now I just hope that whatever you said to her sticks. I can’t take another stressful day like I had Friday.”

  “Let’s see how it goes. If things don’t work out, you let me know, and I will straighten it out. Now, what do you want to eat?”

  Ava felt more at ease, and her appetite returned with a vengeance, eating a large portion of the Chinese food they had delivered.