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Ava sighed and then smiled at the three women and Ben that were waiting by the front door.
“Really?” she asked Ben.
“Boss said he will meet you over there,” he told her.
“I’m your boss now, remember? And it’s a five minutes walk across the garden. The garden that is surrounded by the high wall. The wall that is being patrolled by armed men and scary dogs. On top of a private hill that is crawling with even more men with guns and scary dogs. So why do I have four bodyguards?” she asked.
“The boss thought it would be best,” Tom said. The tone of his voice told her he was agreeing with Zane. It had been two weeks since they had got confirmation that Zane’s father was behind their recent problems. The two weeks had been full of discussions. The first thing they did was to sort through the men in the organisation. They decided which men would still hold allegiance to Zaine’s father. Most of the old generation was placed in this category. Then they decided which men would have unyielding loyalty to Zane. They were all relieved when that category had a significant larger group. The rest of the men were in a grey area. Zane and Jax had been talking to those people during the two weeks to get a better understanding of where their loyalty would fall. It looked like most of them would side with Zane. Then there were the meetings where they tried to figure out what Zane’s fathers next move was. Zane, Jax, Ryder and Tom all knew Zane’s father and had worked with and for him. They had a good idea of how he thought and what he liked. Based on that they had drawn out four different plans that would be his most likely. Ryder and Gabriel was still living in the mansion and the content of their safe had been moved to a newly installed safe in their room in the mansion. Both Ava and Gabriel had been working from home as one of the plans they had arrived at included Zane’s father kidnapping one, or both of them. Linda had refused to take a leave of absence from her work so she had a group of six bodyguards following her around the hospital in addition to the regular group. This afternoon, Ava and Zane were heading to Linda and Jax’s house for Linda to do the first ultrasound. Zane had been working on something with Jax away from the mansion and they would both go directly to the house. Ava, apparently, was therefore being escorted though her own garden. Linda stood waiting outside her house. She looked with amusement at Ava’s group.
“Didn’t know we had such a dangerous garden,” Linda said.
“Neither did I. But apparently we do,” Ava replied as they hugged. “You can all wait out here. When Zane comes I think you can all go back to your regular work. Thank you for walking me over here,” she said to the body guards.
“Yes, Mrs. A,” they said as one. Linda giggled.
“Come on, I have made lemonade. We can have some and see how long we can wait for those men of ours,” Linda told her and hooked her arm into Ava’s. They sat down in the kitchen and talked. Ten minutes later Ava heard the car and she smiled. She had been looking forward to this and it was hard being patient. Jax walked in, closely followed by Zane. Zane walked up to Ava and kissed her.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.
“No, maybe ten minutes, but it felt like an eternity,” she confessed. He gave her one of his genuine smiles and placed his hand in her belly where her baby bump was starting to show.
“Let’s not keep you waiting any longer,” Linda said and got up. “Ava, Zane, follow me. I have set up in the guestroom that I’m transforming into a clinic,” she said.
“It will be nice having a dedicated clinic on the grounds,” Zane said.
“What about me?” Jax asked.
“What about you?” Linda asked, confused.
“You didn’t tell me to come. What am I to do?” he asked.
“I didn’t ask you because it’s a checkup for the mother, Ava, and if she wants, her partner, Zane. I assume you can keep busy for half an hour or so,” Linda told him and patted him on the arm.
“But I’m family,” he objected. Linda rolled her eyes.
“It’s fine,” Ava said. She didn’t mind him coming along and she knew Zane wouldn’t mind either.
“Don’t feel obligated to give in to his nonsense. And don’t fall for his puppy dog eyes,” Linda told her.
“Babe,” Jax whined. Ava laughed and kissed his cheek.
“He is family and we honestly don’t mind,” she told Linda.
“Told you,” Jax taunted Linda. She rolled her eyes again but showed them the way to the clinic. Linda guided Ava through the different exams. Ava was happy Linda had offered to do the prenatal checkups. It was comforting being surrounded by people you trusted. It also made Zane relaxed. With everything going on, Ava didn’t know how he would react to an outsider. When everything else had been preformed, Linda tapped on the examination table and Ava got on.
“Pull your shirt up and we will get to the fun part,” Linda said.
Jax had been standing in the corner and when Ava started hiking up her shirt he looked up at the ceiling. Ava giggled and Linda sent him an amused smile. “Try to relax. The gel is a little cold but that is about the worst of it,” Linda told Ava. Ava nodded and reached her hand out and Zane grabbed it. He bent down and placed a kiss on her head. Linda put the cold gel on Ava’s stomach and started moving the ultrasound over it. Linda’s focus was on the screen, Ava and Zane was watching it just as intently. Ava was sent right back to her days as a nurse. She could tell by the frown on Zane’s face that he didn’t understand what he was looking at. He kept looking at it all the same. Linda found a good spot and Ava smiled at the small bean shape on the screen.
“I-is that the baby?” Zane’s voice had a wobble to it that tugged at Ava’s heart. Ava’s emotions bubbled up and she teared up. All she could do was to nod.
“It is,” Linda confirmed. Jax took a few steps closer and looked at the screen as well.
“It’s so tiny,” he said.
“This is the head, and this is the body. The little cutie has a strong heartbeat and I would say you are just over nine weeks,” Linda told them.
“We don’t want to know the gender,” Zane told her. Linda giggled.
“That’s fine. It’s too early for that anyway. But I will keep it in mind for the next checkup. Are you okay, Ava?” Linda asked. Ava swallowed hard and nodded. It was hard for her to look away from the screen. She was looking at their baby. Seeing the little one was making everything more real. Zane kissed her head again. “I’ll print this and then Jax and I will step outside and let you get ready. Here are some tissues for the gel,” Linda said. As she stood up to leave, Jax touched Ava’s foot that was closest to where he stood at the bottom of the examination table.
“Congratulation,” he said in a soft voice and then followed Linda and left the room. Zane cupped her face and Ava’s gaze shifted to him. She met his eyes and they were filled with love and wonder.
“I love you, angel,” he told her and kissed her. It was a soft kiss, full of the emotions she knew he felt in the moment. When the kiss ended, Zane rested his forehead against hers. “We are going to have a baby,” he told her. She smiled at him.
“Yes we are. That baby,” she agreed, glancing over to the monitor. He looked over at it as well. They looked at it for a moment.
“It definitely takes after you,” he told Ava. Ava started laughing.
“I love you, Zane,” she told him. “Now help me get this off my belly. Anna has prepared a celebration dinner and I need to show Gabriel, Anna and the rest of everyone in the mansion the picture of our baby,” she told him. He grinned down at her.
“Your wish is my command, angel,” he told her and gave her a light kiss before helping her to clean her belly and helped her up.
Gabriel got teary eyed when Ava showed him the sonogram and Anna smiled and gave both her and Zane a hug, to Zane’s great surprise. As Linda, Jax, Gabriel, Ryder, Ben and his wife joined them for dinner, the mood was high and the conversation was relaxed and filled with laughter for the first time in weeks. When Ava and Zane when to bed later they were both in a good mood.
“While you are in a good mood,” Ava said.
“Yes?” Zane asked.
“Gabriel and I need to go into the office one day this week,” Ava said.
“No.” The answer wasn’t said in anger or with any kind of force. It was a simple and straight forward answer. Ava sighed and walked up to him.
“You haven’t heard why yet,” she complained.
“Sorry, angel. Why?” he asked.
“We have a contractor coming in that we need to check out for the charity project,” she told him.
“I understand. No.”
“Zane!”
“I’m sorry. I know it means a lot to you, and to Gabriel. But it’s not safe, and you know it,” he told her.
“If we just go to have the meeting. We will be there for two hours, max,” she pleaded.
“I’m not negotiating this with you, angel. It’s a no.”
“Please?” she asked and tried to give him puppy dog eyes.
“Don’t give me that look. It won’t work. Last time I let you talk me in to something, it ended up with you and Gabriel taking on a masked intruder. Not going to do that again,” he huffed.
“But this time we will be in the office. We can empty it of our regular employees and you can fill the whole place with our men,” she tried.
“And the contractor?” he asked.
“Well, maybe don’t strip search him? But I don’t see why we can’t put a metal detector or something in place,” she suggested. Zane huffed again and Ava felt like she was about to win.
“If I agree to this. If! You will agree to work from home until my father is dealt with?” he asked.
“Can we put a time span on that promise? Like if we still haven’t got control of him in four months we can talk about it?” she asked. Zane crowded her.
“No time limit, no talking about it. It’s yes or no,” he told her.
“Okay. I agree to your terms,” she agreed and held out her hand to shake on the deal. Zane smirked.
“It’s been a while since we made a deal, angel. But that isn’t how we seal our deals,” he reminded her and drew her in to a fiery kiss.