by Naima Simone
Tony had called her that morning out of the blue, announcing he’d just arrived in Boston. He’d come by the gallery, broke of course, because he’d used the last of his money for the bus. So she’d given him money she really couldn’t spare for a hotel room. But apparently that wasn’t enough. Not for her brother.
“Whoa, sis,” he said, holding his hands up, palms out. “Relax. I know. I’m not here to ask you for more money.”
“Then why are you here?” she hissed. “How did you even know where I was staying?”
“I followed you from the gallery.” He shrugged, then let out a low whistle. “This is where you’re staying? Your roommate must be rich as hell. And you led me to believe you were in a hole.” He arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been keeping secrets, Ellie.”
“Damn it, Tony,” she growled. “This isn’t my place, and you had no right to follow me. Hell, you shouldn’t be here in Boston with no plans, no job, no place to stay. You can’t keep doing this shit—”
“I already told you, it’s temporary. If you can start over, so can I. And a change of scenery is probably what I need,” he said, cupping her shoulders and smiling down at her. She didn’t trust that smile. Never had. It predicted trouble for whoever was on the receiving end. “But it occurred to me that I should save up the money you gave me. Why waste it on a hotel room when I can just crash with you for a couple of nights—”
“No,” she snapped, stepping back out of his grasp. His hands fell to his sides, his smile morphing into a confused frown. Her throat started to close up, as if a noose tightened around her neck. She recognized it. Helplessness. Powerlessness. The claustrophobia of obligation and duty.
“C’mon, Ellie,” Tony whined. “Don’t be like that. It won’t be for long. Just until I get myself set up.”
Jesus Christ. He’d come here, expecting to entrap her in the same prison she’d run from in Chicago. “No, Tony…”
“What the hell are you doing here?” came a smooth, deep, furious voice from behind her.
She didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to identify who’d spoken. Her eyes closed, and fear coalesced and swirled inside her chest. Fear for Aiden if he lost control. Fear for Tony’s safety. Fear of the hatred she would spy in Aiden’s gaze.
Tony’s eyes widened before narrowing to angry slits. “None of your business,” he snarled. “I’m here to see my sister, not that it has fuck all to do with you. What, you own all of Boston now?” he sneered.
Reckless. Her brother had always been reckless and overconfident. And so unaware of how close to danger he stood.
“Don’t you mean you’re here to use your sister?” Aiden asked, and Noelle shivered at the low, menacing tone. “You’ve already hit her up for money because that’s what you do, right, Tony? You use people, exploit them. Like father, like son.”
Both she and Tony flinched, the pain of Aiden’s jab striking the sore, still grieving heart of her. Like father, like son…like daughter? God, that hurt.
Then his words penetrated the hurt. You’ve already hit her up for money… How had he known?
“You son of a bitch.” Tony surged forward, sandwiching Noelle between him and Aiden. “You don’t mention my father. You got an issue with me, then take it up with me. But we both know how the last time turned out, don’t we?” A smug, taunting smile curled his mouth, spite gleaming from the blue eyes he shared with Noelle.
Big, strong hands clasped her shoulders and gently but firmly shifted her out of the way. “Noelle, go upstairs,” Aiden said.
The dark tone sent a shaft of pure fear arrowing through her. “No!” She grabbed Aiden’s arm, preventing him from moving toward her brother. Either he stopped or he’d drag her along with him. “Go,” she ordered Tony. “Now.”
Tony glanced down at her before quickly returning his attention to Aiden. “Noelle, do—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she almost shouted at him. “Tony, I love you. But you shouldn’t have come here, much less to Boston. You intend for me to support you like Dad, like Charlene, like the other women. I can’t, Tony. Not anymore, and not again. You have to grow up, to stand on your own feet and not depend on mine. All we’ve done is hurt you by not allowing you to be a man.”
Shock wiped the arrogance from his face, confusion and then anger following on its heels. “Ellie, you can’t mean it. I’m your brother. You’re choosing him”—he jabbed a finger at Aiden—“over me? Your own blood?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m choosing me. And doing what’s best for you. Good-bye, Tony.” Stepping back, she stared at her brother. And maybe he saw the resolve that hardened inside her in her expression, because his face twisted into a grimace of rage and pain.
“Fine,” he snapped. “Dad’s gone, and now I don’t have a sister either.”
She’d expected his reaction—had even braced herself for it. But it seemed she’d been inadequately prepared. The blow from his words sent her reeling, the pain blooming across her chest as if the verbal punch had landed directly over her heart. Tears burned her eyes as she watched her brother stalk off. Part of her wanted to run after him, apologize, and ask for his forgiveness. That was the little sister who’d always adored her charming, funny big brother. But the woman understood that what she’d just done was the best for her and for him. She’d enabled him—they’d enabled each other—for too long.
Aiden cupped her elbow, and, still numb with hurt, she followed him into the building. The elevator ride and walk to his apartment rang with silence. Not that the silence was quiet. No, it echoed with accusations, regret, and recriminations, hummed with tension.
I’m so damn tired. Weary, she pinched and massaged her forehead. How could a day that started out so promising, so full of light and hope, end so darkly? She felt a hole the size of a fist in her chest, and the cold emanating from Aiden would probably make the hole grow to the size of a crater before they were through with each other.
She entered the apartment ahead of him but didn’t go any farther than the foyer. Instead, she turned and, tipping up her chin, faced him. As he stared at her, she couldn’t compare the shuttered, aloof man to the lover who had made such passionate love to her just this morning.
There she went again. Made love. He hadn’t been, but God, she had given him her heart, her soul, everything. Even if he didn’t know it.
Even if he didn’t want it.
“Were you going to tell me?” he finally asked, studying her with his penetrating gaze. “About Tony being in Boston. About giving him money.”
“The fact that you have to ask tells me where this is going,” she said, sadness a heavy stone in her stomach. Cocking her head, she posed the question that had been niggling at her since the confrontation with Tony. “You mentioned the money downstairs. How did you know?”
A muscle ticked along his clenched jaw, his wide, sensual mouth firming into a straight line. “I hired a private investigator when you first arrived in Boston.”
“You had me followed?” she demanded. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a serrated burst of laughter escaped her. “Were you that afraid I would swindle you? Were you that intent on finding dirt to send me packing?”
“I hired him the morning after the auction,” Aiden bit out. “And I also told him to end the surveillance, but he didn’t listen. He came to me this evening when I left work and gave me pictures of you and Tony.”
“And, of course, you jumped to the conclusion that all along I’ve lied and intended to bring Tony here? Support him? Set him up right in your backyard without telling you?”
“Honesty, I don’t know what I thought,” he admitted, frustration evident in his rough voice. He thrust a hand through his hair, tousling it. “I wanted—want—to believe you would’ve been truthful…”
“But something in you can’t quite make that leap. That leap called faith.” Shaking her head, she shifted backward, crossing her arms over her chest. Protecting her heart from any more pain. “You’ll nev
er trust me or believe in me. And at first, I thought it was because of whose daughter and sister I am. Yes, they do have something to do with it. My family has cost you, and I’m so sorry for that. But I’m not them. I was a child who had less power than you did at the time.”
“I know that, Noelle,” he growled, stepping toward her.
“Do you?” she challenged, even as she placed more space between them. Being near him… If he touched her…she wouldn’t be able to say what needed to be aired; she wouldn’t be strong enough to tell him no. “I’m not so sure, but whose blood I share isn’t your real issue. If you’re completely honest with yourself, my father and brother aren’t your real issue either.” She inhaled, her heart pounding against her rib cage. “Your mother and Peyton are.”
He went rigid, his green eyes glinting like jade shards. Anger and shock darkened his features, slamming his eyebrows down in a vee and tautening the skin across his cheekbones.
“Leave it alone, Noelle.”
“That’s the problem. You leave it alone, Aiden. For too long. Dad and Tony, they weren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But the two most important women in your life—they failed you. They hurt you. They left you. Both chose other men over you. And you won’t let that happen again. You loved them, and they let you down, and you refuse to open your heart to another woman and risk being hurt like that again. Even when love stares you right in the face, you can’t see it because you don’t trust it.”
Her words echoed between them, ricocheting off the walls of the foyer and seeming to grow louder with each pass.
“Do you know why I was a virgin, Aiden?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. Not that he probably would. The fury and pain—God, the pain—in his eyes almost convinced her to shut up. Almost. Like a festering wound that couldn’t heal unless lanced, this needed to be said. “Partly out of fear. The worst fate I could imagine for myself was allowing myself to become so emotionally invested and dependent on a man that I would lose myself, voluntarily give up my dreams and hopes for a four-letter word that most people really didn’t know the meaning of. But the most important reason? The one I didn’t want to admit to myself? None of the men were you,” she whispered. “None caused my heart to trip and fall before pounding so hard I couldn’t hear myself think. None of them could light up my day with just a glimpse of him. None could make me dream of being more, being better, and striving for it. None of them were you.”
“Noelle,” he murmured, the ice in his eyes gone, replaced by a sadness that hurt more than the anger, the bitterness.
She held up a hand. “No. I’m not telling you I love you to force something from you that you don’t feel. Something you don’t have to give me. This is about me—for me. I love you, Aiden Kent. I have since I was a little girl when you reminded me of princes in my ratty fairy-tale book, and later, when I realized the pain of loving someone who could never love me back. I didn’t stop, though I convinced myself I had. Still, I won’t be your whipping post for your guilt. Earlier today I thought maybe, just maybe… But after what just happened, I have to admit there’s too much animosity and pain that you can’t let go of. Won’t let go of.” She drew in a deep breath, straightening her shoulders and dropping her arms to her sides. “My apartment will be ready Thursday. I’m going to stay with Chancey for the next couple of days until I can move back.”
“Noelle,” Aiden repeated. She closed her eyes as his big palm cupped her face, not able to meet the sorrow and damn resolution that would wreck her. Fight, a voice inside her head shrieked at him. Fight, damn it. But for what? There was no “them.” He’d never made any promises, never offered hope about a happily ever after. Just an expiration date. “I’m sorry. I wish…”
She jerked her head away, moved away from the temptation of his touch. “Maybe you are sorry. Maybe not. Maybe you prefer the safety of not risking being hurt again, of living a half life. You’re a coward, Aiden. At least I’m willing to take that leap, even if it hurts like hell. Even if I’m alone.”
Pivoting, she climbed the stairs to pack. To leave this place and the man who owned her heart behind.
Chapter Seventeen
“Maybe you prefer the safety of not risking being hurt again, of living a half life. You’re a coward, Aiden. At least I’m willing to take that leap, even if it hurts like hell. Even if I’m alone.”
Noelle’s parting words from nine days earlier reverberated in Aiden’s head like a persistent ghost. And like he’d done every time her accusation haunted him, he dived deeper and harder into work. Only the myriad of contracts, meetings, and clients seemed capable of drowning out the memories of the last month since she’d reentered his life. Memories of their last conversation.
“The two most important women in your life—they failed you.”
“You refuse to open your heart to another woman and risk being hurt like that again.”
“I love you, Aiden Kent.”
“Damn it,” he muttered, enlarging the P&L statement of the company they were considering acquiring on his computer screen, as if it could block out the barrage of words bouncing off his skull like bullets. He forced himself to focus on the column of numbers and drove himself to forget everything but the work. Because then he didn’t have to think about her. Didn’t have to dwell on how empty and lonely his home had become, when before it’d been his sanctuary. Didn’t have to brood over how he found every excuse in the goddamn book to remain at work and not return to the penthouse that echoed with her.
Didn’t have to face the mirror she’d held up to him that evening. Didn’t have to admit that… No. Just fucking no.
“In case you have forgotten, this place is zoned for commercial property, not residential,” Lucas drawled, striding into Aiden’s office without knocking. “So, as the old saying goes, you don’t have to go home, but you got to get the hell out of here.”
“I don’t think that’s a saying as much as a way of kicking people out of a bar,” Aiden muttered, dropping back into his office chair.
“Okay,” Lucas conceded with a shrug, lowering into the visitor’s chair in front of Aiden’s desk. “How about this one? ‘Unforgiveness is like drinking a poison and hoping the other person dies.’ Does that sound familiar?”
Since Aiden had been the one to give that unsolicited piece of advice to Lucas a year ago, when his friend had embarked on his plan of revenge against Sydney, he should recognize it.
“I can tell from your stellar comeback that it does.” Lucas smirked.
“Here’s one for you,” Aiden snapped. “And since you have a baby girl on the way, I think you should become acquainted with it. As Elsa would say, ‘Let it go.’”
A smile softened Lucas’s austere features. “A girl. Can you believe it?”
“I’m happy for you,” Aiden said, and meant it. “No one deserves happiness more than you two.”
“Oh, there’re a couple more people,” Lucas disagreed. “You. And Noelle.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Aiden growled, clenching the pen in his fingers so tightly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if ink splattered his desk.
“And I don’t give a damn,” Lucas snapped in return. His dark frown emphasized the scar bisecting his eyebrow and marring the skin over and under his eye. The scowl would’ve sent most people running for cover. But Aiden wasn’t most people. “It’s been over a week. I figured you would get your head out of your ass and come to your senses in about three days since you were always the more reasonable of the two of us. But obviously I was wrong. You’re apparently stubborn as well as stupid.”
“Your pep-talk skills leave much to be desired,” Aiden bit out.
“If you want a pep talk join a goddamn football team. I’m your friend, and I’ll always give you the truth. Even when you don’t want to hear it.” Lucas leaned forward, his gaze pinning Aiden to his chair. “And the truth is you’re fucking up.”
Aiden surged to his feet and stalked to the window. He stared o
ut, not seeing the view that so often brought him joy and satisfaction. Because none of it—the success, the money, the reputation—mattered a damn. Not anymore.
“She said I was mad at Mom and Peyton. That Frank and Tony were scapegoats to cover my guilt for blaming Mom and Peyton for hurting me.”
The shuffle of a chair being slid across the floor announced Lucas rising from his seat. He saw his friend sit on the edge of the desk in the window’s reflection. Silence filled the office, broken a few moments later by Lucas’s sigh.
“She was always an observant little thing,” he murmured. “So small and quiet you almost forgot she was in the room.”
“I never forgot,” Aiden added, accepting it as truth before the words rolled off his tongue. He’d always been aware of Noelle. “Do you think she’s right?”
“It’s not what I think, but what you know and are afraid to admit.”
Was he afraid? Yes. The answer almost knocked him on his ass. God, yes. He shook inside. Guilt and shame over being an ungrateful son and a weak, distant partner slammed into him like unrelenting waves against a shore.
“Peyton cheated on me with Tony. And I never told you, but the baby was his,” Aiden confessed, his gaze focused on the window. “If not for me catching her and Tony and ending the engagement, I don’t know if she would’ve gone on letting me think another man’s baby was mine.”
“Shit,” Lucas hissed softly. “God, Aiden. I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Humiliation? Not wanting to place one more black mark on her name? Or inflict more pain on her parents? Even though they all conspired to lie to me about Peyton’s mental health.” He huffed out a humorless chuckle. “I hated that she betrayed me. Lied to me. But I hated most of all that she didn’t trust me to love her. Didn’t have enough faith in me to believe that her bipolar disorder didn’t define her. She tried so hard to be someone she thought I wanted that she went off her meds. For me. I didn’t want that for her. For us. It seems wrong, being furious with her for an illness she couldn’t help. But why didn’t she love me enough to trust me instead of believing I would reject her? She stole that choice from me. And I’ve been so damn mad at her for that, but it was easier to focus on Tony. But it wasn’t Tony I was in the relationship with. And then there’s Mom.”