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Ava stopped and looked at him.

“Why do you ask something like that?”

“Because you know that my childhood wasn’t exactly perfect and you know what kind of man I am.”

“Okay, come with me,” she told him, took his hand and walked him into their bedroom. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have standing in the corridor. She made him sit down on the bed and sat next to him. “First, you need to stop thinking of yourself as a bad man without redeeming qualities. I have told you before, that isn’t the case. Yes, you may do things outside the law and some of those things involve hurting people. But I have never heard of you doit it to someone that hasn’t been deserving of it. And you have never, ever even made me fearful of you. Maybe with the exception of our first meeting, but that was just a high adrenalin night,” she told him. He huffed.

“It’s different with you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I love you.” Ava smiled at him and kissed his cheek.

“Just like y