Blown Away Read Online Free PDF Page B

her
office.
    Ava claimed the
chair beside her. “I knew him back in college. His younger brother
was in some of my classes.”
    “Huh, so why
did he contact you?”
    “I have no
idea. I haven’t even thought about him in years.” That wasn’t
entirely true. She’d spent the years since she returned from
Germany fearing she may run into him at a party and have to explain
why she left town so quickly.
    “But he’s
obviously thought about you or he wouldn’t have reached out.”
    Ava shrugged,
wishing they could talk about something else, anything else. “I
guess.”
    “Is he
cute?”
    Ava nearly
spewed her mouthful of coffee. “Uh, I don’t know if that’s the word
I’d use to describe him.”
    “Okay, now
you’ve really got me curious,” Lena laughed. “What’s his name? What
does he do?”
    “Um…” There
wasn’t a person in Tennessee who hadn’t heard the name Brent
Armstrong, and Ava didn’t want to fuel Lena’s curiosity.
    “Why are you
being so secretive? That’s not like you.”
    Great, she’d
offended Lena. “His name is Brent--” she surrendered when Lena
raised an eyebrow “--Armstrong.”
    “Shut up!” Lena
set her coffee down on the table at her elbow. “Not the Brent Armstrong?”
    “That’s
him.”
    “Oh my God,
that man is gorgeous. And rich, filthy, filthy rich.”
    Ava laughed and
slapped Lena’s knee. “Behave. Since when did that matter?”
    “It doesn’t,”
Lena said, grinning, “but it sure doesn’t hurt his chances.”
    “He doesn’t
have a chance.” Ava took a sip of her coffee. Coming to the
boutique when she was still reeling from Brent’s email was a bad
idea.
    “Why not?”
    “He… I…” Ava
couldn’t explain without telling Lena the nature of their
relationship. If she found out Brent was the man who’d taken Ava’s
virginity, there’s no telling how she might react.
    “You know I’m
not letting you off the hook without telling me the whole
story.”
    Sighing, Ava
decided to accept her fate with grace. “Fine. We kind of went out
once, right before I moved to Germany.”
    “He didn’t have
anything to do with you leaving, did he?”
    “No.” That
wasn’t entirely true. She’d been accepted to several schools in
Europe, but she hadn’t intended to attend any of them until she
slept with Brent. She didn’t relish the idea of living in the same
city as him, especially when she found out the lengths he’d gone to
just to find her. A private investigator. Thinking about how intent
he’d been on locating her still gave her chills.
    “Are you
sure?”
    “Things got a
little complicated.”
    “How so?”
    Ava wasn’t an
inexperienced teenager anymore. She shouldn’t feel so awkward
talking to Lena about her sex life. “We slept together.” At Lena’s
stunned expression, Ava offered, “He was my first.”
    “Oh, wow.
That’s intense.”
    “Yeah, it was.
He was intense.”
    “What do you
mean?”
    “Afterward, he
called me repeatedly, emailed me, and tried to get mutual friends
to reach out to me for him.” Ava wasn’t sure if she should reveal
the last part. “When that didn’t work, he hired a private
investigator to track me down.”
    “He
didn’t!”
    Ava nodded. “He
did.”
    “How do you
know?”
    “Tara and I got
scared when we saw this guy following us, so we pointed out the guy
to a cop. He started questioning him and found out Brent had hired
the guy to find out where I was.”
    “But you never
heard from Brent again after that?”
    “We hopped on
the next plane. No way was I going to stick around with that guy
watching our every move.”
    “I can’t
believe this,” Lena said quietly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I don’t know.
By the time I came home, it didn’t seem important anymore. I knew
he’d forgotten all about me. He hadn’t tried to contact me since
the police apprehended his friend.”
    Lena looked at
Ava out of the corner of her eye. “From everything I’ve heard,