Page 87 of This Woman Forever
“Not good.”
“What do you know?” Did Kate open up to Ava? “Why did she end it?”
“Because of this place, I suppose. It’s probably for the best.” We all know it’s got nothing to do with this place and everything to do with her brother. What the hell did he want yesterday? I didn’t return his call and he didn’t follow up.
I look at John by the window on his phone. We have a lot to discuss. I’ve just added Sam to the list. All stuff I can’t talk about in front of Ava. “Do you want to swim or stay with me?” Shame on me, I’m using a bit of reverse psychology. She thinks I’d rather her not take option one.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
The paperwork on my desk calls for me. “This is what I’ll be doing.”
“Why don’t you employ someone else?”
Yes, just like that. Jesus, I own this place and even I don’t know what I’m looking at on my desk right now. How the hell can I expect someone else to come on in and get us straight? “Ava,” I say on a sigh. “It’s not that straight forward in this line of work. You have to know someone, trust them.” It’s only ever been John, Sarah, and me. “I can’t just call the job center and ask them to send along someone who can type.” My God, where the hell will I start?
“I could help,” she says.
I glance up, hopeful. “You would?” She’d do that for me? I inhale subtly. Work for me instead of Peterson? She’d be here with me every day. In more appropriate clothes, obviously.
Ava frowns and picks up a piece of paper. “An hour here and there, I suppose.”
I laugh on the inside. It needs a lot more than an hour here and there. Sarah was always working, and when she wasn’t working in the evening, she was whipping. I watch as Ava frowns, craning my neck to see what she’s looking at. A bank statement. Her eyes are nearly popping out of her head.
I smile when she looks up at me in disbelief. “We’re very rich, Mrs. Ward.” And what she’s looking at is just a fraction.
“Fucking hell.”
“Ava—”
“I’m sorry, but...” Her eyes drag slowly across the sheet. “This sort of stuff shouldn’t be lying on your desk, Jesse.”
It wasn’t until John started looking for something.
“Wait—” Her eyes widen. “Did Sarah look after your finances?”
Sarah looked after everything, which meant I didn’t need to know an awful lot, and isn’t that obvious now. “Yes.” I won’t try to fool her. I was good for nothing but drinking and fucking before Ava walked into my life. And after? Well, I was too infatuated by her to pay much attention.
“Do you have any idea where your money is?” she asks. Yes, it’s in a bank held hostage by a scorned wife of Steve Cook. “How much there is?” she goes on, eyes back and forth between me and the bank statement.
“Yes,” I say, showing her the paper. She’s shocked enough as it is. I won’t share the other statements, wherever they are. She’ll pass out. “I have this much”—and quite a few million more—“and it’s in this bank.” Where I hold a few more accounts, both business and personal.
“You have just one account?” she asks. “What about business accounts, savings, pensions?”
One doesn’t need to worry about savings and pensions when one owns properties worth in excess of forty million, but one still has them because Sarah took care of it. Again, I’ll hold back on that. So I mutter, “I don’t know,” and hope we move on.
Ava’s face tells me I’m hoping in vain. “She did everything?” she asks. “All of your accounts?”
“Not anymore.” As you can see from the state of my desk. And Ava’s clear aversion tells me John’s head is in the clouds. There’s no way Sarah can come back here. Not if I want to stay married. “But you’ll help?” Because I can’t imagine the alternative.
Ava shakes her head, looking across the chaos again as she collects a stack of papers and starts sorting through them. “Yes, I’ll help.”
My heart swells. She’ll help. We’ll make an incredible husband and wife team. A force. This could be the start of something amazing, and as an added bonus, she’s with me all the time. I smile, but it falls when her sorting hands pause and she looks up, something coming to her. “I said I’d help, that’s all,” she says. “A few hours here and there, Jesse.”
“But it’s the perfect solution.” She could be our in-house interior designer too. There are dozens of rooms in The Manor. By the time she’d worked her way through the building, it would be time to start again.
“For you,” she splutters, tossing the stack of papers back on my desk as if they’ve caught fire in her hands. “The perfect solution for you. I have a career.” Don’t remind me. “I am not giving it up to come here every day and file paperwork.”
Do you want to take a minute to think about it?