She looks away quickly, and I follow her eyes, seeing a car pulling in off the main road. “Fuck,” I shout, scrambling for my phone and dialing John. I see Ava’s body engage, her legs getting ready to run, and I make a grab for her, but she dodges me, dashing to her car and grabbing her bag.

“John, don’t open the fucking gates,” I bellow down the line, seeing her getting farther away.

“I’m nowhere near a gate control panel.”

Sarah. “Well tell Sarah not to.”

I go after Ava, the gap now big enough for her to squeeze through. And she does. Damn her for being so tiny. I’ll have to wait too many seconds for it to be large enough to get my big frame through. Not that I’ll have the chance to wait. They start closing. “Bollocks.” I run back to my car and scratch around for my fob, smacking the button to open them again. I’m fucking exhausted.

I stalk after her, my strides long, eating up the distance between us. She’s on her phone by the time I reach her, and I swoop in, throwing her onto my shoulder, not prepared to try and reason anymore. I’ve never met such a difficult woman in my life.

Her scream of surprise is endearing.

“You’re not wandering around on your fucking own, lady.” I take us back into The Manor grounds.

“What’s it got to do with you?”

“Apparently, nothing.” You stubborn mare. “But I do have a conscience. You’re not leaving here unless it’s in my car. Do you understand me?” I drop her to her feet and give her an expectant glare before escorting her to my car and physically putting her in the seat. My final look tells her she’ll regret it if she even thinks about getting out.

I go to her Mini, squeezing myself in behind the wheel. “Jesus Christ,” I mutter, feeling around under the seat for a lever to push the seat back. And even then, I feel like I’m squished into a can of sardines. “This can’t be safe,” I say, starting it up and moving it to the side of the drive to allow cars to pass.

I stomp my way back to her and throw myself in the seat. Is she smiling? What the fuck is there to smile about? I’m fucking livid, and not only because she stole a rare piece of heaven from me.

I start my Aston and fly out of the gates. No matter how much I try to talk myself down, I can’t, but if I don’t take this unwarranted, unusual, unwanted anger out on the road, then Ava will cop it, and that would be a sure-fire way of severing any possibility of fixing this fucking mess.