by Gina Ardito
Aidan, however, didn’t allow our waitress’s antics to go unchecked. Rising, he slid his chair around until he could sit right next to me. “You know what?” he said as he settled beside me and draped an arm across my shoulders. “This is better anyway. Now, where were we?”
“You were telling me about your mother’s wedding.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Huh? Of course he was.
Before I could correct him, though, he leaned close to whisper in my ear. “I was just about to kiss you.” His thumb brushed my chin, and he pressed his lips to mine.
The kiss landed soft as a kitten’s fur, and with the same melting effect on my heart. By the time he pulled away again, Chloe had disappeared.
“That was only a temporary fix, I’m afraid,” I told Aidan. “She’ll be back any minute with our brownie sundaes.”
“Good. More fun for me.”
Then he kissed me again, and I had no arguments left.
~~~~
Paige
“Tell me about Albany.”
I took a sip of iced tea before answering Sam. As promised, he’d grilled the mako and corn to perfection. My contribution, a chilled pasta salad with bleu cheese and bacon, added just the right tang. Food-wise, we made an unbeatable team. Our empty plates were proof of our culinary expertise. “What do you want to know?” I asked.
“Do you miss it? Living there, I mean.”
I gave a half-hearted shrug. “Sometimes. It’s a different world from here. Albany is bigger, noisier, busier. Not as big, noisy, and busy as New York City, but definitely more bustling than Snug Harbor.”
“You worked for the state, right? Did you like it?”
“Uh-huh. I worked in the comptroller’s office. I loved it. I didn’t always like it, but I really loved it.”
“Why?” He actually sounded confused.
I squirmed in my chair. What was this? An interview? Toying with my silverware, I stifled my impatience. Eating had given us an excuse not to talk. Now with dinner over, conversation seemed necessary. Sam was probably seeking common ground between us.
“I don’t know. Maybe because there was always something going on. Think about it. The state coffers hold more than fifteen billion dollars in payroll, nearly a hundred fifty million in retirement benefits, and nine billion in unclaimed funds. That’s a lotta scratch. Then there were the routine audits, local government spending, taxes. For a finance geek like me, every day the circus was in town. I never knew what I’d walk into on any given morning.” I flipped up my right hand. “Now I’ve come home, and the most activity I see on a daily basis is when Lou Rugerman calls to make sure his quarterlies were paid on time or Lisa Bloomfield asks if she can write off the cost of central a/c on her taxes because her son has asthma.”
He started to say something, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind helping everyone here. It’s just…Wainwright Financial is so much more…” I struggled for the perfect description and finally settled for, “…low-key. It’s a huge adjustment for me.”
“So why do it?”
An excellent question. One I toyed with whenever I was bored with my day-to-day rut, which of course, had been the reason behind my enthusiasm for Dara’s thirty day challenge. “I came home because Nia and Dad needed me. Now I stay to run the business. Someone has to keep my father’s legacy alive. It’s not fair to ask Nia to do it.”
“That’s not very fair to you, though, is it?”
I offered a weak smile. “Don’t get upset on my account. I like being here, too. I just wish my job was a little more exciting. And I miss all the people in Albany.”
“What, like your friends? You didn’t keep in touch?”
That actually got a laugh out of me. “No, silly. I miss the amount of people in Albany. There were too many to keep count. Everyone was a stranger to everyone else. Do you know I lived in my apartment for five years and still didn’t know everyone on my floor?”
He arched a brow. “That’s a good thing?”
“Sure. I mean, maybe not to you, but to someone like me, with a past to live down, it was heaven. I didn’t constantly get compared to my sister. No one knew about my weak stomach or my high school nickname. Best of all, I could walk into a drug store without being told to keep my hands where the clerk could see them.” Dropping my head, I rested my chin on my cupped hand and sighed. “I guess I miss being able to get lost in the crowd.”
“I can’t imagine you ever get lost in a crowd.”
My head snapped up. “Oh, please.” I sat up straighter and leaned across the table toward him. “Remember high school?”
“Do you?” He leaned closer to me. “I always knew where you were in high school. No matter how many other people were around.”
Our faces were now breaths apart, and if I stretched a little closer, I’d be kissing him. The air between us hummed with anticipation.
Coward that I am, I pulled back enough to allow us some emotional distance. Then, to be sure I broke any sensual spell the night might have conjured, I laughed. “Got that prickly feeling on the back of your neck when I was in proximity, huh? Like when there’s a mosquito in your bedroom at night. Turn on the light, the pesky bug disappears. In the dark, though, it’s constantly buzzing in your ear.”
Frowning, he slapped a hand on the table. “Why do you do that?”
His disappointment shook me. Whatever test he’d just conducted, I’d apparently failed. “Do what?”
“You always put yourself down. I don’t think of you as a mosquito or a spider or any other kind of bug. There’s nothing bug-like about you. Never has been.”
This conversation was becoming far too intense, but I sloughed off the warmth coiling in my belly and stabbed my index finger near his nose. “You’re forgetting my eyeglasses.”
“What eyeglasses?”
“Hell-o?” I rolled my eyes with more exaggeration than I’d used as a teen. “Ninth grade? Before I got my contacts I had those big black clunky frames with magnifying lenses that made my eyes look huge? Everybody called me Fly Eye. Ring a bell?”
It should. He was the one who first gave me the nickname. The minute he said the insult aloud, it became my talisman for the rest of the semester.
He waved off my sharp reminder. “You wore those god-awful glasses for…what? A month?”
“Three months,” I corrected. “Which in ninth grade time equals seven years.”
“I think you’re confusing yourself with a dog.”
“I think you’re forgetting what I looked like in those days.”
“There you go again.” He pointed his iced tea glass at me. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Why must you always insult yourself? Poor Paige, the math geek. Poor Paige, the M&M thief. Poor Paige, the other twin. We were all a mess in high school. Even worse in junior high. The difference is, the rest of us don’t dwell on it or beat ourselves up over it the way you do.”
“Yeah, well, the rest of you weren’t social pariahs, thanks to your mother’s hijinks.”
He grimaced. “Now you sound like Nia.”
I didn’t want to talk about my sister right now. Quite frankly, I didn’t want to talk about my mother, either. “Let’s change the subject. Why didn’t you ever leave Snug Harbor?”
“I never saw a reason to.” He shrugged. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”
Of course he did. Sam was the town’s Golden Boy. I imagine one day, the chamber of commerce would erect a statue in Sam’s honor. After he’d saved a dozen kittens from a burning building, or got an old lady out of a tree, or some other heroic act.
Before they moved away, his mom and dad were pillars of our little seaside community. Happily married almost forty years now, they had hosted charity functions, served on the school board, volunteered at civic events. Jonathan and Sophia Dillon were the closest Snug Harbor came to a society couple, our very own Kennedys. Except, no scandals were ever attached t
o the Dillon name. Perish the thought.
“How are your parents doing? Do they like living in Florida?”
Sitting back, he stretched his legs out away from the table, toward me. “It depends on the season. In winter, when I call them with our latest snowfall accumulation, they chuckle and ‘casually’ mention they’re sitting by the pool while I’m shoveling the sixty-foot driveway. In the summer, they complain the sun is so strong, they can’t go near the pool until night falls. That’s when they start reminiscing about the ocean breeze up here and dropping hints about flying up for a visit.”
“Maybe you should invite them to come up here in the summer. I’m sure they’d love to see you and all their old friends.”
He groaned. “Please! Don’t give them any ideas. Whenever we’re together, whether I go to them or they come to me, I suddenly revert to a nine-year-old in their eyes. It’s always, ‘Did you remember to go to the bathroom before we left, Sam, honey?’ And, ‘Let’s go buy you some new clothes.’ Or, ‘When are you going to get a haircut? I can’t see your gorgeous eyes.’”
“Well, they are nice eyes,” I told him with a smirk.
“Funny.”
I shook my head. “You know what? You don’t know how lucky you are. You still have both your parents, and they dote on you. I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”
“Great. Next time they’re here, I’ll let them stay at your place. Then, when they’re not reminding you to wash your hands before dinner, you can listen to them harp about how your refusal to get married denies them a bevy of grandchildren to spoil.”
“They have a point.” I held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating you get married to provide your parents with entertainment in the form of mini-Sams, but…well…you aren’t even seriously dating anyone. Maybe that’s why your parents still treat you like a child. Aside from your job, you don’t seem to have any adult responsibility. Isn’t there anyone in this town—or even a neighboring one—you’re interested in dating?”
Thwap! That put the ball firmly in his court.
“Oh, I have someone in mind,” he replied with a ghost of a smile. “But she isn’t willing yet.”
Whoosh! His reply flew past me, almost too fast, but I reached for it anyway. “What do you mean ‘she isn’t willing’? Have you told her how you feel?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
A deep frown etched his features. “Because she doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend right now.”
Poor Nia. At this rate, she and Sam would never get together. Thank God these two had me to play matchmaker for them. “Whoever she is, you should go for it, Sam. You’ll never get her attention if the poor girl doesn’t have any clue you’re interested in her.”
“I’m working on it. Soon, I hope, I’ll convince her otherwise. But now it’s my turn to change the subject. Did you leave some broken-hearted guy back in Albany?”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? I left a dozen of them. Men threw themselves off bridges when they learned I planned to come home for good. The entire city closed down the day I left. The governor coined it ‘the new day that would live in infamy.’”
His full wattage grin returned. “I knew it.”
We lapsed into a comfortable silence, and dusk closed in around us. The music switched from up-tempo party songs to sultry rhythm and blues. Fireflies danced on the warm evening air. My white lights twinkled in the trees, creating a mystical world where only we existed.
We. Me and Sam.
The idea sent butterflies flitting in my stomach. “I should clear the table before we attract bugs,” I blurted as I shot to my feet.
“I’ll help,” Sam offered in a similar rush.
I leaned toward his plate at the exact moment he leaned toward mine. The result was inevitable. We wound up with our faces breaths apart again.
“Go for it, right?” he muttered, and then his mouth claimed mine.
A rush of emotions flooded through me, and my head spun. His lips were firm but soft, sweet with a lingering hint of lemon from the fish and the iced tea. We fit together perfectly, two halves becoming one whole.
Somewhere, in the loneliest corner of my brain, a voice cried out a warning. Something about Nia.
Nia! Oh, God, what was I doing? Encroaching on the guy my sister loved. This was bad. And wrong. So very wrong.
I broke away, breathless, and more than a little ashamed of myself. Because for the first time in over a decade, I was bitterly jealous of my twin.
Chapter 15
Nia
Daylight still hadn’t relinquished a hold when we left Valera’s. I had to shield my eyes with my hand until I adjusted to the difference from dim restaurant to bright outdoors. I’d forgotten that dinner at 5:30 in the summertime meant that, even after a three-course meal, early evening retained the light of late afternoon. In fact, the sun sat on the waterline by the shore next door, fully prepared for a glorious, colorful exit. Dozens of people milled on park benches, waiting to view another spectacular East End sunset.
Aidan took my hand. “Come on.”
As he led me over the rocky beach, closer to the water’s edge, a crazy thought burst into my head. I could get used to this.
Wait. What was I thinking?
Do you know who my fiancé is? This time, I couldn’t ignore Camille’s voice in my head. Because not only did I know her fiancé’s background, I had also become familiar with her soon-to-be stepson’s pedigree.
Aidan Coffield was practically royalty with his rich, successful father and an Italian noble mother—even if that noble title came through a second marriage.
What on earth did he see in me?
I didn’t need a psychic to figure out the answer to that question. For him, tonight was nothing more than a fling, a walk on the low side of town. And he couldn’t get socially lower than one of the Wainwright girls, with their floozy mother and poor, cuckolded father. I’d heard a radio deejay use the term, “cuckold,” one morning and thought how descriptive it was. In just seven letters, “cuckold” summed up all the adjectives associated with what my father became: distrustful, miserable, lonely, a laughingstock. A loser.
I shivered.
Aidan stopped walking and turned to me, eyes narrowed with concern. “Are you cold? Here, come closer.” He pulled me in front of him, wrapped his arms around me, sharing his warmth and allowing me a front row view of the sun sinking into the horizon.
Just for tonight, I told myself. Just for tonight, I’d forget he and I came from two very different worlds. Just for tonight, I had no sordid history. I deserved one night with a Prince Charming. Tomorrow, this Cinderella would go back to her small-town existence, and her storybook romance would be a memory.
Resolved, I shoved my dismal thoughts aside and focused on the blood orange sun disappearing inch by inch, minute by minute. “God, that’s beautiful,” I exclaimed.
“Yes, you are,” Aidan murmured, his breath warm against my ear.
Just for tonight, I insisted again.
Although the night was still in a newborn stage, I knew my time with him would come to an end the minute that fiery ball disappeared into the sea. If tonight was all I had, I wanted to make my time with him as enjoyable as possible. I twisted in his arms, craning slightly so we were face-to-face. The evening had turned out so well, I didn’t want silence to bring the slightest discomfort between us. I racked my brain for something to talk about, then remembered the news articles I’d discovered online earlier when I’d researched his name.
“When’s your new vineyard scheduled to open?” I knew the answer, of course, but he didn’t know I knew.
He turned his attention away from the sunset, giving me the full impact of those gorgeous espresso-colored eyes. “Officially? Next month. That’s when I’ll introduce the first bottles and host a tasting event for the press. I’m particularly proud of our Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. I think those two are going to be the crowd-pleasers.
”
“And unofficially?” I asked.
“Unofficially, we’ve been working behind the scenes for nearly four years now.”
Wow. Four years? I had no idea. “Is that how long it takes to make wine?”
“It’s how long it takes to get a new vineyard up and producing. I suppose if I’d started with an existing winery, I might have cut that time in half, but I’m not a halfway guy. Something my father discovered too late…”
His lips tightened, and I sensed an undercurrent of tension. Strange how every time the topic of his parents came up, he seemed displeased. While I didn’t know the reason, I fully commiserated with the reaction. Therefore, I wouldn’t pursue an avenue that might land me in an unpleasant conversation neighborhood.
“I’ve never been to a vineyard,” I said.
“Never?”
I shrugged, admitting nothing. Until now, I’d never had the slightest interest in vineyards or winemaking.
“Would you like a private tour of Piping Plover? I happen to know the owner pretty well.”
I smiled. Of course he did. So did I. He was cradling me close against his chest, and I never wanted to leave his embrace. “Do you think the owner will mind? I don’t want to be a pest.”
He kissed the top of my head, another unusual benefit to a woman of my height. Yes, Aidan Coffield was definitely my prince. Just for tonight.
“You, sweetheart, could never be a pest. I’ll take you there on Friday, if you like. That’s your next day off, right?”
“Uh-huh.” A frisson of delight tickled my flesh, whether from the invitation or the way he called me sweetheart, I didn’t know. Cinderella, however, heard the first chime of the clock striking twelve. “I should head home. I’ve got a few things to take care of before bed.” Yeah, like returning to real life.
He tightened his hold on me. “Stay, please. At least until the sun sets. I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”
Honestly, neither was I, but I knew I was playing a very futile game. I surrendered easily.
