Dirty Little Secrets

by Lizzie Shane

  She knew he usually loved spending time with his family, but he hadn’t seemed enthused when he mentioned it to her last night, though she hadn’t pressed for details. She’d been avoiding anything that might get too personal, retreating from the Friend Zone to the Distant Acquaintance Zone. Avoiding talking with him when the house was dark and intimate like this because she didn’t trust herself not to make an idiot of herself and upset the fragile balance they’d achieved.

  But there were two girls and only one of him. They’d either be difficult or asleep and he couldn’t carry both of them at the same time. It was her day off, but helping him with the girls would be the friendly thing to do, wouldn’t it?

  She was in her pajamas—purple leopard-print fleece pants and a soft purple tank-top—but Aiden had seen her looking every way it was possible to look, so she tamped down her vanity, pulled her hair into a pony tail, and padded down the stairs.

  She met him in the kitchen—Maddie asleep in his arms.

  “Stella?” she asked softly.

  He nodded toward the garage. “Out cold in her car seat.”

  “I’ll get her. And before you say anything, I know it’s my night off and I don’t have to.” She moved past him before he could argue, the concrete of the garage floor icy on her bare feet as she went to the car and unstrapped Stella.

  He already had Maddie tucked into bed in her pajamas by the time she made it to the girls’ room with Stella. He straightened and reached for his daughter. “Thanks. I’ve got her.”

  Samira nodded and handed Stella over before retreating back down to unload the girls’ gear from the trunk of the car. It was amazing how much paraphernalia children required, even for something as simple as a day with their grandmother.

  She was rinsing out juice cups when Aiden joined her in the kitchen and he sank down at the island, for once not arguing with her to stop tidying up—maybe sensing that she needed the activity as a buffer between them. “How was the hunt?” she asked without looking up from her task.

  “Long,” he groaned with feeling. “And fruitless—which made the girls happy, since they hate when I kill Bambi’s friends. Though they were already riding high after the shopping trip with Charlotte and my mother.”

  “Did they finally find the perfect flower girl dresses?” Samira had never known that fluffy white dresses for four-year-olds could be such a source of matrimonial drama before the Odyssey of the Dresses had begun. Charlotte and Mrs. Raines had taken the girls shopping at least half a dozen times and must have put the girls in every poofy dress in the greater DC area.

  “Tragically, no, but Charlotte and my mother have apparently decided that the only way to have their dresses perfectly reflect the vision of the wedding is to have them custom made, so at least the girls are done shopping.” His voice held something she couldn’t decipher—frustration or irritation?

  “Isn’t no more shopping a good thing?”

  “It is,” he agreed quickly. He grimaced and admitted, “It’s the wedding that worries me.”

  She glanced up from drying the dishes and caught the strain on his face. He looked out for his sister, even if she was older than he was. Aiden’s age never seemed to come into it. He was the family protector. For all of them. It was simply who he was. “Her fiancé hasn’t grown on you?”

  “He’s such a pompous ass—but what right do I have to tell Charlotte that she’s making a mistake? It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion and knowing someone you love is onboard.” He scrubbed his hands down his face. “I don’t know what to do. Charlotte’s crazy about him, but I can’t help feeling it’s a rebound. A swing from reserved, metrosexual Reggie to some hyper masculine, big personality. And it’s happening so freaking fast. Even if Tug were a saint I think I’d worry that Charlotte was rushing into this, but what right do I have to tell her to slow down?”

  “You’re her brother. You’re allowed to worry about her.”

  “He’s horrible,” Aiden groaned. “And the way he talks to her, like it’s her job to make him happy and her actions only matter in terms of how they make him feel.”

  Samira winced—that sounded all too familiar. “Just don’t be surprised if she doesn’t listen.”

  He glanced up at her, frowning. “So I should keep my mouth shut?”

  She hesitated for a moment, unsure whether she was crossing a line. “It’s none of my business, but I wouldn’t keep something like that from her. I think you have to be honest with her.” She began to unload the dishwasher even though the dishes hadn’t finished drying, grabbing a dishtowel to keep her hands moving. “Tell her how concerned you are, but don’t be surprised if she doesn’t hear you. Not yet anyway.”

  He studied her, the frown of frustration easing from his face as concentration took its place. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”

  “I kind of am.” She grimaced. She hadn’t meant to tell him about her marriage—it wasn’t something she enjoyed talking about—but if her mistakes could help someone else… “I haven’t met Tug, so I don’t really know if this is what’s going on, but the way you describe him… My husband was like that. Big personality. Larger than life. Completely assured of his own genius. And for a while, I was too. When you’re a little insecure—maybe because your last husband left you for another man—and someone that confident shines his light on you, it’s hard not to get caught up in it. Hard not to get swept away. But Charlotte needs to know that if things go south and she starts to feel like she needs an escape route, that you’ll be there for her—and that you’ll never say you told her so.”

  “Did you need an escape?” he asked carefully, and she heard the question underneath the words.

  “He never hit me, if that’s what you mean. He just had an incredible ability to make me feel small.” The rhythmic motion of drying the last plate soothed her nerves—until she realized it was long-since dry and was forced to set it aside. “When we first met he would lavish me in attention, make me feel like I was so special because someone like him wanted me—what Charlotte’s feeling now—but about a month after our marriage, a switch flipped. Everything I did was wrong and I was just lucky he loved me enough to forgive me—that’s what he would say. Every mistake I made was because I wasn’t thinking.” The words echoed, entirely too familiar, too easy to remember. What were you thinking, Samira? Oh, that’s right. You weren’t. Always in that light, joking tone. As if he was teasing. Playing. As if there wasn’t bite beneath the words. As if they didn’t hurt. “And if he made a mistake, well. I learned pretty fast not to notice those.”

  Aiden met her eyes, his own dark and intent. “What did you do?”

  “I stayed. For far longer than I should have. I was so confused at first, always waiting for the honeymoon phase to come back. For him to be the man he’d been when we met. For a while I really did think that if I was just good enough, if I could just get it right, he could switch back. Everyone said marriage was work. When I tried to talk to my parents, they told me the first year was always the toughest. I didn’t want give up. So I tried my hardest to be perfect for him, to make him love me again.” She reached blindly for something else to dry, but the dishes were done and she was left twisting the dish towel between her hands. “Things were bearable as long as I didn’t question him, but if I did he would blow up, then forgive me grandly—because he was the better person—and pretend everything was okay, but always find some way to punish me for it later. Usually by sabotaging something I’d been looking forward to. Like time with my family. That was when I realized I had to get out.”

  Aiden didn’t say anything, but she could feel him listening, his body tight as if he was holding himself still.

  She continued the story, surprised she didn’t have to force herself, the words coming astonishingly easy with Aiden. “My parents loved him—everyone loved him—and he’d inserted himself into my relationship with them as soon as we started dating. He wasn’t close with his own family, but he called my folks m
om and dad. He’d phone them just to see how they were doing and would pass messages between us, little things—Samira says hi, your folks ask how your job is going—until it became normal for him to be the point of contact. It took me a while to realize how much control he had over my interactions with them. I didn’t really notice until he started ‘forgetting’ to tell me about a family event I’d been invited to when he was angry with me. But he’d insist to my parents that he’d told me and I couldn’t make it. Then when I said I hadn’t known, they would think I was lying. Trying to save face. And when he would make excuses for me, it always made it worse—you know Samira, she hates parties. Like I’d chosen not to come.”

  “No one suspected he was lying?”

  “He was very convincing, very good at twisting things to suit his purpose. And my parents adored him. They trusted him. I even trusted him. He never hit me. He never did anything that didn’t sound ridiculous when I complained about it, and he primed my parents so by the time I finally got up the gumption to tell them my marriage was making me miserable, they thought I was being unreasonable and I needed to go back and beg his forgiveness. Get counseling. Not couples counseling, mind you, because no one would suggest he needed to change, but I needed help. That’s what my father told me when I said I wanted a divorce.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went back. I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I started to question whether they were right. They all agreed that I was the problem. I started thinking maybe I was crazy and I asked if I could see a therapist, but he didn’t want to waste the money on my drama. That’s how he put it. He offered to get me a prescription for something to calm me down—but I was still working then, even though all my paychecks went into his account, and I didn’t want to be fuzzy around the kids at the preschool. I already had a reputation for being irresponsible—he’d make sure I was late, then make excuses for me in that oh-that’s-just-Samira way that made sure no one believed me. He undermined me in ways I didn’t even see until years later with the help of a lot of self-help books.” She grimaced.

  She didn’t talk about this. It was embarrassing, that she’d been so wrong about Trevor. That she’d let it go on for so long. But there was no judgement in Aiden’s gaze, only understanding as he asked, “How did you get out?”

  “Jackie. She was outside our social circle. Someone I’d known from college who didn’t live in the area anymore and only saw me every couple years. She remembered who I was before I met him. She didn’t believe any of the things he’d made me believe about myself. I saw her at a conference for an early-childhood non-profit we’d both worked with and we got to talking and before I knew it I was crying and she was offering me a bus ticket and a place on her couch. Saved my life. Or at least my sanity. I almost lost myself inside that marriage—I did for a while.” Her face twisted again with the pain. “My relationship with my parents is still rough. My father accused me of abandoning my husband. Told me he expected better of me.”

  She swallowed around the thickness in her throat, focusing back on why she’d told him all this to begin with. “Not everyone loved him when we first got together, but I was defensive and pretty horrible to the people who spoke against him. He encouraged me to cut their negativity out of my life—so by the time I realized they might have been right about him, I didn’t feel like I could go to them anymore. So just… be careful about criticizing Tug to Charlotte.”

  Aiden frowned. “Tug’s full of himself, but I’d like to think Charlotte wouldn’t marry someone who would hurt her like that.”

  “And I would?” She said the words as softly as she could, trying to keep the recrimination out of them. She was only trying to show him that it could happen to anyone, but Aiden flinched and stammered an apology.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  “If I can’t criticize him—”

  “I don’t mean that. My friends who didn’t like him—I’m glad they said something. I needed those voices in the back of my head, telling me he wasn’t infallible.”

  “So say something to her, but be careful how I say it?”

  “Essentially. I know that doesn’t really help.”

  “It does.” He reached across the counter, catching her hand, and she looked down at the contact. She hadn’t told anyone but Jackie so much about Trevor, hoarding her shame, but now, talking to Aiden, it felt like a tiny, hard knot of ice deep inside her had begun to thaw.

  She flushed, tugging back her hand. “You can see why I’m not a big fan of dating.”

  “Is it all thanks to your marriage? Or did you dislike it before that?”

  “I didn’t date much before Trevor,” Samira admitted, a light flush rising to her cheeks. “I’ve always been shy and teenage boys don’t have a lot of patience for a girl who can’t string two words together in their presence. I got teased a lot more than I got asked out.”

  “Their loss.”

  At the rough sound of his voice, Samira caught his gaze and the look there made her heart thud. He was looking at her like she was precious and brave and miraculous. She felt her face heating, but couldn’t look away, her breath coming short.

  “I’m serious,” he said, his hand unmoving on the counter from where it had fallen after she pulled away. “I can’t believe no one saw how amazing you are.”

  She ducked her chin, shuttering her eyes behind her lashes. “Mr. Raines…”

  She heard movement and looked up in time to see him leaning back, his hand no longer extended between them as his expression closed off. “Sorry.”

  Sorry? She frowned up at him as he stood. “What are you sorry for?”

  “I thought… I just misread the situation.” He held out his hands in a mea culpa gesture. “I should probably get some sleep. Long day.”

  She nodded, feeling like she’d missed something significant—and destroyed a perfectly lovely moment. Aiden was distant now. Unreachable when only seconds before he’d been touchably close.

  Another wasted moment. The thought burst like a firework in her mind.

  How many wasted moments were there in her life? How many moments when she’d let fear hold her back? Let what might happen keep her from exploring what could? What could her life have been if she hadn’t been so scared? If she hadn’t shied away from every opportunity?

  “Good night, Samira.”

  “Good night, Aiden,” she echoed, helplessness rising. She didn’t want him to go.

  She wanted him.

  But what could she do about it? They were in the friend zone now and she wasn’t likely to be the one to break them out of it. It had taken her days to work up the gumption to talk to him the first time. Now… She wasn’t that brave.

  Jackie would know how to make the first move. But then Jackie had never been paralyzed by awkwardness in her life. No, that was all Samira’s territory. Trevor had loved the fact that she was inexperienced. Demure, he’d called her. As if it was a choice and not a byproduct of crippling shyness. But all his compliments had been edged with something else, something that made her feel small.

  Aiden never made her feel that way. What would it be like to be loved by a man like him?

  By the man currently walking out of the kitchen, into the shadows of the hall.

  Stop, she silently urged him. Look back. If he stopped, she would know that it was a sign. She would kiss him. She would—

  Aiden paused, and her heart leapt into her throat as he slowly turned back. “Samira…”

  She didn’t let herself think or question or doubt.

  In this moment, she was bold. She was the heroine of her own story. The movements flowed into one another in a rush because she knew if she paused for even a second it would allow the thoughts back in.

  She crossed to him, grabbed his shoulders, kissed.

  Before she could think his lips were firm against hers—

  And then keeping the thoughts at bay was no longer a problem because
every brain cell she had scattered to the four winds and there was only sensation. And Aiden.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Aiden wasn’t prepared for the kiss, but he came up to speed fast. His arms closed around her, but he didn’t need to pull her close—she was already pressed as close as she could get. She wasn’t holding back. For the first time, it felt like Samira was all in. There was nothing tentative or cautious about this kiss—and certainly nothing friendly.

  Her tongue thrust into his mouth and he met it with his own, angling his head, deepening the kiss, until he felt the need to breathe tightening his chest and he couldn’t make himself care enough to pull away. Luckily, Samira did it for him and they both sucked in oxygen, gasping without loosening the grasp they had on one another. Then he met her eyes and the look in them slayed him. Heat and want and dazed need.

  To hell with the friend zone.

  He sank one hand into her hair and kissed her again, deeper, harder.

  This could only complicate things, but at the moment he couldn’t make himself care. All week he’d been winding tighter and tighter. It seemed the more he tried not to want her, the more impossible it was to get her out of his head. Thank God she’d kissed him. He’d been planning another night alone with a cold shower, determined to be virtuous and keep his hands to himself, but this, God, this was infinitely better.

  She pushed him away enough to gasp, “Not here.” Her gaze flicked above them to the girls’ room and he grabbed her hand, hating to let her go for even a second. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs—kissing her again, marking his place, making sure she didn’t forget how much she wanted him—and almost detoured into his office and the couch there, but he didn’t want furtive and frantic. He wanted a bed, and a lock, and all night.

  They stumbled up the stairs and at the landing, she hesitated, glancing up toward her room.