Page 153 of Never Fall for an Angel

“Ava,” she says, shaking my hand when I offer it to her. “How long have you and Mr. Cross been married.”

I grit my teeth, aggressively folding a washcloth.

“Two years, I think. Maybe less. Who knows?” I grumble. “Not me.”

She stares at me, confused.

Whoops.

“Sorry. It’s complicated.”

That’s the polite way to put it.

“Isn’t it always?” she chuckles, resuming her folding.

“How long have you worked here?”

“No long,” she shrugs. “About six months.”

“Do you like it?”

“I can’t complain. It beats . . . other things I could be doing.”

“What made you want to work forMr. Cross.” The bitter mockery in my tone helps me feel better when I say his name.

Ava chuckles. “Money, actually. I’m just working to save, and the Cross’s pay well. My grandmother’s sick, so this helps.”

A pang of grief hits me in the chest.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shrugs, expertly folding the towels in front of her while mine look like a toddler snuck in and helped.

“My grandma raised me. It only seems right, I take care of her now.”

With the towels finished, she loads them back into the basket. “Thank you for helping me. You really didn’t need to.”

I shrug.

“Got me out of eating that awful grapefruit,” I say, and she laughs. “We should do this again. It was nice to speak to someone who either isn’t appalled by my presence or dancing on eggshells.”

She smiles. “I’d like that. Same time tomorrow?”

“It’s a date.”

MILA

By the time the first week is up, I’ve managed to make friends with Ava. We take walks through the grounds together, sneaking off when she’s supposed to be folding towels or dusting.

I won’t lie and say I’m sorry. It feels nice to have a friend who I can actually speak to. All my life, all my friends were either connections through my stepfather and mother or my siblings. Speaking to Ava, though, I feel like a fully fledged person for the first time in months.

She tells me about her childhood and her family. Her mother’s drug habits and her abusive stepfather. I tell her about the attack in very loose details. We play fetch with Phantom and enjoy eavesdropping on the conversations of the rich.

I feel like a teenager again, and it’s then I realize while Christian may have been pivotal in healing something broken in my soul, Ava was crucial to healing my childhood and I, hers.

At night, though, everything comes crashing down.

My mind races, and when I should be sleeping, I find myself in the window, staring out at the trees and wondering where Christian is and why he hasn’t called.

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