“Take me on a drive,” I repeated. “I’m a tiny bit psycho? That’s the scariest thing anyone’s ever asked me to do.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, I heard it when I said it. What can I do to make you feel better about saying yes?”
“Tell me where we’re going, I’ll follow you, and I’ll call at least two people to tell them where I am.”
“Fine with me. How about if we finish dinner, then you can make those calls while I take care of the check?”
“Yeah. You haven’t told me where we’re going yet.”
“Back to Pine Peak.”
I put my phone down. “I’m not climbing a mountain in the dark with you.”
“We’re going to my house. It’s well lit. And you’ll have cell service if you need to be rescued.”
We ate without much more talking, but only because I didn’t want to stop eating the amazing food long enough to carry on a conversation. Other than raving about every third bite, I focused on the food. I caught Aidan studying me and smiling a few times when I lifted another forkful, but it was an appreciative smile, like he understood the religious experience I was having with the food and wanted to respect it by staying quiet.
I picked up my phone again, and he waved the server over, who brought a dessert tray.
“Is your house better than tiramisu?” I asked. “Because that slice looks almost impossible to beat.”
“I guess you’ll have to come see and decide for yourself. And I’ve got dessert there.”
My eyebrow shot up. “You were so sure I’d say yes to coming over that you stocked dessert?”
He grinned. “No. I have a sweet tooth. I always have dessert in my house.”
I blushed. Way to jump to conclusions, dummy. “As long as it’s good,” I said, trying to recover. I nodded at the tray. “That’s hard to give up.”
“Noted. You up for this?”
I gave him a what-the-heck shrug, and he requested the check from the server as I tapped out a text to Dani and considered the implications of Aidan living at Pine Peak. He could live in the trailer, maybe, but I had a feeling that wasn’t it.
I texted Tom too because he was as likely as Dani to tear the mountain down if I went missing.
When Aidan signed the credit card slip, he led the way back outside. He nodded when I told him where I’d parked. “Me too. I’ll walk you over.”
Return texts came in from Dani and Tom as we rounded the corner to the public lot down the block. Dani’s was a simple “Whoohoo!” with kissy lips. Tom had more to say.
You text me as soon as you get there, every fifteen minutes after you get there, and as soon as you leave again, or I’m calling the sheriff.
I held up the phone to show Aidan. “This is from Tom, so you know I’m not being rude when you see me on the phone a billion times tonight.”
He laughed. “If texting him is what it takes for Chief to keep his inside privileges at T&R, it won’t bother me at all.”
“Smart man.”
In the parking lot, I pointed to my Subaru, and he jerked his head toward a sporty pickup truck. “That’s me. See you up there.”
The drive took almost twenty-five minutes, which was more than enough time to talk myself into and out of turning around a half dozen times. But every time I thought about peeling off and pointing my car toward home, curiosity kept my hand away from the turn signal.
We passed the parking lot with the construction trailer and continued another mile up the canyon before he turned off on another road, graded but not paved. He slowed way down as we crunched over the dirt, but my car handled it easily enough. I was too busy peering through the trees, trying to figure out where he was leading me, to pay attention to exactly how far we’d gone, but we traveled at least another mile of gentle switchbacks before we rounded a corner and I nearly slammed on the brakes in shock.
Chapter 16
Aidan pulled right up to the paved driveway of a well-lit lodge. Well, a lodge in the sense that Pavarotti was a nice singer or Tom Ford made pretty clothes.
It was huge. No. It was vast.
It was a blend of contemporary and classic, clean lines, interesting peaks and facets without being too busy or stark. It was one of the most beautiful lodges I’d ever seen. The Park City ski resorts finally had some real competition from their Salt Lake neighbors.
Lights shone from all the windows in the center, making it clear that the heavy double front door opened into a vaulted space, where a cool iron chandelier hanging. I’d have to see it closer to be sure, but it looked hand worked.
I tapped out another quick text to my virtual chaperones, describing where we’d gone and promising they had nothing to worry about.
Aidan parked and walked over to wait for me outside of my car, far enough away that I could get out without feeling crowded.
“Nice place,” I said.
“Thanks. Ready for the grand tour?”
“Sure.”
We walked toward the front doors, but we’d only made it five yards before I stopped short. “Wait. This is your house.”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyebrows raised in question. “I told you that’s where I was taking you. What did you think it was?”
“One of the resort lodges,” I said, dazed. I looked at it again and realized that the windows weren’t spaced in a way that suggested resort-style compartmentalization of the rooms. “It’s your house? This is a house?”
He sighed. “Remember I said I had some things to tell you? Come on in. This is probably a good place to start.”
I had nothing to say to that. I followed him up the stairs and through the front door after he punched in a code on the keypad and held still for a retinal scan. It was science fictiony and kind of freaked me out. I’d been in houses like this before, but I hadn’t ever expected to be in one again. The Beckmans had friends among the most powerful East Coast elite, and I’d spent three summers going to parties in Hamptons summer homes that were mini palaces like this, good for housing a village, not a family.
I’d left it all so far behind, buried as deeply in the past as I could heap the dirt, yet there I was again on the threshold of insane wealth. I still wanted to hear what Aidan had to say, but even as I stood in the foyer beneath soaring skylights and the beautiful wrought-iron chandelier, several things about him from the last few months snapped into focus. Painful focus, even.
The confidence bordering on arrogance, the assumption that he would get his way, his ease in his own skin, the way he extracted special treatment for himself that no one else would dream of asking for, like bringing Chief into the diner. All of that added up to wealth, the kind that wasn’t countable because no one had the patience to go that high, the kind of wealth so massive it granted power purely because of what money like that could do when at the disposal of a single individual.
He led me down a short hall directly in front of us that opened into a huge room with floor-to-ceiling windows. I couldn’t see anything in them but our own reflections, dwarfed by the windows’ size.
“This is . . .” I couldn’t find the words. Overwhelming? Unnerving? Nauseating despite its impeccably decorated interior?
“Do you like it?” he asked, and again, his eyes narrowed as he studied my face, the analytical glint clear inside them.
“It’s stunning.”
“Thank you. It took two years of back-and-forth with the architect to create what I wanted, but he did it. Can we sit?”
I nodded, too overwhelmed to do anything else, and followed him to the sofa, where I sank down and tried not to stiffen at the touch of the butter-soft leather beneath my palms. It hugged my whole body the way the handmade Italian leather boots Donovan used to buy me had encased my feet, but I still couldn’t enjoy it. The couch probably cost a year of tuition for Bethwell. No, twice that.
“Is this the part where you reveal your secret identity? Because I wouldn’t follow you like an idiot into a remote canyon for anything less than that.”
“You’re fine. Check your bars. You’ll have full reception. I have a cell tower here. It looks like an actual tree, none of this artificial Christmas tree rip-off garbage.”
It was a good description for the eyesores phone companies tried to dress up with green petal-shaped plastic. But none of that got to the real point here, which was that Aidan apparently had his very own cell tower. “Of course you do,” I murmured. Why not? That was the thing with rich people. If they ever stopped to ask themselves about the wisdom of how they were spending their money, the only question they asked was Why not? And it never even crossed their minds that having a personal cell phone tower was an insane luxury.
“So you’re going to spill your secrets now,” I prompted him.
He took a deep breath. “My real name is Theodore Aidan Cormack. I’ve always gone by Aidan with my friends and family. I go by Ted for business. A consultant told me once early on that people would take me more seriously as Ted because Aidan is a trendy name, and I listened, like an idiot. I’ve spent the last three years wanting to punch everyone who has called me Ted.”
I didn’t know if that name was supposed to mean something to me.
“If you Googled it, you’d find out I was one of those guys who got lucky enough to develop and sell a social networking app for a lot of money. Go ahead and look it up. It’s called Flickgram.”
I was glad I was already sitting down. I’d heard of Flickgram. That was the site I’d used most in New York for keeping up with Dani’s endless stream of photos. It’d helped me stay connected to her. The sale of Flickgram had made the news last year for a few days because it had been acquired by another huge company. I couldn’t remember the exact amount, but it was in the hundreds of millions.
I glanced around the room again. “So this is what that kind of money buys you?”
“Yeah. Plus the actual resort.”
He sounded like someone trying to get the bad news out all at once.
“You own Pine Peak?” I asked.
“Yes.” A statement of fact, not pride.
I rubbed my face. “I guess this is where I make my own confession. I hate rich people.”
That startled a laugh from him. “Do you hate them like I hate brussels sprouts, which is with a fiery-hot loathing, or do you hate them like I hate insomnia, which is a periodic but minor annoyance?”
“Insomnia, I guess.”
“Sounds like a good story. Want to tell me?”
Go into my divorce and shambles of a life from before? Nope. “I spent too much time around wealthy people. They’re very hateable. The ones I met, anyway.”
He laughed. And he kept laughing. He laughed so hard he collapsed against the sofa, and he still kept laughing. It tugged an unwilling smile out of me. He finally caught his breath and grinned at me, slouched and holding his side like he’d hurt himself. “Why aren’t you offended?” I asked.
“Because it’s so true. And because you say it like someone who knows, not someone who hates rich people just because we’re rich.”
“I don’t understand you at all.”
“You haven’t tried to up to this point.” He said it matter-of-factly, but it stung because his words were as true as mine. And if I was going to be that honest with him, I had to be honest with myself: I hadn’t tried to understand him. I’d been too busy dueling with him, keeping my guard up, to understand why he did anything he did.
I took a deep breath and held it, because when I let it out, some hard words would have to come with it. I finally released it and said, “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Really.”
He clasped his hands and studied his interlocked fingers before shifting that thoughtful gaze to me. “Do you want to try now, maybe a little? I might not be interesting, but at least you have a shot of disliking me for real reasons and not just because.”
“I don’t dislike you.”
His eyebrows rose again, although this time he didn’t voice his disbelief.
“I don’t,” I said, recognizing truth again. “I can like you and be irritated by you at the same time. I guess I mostly let you know about the irritation.”
“Mostly,” he agreed, humor lines appearing around his eyes. “No, only. You only let me know about the irritation.”
“So why keep coming around?”
“Because I liked meeting a girl who treated me like Aidan, not Ted Cormack. I like that you give me crap for sitting in your booth because I’m just some guy, and you don’t run around trying to impress me because I’m loaded. And I like that you absolutely aren’t dating me for my money.”
“I’m not dating you at all,” I objected.
“Then I like that you’re not on a date with me right now because I have money.”
“I’m not going to lie. You having money doesn’t make you any more attractive to me,” I said, only because I already found him ridiculously hot, “but it does make you more interesting.”
He laughed again. “Let me guess. You want to solve me now.”
“Yeah. I’m almost itchy about not having answers.”
“And now’s a bad time to make a joke about scratching itches?”
My lips twitched. “Assuming you want me to stay, then, yeah.”
“All right. Then ask your questions.”
“Why are you living in the mountains and driving a pickup truck?”
“Because this is always who I was,” he said. “I grew up in Sandy. Not rich but comfortable. My parents pushed us hard in school, so now they have a doctor, a businessman, a high school principal, and a lawyer to show for it. And when I got sick of shuttling between the venture capital firms in Seattle and the banks in New York, this is where I wanted to come back to. I can’t get away from my roots. I never wanted to really, and I came back the first chance I got.”
I understood it. I’d done the exact same thing.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m answering a lot of questions. I think it’s your turn. I’m beginning to think you have a deep, dark past.”
“Yeah. Dead bodies rotting into skeletons in a lot of my closets.”
“Then I’m sure you’ve got cool stories. Not that I’ll be able to drag any of them out of you. Are you open to bribes?”
“I can’t be bought, dude.”
“Bull. I was thinking Ben & Jerry’s. My massive wealth allows me to buy the name-brand stuff even when it’s not on sale, and I keep my freezer stocked.”
“So if I accept ice cream, I have to give you . . . what?”
“Answers. To five questions.”
“How about zero?” I liked having the upper hand for once, but I kept my tone teasing.
“This is why I’m a millionaire and you’re not. That’s not how you negotiate.”
I tilted my head as if it would give me some new perspective as I studied him. “You’re pretty glib about the whole money thing.”
“Sure, now that I know you don’t care.”
“Oh, I care. But opposite of the way you expected, I think.”
“You think correctly, then. Seriously, ice cream? I have the kind with cookies in it or chocolate chips in it or both mushed together. It’s yours for the price of four questions.”
I pretended to think. “I’m intimidated by the fanciness. I’m a vanilla girl.”
Surprise crossed his face. “You are?”
“No.”
“Good. I couldn’t believe my instincts about you were so wrong. Whatever ice cream you want from my freezer for the price of three questions. And I have about twelve flavors.”
“Do you have a freezer just for ice cream?” I asked, laughing, and it only made me laugh harder when he looked embarrassed for the first time. “You totally do! Rich people.” I shook my head in fake disgust. “Fine. You get three questions but only after I get ice cream.”
“Deal.” He stood and held his hand out to pull me up. I slid mine into his, excruciating
ly aware of the heat that flowed through our palms and up my arm at the first touch. Dang it. It made me so uncomfortable that he could do that. But I didn’t want to let go, and when he turned to lead me toward a hallway, he didn’t let go either. And as simple as that, I was holding hands with Aidan Cormack.
The kitchen was only a short distance down the hall, and I was honestly surprised to step in and find that it wasn’t an ode to stainless steel and chrome. The room welcomed us with warm, dark cabinets and marble that glowed like it was lit from within. It was an expensive room but in the way that Rosetti’s had been, where you wanted to sink into a comfortable seat and revel in it, not freeze, afraid to touch anything.
Aidan walked over to a cabinet door that turned out to be hiding a fridge. Sure enough, the freezer side held nothing but ice cream. “What would you like?” he asked.
“Any combination of mint and chocolate.”
“You have to work harder to stump me. I always have that.”
“I don’t want to stump you. I want to get ice cream I like.”
“Why don’t you sit at the bar while I do this?” He pulled some bowls down and dished up the ice cream, and it was like watching a movie scene someone had scripted wrong; in a house this size, the owner should have his own Alfred or Pepper Potts to pop out and handle these mundane details. Aidan served me a heaping bowl and took the stool next to me. “Question one.”
“I changed my mind. You’ll have to sue me for breach of contract.” I took another bite and waited to see what he would do. I liked holding the reins too much to let go of them yet.
“You are in the mountains, alone in my house, deep in the woods. You have to do what I say.”
“Or what?”
“Nothing, actually. It’s a totally empty threat. But you should do what you said you would do.”
“This is pretty good ice cream. I guess that’s fair. Okay. Shoot.”
“Why do you not like me?”
“I was kind of hoping for questions like what’s my favorite color.” Then again, that was a pretty complicated question for an artist.
Painting Kisses Page 16