“Yep.” He pulled her arm through his and quickened his step toward the entrance and a bank of glass doors.
Dread gathered in her gut. Inside, she came to a full stop and pulled on Isaac’s hand to get his attention. Once she had it, Ava demanded, “Who’s your father? What’s your last name?”
“Let’s catch the elevator,” he said, his steps quick across the lobby, pulling her along. “My mom’s waiting for us at the top.”
When the elevator doors closed and they were alone, Ava pulled from his grip and fully faced him. “I’ve been lied to enough to know when it’s happening again. Not just anyone has a work event at the Mandarin. Who is your dad? Do I know him?”
To add to her terror, Ava didn’t know where the IEA awards were being held tonight. She didn’t know where her family and Matthew would be.
Isaac took her hands, and she knew. She knew he was going to throw a curve ball out of left field. “My dad is Dominic Banks.”
She recognized the name instantly. “As in the bridge designer, Dominic Banks? As in the man getting the IEA award?”
“Yes, I—”
The keg in her gut ignited. “Isaac Banks? You’re Isaac Banks?” Her mind spun backward. “Didn’t you used to come to our house for Sunday dinners?” She pulled her hands from his and stepped back, looking him up and down, trying to assimilate this hunky grown man with that gangly, awkward kid who’d annoyed the hell out of her over a decade ago. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He lifted his hands to her arms, closing his fingers around them firmly. And he looked at her the way he had that first night—as if he was angry and irritated. As if this subject was putting him out. “Because you wanted a biker. You went to that bar for a taste of the other side of the tracks. If I’d told you who I was, you would have pushed me aside and gotten yourself into real trouble.”
Sweat broke out on her forehead. Over her palms. She broke his grip and backed to the other side of the elevator. “What is this? Some kind of game?” Confusion muddled her brain. It was true. She would have shunned him. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with anyone like Matthew. And she still didn’t. “Has this all been nothing but a game for you?”
“Maybe that first night,” he admitted. “But then you came back. You came back, and once I got a taste of you, the real you, I didn’t want to give it up. So I gave you what you were looking for, hoping you’d like what you found and want more.”
She was hyperventilating when the doors opened. Music and voices flooded in. Ava glanced toward the ballroom all dressed up for the awards ceremony she’d sworn she’d never attend, and her vision blurred. Tension squeezed her stomach, and she pressed
a hand against the sudden wave of nausea.
She turned to step from the elevator. She needed to escape. Escape him and everyone at this event. She needed to find a way out. A way back to her apartment.
His hand closed on her arm, and she jerked from his touch. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
She scanned the area, searching for a bathroom, a hallway, the stairs. So many familiar faces passed in the foyer leading to the ballroom. Faces from a life she didn’t want anymore. Suddenly, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
“Ava.” Isaac pulled her into his arms and guided her back to the sanctuary of the elevator lobby.
Part of her, the part that had spent the last few weeks with him, wanted to bury her face against his chest. Just crawl into the warmth and bulk of his body and hide. But he was the reason she was standing right back in the middle of the prison she’d so narrowly escaped.
“Ava, I’m crazy about you.” His voice was rough in her ear. “I know I should have told you who I was when you came to the shop. But things got crazy and the next thing I knew…”
His hands stroked down her back. He kissed her temple. God help her, she didn’t want to walk away from him. But she didn’t want this life either.
Ava put a hand against his chest and stepped back. She hammered her fist against the elevator button and turned on Isaac again. “You lied to me. I could have gotten past that first night. Maybe even that day at the shop. But we were together all weekend. And again, the next weekend. Then again last week. You had so many opportunities to tell me.”
“I’m telling you now. Come meet my mom—”
“I’ve met your mom. And your dad. Even Jeremy as a kid. You knew everything about me. I knew nothing about you. You exploited that.”
“No. No, that’s not what I meant to—”
“I took you at face value, Isaac. I gave freely of myself while you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie, Ava.”
When the elevator didn’t come, she stepped out into the foyer, searching for the stairs. She saw her father with her mother at his side. Then Matthew, laughing with what should have been previous coworkers. This was all so wrong.
She spun on Isaac and found a reflection of everything she’d walked away from. “I won’t live this way anymore. I deserve better than lies and betrayal. I’m done. With this life, with them. With you.”
She stepped past Isaac, barely holding her shit together. The room was so crowded, so loud, so hot. Her head swam with confusion as she searched for the stairs or an exit.