by Ani Keating
It’s one of the sweetest things he has said. My fingers itch to touch his face, so I knot them together lest they move on their own.
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful. And it explains why you were so upset. Alas, not a madman after all.”
He huffs as if he really thinks he is a madman. “Elisa, why didn’t you go?” The anger is gone now. All that’s left behind is something like concern. Is that it? He’s worried about me? Under that theory, his behavior these last few days takes on a different meaning.
I stare out of the window, repressing a sob for finding this so late in the game. End it now or end it later? Which would hurt less? The painful clenching in my stomach says plainly that either option is hideous. And if I have so little time left, would it be such a crime to hold on to him a little longer? Maybe just for today?
“Mr. Hale—” I stop talking because he reaches for my chin with his long fingers and turns my face toward him.
“Say my name.” His voice is low and rugged but his eyes are soft.
“Aiden,” I whisper. Instantly, he becomes more real, urging me to nurse the fantasy of him and me a little longer. “Aiden, can we agree to something?”
He frowns. “It depends on what it is.”
“Can we agree that, at least for today, we implement an embargo?”
His eyebrows knit together. “An embargo? Embargo on what?”
“On secrets. I share none of mine, and you share none of yours. A free pass to us both, but everything else is on the table.” I keep my voice soft to mask the hideousness inside.
He veers sharply to the right and slams the brakes. The car behind us honks and swerves around, the driver flipping us off. Aiden’s posture straightens, his muscles rise and he turns his body to face me.
“Elisa, are you in trouble? Because if you are, you should tell me. I can help you. There’s no reason for you to suffer through whatever it is alone.”
How can I share this pain and not forge a bond with him? And then where do I go from there? If you thought you had lost everything only to find out there was a lot more to lose, would you risk it? Or would you play it safe and try to survive?
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. So do we have a deal?” I look him in the eye, trying to hold my face together.
“No, goddamn it, we don’t have a deal.” He looks around wildly. For the first time I notice a whisper of helplessness in his eyes. Unable to resist, I reach slowly to caress his cheek so that he sees my intention. With his force field around him, he may need the warning.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m not in danger. Let’s just try it. Surely the private part of you finds that appealing too?”
He shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his index finger, drawing a deep breath.
“As if your paintings and brain were not enough to drive any man insane, now you have thrown this into the mix. But I suppose I’m in a better position to help you if I strike this deal than if I don’t. So, yes, we have an embargo on sharing. For today.” He shakes his head as if he cannot believe this himself.
Yes! Twenty-four hours of paradise smack in the middle of hell. I lean in slowly and give him a small kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”
He looks like he has never been kissed on the cheek before. I pull away in case it makes him uncomfortable. His eyes are unfathomable—light on the surface, dark within.
He starts driving again without a word. We wind higher and higher up the West Hills, curving around the Portland Rose Garden. With a vibration between my lungs, I realize Aiden lives by a rose garden like I used to—although lives may be too soft a word. Presides fits him better.
The Rose Garden is behind now, and we are still climbing. Suddenly, I know we have entered his domain the way we know spring has arrived. With a feeling in our blood, right before ice starts to melt. The pressure of the altitude muffles my ears until all I hear is my own heartbeat. There are no houses around anymore, only dense evergreens and sky. Aiden takes a sharp left and comes to a stop before a modern iron gate. He slides his palm over a pad in a stainless steel monitor. The gates open.
I expect to see a house, but no. An endless hide-and-seek driveway undulates before us, framed by tall oaks and cedars. On the right, in a green clearing, is a paved, smooth circle. It takes a few blinks to realize it’s a helipad.
At last, as though part of nature, a stately house materializes among the trees. Except, the word house is too artificial. This is almost an extension of the primordial forest. Everything about it, from the red cedar wood panels to the charcoal slate, the gray riverbed rocks and the airy spatial windows, is organic. The modern minimalist lines curve around nature rather than bending nature to their will.
Aiden chuckles next to me, and I close my gaping mouth. “It’s beautiful here,” I say.
“It’s getting better.” He smiles, and gets out of the car to open my door. The moment I’m out, he takes my hand again and presses his lips to my hair. I lean into him, sniffing his Aiden scent surreptitiously. I should figure out a way to bottle this.
At the double front doors, he slides his palm over another pad. The doors open into a cream-and-slate foyer. The moment we step inside, lights brighten almost imperceptibly. I blink once and everything is back to normal. Hmm, maybe I imagined it.
Aiden leads me by my waist to a palatial living room. As we cross the threshold, the lights brighten and dim again, blinking fast. I turn to ask him, but he shakes his head. I tuck this away as a world perched between earth and sky surrounds me.
Straight ahead, Mount Hood is almost touchable. Refracting sunrays are my only clue that a back wall separates us, made entirely of glass. I blink, recalling Denton’s lecture on glass optical qualities. This must be the highest—nearly invisible.
Everything from the open-flame riverbed rock fireplace to the barstools in a kitchen the size of Feign Art is bespoke and chic. All light gray and cream, except the chestnut wooden floor and the oversized salvaged oak coffee table. Colors of rivers and forests. Abstract, understated art, none of it my paintings. There is something peaceful about the stunning natural décor.
Yet my first thought is…not loneliness. The controlled minimalism is too intentional for that. Isolation. That’s what it is. I look for signs of the inner Aiden. There are some books stacked on the coffee table. The Brothers Karamazov—one of my favorites, Byron’s Poems, The Things They Carried. Redemption, passion, guilt, war. And poetry. Aiden Hale has soul.
My eyes drift to a shiny black piano, tucked by the glass wall. My breath catches a little at the sight. Not because it’s a rare Bösendorfer. But because on it, is the most astonishing arrangement of flowers I have ever seen. They’re not in a vase—they’re in a low crystal terrarium, like a secret garden. I walk to it in a trance, sensing Aiden’s body heat behind me.
And there, rising over green moss, is a single bloom of probably every flower genus they sell in Portland. Hyacinth, orchid, gardenia, peony, amaryllis, calla lily, rose…
“I didn’t know which one was your favorite.” Aiden’s warm breath tickles my cheek. It’s just air—his air—but my knees start wobbling. He pulls me against his front, his lips fluttering over my jawline to my ear.
“So?” he whispers.
“Hmm?”
“Favorite flower?” He kisses the soft spot behind my ear. I shiver.
“Umm…”
He chuckles and pulls away. “Maybe it’s too soon to combine thinking with kissing.”
I flush the color of the amaryllis.“Roses,” I breathe.
He raises an eyebrow. “Roses?” There is a hint of humor in his voice.
“What’s wrong with roses?”
“Nothing. It’s just such a common choice for such an uncommon woman.”
I want to kiss him—hard like he kissed me. So I start babbling. “Well, my favorit
e breed is Aeternum romantica. They’re very rare because they have very little pollen. They could do okay in a warm terrarium, which of course was invented by botanist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in 1829—” Stop! Stop right now!
Aiden’s sculpted lips are twitching with a smile.
“Thank you for the flowers,” I mumble.
“Thank you for the botany lesson.”
“So, can we talk about this painting?” I ask to upgrade myself from geek to semidesirable muse status.
He gives me a full, dimple-in-the-cheek smile. “Yes, we should. But first, we have your graduation lunch. Moot point since you didn’t go to your graduation, but it was already planned.”
I make an effort not to gape. Or drool. Oh, these twenty-four hours are getting better and better. “If I had known you’d be there, I might have gone.” But if I had gone, would his control have slipped enough for him to kiss me? Probably not. Another reason why it was a brilliant idea.
He leads me to a breakfast bar and a woman in a white apron appears to serve us. Aiden introduces her as his housekeeper, Cora Davis. She is in her late forties, with a kind, sweetheart face and short, chestnut hair. She sets out our lunch of wild salmon with fennel-and-apple salad.
“The new room is ready, sir,” she says, and after a nod from him, she leaves with a smile.
“The new room?” I ask while Aiden uncorks some wine with a name that is one paragraph long. I couldn’t repeat it if I were at gunpoint.
He smiles. “Yes. For your painting.”
“You created an entire room for my painting?”
He shrugs like this should be obvious. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have a specific idea in mind.”
“What’s the idea?”
“A fantasy.”
His voice is soft but something about the word—desired but never real—makes my stomach twist sharply. Just like he will always be for me. Except, without my numbered days, I’d want more than a fantasy. Would he?
“Javier will love it,” I say to move away from the dark thought. “It will be his first domain.”
I meant to lighten my mood but Aiden puts down the wine bottle and looks at me, his eyes midnight blue. The change is so sudden that it makes me gasp.
“I’ll ask you this once today despite our embargo.” His voice has lost all its seduction and is now back to cold. “What is your relationship with Mr. Solis?”
It takes me a moment to find words. I can’t look away from his dark eyes. For some reason, I have a fleeting sense of danger.
“Javier and I have been best friends for the last four years,” I manage. “But he’s more than that, he is family. The Solises saved my life after my parents’ accident.”
He nods slowly, and his eyes start tracing my jawline, my throat—almost like a search. As they do so, they lighten with that turquoise glow I’ve come to expect, even know.
“My apologies, Elisa.” His voice is now gentle. “The question is none of my business.”
Something about his words frightens me a lot more than his dark gaze. “I don’t mind,” I say, my voice cracking.
He raises his hand very slowly and brushes the back of his fingers along my lower lip, down my throat. Lightly, like a warm breeze. But my body responds with vengeance. My pulse starts breaking through my skin. Goose bumps erupt everywhere. He smiles.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he says, tracing my collarbones with the tips of his fingers.
“I’ve seen worse,” I breathe. “Nitroglycerin for example.”
The dimple forms in his cheek. “I’m still sorry. It’s very difficult for me to control my reactions around you.”
I know somewhere deep in my brain I should ask many questions. But the only one I can form is, “Why?”
He sighs and drops his hand. “Embargo,” he says, pouring some wine and handing me a glass.
How can I argue with that?
I take a deep, steadying breath and clink his glass with mine. “To embargoes, then.”
He chuckles now, shifting his chair closer to mine, our arms almost touching.
“And to the women who broker them.”
Chapter Sixteen
For Love’s Sake Only
When we finish lunch, Aiden brings out a box wrapped in purple. The color of my eyes. From the lack of bows and the precise application of the tape that matches the military organization of his home, I have a feeling he wrapped this himself.
“Happy graduation, Elisa,” he says with a raised eyebrow. I will never live that down.
I start unwrapping the box with shaking hands, careful not to tear the paper he touched. He shifts his feet minutely, looking almost nervous. I smile at such a normal reaction and peek through the tissues. What I see stuns me. A pair of brand-new sneakers exactly like my nearly dead ones. On each of their heels, in discreet, tone-on-tone stitching, I read:
Elisa C. Snow
“She walks in beauty.”
My breath leaves with a loud whoosh. Byron’s quintessential poem of revering a woman from a distance. Unattainable yet yours, in every way. And also a pun, because shoes are meant for walking. It takes me a few tries to find my voice.
“Does Byron’s poem have a special meaning to you?” Whisper is good. Any sound beyond that might spoil the moment.
“Yes.”
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Embargo.”
“Is there a reason you chose it for me?”
He smiles and brushes my cheek with one finger. The caress is so intentionally gentle—as if he is touching a mirage—that I think it is meant as an answer to my question.
“Every line in that poem reminds me of you.” His index finger trails along my jawline and over my lips.
Like before, my body implodes. Heart beating in my throat, blood pooling at the bottom of my belly. He kisses my jaw and cheek gently, like a butterfly’s wings.
His scar is close. Really close. I want to kiss it but I don’t know how he got it, so I blow on it lightly. He smiles but pulls away.
“Thank you for the shoes and the poem. I’ll wear them well.”
He chuckles. “Shall I arrange a funeral for your old sneakers?”
“No, I think they’re museum worthy. Or at least Guinness standard.”
“I’m glad for your other present then,” he says, taking a professional-looking Nikon camera out of the box. “The other one seemed ready for retirement.”
I smile, fighting a lump in my throat. Leave it to fate for an irony like this. Aiden giving me a way to preserve everything I will lose.
His index finger comes under my chin. “Are you okay?”
“You couldn’t have given me a better gift.”
He smiles as though in relief. “Not even the Hubble Telescope?”
“Not even that.”
“I’ll cancel my order then. Now, are you ready for your painting?” he asks, excitement transparent in his voice. Bloody hell, it’s here. I feel queasy, like the salmon is swimming upstream.
“Umm—may I have another drink first?”
He smiles. “Need some ethanol-induced neurotransmitter excitation?”
I nod frantically, blushing down to my toes.
“Okay, neurotransmitter excitation, here it comes.” He pours me a glass and I down it in seconds, not bothering to look ladylike.
He laughs the first carefree laugh I have heard from him. The sound reverberates at that warm spot he ignited between my lungs. “Another one?”
“Yes, please. It can’t hurt.”
He fills it only halfway this time. I gulp it down.
“Okay, that’s enough. I don’t need another lesson on dichotomous keys—the last one kept me up all night.” He pries the glass out of my fingers.
I guess I’v
e earned that. I want to ask him about staying up all night—preferably together—but I don’t think my nerves can take it. Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium— Oh, bloody hell, I don’t have time for the whole table. That’s fine—I have backup. I pull out the Baci chocolates from my purse immediately.
He looks at them and chuckles. “More emergency provisions?”
I nod and eat my leftover apple slices, then drink some water. This is how my mum taught me to eat chocolate.
“What are you doing?” Aiden asks, eyeing the last apple slice with confusion.
“Oh, sorry. This is how I eat chocolate. Would you like one?” As Javier and Reagan will tell anyone who will hear, I don’t share chocolate lightly. But Aiden could have my right arm, let alone my last chocolate.
He smiles. “Sure. But what’s the deal with apples? I’ve never heard of this.”
“They cleanse your palate.”
“And the water?”
“Cleanses the palate after the cleansing.”
“That’s a lot of cleansing.”
“Yes, but it’s worth it.”
Aiden chuckles again, eats the last apple slice, then drinks some water. He peels the Baci and pops it in his mouth. Knowing the effect his mouth has on me, I busy myself reading the note that my Baci had inside.
“Hmm, I can see the big deal. That’s quite good.” He licks his lips.
“Yes, but Baci chocolates are meant to be read to get the full effect,” I blurt out without thinking.
He looks at me like he thinks he should have built a padded room, not a painting studio.
“Read? How do you read a chocolate?”
“Well, Baci chocolates have little love-related sayings in them. Even baci means kisses in Italian.”
“Am I supposed to add ‘in bed’ to the sayings like they do with fortune cookies?” He looks sinful, his perfect eyebrow arching arrogantly.
I flush. “I don’t think so. It would…ruin the poetics,” I mumble but all I can think about is Aiden saying in bed.
“Well, let’s see what my fortune holds.”
He fishes his note from the silver wrapping paper. I hold my breath.