Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)

by Ani Keating

No matter how scientifically I try to dispel the theory, the terror is so strong that my knees give out and I sit in the bathtub for a while. I’m not crying. It’s one of those numbing pains that freeze your tear ducts. I’ve had another pain similar to this. It took weeks then before I could cry. My mind is idle, which is worse than empty. Emptiness is where a mind can sit still for hours. Idleness is a meddler. It looks for things to do, images to conjure, feelings to dredge up, questions to ask. Tonight, I can’t afford idleness. I try to focus only on the good things until the water runs cold. I stand up, turn off the shower and dry myself, ignoring the way the towel smarts against Aiden’s love bites.

  In my room, I put on my soft flannel PJs, turn off the light and let the night have me. I don’t have dreams exactly. Instead, I see images thrown together by a crazed mind. Aiden, the flickering lights, the vicious tension of his shoulders, the way they relaxed when I touched them, his memory, his nightmare, his issues with doors and walls, the meeting with the lawyers, over and over again. Like a song stuck to the brain or a word on the tip of my tongue. Is my mind reliving or discovering? I’m just not sure.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Long Night

  My day with Javier was easier. And harder. It was easier because I worked for fifteen hours straight and came up with a formula for nontoxic paint. So now I’m finally exhausted, and exhaustion is what I need tonight to be able to sleep.

  But it was harder because no matter what I did, a small voice repeated in the back of my head like a broken vinyl record, Aiden Hale. Aiden Hale. Aiden Hale. He called Feign to cancel the painting—which made it final—but he still paid Feign his full commission, which made it worse. How can I get over a man who keeps saving me in every way?

  “So the sale is supposed to be tomorrow?” Javier confirms as he pulls up in front of my apartment to drop me off.

  “I think so. We’ll see if he has called.” My stomach starts knotting. I had the brilliant idea of leaving my phone behind to avoid conversation. So, of course, all day I’ve been nervous about what sort of message is waiting for me at home, or worse, that there will be no message at all.

  Javier clutches my shoulder. “It’ll be fine. You’re doing the right thing.”

  I nod, envious of his conviction. “I’ll let you know what happens. Thanks for today.”

  I give him a hug and get out of the car. Calico is lounging in his spot on the sidewalk, waiting for his daily scratch. I wave at Javier and snap a picture of his Honda Civic as it clunks away past a shiny, black sedan.

  Inside, Reagan is on the couch watching Chatty Man in her KISS ME, I’M BRITISH T-shirt. She is absorbed in Alan Carr’s Britishisms for drunk, giggling and trying to imitate them.

  “Pissed up and off the face,” she annunciates at the TV but when she sees me, she mutes her phonetics practice. “Hey, luv. How was your day with Javier?”

  “It was good. We worked a lot. Hopefully I won’t get him fired with my painting job.” I yawn. Yes, physical labor is working.

  “Did you tell Denton about your million-dollar sale?”

  “Yes, I called him from Javier’s phone. He’s beside himself. He demanded to come with me to the sale.”

  “That’s great!” Reagan claps. “You’ll have a buffer from the dragon. Speaking of which, I’ve been fielding calls from that asshole all afternoon. Thanks so much for leaving your cell behind.”

  I hate the relief and terror I feel at her words. “Sorry, Reg. What did he say?” I wheeze.

  Reagan snorts. “Well, the first time was around two, and he asked for you to give him a call. I said ‘fine, whatever’ and hung up.” She sounds disgusted that Aiden had the nerve to call our apartment. “The second time was in the middle of dinner and when I said you weren’t here, he demanded to know when you would be back. I told him I had no idea when your date would be over.” Her green eyes glow in a way that rivals Calico’s.

  I sink in the couch, my hand flying to my mouth. “You told him I was on a date?” I whisper through my fingers, horrified.

  “Yes. And don’t give me that look. If you ask me, you deserve a real date after that stunt Aiden Hale pulled yesterday.” She looks like she is ready for the boxing ring. The only things missing are the gloves.

  “Reagan, why did you do that?” I wail, but my voice is drowned by our phone ringing. I whimper and jump up.

  “I bet that’s him again.” Reagan purses her lips like she is eating a lemon. “You want me to get it and say you’re spending the night?”

  “No. I’ll get it,” I call as I sprint to the kitchen.

  She is right behind me, looking very much like a bodyguard. I open the recipe drawer and turn it inside out digging for a paperclip. I find two. Ring, ring, ring. Ring, ring, ring. Deep breath. Oxygen, 15.999.

  “Hello?” I answer. Thanks to the paperclip and a massive internal effort, I sound normal even though I’m a bigger mess than the immigration system. Reagan gives me the thumbs-up.

  “Elisa.” Aiden’s voice is quiet, yet every cell in my body responds instantly. I’m ready to run to him and from him at the same time. I sink on the kitchen chair.

  “Hello, Mr. Hale.” The formal address burns my tongue but Aiden would be more painful.

  Reagan gives me another thumbs-up.

  There is a long pause. My paperclip is now a straight wire.

  “How was your day?” he asks after a few moments, his deep voice even.

  “It was good, thank you. Reagan said you called.” My voice is even too. I should get an Oscar for this. Reagan’s raising-the-roof gesture confirms that my performance is solid.

  He pauses again and clears his throat once. “Yes, I drafted the agreement with standard terms, but we can change it if you wish. Does tomorrow still work for you?” For the first time, his voice wavers but it’s so brief that I can’t be sure if it’s bad reception, static or something else.

  “Yes, it does. By the way, Professor Denton is beyond himself with excitement and has asked, or rather begged, that he comes tomorrow. He has been there from the beginning, and I’d like to give him that opportunity. Is that all right with you?”

  Another pause.

  “Yes, that’s fine.” His voice is clipped. The dragon is alive and well and it’s taking aim at poor Denton.

  The longer I’m on the line, the more my knees tremble. It’s a matter of time before my voice starts to shake. I have to quit while I’m ahead.

  “So what time tomorrow, Mr. Hale?” Reagan hands me a pen and notepad as if there is any chance I would forget.

  “How about ten at my office? I can send Benson to pick you up.” His tone is softer.

  “Ten works but I don’t need a ride. Professor Denton will feel very slighted if I ride with anyone but him. But thank you for the offer.” I stick to British gentility, which is going to be my theme tomorrow.

  “My pleasure, Elisa.” It sounds like he wants to say something else. He stays on the line.

  “Thank you for putting this together so quickly for my benefit. I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.” Reagan breaks into a cheerleader dance, using napkins as pom-poms.

  “It was…cathartic. I’ll see you tomorrow, Elisa.” He hangs up.

  Cathartic? Does this man ever speak in plain, transparent English? I stare at the receiver, amazed that it survived the commotion. Reagan takes it from my hand and places it back on the wall.

  “You were brilliant,” she says. “A total pro. If Aiden thought you were going to pine for him all day, he’s sorely disappointed. Now the real question is, what are you going to wear?”

  She sprints to her closet mumbling to herself while I call Denton. When I finish, I have no time to take in what happened because Reagan is bombarding me with possible outfits. She thinks I should go for sexy and has four dresses that belong in a bar, not a boardroom.

&nbs
p; “Reagan, no way. These are too obvious. I’m not going there looking like I’m begging for him to notice me. I just need to get through tomorrow with as much dignity as possible and deal with the rest of this mess on my own.”

  Reagan pouts. “Okay, I see your point. It’s not that I think you should lure him. I just think you need to remind him of what he’s missing.”

  Remind Aiden? Aiden doesn’t need reminders. He will remember every part of me—every flawed, inadequate part that couldn’t keep up with the fantasy—forever in his eternal mind.

  “Do you want to see what I’m going to wear tomorrow?” I ask gently.

  She smiles and lets it go. “Yes! Although I think it should involve a hat. Or at the very least a fascinator.”

  She follows me into my room, discussing the merits of a birdcage hat. I dig in my microscopic closet for a garment bag in the back. This is one of my most precious treasures. My mum’s dress that she wore on her first interview at the Ashmolean. It’s one of those timeless pieces that look like something Jackie O. would wear. Lilac, three-quarter length sleeves and tailored. I’ve never had a chance to wear it. When I show it to Reagan, she whistles.

  “Elisa Cecilia Snow, this is an amazing dress! Yes, forget everything else. That’s what you’re wearing.” She does not touch the silky fabric but looks at it with reverence.

  “But you have to wear my lucky Louboutins,” she orders, her eyes still on the dress.

  “Lucky? How are they lucky?” I’m all for luck these days.

  “No man has ever turned me down when I was wearing them.” She shrugs.

  “Reagan, that’s because you’re you. It has nothing to do with your shoes.”

  She ignores me, bolts out of my room and comes back before I can blink, carrying the nude Lucky Shoes with their signature red soles.

  “If I click the heels together three times, will they return me home?”

  “Only if home is here, luv.” She throws her arm around my shoulders. “You’re really into him, aren’t you? I’ve never seen anyone’s knees give out from the sound of a voice alone,” she says with feeling.

  “Yes, I guess I am. But that’s how it is for every woman after her first time, isn’t it?”

  Reagan perches on my bed, shaking her head. “Not always, Isa. I was head over heels after my first time, but we had dated for a whole year. And I didn’t tremble at the sound of Jason’s voice. But you have it harder than I did because Jason was not a dragon in the morning. And he didn’t pay a million dollars to get me out of his life.”

  “He’s also saving me, Reg,” I mumble.

  “Yeah, out of guilt.”

  I pick at the blanket that Maria knitted for my last birthday. “It’s my own fault anyway. I knew it was going to end and I still let it get here.”

  She grips my hand. “You listen to me right now,” she says, squeezing my fingers on each word. “This was not your fault. You thought you’d get hurt because you had to leave. Not because you opened up to a man who treated you like a hooker in the morning.”

  I sigh. The feeling is strange, empty—the way the wind may blow through a vacant crypt.

  “You should get some rest,” Reagan says. “Big day tomorrow.” She pecks me on the cheek and leaves the room.

  After she closes the door, I sit on the bed a little longer. Oddly, even though she listed all the reasons to be angry with Aiden, anger leaves me like smoke from a fume hood.

  I take a deep breath and start organizing my ammunition for tomorrow. Terms of sale? Check. Supply of paperclips? Check. Dad’s picture so he can come too? Check. Baci chocolates for after? Check. Frantic heartbeat? Check and check.

  The preparation takes only twenty minutes. The rest of the night is a different matter. I plug in my dinosaur stereo—a garage sale find—curl in bed and turn off the light. Lana croons quietly about million-dollar men with dangerous flaws.

  I can’t be with you… Start living your own life.

  His husky voice echoes in my head. I turn up the volume to drown it, afraid of another nightmare. But my heart pumps faster as if its beats are numbered. I recite the periodic table over the music to calm it. It doesn’t work and I know why. Because these aren’t nerves. It’s terror. Terror that he woke me up so I can feel too much. That he is saving me from ghosts only to haunt me. That he is giving me freedom, yet I’ve never felt more bound.

  That this is still the end, not the beginning.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Heart Of Business

  I wake up to the simultaneous sounds of a knock on my door and my alarm clock. Before I can blink, Reagan barges in with a curling iron.

  “It’s your first million-dollar sale, and you’ll look like a million bucks.” She giggles.

  I yawn and sit up. “Good one, Reg. We have three hours. Do your worst. Or best.”

  After I shower, she sets herself loose on my hair. The whole time, she fires pearls of wisdom at top speed.

  “Stay close to Denton. Don’t sit by Aiden because then you’ll smell the cologne and that’s a toughie. If you get all hot and bothered, say some Hail Marys and think of your period. Bloating, cramps, the works. Also, avoid being alone with him. An advanced guy like that only needs two minutes tops to break a woman. So, if he tries something like ‘Elisa, let me show you my office’, you say ‘thanks but no thanks’ because the moment that office door closes, you’re a goner. And anger works really well. Do you have any anger left?” she asks, brandishing the curling iron at me like a sword.

  I shake my head. “No. It’s kind of hard to be mad at the man who is saving your life.”

  “Sure, but it’s not like he’s doing charity. He’s getting a really cool invention in return and you’re investing the money in his companies so he’s not out anything. That’s why today, you can walk in there with your head up high.” She continues to point the curling iron at me as if I’m thinking of crawling on the floor at Aiden’s feet.

  I nod, and that’s all the encouragement she needs. She’s off again. “Okay, so let’s practice. I’m Aiden, obviously.” She clears her throat and deepens her voice trying, and failing, to imitate the timbre of Mr. Sin. “Elisa, we should celebrate tonight. I own a multibillion-dollar club and there’s a table floating on water with ten thousand candles around it and unicorns for waiters. Would you like to go?”

  I laugh. “No, Mr. Hale. But I do hope you and your unicorns have a marvelous romantic evening together.”

  “Perfect,” Reagan says in her regular voice, and then switches to Aiden again.

  Her scenarios get more and more ridiculous but this is exactly what I need. By the time she is finished with me, my cheeks hurt from laughing.

  “There. You look just like young Liz Taylor,” she says, her eyes sparkling.

  I look in the mirror and, as always, see Mum, from the dark hair and lashes to the dress. But this time, the image gives me strength. This is as good as I get.

  “Reg, you’re a magician. I don’t think even Kate Middleton got this treatment the day she married Prince William.”

  * * * * *

  When Denton honks outside, I head for the door, Reagan behind me.

  “Click those heels three times if you want to come home.” She winks. I give her a hug and skip past the pink rhododendrons in the front yard to Denton’s Prius.

  When Denton sees me, he smiles proudly like a dad. “You’re all grown up, kid.” He laughs. “Ah, this is so exciting. I tell you, Isa, there’s no better day for a professor than seeing his student succeed.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you.” I put as much gratitude as I can in my voice.

  Denton starts driving slowly, like a driver’s ed instructor. I guess once a teacher, always a teacher. When we reach Fifth Avenue in downtown Portland, my palms get sweaty. I distract myself by helping Denton look for a parking sp
ot. But we don’t need to. In front of HH’s headquarters, there is a man in a gray suit, two Dentons tall, holding a professional plaque that says MISS SNOW AND PROF. DENTON. Bloody hell, we have our own valet.

  Denton stops his Prius, looking gobsmacked.

  “Oh my, this is special treatment,” he chuckles, and gets out of the car. He looks like he is bouncing on his heels. He starts chatting up the valet who directs us to take one of the elevators to the fortieth floor before driving off with the Prius.

  We climb the twenty marble steps to the revolving doors that let the masses in and out of the impressive edifice that houses HH. The high-rise curves like a modern rendition of an hourglass. Two columns stand sentinel on each side of the glass doors. The message is unmistakable: power, detachment, defense. If that’s not Aiden’s motto, I don’t know what is.

  Our elevator ascends at supersonic speed. My ears pop. I use these last few moments to recite the periodic table backward in Italian.

  The doors ping open into a glistening black marble lobby. Sleek leather furniture lines the wraparound glass wall. Aiden obviously has a thing for airy surroundings. Denton looks around like a scientist at NASA. I bet he wishes he’d brought a camera. For my part, I left mine behind—there isn’t much about today I want to preserve.

  We walk, or rather I walk and Denton bounces, to the reception desk manned by a stunning African American woman with green eyes. Bloody hell, if Aiden sees her every morning, what on earth was he doing with me? With every minute I spend in his kingdom, the chasm that separates us grows deeper and his decision becomes clearer.

  Denton is chattering with the beauty before him—Alicia, apparently. To my embarrassment, he starts telling her about my “stupendous invention”. I blush until a voice I’ll know even dead calls behind me.

  “Elisa,” Aiden says. I turn around to face him, and the rest of the world disappears from view.

  He looks forbidden. Not Adam, but the apple. He is wearing a charcoal suit, a white shirt and a purple tie. Our clothes match. His eyes shift and burn the same way they did two days ago. The only difference is the circles underneath them. I have an urge to run my finger over his skin to wipe them off. I test my lungs for air and when I find it, I muster a smile.