by Rena Manse
A female friend of Aaron’s who wasn’t Black Death waiting to happen. “You didn’t set that up did you? How much did you pay her?”
His unexpected laugh combined with his smile was pleasant. She wanted to watch him in action, but he poised his hand at her back to guide her through the restaurant as they followed the Maître’d around tables.
“You know, Essie’s parties are a little out of your league.”
For once, she didn’t take offense with him stating his opinion. She’d only read stories of partying in The Hamptons, and knew she couldn’t accept the whole scene. “I can handle myself. In this day and age I take what I can and nav my way around the rest.”
When it looked like they were headed to a closed off, private section, Ashley halted, abruptly turned, and found her hand clasped around hard muscle on Aaron’s bicep. She resisted a second squeeze of the delicious contour just above the crook of his arm.
“Um. We can stay out here.” She liked the atmosphere of the near-empty restaurant. Her apprehension of him had dissipated. Although, by the way his eyes darted back and forth between hers, he believed it was her motivation to remain out in the open. “Please?”
Ashley hadn’t realized that in her quick turn to face him, Aaron’s hand on her back hadn’t had the opportunity to drop. She couldn’t help but be aware of it now, lingering in the dip of her spine in the slightest fanned-finger caress, and one sneaky nudge toward him. Well, where did she think the delicious bicep led to? Her will resisted that second squeeze.
Aaron smiled. “We’ll take a table here,” he said.
“Very well, sir.”
Ashley’s head snapped to the Maître’d who’d stealthily doubled back to stand at her shoulder. She smiled off her surprise, then followed him to a table relatively removed from other patrons. Looking around when seated, her eye-travels came to rest on the man himself.
She’d never been alone with him like this. “So…” She took an uneven breath when the predator she’d come to know leaned back in his chair.
Head lowered, he lifted his gaze, and his tongue made a brief appearance before his teeth caught his smiling bottom lip. His eyes ran over her face. “So…”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She chuckled back her fright and pulled open her menu. Something told Ashley they’d get nowhere if she expected an explanation for today’s treat. His friend had been right. She melted over the salmon and steak. It filled her mouth with flavor. Soft, live music hummed through the quiet setting, and Ashley marveled at her and Aaron’s disagreement-free time together.
But what was he up to? He’d changed clothes and taken her out to lunch. Twenty minutes into their coffee, news headlines, talking about Val, global fashion, and her family couldn’t cover her growing suspicion of his jovial disposition.
He must have read her dubious expression, for his head inclined to the side and he leaned over the table. “Have I done or said something inappropriate?”
“Today?” Her heart fluttered at his chuckle. “I haven’t seen this side, I don’t know how to relate. Who are you?”
Aaron’s smile turned into a grimace. “You said something to me that stuck. You called me a machine.”
“I said that?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”
She didn’t, but let him continue.
“You said I’m a machine, and that I’m incapable of separating business from anything personal. I don’t want to be portrayed in that light.”
“You took me out to persuade me?”
“No, nothing like that. This is the sort of thing I would normally do—with friends like Essie, for instance. And, no, I didn’t set that up. I have a feeling you wouldn’t put that past me.”
“Is this real?”
For a second, he studied his fingers tapping the table. “The recent months have been hard on the family, and me. I buried myself in my work, things bled over. You know the sad story.”
“Are you telling me this is the Aaron Gilyard I’ll see from now on?”
“No.”
She felt her smile fade.
“I think I needed to remind myself he’s still here.”
She glimpsed the amiable side from time to time, hiding behind the calculating soldier of industry. A woman could get attached to this Aaron. “So this is what people usually see. I like it. And apology accepted. I suppose the other side of you has to run the business.”
“The other side takes care of business.”
“The other side is scary,” she said. With deep concentration she watched his finger make small circles on the tablecloth. Studying his hand, she also took a chance to give him a compliment. “I like your ring.”
The hand stilled. The three crosses and crown of thorns etched into the black surface on his right ring finger didn’t fit an iceman.
“I’ve never seen you without it. Someone who values what it represents wouldn’t conduct business as you do.”
“Did your mother teach you to always go for the jugular?”
She raised her eyebrows. He smiled, then looked at the ring.
“My grandfather commissioned this for me before he passed away.” His thumb turned the thick circle. “He said no matter what I’d go through, somebody suffered worse.”
“Wow.” She would have liked to know him. Her mother always said he held high values. “Does any of that make you think about trusting God again? Settling down?”
He faked a cough into his curled fist. “Can’t get Grandmother to stop talking about me.” A few seconds later he turned serious. “I’m past that. And next time you want to know anything about me, just come to me.”
“’Cause you’re sooo approachable. And no one is past getting to know God.”
She grinned at their double conversation, but he stared at the tablecloth. She might have thought his actions were evasive if he didn’t look so lost.
“I meant marriage,” he said to the butter knife.
She wanted to pursue God further but decided to keep the conversation flowing until they could come back to it. “You’re in your early thirties. You can’t be past marriage.”
His eyes squinted. “What exactly has Grandmother told you?”
“Nothing I haven’t witnessed for myself, Mr. Defensive. You like women, and she fears you won’t settle down.”
He blinked. “It’s not about settling down. I have my reasons for getting married. One of which would be in consideration of her.”
“You’d marry to please Val?”
“It would put a smile on her face before she...”
He couldn’t equate dying with his grandmother. She really was all Aaron had left in the world. “Oh, you think you’ll never find love so you’d settle for duty.”
“You’d marry for love?”
“Of course. Isn’t that what it’s about?”
“Love of what?”
Love of..? Stumped, she picked up her water glass, then grabbed onto what he’d said earlier. “And the other reasons?”
He half smiled—and so did she—that they avoided questions by posing their own.
She sighed. “It’s fascinating that the driving force behind a multi-faceted conglomerate is so weak when it comes to his grandmommy. At least you can understand how I feel about my own family.”
“Yeah, I do. My grandparents never hesitated to take me in when my father died and my mother…” His fingernail scratched the white cloth and he looked around. “As powerful and influential as they were, they set aside everything when I’d call or stop by. They shaped my world. Why wouldn’t I put myself at Val’s disposal?”
“You live a fine line between love and duty. Experience, especially at work, taught me that you can’t survive nowadays if you show someone where you’re weak or vulnerable. Patients leave or die, and other people will walk all over you. It takes balance. Care, but learn when to hold things at arm’s length. Adopting that attitude has made me stronger, more independent. That’s why it’s hard f
or me to accept help from others.”
“No, you’re just wound too tight.”
Ashley bit down on her soft gums and carefully set the glass down.
“You’re an attractive woman who tries way too hard to prove that beauty and brains can live together in some stoic glass house. A nightingale enforcing a myth, and your passions suffer because of it. I can’t believe you just suggested that showing emotions equals weakness. It isn’t something bad, Ashley, it’s natural. No offense.”
“None taken,” she mumbled, digesting his rational argument. Could he truly like a woman for her mind?
He leaned back, smiling. “What is it?”
She shook her head.
“We can have a non-aggressive debate here. Go ahead.”
A chuckle ran from her throat as she gathered courage. “If I may return the favor.” She heaved a sigh. “You use women like rags. It’s your tailored aversion to romantic commitment. Look how you’ve treated me. Cold. What kind of emotion allows someone to treat another human being that way?
“It’s probably why you would see marriage as a business deal rather than personal affection. You don’t want to give up your independence and freedom. Go on, marry out of sense of duty to Val. ‘Look, Gran, I got one. Die in peace.’”
She’d said the ‘D’ word, and watched his eyes frost.
“You’re lecturing me on not showing my emotions, Aaron. But emotion—real love emotion—doesn’t enter into anything you do. You’re pure instinct, run on auto-drive.”
“And real love emotion enters into whatever it is you do? An emotional fortress like you?” His eyebrow-quirk told her to get real. “You’d be opposed to marriage simply because you’re incapable of giving yourself, and I’m beginning to wonder if you open up to your own family. You won’t let anyone in to share your weakness.”
“You’re the one not willing to marry for love.”
“You think I see marriage as a weakness?”
“The true reason for marriage. Yes.”
“What is the true reason for marriage nowadays? Don’t confuse the facts. I can make it work no matter what it is.”
“So high and mighty of you.”
“I may enter into it from a practical standpoint, but for you, marriage is too much emotion. It’d take some kind of superman to crack that cold exterior. Don’t expose yourself. Never be at the emotional mercy of someone else.” He smiled coolly. “You never let anyone help you because you don’t want to rely on someone else’s strength, become…”
“Weak.”
“Vulnerable is what I was going to say.” He regarded her contemplatively. “Ash, would you sacrifice yourself for love?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “You’re a fortress.”
“I’m careful. There’s a lot to be said for using your head to make sure you have the right person and not rushing into—”
“Don’t kid yourself, you’re a nightingale.”
They simultaneously leaned back on their respective sides of the booth. She couldn’t believe he’d called her an emotional fortress. He’d also called her Ash, as natural as if no thought had been given to using a name fondly given by close friends and family. She liked how it came out, and watched his lips carefully as he leaned back in with conversation.
“You didn’t answer my questions before about marrying for what kind of love. I’d like to know if that’s possible. Your parents are still together, and I assume, happy. It’s a mystery that you’re so afraid.” He tipped his head back. Staring, he said softly, “Afraid.”
Ashley folded her arms and looked at the empty tables beside them. She needed a safe, neat, and secure relationship. Her parents may be happily married, but she’d watched most of her friends fall in and out of love and marriages. She’d wait, thank you.
Too many boyfriends called her a cold fish for her to want to end up married to someone who’d call her that down the road. And Aaron sat there saying the same thing.
Her parents’ kind of love, Val and Henry’s respect and love, didn’t happen in her generation.
“It’s hard to trust men these days. Present company excluded,” she smirked. “They treat you like a queen in the beginning then get bored. What if they leave and I’m left a statistic?”
His face wrinkled. “You take one or two knocks in your life and let them control everything else? You can’t bottle up everything. Love is natural instinct.”
“Everything with you is natural instinct.”
“I make a decision and I stand by my word. My feelings don’t come cheap, but they do come with a lifelong guarantee. Nothing natural about it, that’s commitment. I love my grandmother, and I show it. Kavin’s my brother and I’d give my life for him. You? Blank slate. Then again, you can’t express what you don’t know.”
“I care about Val. You’re telling me I don’t know how?”
He showed off a small smile, and played with the handle of his coffee cup. “No, I appreciate that you do. But she’s temporary. You express yourself only where you see limitations. Six months from now you’ll get to care from a distance and never meet again. Where do you become vulnerable? You keep everything inside. How can you sacrifice yourself for love—as you claim—living the way you do. Take a lesson from me. Get passionate about something.”
Yeah, lessons on how to be a loose woman. She wondered how talking about his nice side turned into this. “I’m not going to run around with my heart on my sleeve. What I do isn’t any different from you standing behind your word. Maybe you read a situation better than I can. I need more information to evaluate it, but I get there. Doesn’t make my way wrong.”
“No. Just lonelier.”
“It didn’t make me give up on love, just look harder.” She tightened her arms around her chest. Limits where she didn’t see boundaries. He didn’t know what he was talking about. No one could tell her she didn’t love her family. Watching his I-dare-you-to-contradict-me smile, she shifted her gaze away.
“Now what?” he asked.
Hearing the same news those close to her had stated shouldn’t make her angry at Aaron. She tried to shrug it off. “You’ve told me I need to open up and get a personal life, that I have to get passionate about it, and to take a lesson from you. You just told me to get passionate in my personal life with you.”
His eyes flashed way passed the lightness of his chuckle. “We agree on something?”
She was glad she lighted the mood. Her own smile spread too quickly to stop so she kept it. “I’m still angry with you so don’t take it to the bank.”
“Too late. I do believe we’re in danger of getting along.” His eyes browsed the restaurant. “Can we agree to go?”
“We’re just getting into it.”
“I promise, I’ll give you a chance to scratch my eyes out another time.”
They’d just slung accusations and insults at each other, and she wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon planning the next event. “Well, I called you a machine and you call me an emotional fortress. It’s been insightful.”
Their shared smile made her silly heart do that flutter thing again. Making a show of wiping her mouth, she tossed the napkin to the table to indicate her readiness.
He rose, and—thu-thump—she waited until he stood beside her before standing. The hand that should have been at her back found its way to the opposite hip. Oh, things were frying on the inside that sizzled her skin on the outside. The waistband of Ashley’s dress the only thing she wished was more forgiving in girth as she let him draw her closer in their post debate exit.
“Who knew Ashley McKenny had such a spry sense of humor. Is that what a good day of shopping does for you?” Aaron surrendered a ticket to the valet without removing his possessive arm. “Should I hand over my credit card anytime soon to let you really go at it?”
“Only if you never want to see it again.”
“Would I see you again, or would you be half way to Cancun?”
Such an
odd question, one that had her stuck at, “Would I see you again?”
Aaron let out a laugh. “If there was ever a dictionary image of flummoxed, you nailed it.”
She let him continue laughing while she tried to figure out what expression she had shown.
He was less talkative on the ride home, but did today make them friends?
She relaxed in her seat. “Thanks for lunch.”
“Thanks for your company.”
Thanks for your company. Such a way this man wrapped his mouth around words. She watched his lips. If Aaron had been Mr. Nice Guy before, she would’ve had a pretty hard time keeping to her side of the car.
The green sports coupe in the driveway rolled the lunch in her stomach.
Jade paced in the foyer when they entered, and her gaze quickly ran appraisal over Ashley. Green eyes watched Aaron’s back inquiringly as he handed over the bags he carried. He gave Ashley a just-between-you-and-me wink, which made her smile, but she wondered what he said in the extra second of their locked gaze.
He turned away, looking calm with each step toward Jade. Ashley started toward the stairs, but stopped to observe as the prowler she’d known for months resurfaced. A different man with the fashion model. One who could put a smile of promise on her face. Jade ran a playful finger down his shirt buttons.
“I thought I’d pop by for a visit. Hope you’re not busy.” She hooked a nail under one of the buttons and her attractive eyes pleaded.
“You have impeccable timing.” His answer resonated in a deep voice.
Ashley stared at him. Her mind went back to Lynda. Did they really have a relationship? Then there was Essie. She couldn’t really see them going out, but it seemed every woman in his life was a potential or former lover. She followed Jade’s hand working its way lower to his belly and abs. How many times had those fingers laid claim on him throughout the years?
Is it easy to get inside his head and anticipate his needs? Jonathan? She sighed inside, Jonathan is nothing compared...
“Excuse me.” She probably wasn’t heard, but hurried her way up the steps.