Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Ava doesn’t know why Smokey is acting strange. When Harlow also starts to lie and disappear, she wonders what’s going on. She never imagined Smokey cheating, but when she sees Harlow and Smokey hugging, she has to wonder if he’s having an affair. After everything they’d gone through, she never expected him to cheat.
All Smokey wants to do is celebrate Christmas with his woman. To give her memories that wipe out the bad ones he caused, but everything is falling apart. He would never cheat on her. Ava is his soul mate. His reason for fucking breathing. And he can never lose her.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
“We’re all going to fucking die this holiday,” Hunter said.
“Hey!” Ugly Beast growled. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
There was a chorus of laughter around the church table, and Smokey wasn’t entertained. In fact, he was mightily pissed off. This hadn’t been a decision he’d come to lightly.
With the shit that went down with his woman, and then Raven, he was struggling. He wasn’t a romantic man, nor was he a man used to feeling so fucking useless when it came to women.
Ava had certainly shown him that he had a thing or two, or a fucking thousand, to learn. When it came to his woman, he was always fucking up.
“Dude, Hunter’s right. We love Abriana. You know we do, but come on. That woman needs to be banned from the kitchen. She has given us all food poisoning,” Big Dick said. “I think she has chipped my sister’s teeth a few times as well. Harlow will not even think about helping her to bake. Your woman is a disaster in the kitchen.”
Smokey couldn’t agree more. Abriana was a lovely woman. Her love for Ugly Beast surprised him. Their marriage had been an arrangement with the Garofalo mafia. After discovering the Boss was nothing more than a pedophile, intent on destroying the Hells Bastards MC, he’d been taken out. The mafia was now run by Carlos Santiago, who happened to be married to one of their own, Raven.
Smokey adored Abriana. She was good for Ugly Beast, who had turned into a somewhat reasonable human being. He was a good guy. A nice guy, but of course, anyone who said that to Ugly Beast would hurt for days afterward.
“Abriana doesn’t have to cook, and if she does, I’m sure Ava can fix anything she does,” Smokey said.
“So let me get this right,” Kinky said. “You want us to host Christmas here at the clubhouse. We’re to get the women to dress properly, or not appear, and we’re to what, embrace Ava?”
Smokey ran a hand down his face. His men were being purposefully obtuse dickheads.
“Smokey, dude, you’ve got to let that shit go,” Brick said.
He looked around the table at the club.
“He can’t let it go,” Raven said. “He can’t bring himself to stop thinking about it, right? I get it.”
“Ava has forgiven us all,” Kinky said.
Smokey slammed his hand on the table. “I know she has forgiven us all, but I want more than that. I want her to have memories of this fucking clubhouse that extend past a few pleasantries. This is going to be a place where she comes all the fucking time. Where I want our kids to come to. This is my clubhouse, and I don’t want her to constantly remember my betrayal of her.”
At times, Ava was so hard to freaking read. She no longer seemed to be having the nightmares, which was a welcome relief, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty every time she was at the clubhouse. Even when Ava didn’t realize he was watching her, he saw how she sometimes jumped or flinched. She hid it with a laugh or a sudden movement. He spotted it. He noticed it.
The club hadn’t, but he had. And it drove him fucking crazy. So crazy that he had spent a great deal of time thinking about how he could make this work.
He needed to wipe out her memories and create new ones. It was simple. Thanksgiving, they’d enjoyed alone with their son, Umberto. It had been a quiet affair, and after he’d put his son to bed, he’d spent the whole night making love to her.
With Christmas coming, he knew she loved this holiday. Her bakery was already full of the Christmas treats she wanted to serve. Mince pies, mint candy cane cookies, the works. She had even taken Umberto back to work for a couple of days a week so she could get into the festive mood.
Her shop was also full of decorations. Tinsel and fairy lights in the shop window. A tree in the corner, more tinsel and lights around the shop. It was a wonderland.
He’d known this about his woman. And he didn’t mind it. In fact, he loved to see her joy, but at the clubhouse, it was a pit.
No tree.
No tinsel.
No lights.
Nothing.
He looked toward Ugly Beast. “Do you want to spend Christmas with Abriana’s cooking?”
“I want to spend Christmas with my family.”
But he saw the clenching of Ugly Beast’s jaw. A couple of Christmases ago, he hadn’t been able to make it to their church meeting because he’d been puking his guts up and shitting himself every two minutes. That was Abriana’s cooking.
“So Ugly Beast is in,” Raven said, chuckling.
“What about you?” Smokey asked.
“I, er, with Ava…”
“You two are solid, Raven. I mean that. If you’re not around, I know it will upset her.” Ava was always asking about Raven. His woman cared about this woman. Ava had heard the true darkness of Raven’s past, and since then, Ava had made every effort to become best friends with the woman.