by Lizzie Shane
Samira swallowed around a new wave of nausea. “Good thing,” she echoed weakly.
She hadn’t been able to tell Jackie the truth. For the last few weeks, she’d kept it to herself, telling herself it was none of Jackie’s concern, telling herself it was still too new and she was still figuring out what was going on, promising herself that she’d come clean eventually—when the truth was she was afraid to say anything because she knew Jackie would tell her she was wrong. And she was already too far gone over him to care.
He was her boss. He was a Raines. Everything she wasn’t.
She’d known it was a bad idea, getting involved with him. She knew beneath the giddy, bubbly happiness that the odds of the fairy tale ending for them were slim to none. But she’d gotten so good at pretending they might make it. So good at ignoring the impossibilities.
Her gaze landed on the magazine cover again.
What had she really thought would happen? That he would marry his nanny and they would live happily ever after? That was a nice fairy tale, but it wasn’t reality. And as much as she’d tried to keep it out, reality was finally starting to seep through the cracks.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“How was your grandfather?”
Aiden looked up from pouring himself a scotch while Samira made herself a cup of tea, part of what had become their nightly ritual. She’d been subdued since he got home with the girls, but he’d tried not to read anything into it. Samira was often silent.
Now the girls were asleep and he could find out if there was something going on he should be worried about, but Samira beat him to the punch with her question as she set the kettle on and plunked a teabag into her waiting mug.
“Not having a good day, unfortunately,” Aiden admitted.
“I’m sorry.” Her face twisted with sympathy, but she stayed on the other side of the kitchen, not coming to his side to offer comfort as she’d sometimes done over the last couple weeks. Was something different tonight? Or was the stress of the day making him see problems where none existed?
He shrugged off the paranoia. “What can you do?” Except get better funding for Alzheimer’s research. Something he wouldn’t be able to accomplish at the firm. More and more he couldn’t stop thinking of how limited his reach was in his current position. How much he felt called to do more. “I spoke with my mother today.”
“Oh?” Samira poured the hot water into her cup and he watched the movement, hypnotized by the graceful movements of her hands.
“I finally had a chance to tell her about my plans to run for office. She practically started buying space for campaign commercials on the spot. Though I guess I should have predicted that.”
Samira’s hands hesitated midair in the act of setting the kettle back on the stove before restarting again, moving with extra care. “I didn’t realize you wanted to run for office.” Her tone was jarringly neutral.
Aiden frowned. “I must have mentioned it to you. I’ve been considering it for months.”
“No, you haven’t.” She wrapped both hands around her mug and didn’t meet his eyes. “I thought you liked practicing law.”
“I do. But think how much more I could do.” She hadn’t rounded the island to join him as she usually did so he set aside his scotch and came around it himself. “This is a real opportunity.”
He came within reach and she shied away, keeping space between them. He dropped the hand that had been reaching for her.
“Samira? Is everything all right? Did something happen today?”
*
Did something happen today?
Everything had happened today. The other shoe had dropped. The happy little bubble she’d been living in for the last few weeks had been popped by reality. She’d known already that her life didn’t line up with Aiden’s, but this…
He wanted to run for office.
And she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about that damned nanny article in the gossip magazine. His dirty little secret.
That was what she would become if he ran for political office. The media would make it ugly. She knew they would. And then there was the fact that her father had been detained. The way the press could frame that, pundits smearing her entire family… She’d seen enough Scandal to know how these things went. Her father would be a terrorist. She would be a whore. Aiden would be a womanizing, Muslim-lover running for a Republican seat—she’d always known where his family’s political bread was buttered.
And he just announced that he’d been planning to run for political office for months as if it was nothing.
For months.
She’d told him things about herself she’d never told anyone, exposed a huge part of herself to him and the entire time he’d been keeping equally huge parts of himself secret. Or worse, it hadn’t even occurred to him to tell her. Like she didn’t even exist except in relation to him and what she could do for him—which she knew wasn’t fair. She knew she was hearing echoes of her ex in what he was saying and he didn’t deserve that, but now as she stood in the kitchen, she was shaking her head and couldn’t seem to stop.
“I could have sworn I’d talked to you about this,” he went on, his tone soothing. “I should have. It affects you too. I know it will be a big adjustment. We’ll have to get used to being in the public eye and I know—”
His dirty little secret.
“No.”
He drew back. “What?”
She focused on the part that she could wrap her head around right now. “I don’t want that life. I’d be miserable in the public eye. I’m not Chloe.”
“I know that. I never thought—”
“I knew this wasn’t going to work.” She should have trusted her gut. She wasn’t cut out for relationships. She was better alone.
She set down her tea and tried to move past him but he caught her shoulders. “Samira.” He bent his head to meet her eyes. “What is this?”
“You don’t even see how this affects me, do you?” She brought up her hands to brace against his chest, to keep him back. “I was already worried about going out in public as your wedding date, but now—Aiden think about this. I can’t be with you.”
“Why not? Because I might run for office?”
“Yes.”
He blinked, visibly startled by her bald response.
She forced herself to take a breath. “You’ll be amazing at it, I know you will, but it changes things” she said, speaking over the voice in her head that kept whispering, But what about us… He was under no obligation to think about an us. They’d never talked about it. And now she was glad they hadn’t. Glad she’d never said that L word. Never let herself go all in. “You’ll be under scrutiny. And you’re my boss.” What had she been thinking? “I never should have let it get this far.” I never should have let myself fall in love with you.
“Samira…”
She twisted out of his grip and he let her go. He was bigger than she was, so much stronger. He could have kept her there if he wanted, but that wasn’t who Aiden was. He was good down to his core in a way that couldn’t be faked.
He’d be an amazing public servant. One of the rare good guys.
He could change the world. Just not with her.
“I’m sorry, Aiden.”
She had to get out of here. That horrible trapped feeling closed in on her until all she could think of was putting distance between them, adrenaline fueling her steps.
“Samira!”
She didn’t look back, bolting out the front door. Benjamin Franklin barked at her departure, but she didn’t slow until she was half a mile down the road and realized she didn’t know where she was going.
Thankfully it was a warm night and she had her cell phone in her pocket, because at that moment, all she was thinking was that she needed to get away. That the world wasn’t fair and she was so freaking sick of the unfairness. So sick of a world that would dangle Aiden in front of her and threaten her father and make her feel so weak and helpless all the time.
She passed
the house where Jackie worked, but it was Saturday night. Jackie would be home with Amal. A home that was two miles away in a more moderately priced neighborhood.
Jackie would be home with her husband who loved her. Her functional relationship. Her love life that wasn’t in danger of being splashed across the nation’s tabloids.
Samira walked faster, trying to escape the thoughts circling like sharks in her brain.
She never should have fallen for him. Never should have been so stupid.
She walked all the way to Jackie and Amal’s, powered by agitation and remorse. It was only when she was climbing the steps to their condo that she realized she hadn’t called in advance. Not wanting to drop by unannounced on a Saturday night, she paused on the stairs and pulled out her phone—and saw three texts from Aiden.
He was worried. Please come back so they could talk about this. Where was she?
She didn’t reply, pulling up Jackie’s number in her contacts. The phone rang three times and she thought it was going to go to voicemail when Jackie picked up, her voice harried. “Samira?”
“Hey. Is this a bad time?”
“Only if you want to bail me out of jail tomorrow. Your timing just saved Amal’s life.”
The edge to her voice startled Samira. “Is everything okay?”
“I made the mistake of telling him that I was more relieved than disappointed when our first month of trying for a kid was unsuccessful. What’s up? Did you get more news about your dad?”
“No, I…” Words suddenly abandoned her. If she confessed she’d had a fight with Aiden, Jackie would immediately—correctly—read into that and know that they were more involved than Samira had admitted. But right now her friend’s advice was worth the crap she was going to have to take to get it. “Aiden and I had a fight.”
After a long, slow pause, Jackie said, her voice excruciatingly calm, “Please tell me your fight was about him matching contributions to your 401(K).”
Samira winced. “I wanted to tell you.”
“Oh, Samira.”
“I know! I know it was stupid. I knew it was stupid when I did it, but he just… Jackie, he made me feel good in a way I haven’t since before I met Trevor. He made the world technicolor. How do you walk away from that?”
Jackie sighed. “Are you okay?”
“I shouldn’t be bothering you. You and Amal—”
“—really don’t need to continue this stupid fight. He’s closed himself in his office with his video games so there isn’t even the promise of make-up sex. Do you want me to come pick you up? You can crash here tonight if you want.”
Tears clogged her throat. Jackie hadn’t even given her a hard time about her epic stupidity. “I was kind of hoping you might say that. I’m on the steps outside your place. I was walking and trying to think things through and I sort of ended up on your doorstep.”
On the landing above her, the door popped open and Jackie stuck her head out, phone still pressed to her ear. “Well, come on. Get in here.”
Samira smiled wetly and pocketed her phone, climbing the stairs. Thank God for friends like Jackie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She wasn’t answering her phone.
Aiden paced the kitchen, swearing silently to himself.
She’d left the house without her wallet. Without her keys. Without even a jacket—though it had been warm enough lately she probably didn’t need one, but the sight of it on the coat tree was still driving him crazy.
He’d texted her a dozen times. Okay, three. He’d texted her three times and tried calling once, but it felt like a thousand.
Tonight had not gone as planned. Not that he’d had a plan. He hadn’t realized he’d never talked to her about his political ambitions. They talked about everything. How could it have not come up? But it must not have because she’d looked at him like he’d smacked her in the face with a two-by-four.
He downed his scotch and started to pour another for himself, but stopped with the bottle halfway to the glass. What if he needed to go pick her up? He needed to be sharp. He set down the bottle, reaching for his phone again at the exact moment it binged with a text alert.
He snatched it up, his eyes racing over the message. I’m fine. Spending the night at Jackie’s. Will be back for work tomorrow.
Back for work. Because that was what he was.
A job. Her employer.
Lines clearly redrawn.
Aiden swore, flinging his phone across the room where it landed harmlessly on the couch, not even having the courtesy to shatter satisfyingly. The scotch bottle was back over his glass a heartbeat later, glugging amber liquid to the top.
It wasn’t like he could argue with her. He was her employer. He had crossed a line. She was simply putting back up the boundaries that they shouldn’t have allowed to fall. But he didn’t want them reconstructed.
He wanted to be with Samira. She’d woken him up, gotten him thinking about his future, and that future had her in it.
Though, admittedly, he hadn’t really thought that part through. Hadn’t really considered what it would be like for her to be strapped onto the political rollercoaster alongside him.
He’d just been happy for the last few weeks and convinced that things would work themselves out. He hadn’t expected her to bolt at the first mention of a campaign. She’d literally run from the building.
He probably should have seen that coming, but he hadn’t been thinking about how a campaign would affect his personal life. He should have been. He should have been thinking of his girls. Of Samira. Chloe had been raised in a family as politically active as his. She’d been poised to be a political wife, eager for it. He’d sometimes wondered if that was the whole reason she married him—not that she didn’t love him, just that it was a lot easier to love him because of the family connections that came with him.
But that wasn’t Samira. She was shy. Self-contained. Private.
He might lose her if he went into public life—may have lost her already at just the mention of it—but he still felt like it was his destiny somehow. Things had started to click into place. He felt like he was meant to be a public servant, like if he could just get into political office he could finally do something about all the things that made him feel helpless and powerless—
But he’d also started to feel like he was meant to be with Samira and those two destinies looked like they were mutually exclusive. How could he pick which part of himself he wanted to be true to?
Though now that he’d boarded the rollercoaster this morning by telling his mother his plans, he wasn’t sure he could stop the ride even if he wanted to. His family was a force of nature.
He drained his scotch, drinking it far too fast, not taking the time to let the flavors roll over his senses. The kick of the spirits hitting his senses was almost as satisfying as the pleasant numbness that followed. He poured another, filling the glass to the brim, needing the respite from his own good sense.
He’d felt free these last few weeks, flying high on life, but now he felt trapped again. His life once again a room where the walls were steadily closing in.
Maybe he should just run away to California like Candy had done. The third of the four Raines siblings had always been something of an enigma—at least for as long as he could remember. Always keeping herself separate. Keeping the family at arm’s length.
He didn’t know how she had done it. How she’d just walked away and left the family behind. Was there was some switch inside him that he could flip off and just stop being someone who cared about changing the world? The idea was like a shirt that didn’t fit, tight and tearing at the seams.
He was well into his fourth glass of scotch when he retrieved his cell phone from its landing pad on the couch and glared for only a moment at Samira’s text before pulling up his sister’s contact. Candice Raines-Xiao. Who’d moved to California when she was eighteen and never looked back. How had she done that? How had she managed to break free of the need to please t
heir family? Of the need to please everyone? Did she just not have it? Could they really be that different and still come from the same gene pool?
He punched through the call and the phone rang until his brain registered the darkness of the house around him. Was Candy asleep? No. She was in California. It was earlier in California. What time was it anyway? He squinted toward the glowing lights on the oven, the numbers blurring and shifting before his eyes.
“Aiden?”
“Candy!” There she was. Not asleep after all. Ha. Take that, oven clock. “How is the prodigal daughter tonight?”
“Aiden, why are you calling?” Her voice was sharp with disapproval, as if she could see him swaying on his feet. “Isn’t it like two in the morning there?”
The lights on the oven came into focus. “One seventeen,” he corrected, enjoying the satisfying precision of the numbers. “And can’t I call just because I want to talk to my big sis?”
“You never have before.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but it felt true. They went too long without talking, him and Candy. She’d put a country between them and he’d let her. “Well, I’m calling now. I heard we’re finally going to meet this infamous husband of yours.”
The elusive Ren. Scott had his doubts that Candy’s husband even existed since none of them had even set eyes on the guy since he and Candy had eloped a few years ago. His big brother had even bet Aiden a hundred bucks that Ren was a figment of Candy’s imagination, but there was something about the way she talked about him sometimes that made Aiden feel like he had to be real. That affectionate irritation. Indulgent tolerance.
Oh yeah. They were married all right.
“I’m not sure we’ll both make it,” Candy said now. “Max may not be able to spare both of us at the same time—it’s such a busy time at EP.”
Aiden didn’t have a clue what made something a busy time for the celebrity security company where Candy and the elusive Ren both worked, but he did know their mother would not be understanding if Ren missed another family function. He bobbled the phone, snorting a little too loudly. “If you’re thinking of screwing with Mom’s plans for the perfect Montgomery-Raines family portrait, you’re braver than I am.”
