by Naima Simone
Cautiously, she edged from the safety of the trees. No one had noticed her yet, and she took comfort in the inattention while it lasted. Because it wouldn’t last.
Her heart lodged in her throat, each beat threatening to cut off her air supply. With feet that became heavier with each step forward, she eased toward the crowd of gowned and bejeweled women and tuxedo-clad men. Like the Red Sea, they parted, staring and murmuring at the oddity in their midst. Heat blazed up her neck and poured into her face, but she jacked her chin higher, dragging on the I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude she’d acquired early on in life.
Ahead of her, Aiden greeted the redhead who had won the date with him. He lifted one half of that beautiful mouth in a teasing, flirtatious smile that still haunted her. The seductive gleam in his green gaze caused the breath to stutter in Noelle’s lungs, and it wasn’t even aimed at her. He clasped the woman’s hand, but as if sensing the tension whispering through the ballroom, he glanced up.
The warm light in those brilliant eyes dimmed, replaced by a coldness that sent a shiver tripping down Noelle’s spine. Her slow tread stumbled, halted. Go, a voice urged. Keep going. But her body, frozen by the shock and growing rage in his hardening expression, paralyzed her muscles.
Well, Aiden had finally noticed her.
And now there would be hell to pay.
Chapter Two
There were times in life when a person had to take a deep breath, step back, and analyze a brewing situation with calm, logic, and a cooler head.
This wasn’t one of those times.
As Aiden Kent regarded the petite, denim-and-leather-clad woman standing several feet from him, the viselike band strangling his lungs and chest couldn’t be described as calm or cool.
It’d been six years since he’d last laid eyes on Noelle Rana. And never again would’ve been too soon.
Memories bombarded him with brass-knuckled fists. His mother, wan and thin, trudging in the house from an extra shift at the nursing home. His mother, sitting at the kitchen table, bent over her checkbook, robbing Peter to pay Paul because her long-time boyfriend had once again wasted bill money on booze or another get-rich-quick scheme.
His mother, lying on a hospital bed, her body wasting away with cancer, her tired gaze shifting to the door, waiting for the man she loved to walk through the door and be by her side before she died.
Aiden, standing in his mother’s home two days after her funeral, staring at the wreckage her boyfriend and his son had left behind after they’d ransacked it.
Aiden, sitting in a motel parking lot as his fiancée knocked on a first-level door—room 132—and watching as she kissed the man who appeared in the doorway. The man who happened to be Tony Rana, Noelle’s brother.
And jumbled amid those images were ones of Noelle. Her face lighting up with relief and gratitude when he’d busted into a house full of blaring music and drunken college students. Noelle, laughing as she watched a DVD during one of their movie nights. Noelle…her blue eyes bright with desire, golden skin flushed with the heat Aiden ignited in her… Only once had he lost control and touched, and it still had the power to haunt him. Fuck. Fury, grief, resented arousal, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness pounded at his temples and pressed against his sternum. Just one glance—one goddamn glance—at the daughter of the man who’d stolen his mother’s youth and broken her heart, the sister of the man who’d betrayed Aiden with his fiancée, and he was right back there. Immersed in the past he’d left behind. Doused in the pain and powerlessness that had strangled him. Wrapped in the suffocating embrace of guilt that squeezed the breath from his lungs.
“Really?” The redhead who had bid on and won a date with him tsked, her lovely face scrunched up in a distasteful moue.
Aiden didn’t bother responding. Yeah, Noelle couldn’t be more out of place in this room of gowned and jeweled guests than a frog in a pond of golden koi. But it wasn’t the hip-length leather jacket that molded to her slender torso, or the tight denim and black boots that appeared painted on her long legs, that he objected to. He didn’t give a damn that with her clothes and long, tousled black hair, she’d shown up looking like a pinup, biker-chick version of Snow White.
He gave a damn that she’d just. Shown. Up.
“Excuse me, please.” Without waiting for her reply, he strode forward, every bit of him focused on the unwelcome blast from his past.
As he neared her, Noelle’s chin tipped up. He snorted. Some things hadn’t changed. Since he’d first met her fifteen years ago when she was a tiny, skinny eleven-year-old, she’d been giving him that defiant gesture. It’d pissed him off when he was sixteen, and it had the same effect at thirty-one. Another Rana. Invading his life uninvited. Like father, like daughter.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” he snapped, halting inches from her petite frame. He towered over her, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. A part of him—the civilized part—warned him to ease back, to calm. That same part was appalled that he would use his height and wide frame to intimidate her. Regardless of their turbulent history, she was also a woman. But the primal section of his brain, the one that scented his enemy and was on the hunt, kept him rooted there, studying her through narrowed eyes. Ready and poised to pounce.
A wise person would’ve retreated, would’ve turned tail and run. She didn’t.
She wasn’t foolish; the time they’d spent together had revealed a brilliant mind that had awed him. So that left brave.
Or desperate.
And desperation on a Rana meant trouble.
For Aiden.
Noelle tilted her head to the side, those pale, pale blue eyes never wavering from him. This close, he couldn’t miss the beauty mark that punctuated the bottom of the graceful arch of her left eyebrow. Or the thick fringe of coal-black lashes that, if he hadn’t known her since childhood, he’d cynically think were store-bought. This close, he couldn’t not observe the delicate lines and bone structure that appeared almost fragile and innocent…or the wide, lush mouth painted in deep, vibrant crimson that made a mockery of his last thought. With the mass of midnight waves tumbling around her face and shoulders, she seemed too much—too wild, too colorful…too carnal.
Hell, at this very second, almost every man in the room was probably imagining that lithe, little body effortlessly rising and falling over him, all that dark hair swaying against creamy, sweat-dampened skin, her light blue eyes gleaming down at him…
His jaw clenched, mirroring the knot tightening his gut. He’d tasted her passion, had been burned by it. Even six years later, he remembered…everything.
But he’d also experienced firsthand how Ranas used what they had—cunning, quick talking, fast hands, or pretty smiles—to get what they wanted. A roof over their heads. Money in their pockets.
Another man’s woman.
Fury flared higher within him at the reminder of whose blood ran in Noelle’s veins. “I repeat,” he ground out, “what the hell are you doing here?”
Leaning forward, she stage-whispered, “Making one bitch of a scene.”
Lust flashed to life inside him like a flare gun. Gone was the shy, quiet young woman who had become his friend then almost his lover. In her place stood a bold, vivid, sexy imposter who not only had the balls to crash a charity event but get in his face and challenge him. That shouldn’t have hardened his cock like a steel rod. That shouldn’t have made his fingers itch to thrust into that wild fall of hair and grip it, dragging her head back. But it did. And disgust for his reaction, for his traitorous body, prickled across his skin.
For several long seconds, they remained still, staring one another down like they were gunslingers in an old Western. The only things missing were a tinny soundtrack and a scrawny tumbleweed rolling across the ballroom’s marble floor.
But almost immediately, he became aware of the low murmurs and felt the pointed looks. They rippled through the room as more and more of Boston’s social elite took notice of the showdown bet
ween Bay Bridge Industries’ chief operating officer and the mysterious, underdressed goth girl. Dammit. In the almost two years since he’d settled in Boston, he’d managed to avoid even the hint of scandal. Other than comments on the women he dated, Aiden’s name had stayed clear of the online gossip columns. Not now. The Rhodonite Bachelor Auction was a huge, annual charity event attended by businessmen and socialites alike. Including the press. No way in hell this…incident would go unnoticed. Hell.
“Aiden.” A hand landed on his shoulder, lightly squeezing. Maybe in support. Maybe in warning. Lucas Oliver, chief executive officer of Bay Bridge Industries, and Aiden’s best friend, extended his hand toward Noelle. “Noelle. It’s nice to see you again. May I introduce my wife, Sydney Blake Oliver?”
As if hesitant to remove her focus, Noelle stared at Aiden for a long instant before acknowledging Lucas. She pressed her palm to his, her small, delicate hand disappearing inside Lucas’s larger one. Something welled in Aiden, fast and hard, but almost immediately he squashed it. Almost. “Lucas.” She nodded, glancing at Sydney, her gaze dropping to the other woman’s rounded belly. Probably wondering, as so many of them did, what the statuesque, beautiful, and serene woman was doing with his intense, intimidating friend. A year after their marriage, the mystery of how Sydney Blake tamed the “Beast of Bay Bridge” still confounded people. “Nice to meet you, Sydney.”
“You, too, Noelle.” Sydney smiled, and nothing in her soft, welcoming tone betrayed the curiosity that had to be running rampant through her. “We were just headed out for a late dinner.” With a rueful grin, she smoothed a hand over her stomach. “The food they serve at these things is pretty, but definitely not enough when you’re eating for two. Would you like to join us?”
Relief flooded through Aiden. God, he loved this woman. If Lucas wouldn’t plant a fist in his face, Aiden would gladly kiss her for providing a graceful exit from this awkward situation.
Flicking a glance in Aiden’s direction, Noelle nodded once more. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” Sydney said, shifting next to Noelle and, sliding her arm through hers, guiding Noelle through the crowd of people. For the first time, Noelle’s bravado slipped, and Aiden caught the whisper of uncertainty—of vulnerability—that flickered across her face. She’d braved a ballroom full of formally dressed people in denim and leather without flinching—hell, had faced him down—but a gesture of kindness from Sydney made her uncomfortable? “If you know both Aiden and Lucas, then I finally have someone I can pump for information. Like humiliating secrets from their pasts they both refuse to share.”
Like hell. If he had his way—and he would—Noelle wouldn’t be in Boston long enough to confide anything about their history.
“Aiden.” Elegant, feminine fingers wrapped around his bicep, simultaneously drawing him to a halt and out of his head. Frustration snaked through him as Noelle, Sydney, and Lucas drifted farther from him. Forcing a smile to his lips, he turned to…Joanna? Jolene? Damn, what was her name? “We need to make plans for our date. I’m staying at the Four Seasons,” she purred, splaying the fingers of her other hand over his chest. “You can come up to my suite; we can have a drink and discuss the details.”
Discuss. The gleam in her hazel eyes let him know exactly what she wanted from him, and it didn’t include dates or accommodations. And fifteen minutes ago—before Noelle appeared in this ballroom—he wouldn’t have hesitated to take her up on her offer. A gorgeous, confident woman, physical attraction, and a mutual understanding of pleasure—and no strings? Yeah, that was his thing.
But now, instead of following Jocelyn—right, damn it! Her name was Jocelyn—to her hotel room, he practically vibrated with the need to go after Noelle and do…what? Run her out of town on a rail like some stereotypical Western sheriff? Demand to know why she’d sought him out?
No. Unable to resist, he glanced in the direction of the exit through which she and his friends had disappeared. He didn’t want to hear what she wanted. Didn’t want to hear anything except “good-bye.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, closing his fingers around Jocelyn’s and stepping back. “I truly am. But there’s a small family”—he clenched his jaw, barely managing not to choke on the word—“issue. Can I have a rain check?”
Jocelyn’s smile faltered, her eyes narrowing the slightest bit. She probably wasn’t used to hearing no. Especially from a man. “What about our date?”
He squeezed her hand, then released it, impatience an insistent hum under his skin. “I’ll get your number from the auction committee and give you a call this week. I promise. I’m sorry. I really have to go.”
“Wait—”
But he’d already strode away, all his attention focused on the woman who had dragged the past kicking and screaming into his present.
It wasn’t enough that her father had used his mother for a place to stay and money to fund his endless supply of alcohol. Or that he’d been too busy getting plastered and locked up as she lay dying of cancer. Or that he’d violated her memory and her kindness even after her death.
It wasn’t enough that Noelle’s brother had fucked Aiden’s fiancée behind his back.
It wasn’t enough that when he should’ve been focused on his mother during her last few months of life, Noelle had consumed his time and thoughts. It wasn’t enough that he’d trusted Noelle, and she’d given her father another way to fuck him over. Another last hurrah to take from his mother and shit on her memory.
Now she wanted to corrupt the life he’d built for himself here, far from Chicago.
No way in hell. Noelle was leaving…and taking the past with her.
Chapter Three
Don’t faint. Don’t show signs of weakness. You’ve come this far.
Noelle repeated the mantra to herself as Lucas Oliver’s wife led her from the ballroom and into the gleaming, cavernous foyer.
Lucas Oliver. God. She should’ve counted on seeing him tonight. Since she’d met Aiden all those years ago, the brooding, dark-haired, scarred youth with the beautiful turquoise eyes had been by his side. Back then, Aiden had treated her with an aloof disdain, and Lucas had been polite, if distant. And damn intimidating. It hadn’t surprised her when he and Aiden had founded their own company, Bay Bridge Industries, and had grown it into a national conglomerate. Neither did it shock her when they had become millionaires, real rags-to-riches success stories.
It did surprise her that the lovely, glowing, happy woman complimenting Noelle on her boots was married to the infamous Beast of Bay Bridge. Aiden’s mother had loved reading about her son and his best friend in the business section of the Chicago Tribune before the pair had relocated to Boston. She’d tsked at the moniker they’d crowned Lucas with…and chuckled at the one they’d bestowed upon Aiden—The Prince. If the press had demonized Lucas, they’d adored Aiden, as his many appearances in both the financial and social sections revealed.
Yet it’d never been Lucas who had caused shivers to dance over her skin in a tango of nerves, fear, and, God help her, infatuation. Though Aiden had first viewed her as a nuisance, then a burden, there’d been a time when he’d been her protector, her friend, the man she’d secretly—and then not so secretly—adored.
Even after he’d cut ties with her after his mother, Caroline’s, death.
Even after he’d broken her heart with his cold, horrible accusations.
Aiden believed Noelle had provided her father with the means to rob his mother’s house after she’d passed, taking from her one last time. He’d never forgiven Noelle. And, truthfully, she’d never forgiven herself. Common sense argued that she wasn’t responsible for her family’s actions. No, she hadn’t given her father her key to the house, and no, she’d had no idea Frank Rana had planned on going to Caroline’s house after Aiden had kicked him out and confiscated his key. But after Frank’s ranting about “getting what was owed him,” she should’ve guessed. Frank Rana hadn’t only been a drunk, but he could be spiteful and vindict
ive when drunk and crossed.
Back then, she hadn’t spoken a word in defense of herself or her family. Not to protest and say she’d loved Caroline like a mother—probably more so since she’d never known the woman who had birthed then abandoned her. And not to apologize for her father’s selfishness and criminal behavior. Her father had been guilty of every charge lodged against him. But she hadn’t. And after the time they’d spent together, Aiden should’ve known better.
But that’d been six years ago. Now, hovering on the cusp of a future and life she’d been afraid to hope for, to dream of, she needed Aiden.
Needed him to keep his promise. Or, rather, the promise his mother had entrusted to him.
“Instead of a restaurant, we decided to return to our house,” Sydney said. “Lucas has arranged for a light dinner to be waiting for us. I still hope you’ll join us.” She tilted her head back and smiled at Lucas as he held up the coat he’d retrieved for her.
The love and heated intimacy they shared in one look had Noelle glancing away, as if she intruded on a private moment. Still, she couldn’t resist that part of her that wanted to stare, to analyze them like a jeweler with a loupe to determine if the affection was authentic. Because from her experience, that kind of connection was as rare as a woolly mammoth. Too many times she’d witnessed women—including Aiden’s mother—letting themselves become trapped by so-called love and losing their independence and sense of self. Giving their bodies and futures to men who wouldn’t recognize commitment if it pissed on their legs.
Yet that knowledge didn’t prevent a shaft of jealousy from piercing her chest. Not for the love she didn’t believe in, but for the joy and peace that suffused Sydney’s features. For the contentment that softened the stern lines of Lucas’s face as he curved a palm over his wife’s extended belly…
Tearing her gaze away from them once more, she swallowed and shook her head. “I—”