by Lizzie Shane
His grandfather was proof that in this life no memory lasted forever and you never knew how many moments you had left. Aiden watched his daughters somersaulting on the lawn and his chest tightened. He needed more mornings like this. More time with family. But he didn’t want to give up on the ideal of fighting for justice. Could he do that better in public office than he could as an attorney?
He hadn’t thought of his future in a long time—not since Chloe’s diagnosis. Every day had been about getting by, getting through—but maybe it was time to start looking ahead again.
CHAPTER SIX
“Samira.”
At the deep voice calling to her through Aiden’s open office door, Samira froze in the process of shrugging off her coat in the foyer. She’d spent her day off at the library before meeting up with Jackie for a girls’ night movie—keeping herself busy, distracting herself from her thoughts. Thank God Jackie hadn’t brought up Brian Wilson or Aiden or Samira’s woeful lack of a love life again.
It was nearly ten by the time Jackie dropped her off. The girls would have been in bed for hours and Aiden would usually be sequestered in his office with the doors closed, but tonight the double doors gaped open and Aiden caught her with one shoe on and the other kicked off and her jacket tangled around her arms. Benjamin Franklin padded out of the office, wagging a greeting.
“Hey.” She kicked off her other shoe and wriggled out of her jacket, hanging it on the coat tree in the entry. She took her time petting Benjamin Franklin and tried not to look like she was dragging her feet as she crossed the hardwood of the foyer to the threshold of his office. “How was your visit with your grandfather?”
She knew the Saturday ritual. Knew how important his family was to Aiden. It was something she’d always respected about him. He held on to people. Took care of them. Even when it wasn’t always easy or convenient to do so. She’d been raised that families looked after one another too. Until hers hadn’t.
“He’s declining,” Aiden admitted, rubbing both hands over his face and rocking back in his office chair, the base squeaking as he swiveled to face her more fully. “But even with his mind going, he’s still brilliant. Said something interesting today…” He trailed off, lost in his own thoughts.
“What did he say?” Benjamin Franklin bumped against her leg, impatient for more attention and she reached down to ruffle the soft, scruffy fur on top of his head.
“Hmm?” Aiden looked up, shaking away his distraction and focusing on her. “Sorry.”
He wasn’t usually absent-minded, but something obviously had him distracted. Something it was none of her business to ask about. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. He was her boss. Not her buddy. And certainly not her boyfriend. “Did you need something?”
Aiden rocked forward in his chair, bracing his forearms on his spread knees, and studied her. “Who are you, Samira?”
“I’m sorry?”
He sat upright, gesturing her into the room, waving her toward the couch where she sometimes saw him sprawled out in a nap with a legal brief forgotten on his chest. “Tell me about yourself. I feel like an elitist ass that I’m only now realizing I know next to nothing about you.”
Benjamin Franklin abandoned her, retreating to his favorite place flopped against Aiden’s feet. Samira flushed, moving cautiously into the room. “There really isn’t much to tell.”
She’d never been the kind of person who enjoyed having the focus on her. Her wedding had been one of the most excruciating experiences of her life—all those well-wishers staring at her in tandem. That was one of the great things about working with children. The tiny narcissists were perfectly content to let her be invisible. Stella and Maddie never asked about her hopes and dreams. Never asked her who she was.
“You’re from St. Louis?” Aiden asked when she perched awkwardly on the edge of the couch.
“Born and raised.”
“What made you decide to move to DC?”
I needed to escape my life. “Just needed a change.”
He nodded as if that fully answered his question. “Do you still have family there? You’ve never asked for time off to go visit them. I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but I realized the other day you’ve never gone home for Christmas.”
“I’m not Christian,” she said, giving the easiest answer and avoiding the complicated truth of her relationship with her parents these days.
Aiden’s grimace was self-deprecating. “Of course not. I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that it’s not just Santa and trees.”
“It’s fine. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”
He shook his head, refusing her absolution. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I seem to keep bumping up against my ignorance where you’re concerned.” He snorted. “And my obliviousness.”
“Everyone makes assumptions based on their own experiences.” She shrugged. “We don’t know what we don’t know. I’m not surprised my background isn’t what you’re accustomed to. How many Muslim people do you even know?” DC was a metropolitan city, but for people of Aiden’s social standing it wasn’t hard to live life inside a WASP bubble.
“I don’t know. I don’t usually think about what religion people I know practice. You’ve probably noticed my family isn’t particularly devout.” He frowned. “Are you? Is there anything I should be doing to make it easier for you to practice?”
Sometimes she wondered if people asked if she was devout to gauge her threat-level. Are you fanatic? Should I be watching you? But that wasn’t what Aiden was doing. Maybe it was his eagerness to accommodate her, to learn about her culture. Maybe it was the interest in his eyes, as if she was the most fascinating woman in the world, but whatever the reason, she heard herself opening the gates to her past that she usually kept shut tight.
“I was raised in a progressive household—which is less about faithful adherence to ritual and more about independent reasoning, at least in our case. My father is a professor, a historian. He likes the community provided by Islam, but what he really loves are the ideas. Examining what the Quran says, seeking out wisdom more than dogma. I suppose I was raised that faith is introspective, not as much about how we pray.”
“I’ve always admired faith. We don’t have a lot of that in my family,” Aiden said with a grimace. “My mother trots out Jesus when it’s politically convenient, but I don’t think I’ve seen her inside a church more than twice in her life—outside of weddings, of course. She loves weddings.”
Samira tried to control her reaction, but he must have seen something on her face that she didn’t want him to, because his next question hit close to home. “You said you were married?” he asked, his voice entirely too gentle.
Her fingertips were tingling. She glanced down at the hands folded in her lap, seeing the white-knuckle grip, and forced herself to loosen her hold to restore circulation.
She didn’t have to tell him anything. She could tell him to mind his own business. Tell him that, as her employer, he had no right to her personal life. But that hardly seemed fair when she traipsed through his personal life on a daily basis.
She’d been a firsthand witness when he lost his wife. She’d seen the way his shoulders had sagged and he’d folded in on himself when he got the call that his grandfather had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He’d been in the kitchen then, having dinner with the girls, and Samira had been loading the dishwasher. She was a voyeur in his life and he’d never been anything but kind to her. He’d been so sweetly protective of her when she’d had her date, waiting up for her, looking out for her. When was the last time anyone had done that? Jackie did, but it was different somehow, coming from Aiden.
Didn’t she owe him a little honesty?
“Only for two years,” she downplayed, as if the briefness of the marriage could make it insignificant. Unworthy of further conversation. “I was young. Just out of college.”
“I’ve got you beat,” Aiden said, keeping his tone light and casual, making it easi
er for her to keep talking. “Chloe and I got hitched before graduation. Did you meet in school?”
Again that resistance, the temptation to tell him to mind his own business, but he was just curious. There was no harm in it. “He was a PhD candidate while I was finishing my master’s program. Different departments, but it was a small campus and he was hard to miss.”
Aiden lifted a brow in silent question and Samira’s face flushed. Why had she said that? Why was she telling him these things about herself? But as the silence lengthened she found herself filling it with words again, when she’d never felt compelled to clutter the empty spaces of conversation with anyone else.
“Trevor was a presence on campus. Brilliant. Larger than life. One of those people who walks into a room and everyone notices.”
Like you.
Aiden had that same kind of charisma, that compelling force of personality.
He grinned wryly, dimple jumping. “Let me guess. Whirlwind courtship? Your father never thought he was good enough for you?”
“Actually, my father loved him. But you’re right on the whirlwind courtship. I think in a lot of ways we were still strangers when we got married.”
But even with all those people staring at her on her wedding day, she’d felt so proud that he had picked her. He was a bright, shining star. Everyone said so. And even her father, who had always pressed her to live up to her potential, started to look at her like perhaps she was more than just a timid mouse because Trevor wanted her as his partner.
She’d been swept off her feet. Awed by him.
Until he started making her feel small.
“I take it things weren’t so romantic once you got to know one another,” Aiden guessed, reading the truth on her face again.
She pursed her lips and gave a tight nod. “Things went bad and I needed a change so I came to DC where my friend Jackie told me she knew a family who was looking for a new nanny. And the rest is history.”
“Well. I’m sorry your marriage went sideways, but I’m glad you came. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
He met her eyes and the weight of the sincerity behind the words made her duck her head.
“I should get to bed,” she murmured. “The girls will be up early.”
She’d always liked Sundays. When Aiden worked from home and the girls would sneak into his office all day—trying to lure him into their games, begging Samira to bake treats with them that they could take to him. He would stop what he was doing and indulge them, never making them feel like they took second place to the work he did, though he would return to his obligations as soon as Samira had his daughters distracted again.
It was her favorite day of the week, when they were all home together. And she was too much of a coward to examine exactly why.
Aiden rose with her as she stood to leave. “Good night, Samira. Thank you for indulging me.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes, her gaze following the curve of the rug as she made her way toward the double doors. “Good night, sir.”
“Aiden.”
She blushed, thankful her back was to him and he couldn’t see it. “Aiden.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
If she expected things to be awkward in the light of day, she should have known that Aiden wouldn’t let them be. Samira definitely felt different around Aiden—not uncomfortable necessarily, but aware of his presence in a way that was almost pleasant. Everything felt more personal since their conversation on Saturday night, but she sort of liked it.
Far from making her feel exposed, the way his smiles always included her now made her want to smile when he wasn’t looking. And the way he would meet her eyes for a wry look over the girls’ heads made her smile even when he was. She found herself dwelling on those smiles even when he was at work.
And when he was home—even when he was working—the doors to his office were always open now, even when the girls were asleep. On Sunday night she went down to get a cup of tea from the kitchen and wound up talking to him for half an hour about nothing and everything. On Monday, he emerged from his office while she was in the kitchen making popcorn.
“Movie night?” he asked, popping a decaf K-cup in the machine.
“While You Were Sleeping is on TNT,” she admitted. “I’m a sucker for romantic comedies.”
“Me too.”
“Really?”
“Are you kidding? When Harry Met Sally is my jam. Didn’t I already prove that I know my Julia Roberts? Don’t get me started on Notting Hill.”
She couldn’t stop the smile that took over her face. “I always pegged you as more of an A Few Good Men kind of guy.”
“Me? Nah.” The K-cup finished brewing and he picked it up, but didn’t make a move back toward his office, leaning one hip against the counter. “Don’t get me wrong, I love To Kill a Mockingbird as much as the next guy who grew up wanting to be Atticus Finch, but the last thing I want when I get home from a long day of legal filings is to watch a movie about them. Give me The Princess Bride any day.”
“I love that movie.”
“Right? I think if Dread Pirate Roberts had been a viable career path, I never would have gone to law school.”
She giggled—and then blushed at the sound. Giggling. When was the last time she’d giggled with anyone other than the girls? But this fizzy, fabulous feeling bubbling up in her chest wouldn’t let her do anything else. And it followed her back upstairs long after he’d retreated to his office and she’d taken her popcorn back to Sandra Bullock.
She felt… light.
Until Tuesday when it snowed, one last storm to remind them all that winter wasn’t done with them yet.
Aiden left before the girls woke up in an attempt to get to work ahead of the worst of the weather, which sent usually-biddable Stella into a sulk because it upset the breakfast routine with their father. Maddie picked up on her sister’s fractiousness and Samira could tell this was going to be one of those days before they were even done with their cereal.
Luckily the family Jackie worked for lived just down the street and her friend was willing to bundle up her charges and bring them over to tumble around in the snow in the townhouse’s narrow backyard with Maddie and Stella.
Jackie and Samira sat just inside the sliding door in the breakfast room, drinking tea and watching the kids through the glass while Benjamin Franklin leapt into the air, attempting to catch snowflakes in his mouth. The girls’ giggles, muted by the glass as they flung themselves down to make snow angels, reached into her chest and wrapped around her heart, and a smile tugged at Samira’s lips.
“It’s almost enough to make you want one of your own when they’re sweet like this,” Jackie said—and Samira glanced over at her friend at the edge in her voice.
She hadn’t noticed when Jackie came in—too focused on the kids and getting them into their winter gear and set up in the backyard—but her friend looked exhausted, her face drawn. “Is everything okay?”
Jackie grimaced, but didn’t prevaricate. “Amal and I have been fighting. Another big one last night. Twelve rounds. No decision.”
Samira blinked, not bothering to hide her surprise. “I didn’t think you two ever fought.”
Jackie could be passionate, especially on social issues when she felt someone was being wronged. In her family, progressive Muslim also meant pro-active and Jackie was a firm believer in advocating loudly for marriage equality and social rights. But Amal knew that. He was right there with her. The two of them had been married right out of high school and even if Jackie was stubborn and undeniably bossy, he thought the sun rose and set on her command. Samira couldn’t even imagine him raising his voice to her.
Jackie fussed with her teal hijab though it wasn’t out of place, only the rich, brown skin of her face and hands visible. She had an angular, delicate beauty that was sometimes overshadowed by the fierceness of her expressions, but now her face was tight with anxiety. “He wants a baby.”
“Oh.” Samira wen
t still, her brain stuttering for a moment at the bald announcement. “And you… don’t?”
They’d talked sometimes back when they were both student teaching about how they would raise their own kids, but always in a vague, distantly hypothetical way—back when Samira had still believed she would have them.
“I don’t know!” Jackie made a sharp, frustrated gesture with one hand. “I don’t not want a baby. At least not never, but he wants one now and I’m just not sure. With something that big, shouldn’t you be sure?”
Samira wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think anyone is ever sure.”
Jackie lowered her mug to the table, her face miserable. “I spend all day with kids and I love them, but babies are this huge, expensive cannonball in the middle of your life that changes everything. I love Amal. I love being with him, just the two of us. I love our tiny little condo that really isn’t big enough for three. I love that neither of us has to feel guilty for going to work and when we come home we get to be together and enjoy one another. I’m not ready for all of that to change. I love our life the way it is. What if we add a baby and suddenly we’re worried about time and money and all of the things that other couples get divorced over? What if we grow apart because we’re both too tired for sex and date night is a thing of the past?”
Samira took Jackie’s hand, linking their fingers together. “Since when did you live your life by what-ifs?”
“This is big. And Amal said it like it was just another Monday. We should start trying for a baby. Just like that. As if we didn’t even need to discuss it.”
At least he wants a child. Samira bit her lip, trying not to let her own bias invade her counsel of Jackie. She’d always wanted a baby. She’d wanted one when she was married, but Trevor hadn’t and now she was grateful they’d never conceived. She wasn’t sure she ever would have left him if they’d had a child.
