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Taming Ava & Outwitting Jax - A Modern Fairytale

Chapter 11 Meeting Gemma

"

There were certain things about getting married that Ava hadn't considered like meeting Jax's parents. It simply had never occurred to her that she would need to meet his parents. They had nothing to do with her or her future marriage. She still had trouble even thinking of getting married without throwing up a little in her mind.

She never saw marriage as a happy joyous union of two people who loved each other. Romances were temporary that ended in a break-up or divorce, but the bottom line was they ended. All you had to do was pick yourself and move on. There was always someone better around the corner.

She had always valued her freedom above the fake stability of marriage. She'd met guys' parents but that had usually been because they were classmates' parents or her father knew them through business dealings. She'd never met parents because the relationship was getting serious. Her relationships didn't last that long.

If she had her way, she wouldn't meet Jax's mother and his stepfather but the engagement was supposed to look real and it would look funny if she didn't meet them especially since they lived in Charming.

She was going to be at her least charming when she met them. She didn't need to go to all that trouble. Regular Ava was already pretty unpleasant.

She wanted to make sure that Gemma and Clay didn't think of her as a daughter because she was married to Jax. Her plan was to go have lunch and make Gemma dislike her enough so that she didn't invite her to family dinner or any holiday type stuff. As far as she was concerned, she'd speak to Gemma every couple of months for a few minutes and that was all the contact there would be.

It wasn't like the way she treated Gemma and Clay mattered. They could hate her all they wanted; Jax was still going to marry her. That's why she was giving him a hell of a lot of money to marry her.

Ava was supposed to meet Gemma at TM at noon. She showed up twenty minutes late because only unimportant people were on time. She was dressed in all her label loving finery—not that Gemma would appreciate it. She doubted Gemma even knew the difference between Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin.

She wore a black Chanel jacket, a metallic gray leather Prada mini-skirt, a Versace logo T-shirt, Gucci patterned tights and Christian Louboutin black booties. She was carrying the black alligator Birkin bag her father had given her for her birthday. She didn't really like the bag. She would have preferred a less heavy shoulder bag, but this was the highly coveted bag that women dreamed of so that's the one she had to carry.

Clothes—specifically designer clothes—were one of the ways the rich let the poor know just how poor they were. Due to her father's cheapness, sometimes it would take her a couple of months to buy a whole outfit. She had to mix and match to stretch her wardrobe. He was just so damned cheap.

One of the other ways the rich flaunted their wealth was eating in expensive restaurants. There were no expensive elite places to eat in Charming. There wasn't even a Starbucks.

Why wasn't there a Starbuck's? Was their something defective about this town? She hoped her father would realize that Charming was anything but charming and he would move them somewhere else like San Francisco to a huge gated mansion.

Ava walked into TM's with her russet hair straightened into a glossy shining curtain and her make-up was flawlessly applied.

She wasn't impressed with the place. It was exactly like a garage's waiting room looked on TV shows—dingy walls, a small sofa stained with oil and dirt, a couple of chairs, a metal desk and some filing cabinets.

She also wasn't impressed with the woman behind the desk. She had on badly applied make up clumpy black mascara, orange blush and a strange colored lipstick that was kind of brown, kind of purple and clashed with the clown blush. Her brown hair had ugly white blonde streaks. How could anyone think that brown and white hair was an attractive look? What the hell was wrong with people?

"I'm looking for Gemma Teller," she said. "My name's Ava Becker."

Jax had mentioned Ava occasionally to Gemma when she visited him or talked to her on the phone. She was shocked when he suddenly announced he was going to marry her.

Gemma couldn't figure out why Jax wanted to get married until she saw Ava. She might not know much about designer clothes other than Chanel, but she knew expensive clothes when she saw them. Jax was marrying Ava for her money.

She was relieved. That made sense finally. It was going to take a lot of money to get Jax's conviction tossed. Jax's new wife was going to supply the money he needed to get out of prison.

Gemma didn't point out that Ava was late. She was going to find a way to get along with her no matter what—at least until her money helped Jax get out of prison. After that, it was going to be a different story.

"I'm Gemma. Clay had some emergency towing business. Maybe he'll be back in time to meet you when we get back from lunch."

"OK," Ava said.

"I thought we could just grab some fast food from my favorite fast food place Burger Galaxy."

"OK," Ava said.

"I'll drive," Gemma said.

Gemma felt her temper rise each time Ava said "OK" in a bored tone of voice. She might bitch slap her if she said it again. She reminded herself that she needed to get along with her. Jax's getting out of prison could depend on it.

Over burgers, fries and diet Coke, Gemma and Ava spent a quiet and difficult lunch. Ava didn't ask a single question. She left the job of making conversation to Gemma. This was part of her strategy to make Gemma not want to spend any time with her.

Ava took two bites out of the greasy hamburger and had enough. She'd eaten fast food before, but they didn't have proper fast food in town. There were no national chains. That where people were supposed to go for hamburgers. This place was the generic version of hamburgers.

Her fries weren't much better. They were pale yellow and limp. She didn't even finish one. She would be glad when she got home and got the chef to make her something to eat. Her father may be cheap, but he always had a private chef to make his meals. He preferred that to wasting his time going out. Less wasted time meant he could get more work done.

"You didn't eat very much," Gemma said.

"Always on a diet. I need to find a personal trainer or my body is going to go to hell," Ava said in her longest answer of the lunch.

Gemma wanted to say "better hurry", but this woman was the way that Jax was going to get out of jail. Once he was free, she would break that marriage up in record time.

The lunch was finally over. Gemma noticed that Clay was back at TM but decided not to introduce Ava to him until she had a chance to explain that Jax was marrying her for her money or he might say something insulting to her.

"Too bad. Clay's not here," Gemma said quickly.

"Uh-huh," Ava said. "I need to leave."

"It was nice meeting you," Gemma said.

Ava smiled. "I get that a lot."

Ava got out of Gemma's car without a backwards glance and drove off in her Ferrari.

"Bitch," Gemma hissed.

Once Jax got out of prison, she was going to cut herself a big old piece of payback.

"

Next Chapter: Jax meets Ava's father.

Author's Note: I know that Ava isn't very likeable. She isn't supposed to be because Jax has taming to do and that's where the fun comes in. Also, imagine what Gemma's going to do to her when she doesn't have to be nice to her anymore.

Jax isn't the great prize he is in Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run. That Jax is a great guy because he had the advantage of having had a girlfriend at a young age and learned about how a girl should be treated. This version of Jax didn't have that. He's got more of an MC mind set about a woman's place. He's oozing with toxic masculinity.