“I have a real life, and I don’t regret a second of how I’ve lived it.” That was true, but her words brought a moment of discomfort. After years of managing Remi’s acting career, watching her every move, and protecting her, he had struggled with handing over the reins to her and her husband.
Remi sighed. “You’re so frustrating. You don’t regret it because you’ve never done anything to regret. Don’t you see how that’s a problem, Aiden? You’re pushing forty and you’ve never messed up. You’ve never thrown caution to the wind and done something stupid.”
“Like ditching my bodyguards?” he challenged.
Remi had driven him crazy with her acts of rebellion, ditching several bodyguards before he’d hired Mason to watch over her. But Mason had done more than watch over her. He’d shown her how to experience life in all the ways she’d wanted, but in a safe and protected manner. It was no wonder they’d fallen in love.
“Yes, exactly like that!” Remi said excitedly. “Sometimes you have to break the rules. Look at me. I found the man of my dreams, and maybe you’ll find the woman of your dreams if you step outside your comfort zone.”
“I am out of my comfort zone,” he reminded her.
“No, you’re standing on the edge of your comfort zone doing everything you can to figure out how to cross the boundaries I’ve set up. Now you know how I felt for all those years. But I’m not trying to keep you safe. I want you to go out and be a regular guy. Not Aiden the father figure or Aiden the older brother. Not Aiden the manager of my acting career, and not Aiden the investor and billionaire. Just be Aiden, the amazing guy who gave up his life for me at twenty-four and never got a chance to have a social life or chill out.”
Aiden wasn’t a chill-out type of guy. He was a take-charge, make-shit-happen businessman who had built an empire while raising Remi and managed to pull it off without it ever being at her expense or compromising his business.
“Can you please do that for me?” Remi pleaded.
“Sure, Rem,” he said distractedly, pacing the patio of the Bistro, hoping Abby would show up. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the intriguing brunette with flyaway hair, a smile that brightened everything around her, and mesmerizing green eyes that were so big and beautiful, it was hard to look away.
“Good, but if you pull what you did yesterday, I swear I’ll come there and force you to relax. I know those weren’t your hairy feet in the sand. I bet you’re still wearing your loafers and a button-down shirt instead of the casual clothes and flip-flops I bought you.”
He looked down at his short-sleeve navy button-down, khaki pants, and loafers and said, “Hey, now, you stop right there. I’m wearing the shirt you gave me.”
“I guess miracles do happen. But I bet your feet haven’t touched sand yet, have they? How much did you have to pay that guy to get him to let you take a picture of his ugly feet?”
He chuckled and looked out over the water, the cool breeze kissing his cheeks. He had to hand it to her. She had picked an extraordinary spot for his vacation.
“I can’t believe you’re laughing. This is serious, Aiden. You need to learn to relax. Isn’t that the whole reason you and Ben groomed Garth and Miller to take over?”
Garth Anziano and Miller Crenshaw were two of the best directors Aiden and his business partner, Ben Dalton, employed. About two years ago, when Aiden and Ben had been on the cusp of taking over an international hotel chain, Remi had a stalker situation that needed to be dealt with. At the same time, Ben had found out he had a daughter and finally confessed his feelings for his best friend, Aurelia. Aiden and Ben had promoted Garth and Miller, and they’d taken several of their larger portfolios, alleviating much of their travel and time-consuming oversight. Though Ben had done a fine job of stepping back to spend more time with his new family, once the stalker situation was handled and Remi had taken a break from acting to get married, Aiden had jumped back in with two feet, filling his every second with work.
“I bet Garth would like to slap you upside your head for stepping on his toes,” Remi said sharply. “And don’t think Carrie didn’t call me two seconds after you called her asking for your messages yesterday.”
Carrie Worthington had been Aiden’s assistant for ten years, and she’d weathered Remi’s rebellion with him. She was in her late thirties, fiercely loyal, sharp as a tack, and one of the few people who could keep up with his busy schedule. Unfortunately, that loyalty hadn’t stopped her from shutting him down when he’d called and reporting the call to Remi. Luckily, his attorney was still taking his calls, which was how he’d been able to get the offer on the Bistro drafted and submitted.
“How much did you pay her to lock me out of my own company?”
“I didn’t have to pay her,” Remi insisted. “She worries about you, too. You know neither of us would ever jeopardize your business. By the way, she told me that you’ve already booked every minute after your vacation. You’re going overseas? We all know what that means.”
It meant he would work from sunup until well past sundown, just the way he liked it. “Remi, you know how important the quarterly meetings are. I’m not putting them off for this game of yours.”
“It’s not a game, Aiden. Carrie and Ben agreed to help me with this and make sure nothing slips through the cracks at your work, because everyone we know wants you to chill before you drive yourself to an early grave.” Her tone softened, and she said, “I know you’re not all I have anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need you around. And you have two foster nieces who need you, too.”
“Then why did you exile me to this island?” And why did I let you?
“Because that’s how much I love you. Oh, that reminds me! I have to tell you what Patrice did last night . . .”
As Remi went on about her adorable foster daughter, Aiden walked to the side of the patio and caught sight of Abby riding a bike into the parking lot. Riding a bike was on his to-do list from Remi. He’d thought it was a frivolous idea, but as Abby climbed off hers, flashing that gorgeous smile he’d thought about all night, it was starting to look pretty damn good—and so was she in those sexy cutoffs and a white sweatshirt with CHILL emblazoned across her chest in black, as if Remi had conjured her out of thin air and sent her to him.
He waved as she locked up her bike, and Remi’s voice brought him back to their conversation. He’d lost track of what she was saying.
“Hey, Remi. I’ve got to go. I’m having breakfast with a friend. Kiss the kids for me, okay? Tell them I miss them, and I’m going to give them great gifts when I get back.”
“A friend? You made a friend! You are doing my list! I want a picture!” Her expression turned serious. “Wait a second. Is this a business friend or a friend friend?”
“Since you forbade me from doing business, what do you think?” he said, feeling mildly guilty for putting in the offer on the Bistro when he’d promised not to conduct business. But as he watched Abby’s hips sway as she approached the patio, that guilt went out the window.
“Yay!” Remi cheered. “Male or female?”
“Goodbye, Remi. I love you.” He ended the call and slid the phone into his pocket. “Good morning, Abby. No run today?”
“Hi.” A mischievous smile curved her lips, and she said, “I’m not really a runner. I only do it when I’m stressed out. I was wondering if you’d actually show up.”
“I was wondering the same thing about you. I’m glad you came.” He put a hand on her lower back as they walked along the side patio. The breeze picked up the summery scent of her perfume: coconut and sunshine.
When they stepped around the corner to the front, her jaw dropped, delight gleaming in her gorgeous green eyes. “Who are you?”
“Just a guy on vacation having breakfast with a beautiful woman.” He pulled out a chair for her, making a mental note to try harder to be a regular guy. He’d spent so many years being guarded and professional, he wasn’t even sure he knew how to be a regular guy anymore. But th
ere was something unexpectedly exhilarating about not being known for his wealth or Remi’s celebrity and Abby riding up on her bike, delightfully surprised by nothing more than coffee and a croissant. Maybe his sister was onto something.
She studied him as they sat down, giving him a moment to do the same. She had the prettiest golden-brown hair hanging in thick waves to the middle of her back, a little wild and messy, parted in the center, with one slim braid peeking out from either side, and the type of smile that said You’re new and this could be fun! That smile reeled him right in, making him want to know more about what she found fun. A spray of adorable freckles dotted the ridge of her left cheek, as if they were marking her as special, begging to be touched, or maybe kissed.
“This is incredible, Aiden. But where did you get all this?”
“Here and there. I have a better question. Where did you get that sweatshirt? I need to get one just like it to appease my younger sister.”
“That was a smooth subject change,” she said teasingly. “Does your sister like to chill?”
He put his napkin in his lap and said, “She thinks she does, but the truth is, she’s too busy to chill. She and her husband run a program that provides duffel bags and quarterly birthday parties for foster kids, and they’re working on adopting their two foster daughters.” He smiled, thinking of the two girls who had instantly stolen his heart. “Patrice is five and cute as a button. She’s an inquisitive little thing, and calls me Uncle Aiden, which is pretty great. Olive is fifteen going on twenty-five. She’s an amazing kid, but she wears her heart on her sleeve, which worries me. I wish I could put their hearts in Bubble Wrap, you know? Or maybe a lead box, until they’re old enough to get past all the heartbreaks girls go through. They are the lights of Remi’s life.” As Remi’s name left his lips, a heavy dose of shock settled in, giving him pause. He’d spent years protecting Remi’s identity and he’d never talked about her personal life with someone he’d only just met. He gazed across the table at the woman who had somehow slipped past his guard without even trying and wondered what other powers she possessed.
“It sounds to me like they light up your life, too,” she said sweetly.
“Yes, without a doubt. I love those girls as much as I love my sister.”
Her gaze moved over their table, and she said, “Why do I have a feeling you spoil them rotten?”
“Who, me? Nah.” He took a drink of coffee and noticed her eyeing his blueberry Danish. He’d brought her a raspberry-and-Bavarian-cream croissant, as promised. “Do you like blueberry?”
“Was I that obvious?” Her cheeks pinked up. “I was wondering if you were a sharer. As much as I love Keira’s croissants, I’d do anything for one of her blueberry Danishes.”
“Really?” He arched a brow, making a mental note to stock up on blueberry Danishes. “I like a woman who goes after what she wants.”
A cute little laugh tumbled out, and she said, “I didn’t mean that.”
As he cut the Danish in half, she cut the croissant in half, sneaking glances at him, and said, “My sister and I used to do this all the time.”
She picked up half of the croissant to give to him at the same time he lifted his plate, allowing her to take her half of the Danish.
Her infectious smile grew even larger as she said “Sorry” and put the croissant back on her plate. She lifted her plate as he had.
“Don’t apologize for being yourself. It’s refreshing, and I’m taking mental notes. My sister tells me I need to relax, and I’m starting to think maybe she’s right.” He took the half she’d picked up and set it on his plate. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had breakfast with a woman who wasn’t a business associate. I’ve kind of forgotten how to turn off my work etiquette.”
She took her half of the Danish and said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had breakfast with anyone other than my sister. We’re total finger foodies.”
Finger foodies? She was too damn cute. “This sister of yours sounds like a big part of your life. You must be close. Do you work together?”
“No, but we took care of each other when we were growing up.” She bit into the Danish and moaned. “You are a god for sharing with me.”
“You should probably set that bar a bit higher,” he said, and bit into the Danish. “Mm. You were right. This is fantastic.”
“I know my baked goods.” She sipped her coffee, and her eyes lit up, her every emotion on display. “I need to ask Keira where she got this new coffee. It’s delicious.”
“Actually, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m a bit of a coffee connoisseur. I went to three coffee shops before I found Keira’s, and all of them served something that could pass for coffee, but . . .” He shook his head. “Keira’s was better than the rest, but this coffee is made from my personal stash of beans from northern Indonesia. Keira made me promise not to tell anyone she was doing me a special favor by making it for me each morning.”
She tilted her head and said, “So you’re a coffee snob.”
“I prefer connoisseur. Let me guess. Keira is your sister.”
“Okay, we’ll go with your fancy word, and no, Keira isn’t my sister. She’s a friend I grew up with here on the island.”
“Ah, the plot thickens. So you live here and know all of the island’s secrets.”
“I know most of the island’s secrets, but only because my best friend, Leni, has siblings who still live on the island. She keeps me up to date on all the gossip. But I live in New York, and my sister, Deirdra, lives in Boston. How about you? Where do you call home?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. I guess LA is considered home, but I’m not there much. I’m in finance, and I travel a lot, living out of hotels.”
She took a bite of the Danish, making another appreciative sound, and man, he liked those sounds.
“Tell me, Runner Girl, why were you so stressed yesterday?”
“Oh my gosh. So much has happened since I saw you, it seems like it was ages ago. For starters, this was my mother’s restaurant. She passed away three months ago.” A hint of sadness tainted her voice. “Two days ago we received an offer on the Bistro, and the night before I saw you, Deirdra had kept me up half the night trying to convince me to sell it, which is why I was stressed.”
Well, hell, his life just got a little more complicated, and there was no denying the tug he felt at the tinge of sadness he’d heard in her voice, which outweighed the minor complication. “I’m sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is to lose a parent.”
“Thank you. We weren’t that close these last few years, although I was closer to her than Deirdra was. Our father died when I was nine and Deirdra was eleven.” The sadness returned, thicker this time. “It’s a strange realization to accept that they’re both gone.”
“Oh, Abby.” He reached across the table and caressed the back of her hand, bringing her eyes to his. Her skin was soft as a rose petal, her gaze even softer. He had the urge to move his chair closer, to let her know she had a shoulder to lean on if she needed it. But he stayed where he was and said, “My parents are gone, too. We lost them when Remi was twelve. I was twenty-four at the time, running the Los Angeles division of my father’s company. I raised her from then on. I understand what you’re feeling, but I think strange realization is putting it mildly. I loved my parents deeply. If I hadn’t had Remi to raise, I probably would have lost my mind for a while. But she was so young and vulnerable and so very heartbroken. I didn’t have the opportunity to fall apart, and that was definitely a good thing.”
“Aiden . . . ? I’m so sorry. Looks like we have more in common than I would have guessed. I adored my father, and my mother was great when he was alive, but that was so long ago. She was never the same after he died, and neither were we. Deirdra and I pretty much had to raise ourselves after that and pick up the slack here at the restaurant.”
His heart took another hit, a bigger one, the kind that was usually reserved for Remi and the girls.
&
nbsp; “Deirdra has a lot of resentment toward my mother. Plus, she’s a corporate attorney and busy all the time. In fact, she’s working today from our mom’s house while I get started cleaning up the restaurant, and she has to go back to Boston tomorrow morning for a meeting. Needless to say, she thinks the Bistro is a money pit and wants to sell and leave the bad memories behind.”
It could be a money pit in the wrong hands. It might not look like much, but it was sitting on prime waterfront real estate and worth every penny of his three-million-dollar offer. For the first time in his life, Aiden hoped his offer would be turned down.
“And you?” he asked. “What do you want to do with it?”
“I want to keep it,” she said excitedly. “I know our mother was a mess after our father died, and that sucked. There’s no other way to put it. But I have years of happy memories of my parents, and those are the ones I hold on to. My mom was once so happy and in love, it radiated from her. I used to think I wanted to be happy like she was when I grew up, and work in a restaurant, cooking like my dad. But then I realized I don’t want to be her type of happy, because she wasn’t enough for herself after he died, and I get that. My father was an amazing man. He was French, and when he wasn’t behind the stove, he’d pull up a chair to chat with customers while they ate dinner. I watched their faces light up when he stopped by their tables, like he was some kind of celebrity or a member of their family they hadn’t seen in a while. He knew everyone, and if he didn’t know them when they walked in, he did by the time they left. My mom was the sun to his moon. She was as friendly and outgoing, but she also watched out for him. When he’d talk for too long, she’d put a hand on his shoulder and say, ‘Is my Olivier bothering you?’ and of course the customers would say no. But my dad would take the hint, and he’d say something like, ‘Mon amour misses me.’”
If Aiden knew one thing, it was that there was no room for emotions in business decisions, and Abby was clearly leading with her heart. Had she even reviewed the restaurant’s financials or worked up any future projections? Did she know what the operational costs were to run the business? Did she have the capital to fix the place up? To hire staff? Her sister called the place a money pit. Had Deirdra studied the data and made that call, thinking it smarter to sell? Every iota of his being wanted to warn Abby, to walk her through the necessary steps of due diligence before she made that big a decision, but that wasn’t his place. He was supposed to be Aiden the regular guy, not Aiden the investor, so he took a drink of coffee, swallowing those urges down deep.
Maybe We Will (Silver Harbor) Page 4