by Exley Avis
“Lucky you. I didn’t have that luxury.” Again the rebuke but nothing more than Erika deserved and she didn’t argue. “Every time I opened a newspaper, turned on the radio or went online, there you were.” Feeling he was losing control Aiden made an effort to regain it, unable to look at Erika for a moment. “In any case, you haunt this place,” he said eventually. “Missing you was unbearable, with or without a photograph. At least it reminds me how happy we once were.”
“We could still be happy,” Erika ventured, not daring to look at him and wondering how many more colossal hints she needed to drop before they started having the conversation she’d flown six thousand miles for.
“Happy together?” Aiden apparently didn’t agree. “Don’t you think it’s been too long?”
“No.”
“Then I admire your optimism.” Although there suddenly seemed very little admiration in his voice, and not a great deal of warmth either.
Wanting to reverse out of their conversational one-way street, Erika returned her attention to the canvas. In it, Aiden’s hand spread possessively across her stomach and his legs entwined with hers as if they’d just finished making love. She wouldn’t have liked to see such an erotic image in the house of any man she dated and asked the obvious question.
“Don’t other women find this picture intimidating?”
“No.” The word rapped out sharply and he glared at her. “Because I don’t bring other women here.”
“Oh.”
Tears of disappointment stung Erika’s eyes, even though she fought to hold them back. What had she expected? It had been a year after all. Of course there were other women.
Suddenly, the urge to know everything overtook her, even though she guessed the answers would hurt her more than she could bear.
“Are you seeing anyone at the moment?” she therefore asked, no longer caring about her lack of subtlety.
“Yes.” Again, no hesitation and a dart of anger at her intrusion. His tiger’s eyes burned into her.
“How long have you been together?”
“A couple of months.”
“Serious?”
“She is.”
An unseen hand reached in and grasped Erika’s heart, ready to squeeze the life out of it. Her blood pressure plummeted and she ran cold, her body weightless. Tears began falling large and hot down Erika’s cheeks.
She wanted to run – to take herself off and hide so none of this would be true – but Aiden hadn’t finished with her yet. Anger flared in him at the sight of her tears and he grasped her shoulders, pulling her toward him roughly.
“What did you expect, Erika?” he demanded, his fingers tightening painfully. “Did you imagine I’d limp back to London and spend the rest of my life alone, pining for you?”
“Of course not.” She struggled to calm him but he’d lost control and tightened his hold on her.
“How dare you cry? I was the one who waited three months. And then six.” At each full stop he shook her. “Still the phone didn’t ring. I spent weeks expecting every call to be yours. But even when the trial ended - nothing.”
“I was ill.” Erika rushed to justify herself. The first early weeks rushed back in on her, pulling every torn emotion and tear-broken night back to the surface. Pain swamped her, as fresh and cruel as it had ever been and she sobbed. “You’ve got to believe me. After the trial, I simply broke down. If it hadn’t been for Ben and Richard I might have gone crazy.”
“I did go crazy,” Aiden shouted. He released her so quickly she staggered back against the desk. “I felt you touch me in my sleep. I thought I saw you on every street corner. I’d come here and convince myself I heard music.”
“Oh Aiden.” Erika laid her hand tenderly against his stubbled cheek, finding his skin surprisingly cold and feeling his jaw clench angrily beneath her palm. “I swear I never meant to hurt you like this. I wish I could rewind time and take this away but I can’t.”
Aiden jerked his head roughly to one side so her hand fell away, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “We can’t go back.” His voice was cut through with cruelty, the words designed to wound. “Whether or not you were thinking straight, you ripped my heart out and left a gaping hole inside me. It’s still there.”
The image made Erika crumble and she cried uncontrollably. Such love. Such loss. And she’d been the one stupid enough to throw it away.
“Then let me fix you,” she begged. “Let me put the pieces back together again.”
“I can’t. It’s taken a year for the pain to become bearable. I daren’t risk opening that wound again.”
“It’s not a risk.” Erika panicked as the argument slipped away from her. “I want us to be together, Aiden. That’s what I’ve come all this way to tell you.”
“Well you could have saved the plane fare.” His eyes reflected utter defeat. “Love doesn’t come with a no-risk guarantee. And you can’t expect me to put my sanity on the line by giving you a second chance. How do I know you won’t do the same thing again?”
“I won’t. I promise. I love you far too much for that.”
“You love me?” Aiden repeated the words furiously and rounded on her. “How the hell can you stand there and say that after what you did? You destroyed me. No one hurts the person they love that much.”
“Oh don’t they?” Tired of begging, the gloves came off and Erika retaliated. “What about first time around? I loved you then but you still went to bed with someone else.” The scene replayed vividly in her mind and the tears came afresh. “You destroyed me but I gave you a second chance.”
“Well maybe that’s where we’re different. Perhaps for me it’s once bitten, twice shy.”
“Then that’s not fair.”
“Who’s talking about fair?” Aiden exploded and put the width of the room between them. He clenched his fists and looked ready to put his hands around Erika’s throat. “I loved you. I opened up my chest and put my heart in your hands. But it turns out you couldn’t have cared less.”
“I did care. I still do.” Appalled at his false opinion, she rushed to her own defence. “All I’m asking for is the chance to make it up to you. To spend my life repairing the damage I’ve caused.”
“I’m sorry.” He seemed far from it. “But I’m not letting you anywhere near me again.”
He stood firm; too obstinate and proud to back down, and the pain splitting open Erika’s heart became unbearable.
“You’ve got to take me back,” she cried. “We can’t give up on everything we were to each other.” Her hand spread across his chest, feeling the explosive rhythm of his heart and hating herself for having made him so miserable. “Please Aiden. I’m not too proud to beg for a second chance.”
His expression registered his decision before the words did. “I can’t,” he said on a huge sigh. “I’m sorry. But, for me, there’s no going back.”
“You can’t mean that.” Erika wouldn’t allow herself to believe it. Couldn’t give him up so easily. “I love you, Aiden. More than life itself. I was a fool to send you away and stupid to leave it so long before coming back. But that still doesn’t alter the fact that you’re the love of my life. I can’t live without you.”
“Well you’ll have to. Just like I did.” His face contorted with contempt. “Did you honestly think that turning up here out of the blue would fix everything?”
“Of course not. I have so much to make up for.”
“Too much.” There it was again. The finality. The thick, black line drawn under what they’d once been to each other. “It’s over, Erika. Done. I won’t allow myself to be that vulnerable again.” He corrected himself. “I can’t. Not even for you.”
Erika grew desperate, throwing everything she could into fighting for her love, life and future. “I know you’re too proud – or maybe even too terrified – to admit it, but you’re still in love with me.”
“You can’t say that. It’s been too long. You don’t know me any more.”
For a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of indecision but it passed quickly, leaving Aiden taut and unconvinced. The defences went up for the final time and he withdrew from her both physically and emotionally.
“You once said our relationship might only be about sex and memories,” he reminded her. “And I now know you were right. It was a fling. Fun. Intense. And exciting because it was so risky. Nothing more.”
“How can you say that?” Erika heard Aiden describing a different couple. “We were so much more to each other – and still are. We can’t throw it away because of my mistakes and your damaged pride.”
“It’s no good.” Again the certainty that it had to end. “You’ve hurt me too much. I’ll never trust you again. Even if I did still love you, I couldn’t go back there.”
Although she’d heard him say it, Erika refused to believe it. Making amends would never have been easy but she’d naively believed that wanting him enough – loving and wishing enough – would bring him back to her.
Now she saw how desperately wrong she’d been.
Her newly-healed heart broke and collapsed in on itself. “So that’s it? We’re over?”
Aiden shook his head. “We were over a long time ago. Since I left America, I’ve been learning to leave all that heartache behind. I’m moving on, selling the house, packing away the memories and building a relationship with someone else.”
“Do you love her?”
Aiden’s quickly-concealed surprise showed he hadn’t expected such a direct question. He allowed himself only a moment’s thought.
“Cally’s beautiful. She’s good company. She loves me.” His eyes silently asked Erika whether she could really blame him. “Maybe all that makes her a safer pair of hands for my heart.”
It made no sense. The Aiden Erika knew and loved wouldn’t have given in this easily, or have been content with something so imperfect.
“How can you settle for so little after everything we had?” she demanded.
“It’s a question of survival.” The bravado and certainty slipped from him, exposing him as vulnerable and prepared for the inevitability of their break up. “I’ve finally worked out that it’s better to love someone less, rather than risk loving a woman who’s so ingrained in my soul that my body shuts down without her.”
Only at that moment did Erika understand that sending Aiden away had altered his DNA; making him a different person, one for whom trust, vulnerability and love would always now be words from a foreign language.
One he no longer spoke.
He deserved better. He was entitled to more than the pain she’d caused him. More than the heartache she’d forced upon him. If she truly loved him, Erika had to return the favour he’d once done her and give him back his sense of self.
Even if that meant letting him go to someone else.
And the only way she could do that, was to leave.
Reaching up, she drew the backs of her fingers down his cheek before resting her thumb on the centre of his lips. They gathered into the gentlest of kisses that told her the most violent of goodbyes and her heart shattered into a thousand pieces that would never now be reassembled.
Before life and strength deserted her, she turned away from the man she adored and ran out of the house.
Chapter Twelve
Erika now wished she’d driven straight up to London but she’d only just made it back to her car.
Blinded by tears, she’d fumbled her way out of Aiden’s house and across the fields, running as though all her demons were in pursuit. Her ears had strained for Aiden’s voice, shouting for her to turn around and come back to him, but the only sound had been the rush of the water and the swish of her legs through the long grass.
At the pub, she’d packed quickly but had been crying too hard to consider driving. Instead, she’d flung herself onto the bed and let desperation and loss overtake her. Her broken heart had spilled so many tears onto the pillow, she’d prayed for her body to run dry.
Yet every thought of Aiden had brought a new flood and she’d drowned in her own misery.
Now she lay listening to the church clock strike ten and wishing herself back in London – or California, or anywhere else a million miles away from Aiden – but the better part of a bottle of wine had committed her to staying the night. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep punctuated by disturbing dreams in which confused pictures of Aiden raced through her head. Only in them, he was the one running away.
Away from her and toward Cally.
Taking Cally in his arms and kissing her the way he’d once kissed Erika.
Loving someone else when he could still have been loving her had she not been fool enough to throw it all away.
Erika couldn’t bear it and shot awake. The dream had been so vivid she imagined she could still hear Aiden calling her name, over and over, and she sat up, breathing hard. But then the sound came again, accompanied by a knock, and she realised it was no fantasy.
“Aiden,” she called out, praying her mind and half a bottle of wine weren’t playing tricks on her.
His sigh of relief carried through the thick door. “Thank God. Let me in,” he said. “I need to see you.”
Erika’s hand hesitated on the latch, knowing her heart wouldn’t survive another confrontation. “I don’t want to argue any more,” she said. “I can’t…”
He rushed to reassure her. “I won’t argue. I promise. Just let me see you.”
Knowing she owed him at least a fair hearing, Erika unlocked the door and stood aside. In the semi-darkness Aiden overpowered the small bedroom, his head grazing the ceiling and his shoulders too wide for the confined space. Unable to see her, he switched on the bedside lamp but Erika turned away to hide her tear-blotched cheeks. He caught sight of her and groaned.
“Oh, no. Look at your lovely face,” he said, taking it between his hands and wincing at her swollen lips and heavy eyes. “I am so sorry, my love. Can you forgive me?”
He bent to kiss her, his lips merely brushing hers, teasing and coaxing her, but she refused to yield and turned her head aside.
“Don’t.” She pulled his hands away even though it nearly killed her to lose his touch. “We’re over. You said so yourself. You’ve moved on.”
Aiden shook his head emphatically. “I was hurt and angry. I lashed out.” Troubled eyes begged her to believe him. “How could I ever move on from you?”
“But Cally…?”
“I don’t love her and never will, no matter how much she wants me to.” He had the grace to look guilty. “I love you, not her.”
“You love me?” Not past tense, but very much in the present.
“Why else do you think I’m here?”
Erika wished her heart dared make the leap of faith required to believe him but its pieces were scattered too far apart. She couldn’t allow her hopes to be raised and dashed for the second time that day. She felt too fragile already.
“For all I know, you’ve only turned up looking for sex,” she said, confusion making her sound sharper than she’d intended. “But I refuse to wind up as Cally’s version of Little Miss Naked.”
A very naughty smile played across Aiden’s lips giving Erika’s libido a jump-start. The thought had obviously occurred to him.
“Well that’s my evening ruined then,” he said, feigning disappointment. “Although, I remember you using me for sex once upon a time. Surely I’m allowed my turn.”
“You enjoyed it,” she snapped, not wanting to think about Yorkshire and wishing he didn’t look quite so sexy.
Good enough to eat, in fact. His white T-shirt accentuated his early tan and his jeans clung around his hips, reminding her
of the taut, powerful, very creative body lying underneath.
“I hardly had to force you,” she reminded him.
“I won’t pretend I didn’t love it.” His eyes widened fleetingly. He obviously saw nothing to be ashamed of. “Being thrown on the bed and pleasured to within an inch of my life by a beautiful woman made me realise what I’d been missing for five years.”
“Well I hope you’ve not come back to refresh your memory.”
“Is that an offer?”
“Definitely not.”
Aiden’s smile broadened seductively and Erika’s guard dropped just enough for him to detect the beginnings of a thaw. He unashamedly took his time enjoying the sight of her in the tiny vest and shorts she’d worn to bed. His eyes feasted on her newly rounded hips and breasts that stretched her top disturbingly thin and semi-transparent. She blushed and wished she’d thought to cover up before opening the door.
“I still don’t understand,” she said, wishing the room were bigger so she could put real distance between them. “A few hours ago, you hated the sight of me. You practically threw me out of the house.”
”I could never hate you.” The hungry look in his eyes signalled his very different feelings toward her. “But I did a lot of thinking after you’d gone.”
“About what? You were set on selling up and moving on with Cally.”
He inched forward but Erika backed away, right up against the dressing table so she could go no further.
“Even if I did love Cally, she wouldn’t have stood a chance once I’d heard your CD,” he said, less than a foot away from her now.
Without taking his eyes off her face he let his fingertip drift down her bare arm from shoulder to wrist, watchful for the merest trace of a response. Erika struggled to suppress the rush of sensations igniting within her and concentrate hard on what he was saying. She couldn’t afford to lose her reason with her future at stake but the nearness of him made it impossible to think straight.