Hard to Handle

by Jessica Lemmon

  She blinked behind her sunglasses, digesting the new scrap of info.

  “We got along well, were great friends, things were good between us. So I thought, why not now, you know? What are we waiting for? After dating for almost two years, I figured we’d end up married anyway.”

  Well. Not exactly a profession of undying love, but then, what did she expect?

  “But after the engagement, Sadie…well, I don’t want to use the term bridezilla, but—”

  The word sent her defenses sky-high. Even as she uttered a harsh “I was not,” part of her wondered if Trey had a small, barely discernible, itty-bitty smidge of a point.

  “Our engagement turned into your project du jour, and you know it. The three-ring binder you had under your arm twenty-four seven was more your fiancé than I was.”

  Ah, the binder. She loved that binder. Tabbed markers separated everything from color swatches, flower ideas, dress designs, cakes, and the vows she’d written for both of them. She’d cataloged and detailed the menu choices and had chosen meals specifically based on the food intolerances of her guests. Sadie had made it her mission to have a complaint-free wedding. A perfect wedding.

  “You were so wrapped up in the planning,” Trey said, snapping her out of her memories of the planning, “I’m not sure you would have noticed if it was me waiting for you at the end of the aisle or someone else.”

  Sadie frowned. “I had to be wrapped up in the planning, Trey. You wouldn’t lift a finger to help out.”

  “Not true.” His calm, collected demeanor was grating her nerves. “Remember the appointment for the photographer? The appointments for several photographers? I went, and you steamrolled over me, choosing the package you thought was best, choosing the price point you thought was best.”

  “But you told me to spend whatever I needed,” she said, clinging weakly to her position.

  “And I meant it.” He touched her arm. “It wasn’t about money, Sadie. It was about the time we weren’t spending together. Once you painted a bull’s-eye on becoming my wife, you were so laser-focused, there wasn’t any room left for me in your life. Cripes, we saw so little of each other, it was like we’d broken up. Remember the weekly dinners at your mother’s house? When you bothered to show, it was an hour late, and you made calls on your cell phone half the time you were there.”

  Sadie shook her head, but the movement didn’t hold much conviction. Probably because, while she wasn’t about to admit it aloud, Trey was right. She hadn’t attended many of Mother’s Sunday dinners during that time. Once the fifteen-month marathon leading to her walk down the aisle had begun, there simply hadn’t been enough time to do it all…

  “It worked out for the best,” he said, patting her arm. “I know you still resent me for ending it, but you should know it’s because of you I found Celeste, the woman I was meant to spend the rest of my life with.”

  Ouch. Sadie was tempted to look down at her gut for a protruding knife. She sure as hell felt one there.

  “Admit it.” Trey slid his hands into his pockets. “You didn’t want to marry me. The wedding was another task to check off your list, a chance for you to impress everyone you knew.”

  The knife twisted. She wasn’t going to stick around long enough to have it removed and jabbed into her again. Sadie elbowed past him and encountered Celeste in the foyer.

  “Darling?” Celeste said as Trey joined them. “Everything okay?”

  “Peachy,” Sadie answered for him.

  Celeste frowned, a darling little line denting her forehead, and cradled her flat abdomen.

  “Someday, Sadie,” Trey said, pulling Celeste against his side and wrapping a protective arm around her, “we hope you will be a part of your niece or nephew’s life. Even if you can’t truly be happy for us.”

  Sadie turned her back on them and stomped outside before her brunch made an encore appearance.

  Chapter 9

  Turns out one of Axle’s friends-slash-customers was remodeling a 1957 Panhead and, in the process of dismantling it, realized he wasn’t able to remantle it. Axle had called Aiden in to close and gone out to offer his advice and expertise.

  Aiden made a mental note to up his A game. When he was running Axle’s someday—think positive—he wanted to keep the personal touches Axle added. Well, as personal as Axle got.

  The remaining work hours had flown, and thoughts of Sadie had only managed to increase with the hours that passed. He was standing at the counter, where he’d kissed her rather thoroughly last night. So, yeah. Thoughts.

  At five he locked up, looking forward to a lengthy ride. Somewhere outside of the city, where the trees lined the roads and the traffic was sparse. He thought about asking Dad to go, then thought maybe he’d just go by himself. Dad. Axle. Aiden was surrounded by men who didn’t talk. He wondered how they’d become friends in the first place. Maybe they just pointed and grunted at each other.

  Aiden swiped his keys out of the drawer where he’d tossed them, and his hand bumped into an object in its recesses. He pulled the square something out of the drawer, a pink cell phone with a sparkly pink case. He smiled. The ultrafeminine phone could only belong to one woman. A woman who had the shoes to match.

  Aiden slid it into his pocket, deciding to stop by her apartment and drop it off. He’d like to see her today. Hell, he’d like to see her every day. Maybe he could talk her into a joining him for a bike ride. Doubtful. He eyed a pink helmet on a shelf on the back wall. Same kind he’d bought and returned last year when she refused to climb onto Sheila.

  Maybe this time she wouldn’t refuse.

  After he locked up the store and stowed his new purchase in a saddlebag, he rode the short distance to Sadie’s apartment. As he knocked on her door, he recalled the moment he’d stood on this porch a year ago and kissed Sadie for the first time. She’d been feeling raw and vulnerable after all they’d shared; he could see it in her eyes. Aiden felt more purged than exposed, and like he was ready to dive into the next stage of his life. Starting with the kiss he’d planted on Sadie Howard’s lips.

  Thoughts so mired in the past, Aiden was caught off guard by the elderly woman scowling at him from the other side of the door. She clutched her blue bathrobe and scowled some more. “Can I help you?”

  “Uhh…” He rocked back on his heels and studied the number on the side of the town house. Yep. This was it. “Does…Sadie Howard live here?”

  “Here, actually.” Sadie hung off of the doorknob of the town house next door, leaning out over the stoop and smiling at her neighbor. “He’s mine, Mrs. Norman.”

  Aiden couldn’t keep the grin from his face. He’s mine. He liked that.

  Sadie’s smile dropped when Mrs. Norman retreated back to her apartment. “What are you doing here?”

  He shot a thumb over his shoulder. “I was so sure you lived at 1912.”

  “I did.” Her eyebrows scrunched over a giant pair of sunglasses. “I moved into 1910 last year when they upgraded the kitchen.”

  He walked the three steps to her side of the stoop and stood in front of her, taking her in. Wow. Sadie was poured into a belted black dress hugging her curves and leading down to a damn sexy pair of high-heeled, open-toed shoes. He jerked his attention from her hot pink toenails to her face, pausing briefly at the swell of her breasts beneath the clingy material.

  “You look amazing.” He sounded awestruck. He was.

  She rolled a shoulder. A small gesture, paired with the soft purse of her lips. “Thanks.”

  He met her eyes, or would have if he could’ve seen them through the dark lenses covering half her face. Her vulnerability was apparent in her body language. So was her impatience. “So, what do you want?”

  “’Scuse me, Ms. Onassis. Should I have made an appointment?” Her nose wrinkled. Guess she wasn’t in much of a joking mood. Before she shut the door in his face, Aiden extracted her phone from his jeans. “You left this at Axle’s.”

  “Oh,” she said, nothing in her ton
e revealing that she’d noticed it was missing. She took it from him. “I must have dropped it when—I must have dropped it.”

  Aiden would have smiled at the memory of when she must have dropped it, but something was…off. From the slight slur in her words like she’d been drinking, to the sunglasses she was wearing, to the outfit better suited for public consumption than for sitting at home by herself.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked, prepared to invite himself to go with her.

  She ran her fingers through her untamed hair. “No.”

  Okay.

  He couldn’t leave her like this—all dressed up and nowhere to go. “Mind if I grab a glass of water before I head out?” Before she could tell him no, he made a face. “Think I swallowed a bug on the way over.”

  Sadie’s lips tilted into the semblance of a smile and she slid the sunglasses into her mane of blonde hair. Her eyes were clear. So…she hadn’t been crying. That was good. Maybe he’d misread her after all.

  She dropped her hand from the knob and he followed her in. This town house was an exact replica of its neighbor, only reversed. The staircase ran up the adjoining wall, leading to the bathroom. The door was open, a Harley-Davidson shower curtain hanging from the rod. His Sadie, Aiden thought with a shake of his head. An anomaly through and through.

  In the kitchen, Sadie handed over a water. “Bottle okay?”

  “Perfect,” he said, accepting it and cracking off the cap. “This”—he looked around the room as he took a drink—“is a kitchen worth moving for.”

  “You remember what my old kitchen looked like?” she asked as she reclaimed her half-empty wineglass from the counter.

  “No,” Aiden said. “But I wasn’t exactly checking out your cabinetry the last time I was here.”

  She pulled the sunglasses out of her hair then folded and unfolded them before setting them aside. She took a drink of her white wine, filling her cheeks with the liquid before swallowing it down.

  No, he was right the first time. Something was up. “Are you okay?”

  She met his eyes, her gaze clear, but not as sharp as he was used to. “Do you think I’m…” She shrugged as if searching for the right word. “Too driven?” she asked after a significant pause.

  Aiden lifted his brow. A loaded question if he’d ever heard one. Wasn’t like he could say yes, no matter what she put behind the word too. Too beautiful, too short, too anything. It was a bear trap waiting to spring.

  “Too driven?” he repeated, stalling.

  “Too controlling?”

  Oh boy.

  Aiden crossed to the counter and looked down at his hostess. There was a heaviness in her dark eyes, as if she’d lugged a significant load home from wherever she’d gone earlier. He slid a wave away from her eyes. “What’s this about, Sadie?” he asked, loving the way her lips parted and her breath hitched when he touched her.

  She turned away from him and stared into her wine. “Nothing.”

  “Talk to me.”

  She took a breath, her shoulders slumping even lower than before. “I guess I wanted a second opinion.”

  “On…?”

  She looked up at him, her hurt a present, living thing. “Whether or not I am a self-centered, shallow bitch.”

  Anger tore through Aiden’s chest at the word. He clenched his teeth together and struggled to speak through them. “Who told you that?” If it was that dickhead Perry, Aiden was going to effing kill him. Or at least cripple him.

  “Easy, tiger.” She grazed his chest with her fingers and smiled. Faintly, but it was there. “No one said it.” She shook her head. “No one had to.”

  It killed him to see her like this—to see her so filled with doubt. She was amazing. How did she not see that? “Look at me, Sadie.”

  She did, but only after a long, slow blink.

  He held her cinnamon-colored gaze. She needed to hear him. Really hear him. “You’re not selfish. You’re not self-centered. And if I hear you use the b word about yourself again, I’m going to wash your mouth out with Chardonnay.”

  Another smile. Progress.

  He rasped her cheek with the back of his knuckles because he couldn’t stand being this close and not touching her. “You’re focused. You’re determined,” Aiden told her as he stroked her skin. “You know what you want. You stand up for what you want.” He tipped her chin. “You are an incredible woman, Sadie. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  Sadie turned her chin from his hand and muttered a soft “Thanks.” Aiden wasn’t sure if she was completely convinced, but he didn’t mind hanging around to convince her if she’d let him.

  “Wine?” she offered.

  Hell yes. “Sure,” he said, going for casual.

  She pulled a second glass from the cabinet and filled it and handed it to him. Aiden took a sip from his glass as she emptied hers. She frowned at the cork sediment in the bottom like she was reading tea leaves.

  “Trey said I wanted the wedding more than I wanted him,” she said. “That I basically neglected him into my sister’s arms.”

  Aiden was going to interrupt, but she inhaled to continue and he took it as a hint this was a monologue.

  “I mean, I was busy planning the wedding. Our wedding.” She refilled her glass, splashing wine over the rim and onto the counter. Aiden took the bottle from her and finished the pour before topping off his own. The more for him, the less for her, he figured. And she’d had just about enough.

  Sadie lifted her glass and studied the pale yellow liquid. “A wedding has a lot of moving parts. You men don’t know this because all you do is show up. In a tuxedo you rent.”

  Aiden was married in jeans. In a courthouse. It had been about as romantic as a trip to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. He thought better of correcting her and kept his lips firmly pressed together.

  “I wanted to do it right, you know?” she continued. “I wanted to show Trey I would be a good wife. The best wife. And maybe I did get wound around the details, but is that bad, really? Isn’t focus a good thing? Shouldn’t he have been grateful he only had to sign the checks?”

  She took another mouthful of wine, pointing a finger at Aiden as she swallowed. “Which, by the way, he says was not the issue. No, no. The issue was that I ignored him. And when I stopped showing up to my family’s house for Sunday dinner, he and Celeste started making out on the patio. Right under Mother’s nose! He actually thanked me for ignoring him so that he could find his beloved Celeste,” she said with a sneer.

  It was hard not to laugh. He liked her Trey impression, the way she made him sound like a moron, which, obviously, he was. “I take it you had the displeasure of running into Trey recently?” Aiden asked.

  “This morning,” she said, looking for a chair. Aiden lifted off the one he sat on, slid it to her, and retrieved another for himself.

  “So Trey…what? Called and unloaded a guilt trip onto your shoulders?”

  Sadie snorted. “I wish. Today is my sister’s birthday, and since Celeste always gets what she wants, we had a big, last-minute to-do at the country club.”

  Aiden couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for Sadie to be around her fiancé and her sister and play nice. It wasn’t fun to be left for someone else—he knew—and if it had been his brother who Harmony had left him for, Aiden thought he’d probably have fled the country by now.

  “I left, but not before Trey followed me out to tell me I was being a bad sister.” The pain in her eyes suggested she agreed. “I keep replaying what he said…” She paused, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. She was strong, a real suffer-in-silence type. But her control was flagging. She swallowed hard, blinking at the ceiling. When she met Aiden’s eyes, hers were clear. “I think he was right.”

  He put a hand on her arm in a show of support. He had so much to say, so many arguments to offer, he didn’t know where to start. He’d never met Celeste but couldn’t imagine Sadie’s younger sister being more remarkable than the woman before him. Sadie was vibrant and challengin
g and sexy as hell. And if Trey couldn’t see that then his head must have taken up permanent residence in his ass.

  “I didn’t congratulate her, you know.” Sadie ran her fingertip along the edge of her glass. “I didn’t hop out of my chair or throw my arms around her. I just sat there and felt sorry for myself.” The tears were back, and finally a few spilled over when she confessed, “I didn’t even see the ultrasound.”

  Whoa.

  No wonder. Aiden imagined the scene unfolding. A table full of flowers and gifts, family members surrounding the guest of honor, and Celeste announcing she was pregnant. With Sadie’s ex-fiancé’s baby.

  “Sadie,” was all he said. Her mouth pulled at the sides as she choked back what he guessed was going to be a sob. Aiden lifted her chin. “Sadie,” he repeated.

  She blinked at him, stunned to have shown her real and raw emotions, and swiped her hands over her eyes to erase the evidence. She hopped off her chair so fast, Aiden had to catch it to keep it from falling over. He could almost hear her regrouping, the iron gates sliding down, the moat encircling her, the snapping alligators sliding into its depths…Sadie could shut down her feelings faster than he could say Batten down the hatches.

  No one in her family cared to dig any deeper than the false surface she projected. It was easier for her mother and Celeste and Trey to write Sadie off as shallow and selfish and continue living their lives. They were the selfish ones, not Sadie.

  Telling her that wouldn’t crack her defenses and Aiden was running out of time. The first night he met her he’d accidentally lured her out from behind her stone walls. All it had taken was a confession of his own.

  He happened to have a doozy.

  “I feel like I could have done more to save my mom’s life.” Wow. Saying that out loud hurt more than he’d thought. It worked, though. Sadie stopped fidgeting with the belt on her dress and watched him instead. “When my brothers and sister found out I’d moved her to Oregon,” he continued, “they were pissed.”