by Naima Simone
“Sorry, Sydney.” Aiden appeared at Noelle’s elbow, gripping her upper arm in a firm grip. Her heart thumped against her rib cage, her breath catching in her throat. For the first time in six years, he was touching her. Even though her jacket prevented skin-on-skin contact, she swore his heat seeped past the leather, branding her. Instinctively, she tried to step back, place distance between them. But his hold tightened, belying the calm, smooth tone of his voice. “Noelle and I haven’t seen each other in a long time. There are some things we need to talk over. Especially since she traveled so far.”
An edge sharpened his words, and she cursed the knot of anxiety that sat in her chest. But then again, most people didn’t bother peering past his gilded masculine beauty. She’d watched him tunnel his hands through his perfectly styled, golden hair in agitation. Seen his stunning, emerald eyes bright and diamond-hard with calculation. Observed the sensual curves of his mouth flattened by rage.
No, most only saw the playboy good looks and missed the stalking predator beneath.
“Aiden,” Lucas murmured, slipping an arm around Sydney. “Maybe you should come home with us.”
“No, we shouldn’t.” The cold resolve in Aiden’s tone practically warned Lucas to mind his own business. Christ, she hadn’t meant for her presence to incite dissention between them.
“It’s okay, Lucas. Thank you for inviting me, though.” She nodded at Sydney. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too, Noelle.” The other woman smiled, but when her gaze shifted to Aiden, her eyes narrowed. “Good night, Aiden.”
“It was good seeing you, Noelle,” Lucas said, then, with a hand on the small of his wife’s back, guided her out of the building and into the freezing November night.
“Trying to ingratiate yourself with my friends, Noelle?” Aiden murmured, the question almost pleasant, amused. “Sorry, that tactic didn’t work.”
Annoyed, she jerked at his grip again, and this time he freed her, the faint twist to his lips indicating he detested having his hand on her in the first place. Hell, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d rubbed his palms down his pants to rid himself of the Rana taint. She straightened her shoulders and gathered the façade of bravado she’d perfected over the years around her like a sheltering cape. Trying to ignore the shame that pierced her—shame made all the sharper and brighter because there’d been a time—a short time—when he’d seemed to enjoy touching her.
“Before you interrupted, I was going to decline her offer,” she said.
The corner of his mouth quirked, the gesture humorless, mocking. “And turn down the chance to use more people for whatever reason you’ve popped up here? I doubt it.” He pivoted, denying her a chance to reply. Not that she could. Fury and humiliation strangled the words in her throat. “Come here,” he ordered, heading back toward the ballroom and then veering off down a corridor.
He paused in front of a closed door with a gold plate that declared the room beyond “private.” But that obviously didn’t apply to him. Aiden walked in and flipped a switch, bathing the room in light. A long table flanked with big, leather office chairs dominated the space, and a floor-to-ceiling window granted a beautiful view of a large park. “Boston Common,” the signs she’d driven by had stated.
“I’m guessing there’s a purpose behind your dramatic entrance,” he said, sliding his hands into his pants pockets.
The action parted his tuxedo jacket and stretched the white shirt over the wide expanse of his chest and the flat plane of his abs. She jerked her gaze to the wall over his shoulder, disgusted with herself for noticing. But damn, a formal shirt really shouldn’t fit like a freaking wet T-shirt.
“I found your home address and went by your apartment building, but you weren’t there and security wouldn’t allow me to wait for you. No one was at your office either. Your company’s website had a mention about sponsoring the auction, so I took a chance you would be here.” She shrugged, exhibiting a nonchalance that was a blatant lie. “I didn’t mean to party-crash your flesh market. That kind of just…happened.”
Like shit happened. Usually bad shit.
“Right,” he drawled. “I have to admit, I’m pretty surprised at the tactic you chose. From what I remember, your brother was the showman with a flair for drama. You were a little more…subtle.” Conniving. Sneaky. She could easily read between those lines. “Is he act two? Does he or your father plan on showing up soon, too, if you don’t seal the deal?” He sneered.
Just the mention of her father, even when it was laced with revulsion, momentarily stole her breath. Pain lanced her heart, and she curled her fingers into a tight fist as if she could contain the grief, the loss, inside her hand.
“Tony isn’t with me, and Dad…” She paused, swallowed past the wedge of emotion clogging her throat. “Dad’s dead,” she whispered. “He passed four months ago.”
Years of drinking alcohol had taken its toll in the past two years. Frank’s health had steadily declined as he suffered first from hepatitis, and finally, dying from cirrhosis of the liver in July.
Silence permeated the room. Not a flicker of emotion touched Aiden’s face.
“I’m sorry for you,” he said, his tone quiet, soft…surprising her. Considering his hatred for her family, she hadn’t expected anything from him. Yet his four words somehow seemed more sincere than the effusive but empty, hypocritical platitudes from her father’s drinking buddies and cohorts.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Frank wouldn’t have won any awards for father of the year. However, when it would have been easier for him to abandon her like her mother had, he’d stayed and raised her to the best of his ability. And she’d loved him, warts and all.
“None of that explains why you’re here, though. You want something. So why don’t you just tell me so we can cut this”—he waved a hand back and forth between them—“short.”
Now or never. She tipped her chin up, steadily meeting his eyes when at the moment, she wanted nothing more than to run back to her beat-up old 2000 Honda Civic, get behind the wheel, and not stop until she hit the Illinois state line.
But when she’d packed up that same car with everything she owned two days earlier, she’d vowed to stop living for others and just start living. For her future. For her dreams. For herself.
“I need you to keep your promise.”
There wasn’t a need to elaborate; he’d only made one vow concerning her. And it’d been to his mother, the one person he held in the highest esteem. She was counting on that deep respect and love. Aiden would sooner break a promise to God than to Caroline Kent.
If possible, his face hardened even more. His full mouth flattened into a grim line, the slashes of his cheekbones and the lines of his jaw seeming more pronounced, more forbidding. His emerald eyes glinted. For an instant, Noelle was reminded of a sleek, silent cat, motionless and hidden, only the unblinking gleam in his eyes warning his prey of the danger stalking them.
“You really want to bring my mother into this?” he asked, the almost silken tone sending an ominous shiver tripping down her spine. A wise person would heed the danger in the deep, soft voice and back away slowly before getting the hell out. But desperation defeated wisdom as assuredly as a royal flush trumped a four of a kind.
“No,” she breathed. “But I don’t have a choice.”
She didn’t. Not when the stakes were so high. Her chance to rise above her past, to be something more than a “no-good Rana” teetered on this. Her dreams and plans hung in the balance.
“It isn’t enough that your father sucked my mother dry of everything—her joy, her money, her security, her home? It isn’t enough that he trashed her home, stole from her after she died? It isn’t enough that your brother…” He bit off the rest of the sentence, and Noelle fought not to flinch.
“It isn’t enough that my brother cheated with your fiancée behind your back,” she murmured.
A frigid silence descended between them.
“So you
know about that?” he asked, voice as soft as hers, but with a menacing note that had the hair on the back of her neck not just rising but cowering in fear.
She nodded. Tony had never admitted his betrayal to her, but Noelle had overheard his confession to their father. Shame slid through her like an oily sludge. Hell, he’d been bragging. But she’d keep that tidbit to herself.
“And yet you want me to fund a free ride for you,” Aiden continued. “That’s what you’ve come here to get out of me, isn’t it, Noelle?”
“That’s not fair,” she said, amazed her voice didn’t waver. Especially while, inside, she was shaking like the freaking Cowardly Lion. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t—”
“Desperate?” he interrupted with a sharp crack of hard laughter. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Look, I’m crystal clear on how you feel about my family, about me. Your loathing has never been a state secret. So believe me when I say if I had another option, you would be the last person I approached. But Caroline asked you to…” She closed her eyes, hating that she was here, the equivalent of crawling to a man who had obliterated her heart and pride, then stepped on the pieces on his way out the door. No, correction: to stomp on the pieces, he would’ve had to notice them. And he hadn’t. He hadn’t cared and hadn’t looked back. Yet, here she stood, pushing ahead, determined. And, as he’d pointed out, desperate. “I need you to keep your promise.”
“I offered you a check once, and you turned me down,” he said, voice hard.
“Yes, I remember. How could I forget?” she asked flatly. It had been complete with more zeros than she’d ever seen in her life. But the money had been stained with hate, with resentment and disgust.
While Caroline’s body had been riddled with pain, the ovarian cancer ruthlessly and greedily eating away her life, she had made her son vow to take care of Noelle.
“She’s going to need someone, Aiden. She has dreams just like you did. I wanted to help her achieve them, but that’s not going to happen. Not now. Honey, my will. I didn’t have a chance to change it before this cancer consumed every waking moment, but I’ve left her money. She wants to attend graduate school, and I want to leave her enough to cover it. Please, for me, make sure she gets the money to be happy… She deserves so much more than she’s been given so far…”
Even though Noelle had been hovering outside Caroline’s bedroom when her son had come to visit, the other woman’s whispery, pain-laced voice had reached her. At the time, an overload of emotion had washed over her—gratefulness for Caroline’s heart and thoughtfulness even as she suffered; love for the amazing woman who had been more of a mother to her than her own; and mortification that she’d pleaded with Aiden to take care of Noelle like a charity case. Even though Noelle and Aiden had been close then, shame had crept through her because she’d so wanted Aiden to look at her as an equal.
Only two weeks after overhearing their conversation, Aiden had tried to fulfill his mother’s last request. Tried, because standing in Caroline’s house among the overturned furniture, emptied drawers, and mess her father and brother had left behind after ransacking the house of valuables they could carry out, Noelle had declined the money. In that moment, the check hadn’t been one of love from Caroline, but a get-the-hell-out-of-my-life payoff. And in case she’d had any doubt, Aiden had told her he never wanted to see her or her family again.
So call it pride, guilt, or maybe stupidity, but she’d turned her back on the check and the man. Her father and brother might have suffered from ergophobia—a fear of work—but she hadn’t. That afternoon, she’d walked out of Caroline’s house—her home since the age of thirteen—and into a tiny, one-bedroom apartment that she’d worked a full- and a part-time job to pay for while managing to finish college. But then, a few years later, her father had become ill, and the money she’d saved for graduate school had gone toward a different purpose…
“At the time, I didn’t need it.” Lie. She damn sure could’ve used his assistance. But her pride had been part and parcel of taking the money, and back then, losing any more of it to him hadn’t been worth it. “Now…” Well, now, pride didn’t grant her a future that didn’t include low-paying jobs and an apartment in a building that, by all rights, should be condemned. Pride didn’t cough up tuition money so she could finally get back on the path toward obtaining her dreams. Yet those words refused to come, fear of his skepticism, or worse, ridicule, lodging them in her throat.
“Now?” He arched a dark-blond brow.
“Now, I want to go back to school,” she blurted, crossing her arms. Briefly closing her eyes, she pushed the remainder of the explanation out. “I know I’m twenty-five, but it took me five years instead of four to finish undergrad, and then I had to put everything on hold to care for Dad.” She’d been there—carrying him to doctors’ appointments, purchasing and picking up medications, cleaning up after him, making him as comfortable as possible. And paying his expenses and completely depleting her grad school-tuition savings while waiting for the long Medicare process to go through and be approved. The weight of his care had been on her, as her brother had dodged any kind of responsibility. As always. She loved him, but Tony was a chip off the ol’ block. “After Dad…died, I didn’t have anything holding me back any longer. I wanted a fresh start,” she concluded, aware her of her defensive, almost defiant tone.
What she didn’t add was that the desolation that had swamped her while lying on her bed staring at the water-stained ceiling a week after her father died had been overwhelming. Strangling. Because she knew the next morning she would wake up, go to work, come back home, cook, and go to bed, only to start the same soul-sucking cycle again. While her dreams of owning her own art gallery circled the proverbial toilet bowl day after day. Then, she’d remembered Caroline and her wishes for her. Years ago, she’d passed on the money out of pride. But pride would have her working her fingers to the bone for years trying to save and pay for graduate school. Aiden had been willing to give her the money once, and to him, a millionaire, the tuition would be one more entry on his P&L statement. But to her?
To her, it was everything. He literally held her future in his hands. Silence followed, so thick, so tense, she shifted her gaze back to him, bracing herself for his scorn. In her head, her brother’s derisive laughter echoed, followed by, “Give it up, Noelle. You’re too old to be chasing some fucking pipe dream.”
“What degree are you trying to earn?” he asked, his question abrupt.
She blinked, momentarily speechless. “An MBA.”
He frowned. “I thought you were pursuing a bachelor’s in art?
More blinking. Jesus, she probably resembled a demented Betty Boop. But damn, she hadn’t expected him to remember anything about her, least of all her college major. “I-I did. I have a bachelor of fine arts,” she stuttered. Clearing her throat, she lowered her crossed arms. “But I want to follow it up with a business degree.”
Because to convince a bank to grant her a loan so she could open and run her own art gallery, she needed more education, more experience. Thanks to her part-time job for a Chicago art dealer and her new position at a local gallery, which she would start the following Monday, she had the experience part covered. But the education, the knowledge of how to make the gallery a success? For that, she needed the money Caroline had once wanted to give her.
“What exactly do you want from me, Noelle?” He shifted forward, his tone hardening, the patrician lines of his face sharpening.
She inhaled a deep breath…a big mistake. His clean, fresh, rain-and-earth scent filled her until she could practically taste it. Taste him.
The hell? Where had that thought come from? Whatever feelings she’d once had for him had been ground under the heel of humiliation, rejection, and pain.
Curling her fingers into tight fists, she focused on her purpose for being here. Focused on the fact that she had to rely on a man who considered her a selfish, money-hungry user.
“I need you to pay my graduate-school tuition.” She paused. “For Boston University.”
“Boston University,” he repeated, ice dripping from each syllable. “You’re applying to Boston University.”
“Have applied,” she corrected, voice soft. Wary. “And have been accepted with a partial scholarship. I start in January. I can cover all of my other expenses. Only the rest of the tuition has to be paid.”
“What are you playing at, Noelle?” he growled. Anger seemed to radiate from him, beating at her. “Of all the cities and colleges, you choose here? Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not one of your father’s marks. You can’t con me. What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing,” she insisted, insulted. “I have an apartment and a job. I arranged those before I left Chicago. I’ve been providing for myself and others for years without your assistance, and I really don’t want it now, but I have no choice.”
Screw this. Yes, her father hadn’t been a model citizen—unless it was a citizen of the Cook County DOC. But she wasn’t him. She’d left her Chicago neighborhood behind so she would no longer be tainted with the same “no-good Rana” brush. The lazy, shiftless, lying, using, check-for-your-watch-if-she-shakes-your-hand brush she’d worked damn hard for twenty-five years not to deserve.
Damn if she’d let him—him—make her feel…dirty. Unworthy.
She stalked forward, allowing anger and hurt—yes, damn it, hurt—to propel her forward when caution would’ve been prudent…safer.
“Look, believe what you want. I could quote the damn Bible from Joseph to Jesus, and it wouldn’t change your opinion or erase your suspicions. But if you think coming to you and asking for help was easy, then all those millions have made you soft in the head.” She snorted, shaking her head. “At this moment, though, I need you to keep your promise to Caroline more than I care about offending your tender sensibilities with my presence. She wanted me to have the money. So how about this? Send the tuition payment directly to the university, and you don’t have to worry about seeing me again. You can go on pretending I don’t exist, and I can forego the pleasure of you staring at me like I’m something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe.”
