Provoking the Enemy

By M.E. Clayton

What do you get when nothing can frighten or intimidate you anymore?

A destructive personality that threatens everything.

Ava
Ava Hill’s bucket of f#%^$ contained only one, and it was for her best friend. Raised by a mother who was worse than you could imagine, Ava had no boundaries and it showed. As the self-proclaimed party girl of Windsor Academy, she was an unapologetic wild child, and she didn’t let anyone influence her choices. Ava was Ava, and everyone who didn’t like it could go screw themselves.

With one more year left to go at Windsor, Ava’s chomping at the bit for complete freedom. Though her reputation is as unruly as they came, Ava’s soul is darker than anyone can possibly imagine, and her secrets are not for the faint of heart. However, completely satisfied with the way things are, she’s not prepared for when Ace McIntire makes an unexpected appearance in her life.

Ace
Ace McIntire had enough problems without being dragged into a world that he didn’t want to be in. Still, it was his own fault. Being too much to handle for his mother, his father had no choice but to step in and pull Ace back from the regrettable path he was on. Going from a mother who loved him dearly to a father who could barely tolerate him, Ace wasn’t looking forward to any of it.

With college right around the corner, Ace just has to get through a couple of months of summer before he can leave his jackass of a father behind, and the people of Sands Cove. While his father is part of the elite crowd, Ace isn’t impressed with that kind of money or status. However, what he is impressed with is a hell-on-wheels sexpot that ends up turning him completely stupid.

When there can only be one victor in the battle of control...
After mistaking Ace McIntire for his mother’s latest boytoy, Ava’s surprised when she learns that he is not her mother’s latest fling, but the son of her mother’s latest fling, and that he’ll be spending the summer with Ava in Sands Cove. Armed and ready, Ava makes her opinion on the subject known.

After being the targe of Ava Hill’s fiery venom, Ace is surprised that so much anger can be contained in such a beautiful, petite, mesmerizing package. Fascinate by the angry stunner, Ace begins to think a summer in Sands Cove might not be so bad, after all. In fact, Ace is looking forward to it.

Even though Ava is doing everything that she can to keep Ace at arm’s length, Ace is losing his mind just trying to understand everything that makes up the wild spitfire. His obsession turns real, and he’ll stop at nothing to scale the walls that surround the real Ava Hill.

NOTE: This book contains adult language, adult situations, explicit sexual encounters, drug use, and sexual abuse. If sensitive to any of the aforementioned issues, please do not purchase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.E. Clayton
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463761403

M.E. Clayton

M.E. Clayton works fulltime and writes as a hobby only. She is also an avid reader and Pinterest addict. When she's not working, reading, writing, or on Pinterest, she is spending time with her family and friends, or her dog, Boy, or her cat, Seatbelt. She lives in California with her husband and enjoys doing nothing but reading. Seriously. She does nothing but read. However, that's how she likes it.

Book preview

Just a couple of things before I let you go and get your read on. While I am doing my best to work with better editing and proofreading software, all my books are solo, independent works. I write my books, proofread my books, edit my books, create the covers, etc. I have one beta who gives me feedback on my stories, but other than that, all my books are independent projects.

That being said, I apologize, in advance, for the typos, grammar inconsistencies, or any other mistakes I may make. Since writing is strictly a hobby for me, I haven’t looked into commitments in regard to publishers, editors, etc. My hope is that my stories are enjoyable enough that a few mistakes, here and there, can be overlooked. However, if you’re a stickler for grammar, my books are probably not for you.

Also, I am an avid reader-I mean an AVID reader. I love to read above any other hobby. However, the only downside to my reading obsession is when I fall in love with a series, but I have to wait for the additional books to come out. And because I feel that disappointment down to my soul, when I started publishing my works, I vowed to publish all books in my series all at once. No waiting here…LOL. Now, the exception to that will be if enough readers request additional stories based off the standalone, such as in Facing the Enemy. At that point, if I decide to move forward with a requested series, I will make sure all additional books are available all at once. As much as this is a hobby for me, I am writing these books for all of you, as well as myself.

Thank you, for everything!

Contact Me

I really appreciate you reading my book and I would love to hear from you! Now, unfortunately, because I do have a full-time job and one part-time job, plus a family that I love spending time with, I’m not very active on social media. However, for the sites I do participate in, here are my social media coordinates:

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Dedication

For everyone who secretly liked Ava, but didn’t want to admit it…

This is for you.

Playlist

Series Theme

The Right Kind Of Wrong – LeAnn Rimes

Provoking the Enemy Theme

Lighthouse – Live

Dark Horse – Katy Perry

Say It Right – Nelly Furtado

I’m Bad At Love – Maddy Benson

By The Way – Hinder

Run Away – Live

All Or Nothing – Theory Of A Deadman

Savin’ Me – Nickelback

Wolves – Selena Gomez

Prologue

I had to hand it to her. I mean, I’d seen her pull some great-looking men before, but I’d never thought that she’d cross the line to cradle robbing.

Never mind the fact that she was actually home for a change, but usually when she came home, it wasn’t with someone my age. Granted, I could be jumping to conclusions, but I didn’t think that I was. After all, my mother never came home without a man in tow. As history had taught me, she usually came home with a man in tow because she had dumped her previous boyfriend, and the new one needed to meet her daughter.

You know, because we were one big happy family, my mother and me.

I stared out my bedroom window as I gave thanks for the fact that I’d actually been home for once and not out partying. Had I walked in from a party to see my mother with a guy my age, who knows what would have flown out of my mouth. While I very rarely curbed my tongue, I didn’t actually enjoy going rounds with my mother. The less interaction with her, the better. However, when I was drunk or high, all bets were off.

Staring down at the boy, man, guy??...whatever he was, the only conclusion that I could draw was that he must be with my mother for her money. Husband #2 had been one of the few men that had actually loved my mother, and he had married her, then had left everything to her in his will. No one had expected him to die so suddenly from a heart attack a few months later, but it couldn’t ever be said that my mother hadn’t seen the silver lining amongst the tragedy.

However, Ronald’s legacy still hadn’t been enough for my mother. She had developed a taste for the finer things in life early on, and after my father had left her, she’d gone on a one-woman crusade to land as many wealthy men as she could. Elise Hill was racking up the points like a true professional and using my father’s last name to do it.

Granted, why wouldn’t she be? My mother was stunning with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and pin-up figure. She was what every man fantasized about. She was beautiful, fancy, and did whatever you wanted her to for the right price.

Now, the difference between my mother and me?

I gave it away for free.

I gave it away for free, and I didn’t even need to be drunk or high to do it. I also knew all the reasons that I behaved the way that I did, but I wasn’t looking to fix myself just yet. The effort seemed…pointless at this stage of the game.

Looking down at the guy that was lazily circling our pool, I wondered what happened to Greg. My mother had been dating him for about a year, and I had honestly thought that he was going to stick around for a while. I’d only been around him a handful of times when my mom had needed to keep up her good-mom image and come home for the holidays and crap like that, but those few times when I’d had interacted with Greg, he seemed to really like my mom. He wasn’t the worst that she’d ever brought home.

I laughed.

That’s probably why she dumped him; he was too nice for her.

I was only eighteen-years-old, but I’d seen my mother go through so many men that I once told her that we needed a revolving door installed in the house. She had slapped me, but it wasn’t like it had been the first time that she’d ever put hands on me.

The real shame? While I couldn’t make out the guy’s features clearly from how high up my bedroom window was, I could tell that he was good-looking. He looked to stand tall, and his body was filling out his jeans and plain white t-shirt. He had dark hair, but I couldn’t tell if it was brown or black. I could see the details of his physique as he rounded the side of the pool closest to my window, and I hated to admit that he looked good.

His t-shirt showcased strong, solid, muscular arms, and you could see the dips and valleys of ripped flesh molded to his shirt. He had jeans on with some Timberlands, but he looked to be proportioned evenly everywhere.

I immediately hated him.

Sure, it wasn’t his fault that my mother was a gold-digging slut, but something made me take offense to his presence in my house, and make no mistake, this was my house. I was the one that lived here day after day with the maids, gardeners, cooks, etc., not my mother, her current boyfriend, or anyone else.

Me.

Just me.

My foot stepped back, ready to ignore Elise’s newest flavor of the month, when suddenly his head shot up, and then he was looking at me through my window. I stared back down at him, and later down the road, I would realize that watching him watch me had been my first mistake.

Chapter 1

Ava~

I stood by the window, staring down at him, just waiting to see what he was going to do next. There was no way that I would cower. No current lover-one my age, no less-was going to run me scared. He couldn’t. There wasn’t anything that he could say or do that I hadn’t seen or experienced to make me shrink like a wilting violet. He was temporary. Whatever he brought to the table wouldn’t last long, so I could endure whatever he could dish out.

The way that I saw it, there were only two ways that he could play this since he was so young. He could either own up to what he was, or he could pretend to love my mother dearly and profess that age was just a number. However, it didn’t matter which role he chose because-again-he was temporary.

We stood trapped in this unspoken standoff for a full couple of minutes before his head jerked to the side, then I saw his lips move and his head nod. My mother must have gone looking for her young lover, which meant introductions were close at hand.

I decided to go on the offensive, leaving my window to go face the music. I was a lot of things; a whore, a drinker, a drug partaker, you name it. However, I wasn’t a coward.

I’d never be a fucking coward.

Leaving the confines of my bedroom, I danced down the stairs leading to the backyard, then made my way through the back enclosed patio until I was strolling across the deck towards the pool. The entire time, Mom’s boytoy’s gaze never wavered, and he waited silently with his legs braced apart, his hands in his pockets. I stopped when I was standing directly in front of him, and I was immediately hit with disgust so palpable that I was sure that he could see it all over my face.

My mom’s current flavor was stunning. He was absolutely gorgeous, and not in the has-a-nice-face kind of gorgeous. He was gorgeous in a way that made him hotter than Hades. He had to be arguably the best-looking boy that I’d ever seen, and that was saying something.

Sands Cove was populated by the One-Percent that felt completely comfortable with leaving their children unattended to be raised by the household staff. We’d all gone to Windsor Academy where we’d all been groomed like little robots to follow in our parents’ footsteps. So, because we were the kids of the rich, there wasn’t a shortage of perfect-looking teenagers around town. Whether by a gift from God or a surgeon’s scalpel, perfection was everywhere. I didn’t know who this guy was, but he could give Ramsey Reed a run for his money, and Ramsey Reed was beyond perfection in Sands Cove.

This guy stood over six-foot, and this close up, I saw that his hair was a dark brown. He had matching brown brows that sat above a pair of eyes so golden that I wanted them to be contacts, so that it would take away from his appeal. He had a straight nose, sharp cheekbones, and a pair of lips that looked soft and inviting. He had a strong jawline, and I’d been right about his physique. He was strong, toned, and muscular everywhere. His clothes did nothing to hide his hard, chiseled, fit body.

Who are you and what are you doing in my yard? I asked, injecting as much sting in my voice as I could.

He lifted a brow and did that stupid shit that all good-looking guys did when they smirked, and it looked sexy instead of arrogant. "Who are you?" he returned.

None of your goddamn business since this is my house and not yours, I said scathingly. Now, who in the fuck are you?

His grin was slow and lethal. A guest, he replied vaguely.

I shook my head in disgust. He couldn’t even bring himself to admit that he was Elise’s boyfriend, and I knew that he had to be at least that much. Elise didn’t bring home one-night stands. She only brought home men to meet me that were going to be around for a respectable amount of time. However, it never mattered who did the breaking up, none of her relationships were designed to last. Elise was constantly having a midlife crisis, and she was always looking to upgrade. It didn’t matter how rich or good-looking the man; she was always ready to trade in her used models for something better.

I hated that this guy was in the ‘something better’ category.

"There are hotels in town, Guest, if you’re looking for a place to stay," I informed him, contempt dripping from every word.

Nah, he said casually. I like it here. The…scenery isn’t what I’m used to.

I’m only going to ask one more time before I call the fucking police, I threatened. Who in the fuck are you and what are you doing in my yard? Even though I was already pretty certain who he was, I wanted him to say it. I wanted something to fuel the constant anger that I felt towards my mother.

The sonofabitch kept that smirk in place, but his voice had taken on a different vibe. You need to be careful who you talk to like that, Kit, he rumbled. I get that you might be used to ordering around these privileged little fuckers around you, but you might want to know who you’re dealing with before you get all brave on someone.

I laughed.

Scoffed, actually.

He had a seriously misconstrued opinion of the people of Sands Cove. Sure, there were a lot of people in this town