“I don’t know. Probably having something pumped, sucked, or tucked. She said she’d be here by noon.” He gets up and rounds the desk, helping himself to my laptop. “Am I going to be blessed with your presence for long?”

I huff to myself as he unlocks the screen and his fat fingers tap clumsily across the keys. “Long enough.”

“Anyone would think you don’t like being here.”

“Why would I want to be here and be stressed when I can lock myself away in Lusso with Ava and be happy?”

“That’s because when you’re with Ava, you’re living a fucking lie, moron.”

Moron? “I prefer motherfucker,” I grumble.

He turns his face to me, removing his wraparounds. “Tell her.”

“Okay,” I bark, flicking my hand out in my annoyance, sending the pad to the floor. And isn’t it just typical that it falls in such a way that when John dips to pick it up, the words “Ava O’Shea Ward” stare up at him.

Silence.

Fuck.

I die a million times, cringing my arse off, shifting in my chair. Caught red-handed. He slowly rises with the pad in his hands, staring at it. “I was just fucking about,” I say, mortified. “I was bored.” I look away, feeling my face flame. I can literally hear him mentally calling me out as a crazy fucker. I can’t bear his quiet judgments.

I look out the corner of my eye at him as he tosses the pad down. It lands with a slap. “Tell her.”

Tell her what? That I want to marry her? Have babies with her? Keep my dick inside her twenty-four/seven? “Is it possible to fall in love so fast?” I ask. That’s it. I can’t possibly get any lamer. All or nothing. Besides, John’s the only person on this planet I could ever speak to so honestly, and despite the stress I’m clearly causing him, I know deep down he’s full of hope too. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s had me in a chokehold against a wall and threatened to rip me a new arsehole if I don’t sort out my life. Well, I’m sorting it. And it’s all a bit unexpected, to be honest, so he needs to be patient with me while I navigate this unchartered territory.

“Yes,” John says, simple as that, surprising me.

“It is?”

He takes himself back to the other side of my desk and sits. He’s getting comfortable. It’s the kind of comfortable he gets when I’m about to have some hard home truths thrown my way. “Carmichael fell pretty hard for Sarah back in the day.”

I laugh. “Bad comparison, John.” My uncle might have fallen hard, but he also shared her. There will be none of that, I can assure him.

“A comparison nonetheless.”