A Broken Fate (The Beautiful Fate Series book 2) Read online

  He shook his head at me disapprovingly. Then he said, “so… no kids, huh?”

  I bit at a fingernail, feeling uncomfortable.

  “I guess I have always pictured myself with children until I found out who my dad was and who I was. I just don’t think I want to continue down that path. I don’t want someone else to have to bear my burden as a fate.”

  “Ava, the worst part is over; you’ve taken away any burden that might have fallen on our children. Everything you’ve gone through has been for our future. You’ve done something that no one in your past has had the strength to do.”

  I thought back to the night before, how No. 6 had had company. Something in the back of my mind was trying to surface, something that told me my business with the Kakos was not yet over.

  “I just don’t know if I want to take my chances,” I said to him.

  “I want kids, Ava,” Ari responded flatly.

  Looking down at my coffee. I was unwilling to meet his eyes.

  “I am only eighteen. I didn’t plan on getting married this young, let alone having children. Give me some time; let’s enjoy our marriage first and then we can maybe cross that bridge when we get to it... if we get to it.”

  ****

  Ari and I spent our morning together hanging out at home. We sat on the sun porch with the newspaper and looked out at the crashing waves.

  “Hey,” I said as a thought popped in my head. “What on Earth does Piase Kokkino mean and when did your mom become such a nut?”

  “She’s always been a nut, Ava, as for Piase Kokkino, why do you ask?” Ari shifted in his seat to face me.

  “Well, yesterday your mom and I both said some something at the same time and she freaked out on me. I had to leave the kitchen before she started to do that weird spitting thing you guys all do.”

  “Touch red.”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said.”

  “Well… did you touch red?”

  “No, I refuse to fall victim to her silly superstitions.”

  “Damnit, Ava!” Ari laughed, “You just sealed your fate with my mother. I’m sure there will be hell to pay between the two of you and I am going to get stuck in the middle of some dumb fight of yours.”

  “You can’t possibly believe in that bull. Last year when I said that spitting ‘ftou, ftou, ftou’ thing they do was silly, you agreed with me.”

  “Well…. For starters, I really liked you and I would have agreed with anything you said and… spitting is silly, but I still believe it, that it wards of evil spirits.”

  I leaned across Ari and gently placed my finger on his red lips. “Piase Kokkino. There, all better.”

  He smiled in response. “It’s too late now, Ava.”

  “What other things, superstitions, do you believe in?”

  “You really want to know?”

  I laughed, “I feel as though I am left with no choice; I will be doomed if I never learn these oddities.”

  “Ok… Well, you know that cactus over there by the door?”

  Ari pointed to a round cactus in a big blue pot that sat perched by our backdoor.

  I nodded.

  “My parents have one, too and so do Gianna and Thias. A cactus is supposed to ward off the evil eye from the home.”

  “What is the evil eye?” I said the words with a fake, spooky tone.

  Ari shook his head at me incredulously. “Evil eye or Matiasma comes from someone’s jealous compliment and is intended to make you feel bad or ruin you. Greeks go out of their way to avoid the evil eye. Some wear blue charms around their neck and even hang ropes of garlic above doorways. My mom keeps that rope of garlic over her stove to keep her cooking safe from the evil eye. She thinks people are jealous of her culinary skills.”

  I smiled a great big smile. “How do you know all of this stuff?”

  Ari scoffed, “I had to endure Greek School for nine years before DPI and I had the information beat in to me on a daily basis.”

  “Will you tell me more?” As silly as the beliefs sounded, I really enjoyed the stories but even more so, I loved to see Ari’s passion for his heritage.

  “Of course I will. Crows…” Ari pointed to a bird in the distance. “If you see a crow it is considered an omen of bad news, misfortune or death. If you hear a crow cawing, you say ‘Sto Kalo … Sto Kalo … Kala Nea na me Feris.’ By doing so you are telling the crow to fly away and bring back good news.”

  “What is that thing your mom always does with her bread knife?” I asked.

  Ari raised his eyebrow. “Knives… you never ever hand someone a knife. Every evening my mom sets the bread knife down on the table in front of my dad; he picks the knife back up off the table and slices the bread. If she were to hand the knife directly to him, that is her giving him permission to stab her in the back or do her harm. Now… Bread… we have bread at every meal, it is considered a gift from God and should never be thrown away. If the bread becomes too hard to be eaten, we feed it to the birds. Since the food was a gift from God, it would be a sin to put it in the garbage.”

  “I like that one.”

  “Me too.”

  “What else?”

  “One more…” Ari looked down at his watch and then grabbed hold of my shoe and shook my foot playfully. “Shoes… a shoe left out, sitting overturned with the sole facing up is an omen of death. If you take your shoes off and they were to accidently land upside down, you have to immediately turn them around, say ‘skorda’ and spit on them.”

  “So many of the beliefs have to do with death; it seems like a lot of energy wasted on trying to avoid the unavoidable.”

  Ari shrugged, “as much as I would love to sit here with you and tell you more about where we come from, we have to go. I promised both my mother and sister we would help out today.”

  “Ok.” I smiled. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  “My pleasure,” Ari beamed a smile, “if you behave yourself with my mom today, I will reward you with our superstition of bat bones.”

  I laughed a great big laugh and Ari stood up, took my hand and we walked down the sandy path to his parent’s home. We then helped Aggie get ready for Lauren’s little party. Aggie was having a hard time with the fact that Lauren was growing up and she was not looking forward to Lauren moving into the dorms. I have to admit that I was not looking forward to it either. I knew a little something about student behavior, having witnessed it first-hand. Thankfully, Lauren was not placed on the twelfth floor as she had wanted and got stuck instead on an all-girls floor lower down in the building. I kept telling her an all-girls floor would let her concentrate better on her classes and she kept telling me, “I am just going to go to work for Ari anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Lauren!” I exclaimed. “Believe me; you don’t want to work at baio. Margaux is pure evil and you will want to kill Ari if you had to work for him.”

  “That may be true, but I want to do something in fashion and I figure since I already have a brother and a sister-in-law in the industry, you and Ari can help me get my foot in the door.”

  “Ari is not doing anything with fashion; that is all Margaux. He is managing her business, not her clothing line. He is just a glorified accountant. Margaux wanted him to take it over so she could concentrate on design; she has been doing both since my grandpa died and is tired of it. As for me, I don’t have anything to do with baio. But if you are serious about fashion, I bet she would let you intern next summer.”

  “Yay,” she squeaked.

  “Lauren, think long and hard about that; Margaux is a big, nasty pill to swallow and if you don’t have perfect grades she won’t even give you a second glance. She didn’t pick Ari because of me; she picked him because he is brilliant.”

  I hoped my words would help Lauren concentrate on school and not boys. She is the most boy-crazy person I have ever met. As a descendant of Aphrodite and Adonis, Lauren is drop dead gorgeous, a true goddess and I was sure every straight boy in her school had a thing
for her. I worried that she would end up making the wrong choices. I think she could tell what I was thinking because as we were packing up her room, she got up and closed the bedroom door.

  “Ava,” she asked. “Are you glad you did what you did with Ari? You know, how you waited to be married before you ummm… before you know… you had sex?”

  I groaned internally. I am the wrong person for this type of conversation and I wanted to tell Lauren that nothing would make her mother happier than to have this talk, but I sucked it up and put a smile on my face.

  “I love Ari and I cannot imagine loving anyone else. I wanted to give him something that no one else in the world could ever have. Waiting until I was married made everything so much more important, more intimate, and more powerful. It brought a very strong and beautiful emotion to the mix. Deciding to wait was a difficult decision but in the end, I would have been disappointed with myself if I had not waited.”

  She thought things over for a moment then asked, “Are you disappointed with Ari for not doing the same thing?”

  “I am not disappointed in anything that Ari has ever done. That was his choice and he has had to deal with his decision. Who am I to hold a person’s past against him?”

  Lauren’s door swung open and her cheeks turned bright pink.

  “What are you two talking about in here?” Ari took a step into her room.

  I turned towards him and winked.

  “The L word,” I answered with a smile.

  He turned on his heel, left the room and shut the door behind him.

  Lauren giggled and I help her finish packing while the wheels turned in her head about our conversation. Ari and I left as soon as Lauren’s friends from school started to show up for her party that evening. My nerves could not take all of their little squeals and high-pitched screams.

  Ari talked me into getting in the hot tub with him. I had never been in one before, but he knew how to make the experience a lot of fun. In fact, it turned out to be a very fun experience and I was extremely thankful for the fact that our house edged a very private part of the beach.

  “So what was I interrupting earlier between you and Lauren?” he asked in between kisses.

  I bit my lip and gave him my, ‘I don’t know if I should tell you,’ face.

  “C’mon, I’m your husband; you are morally obligated to tell me about any conversations you have with my sister.”

  “Uh, she just wanted to know if I was happy with the fact that I had waited until after our wedding to be intimate with you, so I just told her how I felt.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “Well, of course I’m happy with the decision I made.”

  “I know that, Ava; that’s not what I’m asking. What else did she ask?”

  “She just wanted to know if I was disappointed in your decision to not wait.”

  His face fell a little.

  “Ugh, she knows about me and Julia?”

  “She’s not an idiot, Ari. First of all, do you ever listen to the conversations at the dinner table? Your mother practically gave me her blessing to share your bed with you the third time I met her. What mother does that? And besides, Lauren was there when I got in that fight with you last winter after I found out about the sorted details of you and Julia’s relationship.”

  “Right,” he said, “so are you disappointed in me, Mrs. Alexander?”

  Just thinking about Ari and Julia together made me angry and my stomach was assaulted with all kinds of pains. I tried to push the feelings away and continue on with our nice evening alone.

  “I guess you could try to make it up to me.”

  He pulled me closer to him and it didn’t take long for me to bite down hard on his ear lobe in anticipation and desire.

  Chapter 7

  Chinese food and scrabble

  We had Sunday dinner, as usual, at Aggie and Andy’s house. In the middle of dinner, Aggie grabbed Ari’s ear.

  “Ari, what happened?” she asked in her worried, motherly tone.

  He pulled his head back out of her hand, “Nothing, Ma. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No seriously, Ari, what happened?” she asked again.

  “Ma, seriously, nothing,” he responded more sternly and my cheeks turned from pink to red hot in a matter of seconds. Rory happened to hear the conversation, noticed my red face and broke into a fit of loud laughter, with Julia joining in right behind him. I was immediately reminded that Ari had discussed our wedding night in detail with Rory and I was beyond angry.

  Ari shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Andy and Thais did the same as Ari. Aggie looked at me confused, as if I might explain the situation to her. Covering my face with my hands, I to hide my embarrassment.

  Aggie pursed her lips at us. “Tell me what’s going on!”

  Ari opened his mouth but no words came from him.

  Andy, who is usually cool and calm, said in a very stern voice, “Aggie, drop it now.” Ari threw his arm around my shoulder and kissed me on the temple. I nudged him off me.

  “I’m sorry I asked, Ari.” Aggie said quietly.

  I was so mad; I excused myself from the table and walked home. Ari followed after me.

  Storming up our deck steps in a fury, I passed the pool and then fumed through the sun porch. Walking through the glass doors, into the kitchen, I whipped around to face Ari.

  “You told Rory all about our wedding night! I cannot believe you did that, Ari! That was private. It was special to me and now everyone knows!”

  Ari closed his eyes and took a breath. “I did not tell Rory, Ava. It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Julia told me that you told Rory, she even knew details!”

  “Julia is an idiot. She doesn’t know what happened and I will talk about this with Rory tomorrow.”

  “Tell me how he knows.” I demanded.

  Ari ran his hands down his face, nodded and pulled out a seat at the table. He gestured for me to sit down. He took a place across from me.

  Ari swallowed hard. “Ok. Here is what happened, Ava. You were missing. I was the last person to talk to you or see you that day. I had a bite mark on my lip, scratch marks down my back. There was umm… blood on our sheets.” Ari had the decency to look embarrassed. “The detective who showed up was a complete fool. He wouldn’t stop to listen to me about your connections with The Kakos. He was determined that I had injured you or hurt you in some way- that I had killed you. He tried to take me to the police station to get my statement. My dad and Thais were still next door. They were delivering the news of your disappearance to the rest of the family. My dad, Thais and Rory arrived at our house just in time to keep the detective from taking me to the police station.

  “My dad made a deal with the detective that I would give a statement but it would be in our home with he and Thais present. After some discussion, the detective agreed.”

  Looking distraught, Ari stared down at his hands while he spoke. “I had no other choice, Ava. I had to explain what had caused the marks to my body and the blood in our bed. I had to clear my name so they would focus on finding you. So, I told him that you did cause the marks to my lip and back but out of an act from pleasure not otherwise. My dad and Thais each sat on either side of me while I explained in detail what we did together in our bedroom after our wedding. The detective’s questions were relentless, intrusive and at times out of line. Eventually, Detective Scott was called. A neighbor reported seeing Damien Kakos in the area and was concerned. Scott heard of your disappearance and came as soon as he was able. Since Detective Scott was head of The Kakos’ files, he dismissed the other detective and cleared my name.”

  Ari looked up at me with a grief stricken look on his face. “I am so sorry, Baby. I really am but I had no other choice but to talk about the details our relationship.”

  I bit at my lip. “That doesn’t explain Rory and Julia.”

  “Like I said, Rory came over with my dad and Thais. He was there when the detective was questioning me and
he heard everything. Rory never left my side the entire time you were missing. He was there for me. I am not sure why he told Julia and I am sorry for that. As I said, I will talk with him about it in the morning.”

  “Ava, I know how important your privacy is to you. It is important to me, too. I never would have exposed our relationship like that if it wasn’t a complete necessity. Please forgive me.”

  I got up from my seat, moved across the table and climbed on to Ari’s lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my forehead up against his. “I’m sorry, too. I hadn’t thought about what an ordeal you must have gone through while I was gone.”

  I kissed the bite mark on his ear and the small scar below his lip. “So Andy and Thais know I am a biter, huh? That’s embarrassing.”

  Ari laughed aloud. “Nah, Ava, don’t sweat it. They are used to passionate women; that’s just how Greek woman are.” Ari winked at me causing my cheeks to flush pink.

  Ari was set to start school and work the next day so we cuddled up on the couch and watched a few episodes of The Abbot and Costello Show on DVD then went to bed. Ari had classes at Pepperdine Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from eight until one. After class on those days, he went to work for baio. He also worked at baio all day Thursdays and Fridays. His was indeed a very full schedule.

  My grandmother took Ari’s employment very seriously. She gave Ari the corner office down the hall from hers. My grandfather, Perry, had used the space when he was alive and I was quite familiar with the spectacular view of L.A. visible from the office window. Margaux was also working on hiring an assistant for Ari. Knowing Margaux, the assistant would be some beautiful, tan, blonde that had great dreams of modeling for baio one day.

  Thankfully, Margaux expected Ari to be at baio only when she was in L.A. and she traveled quite a bit...so his work in the office would not be constant. I wasn’t sure how much he was going to like working for her. In fact, I was pretty sure he was going to end up hating baio. I had given up trying to talk him out of working for Margaux, though. In the end, he had to make the decision by himself, and even though I reminded him my plan would give him more time flexibility, he declined it.