The Escape Clause (17 page)

Pete set a mug down in front of Avery then made a very grand point to walk around Jill, touching her shoulders as he did so, then sitting down next to her.

It was silly for Avery to get so worked up about it.

They’d been friends most of their lives and the time they’d actually been lovers was very short in comparison. She’d been on double dates with him. She’d set him up on dates. How many times had they been double dating with boyfriends and girlfriends? There was no reason this should be so strange—except that she still loved him so deeply.

Oh, she knew she’d tried to move on and she’d done it in the worst way ever. France was a mistake. Marcus was a mistake. Sitting there while Pete rested his hand on Jill’s was a mistake.

She looked down into her mug. “I’d like you to follow me home. From there I can have my dad and Uncle Zach work out something to keep Marcus from me. Uncle Zach still has connections to my grandfather. My mother alone will…”

“Avery, we’ll get you home safe. There isn’t anyone in your family that’s going to let you get hurt.”

He winced when he said it and she wasn’t even sure he knew he touched his raw cheek.

“I’ve inconvenienced you both enough. I should get going.” She pushed her mug back and stood.

Jill stood next, the blanket falling to the chair. “Don’t run off. Avery, you need help and we’re here to help you. I know he wouldn’t let anyone hurt you and the minute you leave he’s going to be pacing the floor worrying about you. Let him follow you home and talk to your family.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Avery said. “You’re involved and I’m the old girlfriend. I shouldn’t have come.”

“Are you kidding?” Jill moved toward her. “First of all, this is new for both of us and we’re feeling it out. Second, I’ve spent nearly two months hearing him talk about you.”

“Jill, that’s not true,” Pete argued.

She laughed. “Have you been here? Pete, everything in your life is about Avery. I just happened into the middle of it.”

“You don’t have to say that because she’s standing here. She’s the one who ran off and slept with some French guy.”

Avery scoffed. “And you moved on right away too.”

Jill shook her head. “Eh, not as quickly as you think. I’m not easy to get.”

“And you think I am?” Avery argued.

Jill held up her hands. “Now the two of you need to have this argument. Not me. I’m saying, Pete, you need to follow her home and make sure she’s safe. Avery, you need to get your shit together and press charges against this maniac who is chasing you down and beating up Pete.”

Avery looked at Pete, who shook his head and then to Jill who stood before her with her hands on her hips.

“I’m parked out back,” Avery said softly.

Pete dropped his shoulders. “I have to get dressed.” He turned and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Jill nodded. “I’m going to take my coffee and go back to my place.” She started for the stairs. “Welcome home, Avery. Everyone has missed you and was worried about you.”

As Jill disappeared down the stairs, Avery wondered how she would know how everyone felt. Who all had she met?

Pete followed Avery to her parents’ house and followed her inside when they collectively climbed from their cars.

Simone sat at the kitchen table with a legal pad in front of her and notes jotted down on it in French.

When she saw Pete follow Avery into the room she rose and moved to him.

“She came home to us,” she whispered in his ear. “She came home.”

In the last month he’d hugged Simone Keller more than he’d held his own mother. Avery didn’t need to know just how much they’d bonded over missing her.

Simone stepped back. “Avery, is everything all right? You look terrified.”

Avery exchanged looks with Pete and he gave her a nod.

“Mom, Marcus followed me here. He followed me, or found me at Pete’s.”

“He didn’t find you,” he corrected. “He only came looking.”

Simone studied Pete. “Did he hit you?”

“Cheap shot. He won’t ever do it again, that’s for sure.”

He watched as tears formed in Simone’s eyes. “Avery, you should have never gone.”

“Too late, Mom. And I can’t regret it more.”

Simone turned back to the table and picked up the notepad. “A former associate to my father called looking for you.”

“I’m not going back.”

Simone nodded. “It seems as though my father purchased the vineyard and other property with investment money from the Bavard family.”

“So.”

“So, Marcus’s need to marry you seems to be a business deal.”

“I knew that. My own grandfather sold me out.”

Simone nodded. “He tried to do that with me. Luckily, I fell in love and, well, I had you.”

“So this is payback? Grandfather failed at the biggest merger ever because of me?” Her tone was sharp.

Simone shook her head. “Because of my choices. And, Avery, I’d always choose you first.”

“So what does me marrying Marcus gain him?

Simone studied her notes. “Monsieur Bravard’s ego is even bigger than my father’s. Together they’d nearly monopolize many different industries. If you had provided them an heir…”

“It would be a solid deal and one person would inherit it all.”

Simone shrugged her shoulders. “It cannot be that easy, but yes. Legally if they partnered they couldn’t monopolize, legally. But an heir receiving it all, well…” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “Avery, I am so sorry that he did this to you.”

Avery moved to her mother and held her tightly. “I made my own mistakes,” she sighed. “Oh, did I make them.”

Pete scrubbed his hands over his face, and then remembered the bruise that had formed where the asshole had hit him. “So you foiled his plans. Now what?”

Avery turned to him. “Now we have to make him go away.”

“He flew all the way here to find you.”

“I left without word.”

“So you just need to tell him you’re not going back?” Pete chuckled. “Why do I think he’s not going to take that for an answer?” He touched his cheek. “Oh, that’s why. The son of a bitch punches people who stand in his way.”

“I don’t have to marry him. No one can make me do that.”

“Marriage or not, he’s looking for the heir.”

Pete watched as Avery’s face lost color. Her mother took her hands in hers.

“There’s no reason you’d be pregnant would there be?”

Pete looked away. “I should go.” There was no way he could stand there and listen to Avery admit that there was some kind of chance that she might be pregnant with that monster’s baby.

“Pete…”

“Don’t.” He held up a hand to stop her. “I’m glad you’re home. I won’t let anything happen to you. But you’re safe here.”

Without another word, Pete walked out of the house.

Chapter Nineteen

It wasn’t even one o’clock in the afternoon and Pete had already had three beers. Before the day was over, he’d make sure he’d had enough to forget the day all together.

His stomach churned at the thought that not only had Avery slept with that maniac, but maybe she was pregnant. The thought made him absolutely sick.

“Are you drowning your sorrows?” Jill stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

“What is it when that woman is around, then my day goes to hell?”

“Another Avery conflict?”

He chuckled. “That’s all it is with her. Conflict. Drama.”

“And you didn’t know this before you asked her to marry you?”

“It wasn’t as bad before,” he scoffed as he drank down the last of his beer and reached for another.

Jill moved in and stopped him from opening the next one. “Why don’t we go for a walk? Get some take out? Anything. You don’t need to drown your sorrows like this.”

Pete narrowed his eyes on her. “Why did she drag me into this?”

Jill laughed. “Because she loves you. She trusts you. You love her.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It’s true.”

“And what about you and me?”

Jill smiled sweetly as she sat down next to him. She gently brushed her fingers over his bruise. “You and I are neighbors who have shared a whole lot of wonderful kisses.”

“You’re dumping me.”

“I never had you. You’ve loved that woman since you were seven. How do you expect to just let that go away?”

“It needs to go away. It’s a disease,” he said as the backdoor opened and Avery walked through the kitchen and into the living room. “Just in case you forgot,” he slurred. “You don’t live here anymore. Why do you just walk in like—like you can?”

“Are you drunk?”

“Not as much as I want to be.” He nodded his head toward Jill. “She took away my next one.”

“Good,” Avery scolded. “Here.” She threw a small paper bag at him.

“A gift? For me?”

He let out a deep breath. The beer and anger had settled right into his stomach and he certainly wasn’t feeling any better.

Pete opened the bag and pulled out a pregnancy test stick.

He noticed that Jill moved back from him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

“Avery, what is this?”

“It’s a pregnancy test, moron.”

“I see that,” he said slowly.

Jill moved back in slightly. “It’s a negative test.”

Pete looked at it, unable to read it, and then looked up at Avery for verification.

“She’s right. It’s negative. I’m not pregnant.”

With Jill sitting that close, he didn’t want to seem relieved. But he was.

“You’re not having the goon’s baby?”

Avery stood with her hands on her hips. “No. But see, they were worried I was pregnant. If I had been, it would have thrown off their plans.”

Pete’s head was swimming in cheap beer, but he was trying to piece together this conversation with the one they’d had at her mother’s.

“So had you gone to France pregnant it would have ruined all their plans to marry you off to the idiot who punches people.”

She smiled. “Right.”

“And that’s what happened with your mother?”

Avery nodded. “My grandfather failed at setting her up with Marcus’s uncle, it turns out. Instead, she ran off with my father and had me.”

“Great. I’m very relieved you’re not pregnant, by either of us.”

Jill rested her hand on his thigh. “Pete…”

He backed off, but he could continue to argue with Avery. It felt better being mad at her than it did to be hurt.

Jill looked up at Avery. “Since I’m knee deep into this, let me see if I understand this. Your grandfather was trying to set you up with that man?”

Avery nodded. “It seems as though they are trying to marry the families together.”

“Don’t forget they want an heir so they want you knocked up by the right guy.” His words slurred again.

Jill watched him and he tried to smile, but he simply didn’t care that much.

She looked back at Avery. “You’re your grandfather’s only other heir? Aside from your mother?”

“Yes, and he disowned her when I was born.”

“Lovely man.”

Avery chuckled. “Right.”

Jill threw her hands into the air. “You know what this means don’t you?” She turned toward Pete.

“Her grandfather is a psychopath?”

“Yes, but you need to knock her up.”

The room went silent as both Avery and Pete stared at her and she laughed. “C’mon. You didn’t see that coming? If Avery’s married and having a baby, she can’t marry that other guy.”

“You didn’t mention married,” Pete reminded her.

“I didn’t. But why don’t you get married?”

There was no doubt his face mirrored Avery’s. Her eyes were wide and her mouth had fallen open.

“
You’re
telling us to get married?” Pete stared at Jill until she looked at him.

“Well, yeah. You were going to get married anyway. So get married now and when he comes looking for her she’ll be taken.”

The air simply expelled from his lungs. It was a stupid idea. Absolutely dumb—and yet perfect all at the same time.

Avery shook her head. “Jill, that’s a sweet offer, but…”

“Offer?”

“Yes. I’m the one who walked away. I’m not going to take your boyfriend and marry him just to…”

“She dumped me three minutes before you came throwing pregnancy tests at me,” Pete interrupted.

Avery’s shoulders dropped. “Because of me?”

Jill stood. “What Pete and I had was fun. I was pretty sure it was never going to get too serious. Avery, he’s in love with you. It’s not like I’m giving him back. I never had him.”

“Now, wait,” Pete slurred as he struggled to stand. “You’re dumping me and giving me back to her?”

Jill turned with her radiant smile. “Yeah. She needs you, Pete.”

“Where was she when I needed her?”

Jill reached up and touched the cheek, which wasn’t bruised. “She was finding herself. Women need to do that sometimes.”

Pete looked at Avery, whose eyes said she was deep in thought. “Do you think this would work?”

“What?” Pete snapped.

“If we got married. We could annul it later. If you don’t want to be married to me.”

“That’s an idea,” Jill retorted.

Pete dropped his shoulders. “I think the two of you are freaking crazy. She left me. Now you’re dumping me. I’m serious, this day sucks.”

“It’ll suck more if that man comes back for her, Pete. Protect her. You love her,” Jill said as she kissed him gently and walked back to her own apartment leaving him and Avery alone.

Avery’s hands were shaking. She clenched them tightly as Pete simply stood there staring at her.

“I get it. I cost you Jill. I wasn’t here for you. I left when I should have stayed. There is no reason for you to…”

“Why did you tell me you loved me on the phone?”

Avery’s eyes widened. “You heard that?”

“Oh, I heard it.”

Avery looked down at the floor. “I said it because it’s true. I never had any intentions of getting involved with someone else.”

“Intentions or not, you did.”

Avery shrugged. “I did. I don’t know how, but…”

“What do you mean you don’t know how? It’s not that hard to remember when you moved on.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t really remember it at all,” she said and her voice trailed off.