by Lucy Lambert
He wanted someone to talk to about all this. The trouble was, Gwen was the person he normally went to, and he couldn’t exactly go to discuss this with her. He couldn’t even be sure he could see her.
So he wandered for a while until he came to a small café on the corner of a quiet intersection, only a few cars passing by, the hum of their engines quickly fading.
He took his phone out. Half a dozen new calls and three times that many texts deluged him. Most of them from Gwen.
He took a seat at a bistro table set up on the modest patio in front of the café. The table had a large umbrella that blocked out the blinding light of the morning sun.
He made the call, the phone ringing three times before someone answered. It was a gamble. He didn’t even know if she was still on this continent. “Hi. I’m hoping I’ve caught you on time. If you’re still here, could you come meet me at the café at the corner of...” he squinted over at the street signs and spoke them into the phone.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” The line went dead.
Aiden waited. A waiter came out and he ordered two espressos.
Her heels clicked on the pavement, announcing her arrival. Soon, she sat in the chair across from him. “What’s up? Also, did you sleep in that suit?” She wore a grey skirt and matching jacket, her glossy black hair free around her shoulders.
“Thanks for coming. I wasn’t sure who else I could speak with,” Aiden replied.
“Well, my trip was already paid for. I figured, hey, Swiss vacation,” Catherine replied.
The espresso arrived and she sipped at hers right away. Aiden liked the smell of it, but wasn’t sure whether to risk putting anything on his stomach just yet.
“Thanks for the caffeine. I take it from your hobo chic clothes and stubbly face that all is not well in the world of Aiden?”
“Something happened last night and I just sort of retreated from everything.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense!”
Aiden told her what happened. Everything. The meeting with Judith beforehand, the engagement ball redux, and of course the recording and its visual accompaniment. “I just don’t know how to feel and what to think about all this. I want to believe that Gwen isn’t like that, but I can’t get Judith’s warning out of my head. What do you think?”
Catherine smiled wryly and put her espresso cup back down onto its saucer. “You know, this really is helping in that whole getting over you thing I’ve been trying...”
“Glad to hear it,” Aiden said, “Any other thoughts?”
“Yes. And keep in mind I’m saying this for your own good. Not in any way, shape, or form related to your rejection...”
Aiden gave her a taut smile, “Yes. I’m sorry to sound a bit rude here, but can we get to the point?”
“Fine,” Catherine said, “You, Aiden Manning, are an idiot. A moron of such epic proportions I’m getting the urge to pen said epic about your idiocy. You’re so stupid that...”
“Okay, enough,” Aiden said, flinching at her every word, feeling that he somehow deserved each syllable. “What am I such an idiot about, pray tell?”
“Judith’s played you. She’s played you like a rock guitarist who then smashes their instrument on the stage at the end of the show. She’s gotten into that pretty, apparently empty head of yours and poisoned you against Gwen, and the worst part is you’re letting her do all this. Gwen loves you, you big dolt. I mean, of course Judith had that recording doctored! And that picture? I could grab your hand and kiss it right now long enough for someone to take a snapshot... Oh, relax! I’m not going to. It doesn’t mean a thing. It’s all so screaming obvious. Can’t you see?”
Aiden withdrew his hands from the table and clasped them on his lap. “I see,” he said.
“You know, I can’t believe I ever liked you as long and as much as I did. All this?” she said, waving her hand in a circle to indicate Aiden, “I can’t believe I never let myself see it before. Talk about your rose-colored glasses.”
“Are you quite finished?” Aiden said. Catherine’s constant stream of insults and jeering both irritated and, more surprisingly, cheered him. “I get it. I’m wrong about this and apparently I’m wrong about everything else, too.”
“Finished? Not yet,” Catherine said, leaning forward, “All this stuff makes you an epic dummy, but if you don’t get back there and sort this out with Gwen you’re going to lose her and that will make you quite possibly the biggest bonehead of all time. And just remember, if you let that happen, you no longer have all this...” She leaned back and indicated her body with her hands, “To fall back on.”
“You’re right! My God, you’re right. I need to get back to Gwen,” Aiden said. He put his words into action by putting some money down on the table for the espressos and then standing up followed by walking a few paces away.
Then he stopped and turned back around to face Catherine, who watched him with an amused smile. “I don’t suppose you know how to get back to the hotel from here?”
Catherine added an amused nod of her head to the smile.
Chapter 27
“I just don’t know what to do, B. I’ve tried calling him, texting him, going around to the rooms of people he knows. I even asked the auditors if maybe he came back and checked into another room... Do you think maybe he checked into another hotel? I think there’s a phonebook around here somewhere.” Gwen said.
Beatrice had stopped by half an hour earlier and proceeded to pound on the door until Gwen relented and let her in. At the moment, they both sat on the couch. Gwen had spent the intervening minutes dumping all her thoughts, fears, and feelings onto her best friend.
Gwen also still wore the dress from the previous night, and some residual wetness still glistened on her cheeks and smudged her makeup. She hadn’t gone to wash or change for fear of not hearing the phone.
“If you haven’t found him by this point, then that means he probably doesn’t want to be found, babe. You need to relax a little. I’m betting he just wants some time to think. Though you know if he does do anything bad I’m ready to lay the beat-down on him for you. He can’t even say I didn’t warn him, because I did,” Beatrice said.
“Do you think he will do something else? Do you think he’ll... leave me?” Gwen said, her throat constricting around the words. She kept spinning the engagement ring on her finger, letting the stones press into her skin.
“Not if he wants to stay so pretty, he won’t,” Beatrice replied, cracking her knuckles, “Besides, he’s going to realize soon enough that all that crap that old hag played last night wasn’t real. It was probably just too much for him to handle right then, hon.”
“You think? Are you sure?” Gwen had explained everything to Beatrice right away about the conversation with Ben. Much to Gwen’s relief, Beatrice had believed her.
“Positive. Hey, I’m thinking we could both use something as a pick-me-up. They have free coffee down in the lobby, I think. Am I right or am I right?”
Gwen’s eyelids did feel as though they were made of lead. She thought that maybe she’d dozed a few times over the night, but nothing she would actually deign to call sleep. And she did need to be awake in case Aiden called or came back.
“That sounds good... Though you know we have coffee and a coffee marker right over in the kitchenette, right? And B? Thanks so much for coming and talking to me. I should have done it so much sooner, but I was so caught up...”
“In all that new contract stuff? You really gotta stop doing that. You’re an addict, G! And yeah, you definitely should have come to me a lot sooner. But I’m here now, right? And I’m going to be back in five minutes or less with a couple steaming cups. Which, by the way, I’m going to get because I hate the packaged stuff they have here. That, and all the buttons on those machines are in freaky-deaky leiterhosen speak.”
Gwen did miss the way B’s character could fill a room. “See you soon.” She didn’t mention how Aiden had switched the programming on th
e coffee maker the day they got here for Gwen so that everything was in English.
Beatrice left, the door drifting shut behind her and the latch shooting back into place. Gwen picked up her phone, checking to see if she could have possibly missed a call or message. Still nothing.
Without Beatrice there, the suite felt quiet and empty. Soon, Gwen’s thoughts and fears began filling the void. The seconds ticked by, and Gwen wondered if five minutes had ever lasted this long before.
Then someone knocked on the door. Gwen remembered the latch shooting back into place, and how that automatically locked the door from the outside. Anxious to see her friend again, she jumped up from the couch and went over to let her back inside.
“That took longer than I thought it would,” Gwen said, pulling the door open.
Ben waited on the other side. He wore the same jacket he’d used to hide the recorder in, flooding her mind with those memories once more.
“Hello, love,” Ben said.
She tried slamming the door on him, but he stuck his foot beneath the jamb and she couldn’t budge it. “Go away!”
“Not yet,” Ben said, “Come on and let me in. I was doing you a favor, just let me explain it...”
***
Aiden rounded the corner of the hotel hallway with a million possible conversations and scenarios playing themselves out simultaneously in his head. His heart raced faster with every step that took him closer to the suite and to Gwen.
Obviously, the first thing he needed to do was apologize. Then he figured he’d tell her about what Judith had told him. Though he hesitated on whether or not to say he’d reached his epiphany about their situation with Catherine’s help. That’s probably a name she doesn’t want to hear right now, Aiden thought.
Then he decided to tell her, just lay it all out in front of her. No more little secrets or little white lies. Stuff like that is what had gotten them to this point in the first place. She loved him. She would understand.
He’d become so wrapped up in his scenarios that he didn’t notice someone standing at the door to their suite at first.
When he did he slowed and stopped, his hands clenching into fists again. Ben. Ben Somersby. The “reporter” with the recorder. Also the man who’d kissed Gwen, first on the lips and then on the hand. What is he doing here?
“Now why don’t you be a good girl and let me in like I know you want to?” Ben said, smiling. Aiden could see Gwen looking up at him. Why wasn’t she closing the door on him?
“Ben...” Gwen said.
Just hearing her say his name set him off. The anger he thought had cooled erupted again.
Aiden rushed forward. He grabbed Ben by the jacket and slammed him against the wall opposite the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Whoa, relax, mate. This jacket may not have been as much as the one you’re wearing, but it cost me a pretty enough penny...”
“Don’t pull that on me!” Aiden said, slamming him against the wall again, “What are you doing here?”
“Aiden!” Gwen said.
“Why is he here, Gwen? Why is this man at our door?” Aiden snarled.
“Just following up, actually,” Ben said, still possessing the nerve to grin, “Thought she might be a bit lonely after all that fracas last night, right?”
Something in Aiden snapped. He cocked his arm back and let fly. His knuckles connected with one of Ben’s prominent cheekbones, the sound of it like a dull smack.
“Aiden!” Gwen said.
Ben went limp in his hands and Aiden let go of him. The reporter dropped to his knees, a bright shiner already flowering out under his eye. “Not a bad punch, for a rich boy. Reckon your girl might want more of a man, though...” He grinned again.
Aiden punched him a second time. Ben collapsed onto the carpet and groaned. A sense of primal satisfaction flooded through Aiden, threaded with cold strands of fear and surprise. The bruised knuckles of his right hand already panged. Punching someone hurt.
“I’m going to sue you...” Ben said.
“Go ahead. I have the money,” Aiden replied, shooting a look back over his shoulder at Gwen, “Don’t I?”
Gwen shook her head and started saying something, but he waved her words away and started down the hall. He passed Beatrice, who had two paper cups of steaming coffee on a disposable tray.
“What just happened? What did I miss?” Beatrice said.
Aiden ignored her, bypassing the elevator and going straight to the stairs. His footsteps echoed all the way down to the ground floor. The burning in his knuckles only got worse.
***
“What was that? Hey, isn’t he the hand-kisser from the picture?” Beatrice said, coming up to the doorway where Gwen stood.
Gwen had her mouth covered with one hand, the other hand tightly clutching her side. He came back, she thought, He was here and he left again. And it’s all because of him.
The man in question, Ben Somersby, put his hand on the wall to help himself stand. The two bruises on his face looked about ready to meld into one larger one. “Lovely seeing you again,” he said.
“Get out of here!” Gwen replied.
Beatrice added, “Now! Unless you want to check getting beaten up by a girl off your to-do list.”
Ben grunted, probing at his face and hissing when he touched the bruises. “You don’t have to tell me twice. I was serious about the suing thing, by the way. I’d tell you to tell your man that, but I’m not so certain he wants to hear anything you have to say at the moment.”
“You Brits always talk too much,” Beatrice said, handing the tray of coffee to Gwen and cracking her knuckles, “Now stop yammering with your Monty Python accent and get lost. Unless what you’re trying to tell me is you want me to make you?”
“All vinegar, this one,” Ben said, trying to for another grin which turned into a flinch, “Yes, fine, I’m going. See?”
Beatrice waited until Ben rounded the corner down the hall before turning her attention back to Gwen. “Why did Aiden leave again?”
“He got so angry when he saw Ben, I didn’t have a chance to explain things to him. He’s gone again!”
“Here I am, bailing you out for a second time,” Beatrice said, “Let’s go. It’s only been a minute. He’s still close. We’re going to find him and we’re going to make him listen.”
***
Aiden reached the main lobby and stared about dazedly for a moment. Everything felt unreal, as though he might slip through the floor and into oblivion with every step. He’d really, truly believed that Catherine had been right.
Why, then, had Ben been at the suite?
Just thinking that name had his knuckles throbbing, and he massaged them as gently as he could.
There were too many people around. Some of them glanced at the state of his suit as the passed, or at the swelling of his knuckles. He didn’t need their stares right now. Going outside wasn’t an option; there were people out there too.
He remembered a quiet place then. The parlor. So he walked down the hall, numbly putting one foot down and then the other until the marble once against turned to wood.
Shoving the door open, he entered the gin-and-tobacco scented room. Empty, just as he hoped and expected. This time, his view of the mountains through the big window at the far end wasn’t obstructed by blinding sunlight. The peaks looked cruel and jagged and uncaring today.
He lowered himself into an overstuffed leather arm chair and let his head rest against the cushion. His eyes drifted shut, closing off the world. The throbbing in his hand worsened. Something in him wondered if he’d managed to break a knuckle on Ben’s face. The rest of him didn’t care.
The door swung behind him, the air shifting slightly as someone else entered the room. Aiden ignored them, hoping they would do the same courtesy.
“Mister Manning?”
He recognized that voice. It was someone else he had no interest in seeing ever again.
“Won’t Judith be needing you to go fe
tch her another hot pot of tea? I’m sure the one’s she’s on must be cold by now,” Aiden said.
The butler drew himself up, “Sir, my name is Gottfried von Haller. Yes, I’ve been tending to your grandmother’s needs. However, I have noted something that has caused me great concern regarding her attitude towards yourself and your fiancé.”
“What is this? Is this another game she wants to play? Because you can give her a very special message from me if it is,” Aiden said, straightening up in the chair. His fists began clenching again, but he stopped that as soon as his right hand complained by sending a jag of pain straight up his arm.
“I assure you, this is no game, sir. I believe that your grandmother may be growing rather regretful of what she’s done to you. And while there are certain expectations of confidentiality I am expected to follow, my alarm at her behavior and the consequences of it can no longer be ignored.”
Aiden fell back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “She’s won already. I... I don’t think I can go back. There is just too much I don’t understand.”
“Then perhaps you should speak with her. You may find her more willing to cooperate than you think,” the butler said.
“I take it from the way you’ve planted yourself in front of me that you’ll keep this up until I give in and take your advice?” Aiden said.
A small smile curved Gottfried’s thin, aristocratic lips. “Quite.”
“Lead on, then,” Aiden said, levering himself up to his feet.
Chapter 28
“You!” Judith said, “My lunch is almost fifteen minutes behind schedule! And my tea is cold. I’ve expressed before to you how I feel about cold tea.”
“Madam, Aiden Manning here to see you,” the butler said, bowing.
“Really? Send him in, then!”
When Aiden heard, he went into the sitting room and found Judith seated by a small table with a tiffany lamp on it.
“Hello, boy. I’m not sure I like what you did to that Englishman’s face. There are better ways to go about making your opinions known. And better ways to avoid such bruised knuckles.”