This Man (this Man, #1)

The first installment in the This Man series, this contemporary romance follows Ava O'Shea, a 26-year-old interior designer in London, as she becomes entangled with a mysterious and controlling man whose secrets threaten to destroy them both.

Ava works for Rococo Union, a design firm where she specializes in modern luxury interiors. She lives with her best friend Kate, a cake maker, having recently split from her unfaithful ex-boyfriend Matt. Her boss, Patrick Peterson, sends her to a consultation at The Manor, a grand country estate in the Surrey Hills, though Ava is puzzled that the client requested her by name since period properties fall outside her expertise. She meets Jesse Ward, the estate's devastatingly handsome owner, who behaves provocatively during their meeting, sitting too close and brushing his leg against hers. When an attractive woman named Sarah, who appears closely associated with Jesse, kisses his cheek, Ava assumes Sarah is his girlfriend and flees, resolving never to return.

Jesse pursues Ava relentlessly. He has secretly programmed his number into her phone and bombards her with calls and explicit texts. After apologizing, he persuades her to return to The Manor for an evening appointment. The visit is a trap: Jesse's bodyguard John leads her into an occupied suite where Jesse emerges shirtless from the bathroom. He begins seducing her, but Sarah's voice outside the locked door shatters the moment. Overcome with guilt over what she believes is an affair with a taken man, Ava escapes. Jesse chases her to the estate's gates, insists on driving her home, and keeps her car keys to force future contact.

Jesse shows up at Kate's house, demanding Ava admit she wants him. She forces herself to say she does not want him. He storms out, and Ava sags against the wall knowing she has lied. The next morning her car keys are returned.

The turning point comes at the launch party for Lusso, a luxury residential complex at St. Katharine Docks that represents Ava's greatest professional achievement. Jesse appears, corners her in the penthouse master suite, and their physical connection overwhelms her resistance. They have sex for the first time. Jesse tells her repeatedly that she is his and reveals he has purchased the penthouse. Ava notices a large, jagged scar across his stomach but decides not to ask about it. Sitting alone at the docks afterward, Ava sobs, but Jesse finds and comforts her. She learns that Sarah is not Jesse's girlfriend but a friend who works for him. With that barrier removed, Ava agrees to go home with Jesse.

They spend the night at his rented apartment on Hyde Park, where their encounters range from tender to fiercely dominant. Jesse refuses to let Ava leave, carrying her back to bed when she tries to get dressed. He deflects every question about his age, giving a different false answer each time, incrementing by one year.

Jesse disappears for four days after Ava asks for space. He sends her flowers and a book about photographer Giuseppe Cavalli, whose work she had described to him with passion, along with a note saying he needs to know more about her. Meanwhile, Ava meets Mikael Van Der Haus, a Danish developer who wants her to design the interiors for a new luxury project called The Life Building. On a night out, Jesse reappears, pins Matt against a pillar for touching Ava, and wins her back with a spectacular dance. During the evening, Ava recognizes with startling clarity that she is in love with Jesse.

Their relationship intensifies, and so does Jesse's controlling behavior. He moves Ava's belongings into his penthouse without asking, writes his name across every day in her work diary, and deposits 100,000 pounds into her firm's account to ensure her boss does not object to Ava devoting her time to The Manor project. He introduces a countdown from three to compel her obedience, and when Ava buys a dress he considers too revealing, he cuts it to pieces. Her contraceptive pills go missing twice from different locations.

Jesse occasionally reveals fragments of himself. Over dinner, he tells Ava his parents live in Marbella, Spain, and have not spoken to him in years. His Uncle Carmichael left him The Manor when Jesse was 21, and his parents demanded he sell it, but Jesse refused. When Ava asks if he is a dominant, someone who assumes a controlling role in sexual relationships, Jesse denies it, saying he does not need "that sort of arrangement" to get a woman to do what he wants. He admits he has never had a relationship beyond sex until Ava. She notices Jesse never drinks alcohol but does not yet grasp the significance.

Jesse tells Ava he wants to put their cards on the table and asks her to wait at the penthouse while he handles something at The Manor. Ava refuses to accompany him because of Sarah's hostility. After he leaves, Ava decides she needs to tell Jesse how she feels and asks Kate to drive her to The Manor. Sam, Jesse's closest friend, is visibly anxious about their arrival and tries to keep them in the bar, but Kate leads Ava upstairs. They push through imposing double doors at the top of the house and enter a vast communal room filled with elaborately dressed beds, gold metal frames, hooks, and hoists. Ava realizes with horror that The Manor is not a luxury hotel but a sex club.

Every clue she missed falls into place: Jesse's design brief requesting "sensual, stimulating" rooms with big beds, the women who always seemed to watch him. Jesse appears behind her, quiet and ashen, and tells her he had planned to explain everything but not like this. A hostile man whose membership Jesse had revoked taunts Ava, telling her Jesse discards women and sleeps with members' wives. Jesse attacks the man, and Ava walks out.

Back at Kate's house, Jesse pounds on the door. Kate lets him in, and he begs Ava not to leave, telling her he has waited a long time for her. Ava says good-bye, and Jesse walks out in silence before punching through his car window and driving away. Sam visits and pleads Jesse's case, telling Ava he has never seen Jesse care about anyone this way. Shaken, Ava drives to Lusso.

She finds the penthouse door open and music blasting. Inside, Jesse is stumbling drunk, clutching a bottle of vodka, one of at least three he has consumed. Ava realizes he has an alcohol addiction, another secret he has hidden. His refusal to drink, his insistence that she not drink, and his keeping no alcohol at home all suddenly make sense. Drunk, Jesse is cruel and unrecognizable. He calls her a "prick tease" and tells her she was the best he has had, adding that he has had many. Ava slaps him. His hand is a mass of cuts from punching his car window.

Ava gathers her belongings and leaves. Jesse shouts after her that she has caused all his damage and that he was too consumed by her to think about drinking. She returns to Kate's house and collapses, sobbing. The novel ends with Ava devastated, mourning the man she loves while confronting the depth of his deception: the sex club, the addiction, and the layers of secrecy she does not know how to repair. The story continues in Beneath This Man.