I march past, my strides long and determined, my eyes back on the entrance, and when I reach the doors, I push my way outside, searching every nook and cranny of the car park. Nothing. Another nasty chill ripples through me. “No,” I say, laughing under my breath, reaching for my throat and massaging the ball of anxiety away. She’s locked up somewhere far away from here. Fuck, I need to screw my head back on straight. I rub at my forehead, reversing my steps back into the foyer, my eyes still darting the car park outside, until I turn and head back to the elevator. I look over my shoulder, frowning.

“Mr. Ward?” Clive says again as I pass his desk, his eyes wary.

I return my attention forward. “Thought I saw someone,” I say quietly, getting in the elevator and shaking off my paranoia as I’m carried back to the penthouse. I really am going crazy.

I close the door, lock it, and lean against the wood, looking up to the top of the stairs. I can hear her. Smell her. Home.

In the kitchen, I scratch around for two clean plates, then proceed to load Ava’s with a bit of everything, piling it up high, smiling, thinking we’ve both worked up quite an appetite today. Takeaway. My favorite girl. If only she’d have relented and said the words I need to hear, today could have been the best day of my life. I pause, thinking, as I lick some sauce off my thumb. The person outside the doors of Lusso was a woman. There one second, gone the next. I should have the cameras che…

No, I’m being completely irrational.

Ava. Where’s Ava?

I grab some cutlery and am just about to go get her when I hear movement from the door. As ever, I’m rendered incapable of anything when she’s before me. And now, drowning in my shirt, her hair a sexed-up mess, her face free from makeup, and her long legs bare, I’m suddenly not hungry for food anymore. “I was just coming to find you.” I spend a good, pleasurable while drinking her in. “I like your shirt.”

She looks down coyly, like putting that shirt on wasn’t tactical. She knew exactly what she was doing. Killing me softly. “Kate didn’t pack any slobby clothes.”

I smile on the inside. That’s because Kate didn’t pack her clothes at all. “She didn’t?” I ask as I finish serving up, ignoring her look that tells me she’s onto me. And yet she doesn’t challenge me. Doesn’t scold me for performing a ramraid on her bedroom. “Where do you want to eat?”

“I’m e . . .” She fades off, and I grin like an idiot.