by Lizzie Shane
She hadn’t slept more than an hour the night before—tossing and turning restlessly—but she didn’t feel tired. She felt driven. Purposeful. Finally running toward her dreams, rather than away from them.
She would talk to him, she would make it up to him—
Then she rounded the corner onto their cul-de-sac and stumbled—suddenly aware of the way oxygen was sawing in and out of her lungs.
The garage door was open. The SUV—the one they’d taken to the Montgomery estate—was parked in the driveway.
He was here.
Samira walked a few steps, suddenly nervous, her breath coming in choppy and rough. She’d thought she would have more time, the entire drive to the estate, to figure out what she was going to say. But he was here, right in front of her, and her heart was racing from more than the run.
She hadn’t thought she was out of shape, but apparently running to your lover’s arms was more cardio than she was used to. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, climbing the steps, reminding herself to breathe. She opened the front door—and Maddie’s high, bright voice greeted her.
“Samira! We found you!”
“Hey, Maddie. I thought you had a wedding to go to.”
“Daddy can’t do hair,” Maddie declared—and a sound near the kitchen drew her gaze. Aiden stood in the archway, looking adorably sheepish.
“I know I said I would let you go,” he began, and her heart swelled.
It felt like her smile took up her entire face as she closed the distance between them. “You do not know when to give up.” She grabbed his face and pulled him down for a kiss—putting everything she’d felt, everything she’d always denied, into that kiss. “I love that about you,” she said when she finally let him breathe.
He grinned. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry,” she began, but he was shaking his head, his arms still warm around her.
“No, I’m sorry. I know I said I would let you go, but I couldn’t imagine watching you walk away without doing everything I could to make sure you know how much you mean to me. I won’t run for office. I don’t need that to be happy. I need you and the girls and I need to be what you need. I love you, Samira, and I want to spend my life devoted to making you happy if you’ll let me. You aren’t just part of my family, a second mother to the girls, you’re my best friend. No matter what’s going on in my life, I feel lighter when I come home to you—you’re my home and I want to be yours. Please, Samira. Will you marry me?”
She gasped, closing her eyes on the rush of joy rising inside her. She’d told herself she didn’t need any big romantic gestures or dramatic speeches, but she had to admit the sound of the love of her life pouring out his heart to her wasn’t half bad.
Now if only he’d let her get a word in edgewise.
“Can I talk now?” she asked, unable to resist teasing him, feeling so light she might just float off the ground.
“Absolutely,” he said, his eyes incredibly serious. “Your turn.”
“Aiden Raines…” She didn’t have a speech. She wanted one just as beautiful as his. She wanted to light up his world the way he had hers, but all she had were stumbling words. “I always felt like I wasn’t good enough, like I had to try to be more so I would be worthy of love, but you saw me in a way no one else ever did. I was scared to love you, scared I couldn’t trust the way I felt, but I don’t want to be scared anymore. I didn’t give us a chance. I let what happened with Trevor diminish me, but I want to feel like myself again and I feel that way with you. I want to be brave and strong. I want to be the kind of woman who isn’t afraid to take what she wants. So I’m not running away anymore.” She grinned. “I was running back to you.”
His piercingly blue eyes held hers, hope making them bright. “Is that a yes?”
She almost laughed. “You really want to get married?”
“Yes.”
She pressed her lips together on a smile that wanted to break open her face. “Okay.” Her head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”
“Oh, thank God,” he whispered, and cut off anything else she might have said with a kiss.
*
He hadn’t planned on proposing, but as soon as he said the words, nothing had ever felt so right—except maybe the feel of the woman he loved in his arms. Until a muffled giggle inside the house made her jerk back.
“Aiden! The girls!”
He glanced down at Maddie and Stella who were spying on them around the corner of the stairs, giggling. “I think the cat’s out of the bag, but since we’re getting married, they were going to find out eventually.”
Something dazed entered Samira’s eyes. “We’re getting married.”
“Can we wear princess dresses?” Maddie piped up.
Samira’s eyes flared wide with horror. “Princess dresses! Aiden! You’re supposed to be at your sister’s wedding. When is it? Can you get back in time?”
He cringed. “Charlotte and I didn’t exactly leave things on good terms.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “You have to go back. You’ll regret it if you miss it. Your family means everything to you.”
“You mean everything to me.”
“Which is a very sweet thing to say, but you know you’ll hate yourself if you miss this moment. What about Stella and Maddie? Charlotte is their godmother! And even if you’re mad at each other right now, you care about Charlotte. And you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“My family almost drove you away—”
“They didn’t need to drive me. I was already running, remember? But I’m back now and I’m not going anywhere. And I refuse to be your excuse for missing this. You know you’ll feel guilty if you miss Charlotte’s wedding—”
“Even if she’s marrying a total tool?”
“Especially then. You need to be there for her. And I won’t be a wedge between you and your family. There is no line in the sand. It’s not them or me. It’s all of us. Now go.”
He tightened his hold on her waist. “Only if you come with us.”
She shook her head. “Not this time. Your sister’s wedding isn’t the right time to make a stand about our relationship, but we will face your family. And mine.” She groaned, dropping her head back. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
“Love,” he reminded her, bending his head down to kiss her.
“Oh yeah.” She grinned against his lips. “What a mess.”
He kissed her again, until the girls’ giggling broke them apart.
“At least come back to the estate with us,” he said when they came up for air. “We’ll hide you in the cottage and the girls and I will join you as soon as the ceremony is over.”
“Your dirty little secret?”
“My everything.”
Her smile was breathtaking. “How can a girl say no to that?”
*
“Are you our mom now?” Stella asked softly as Samira strapped her into her seat in the car.
Samira sucked in a breath and forced herself to answer evenly. “You’re always going to have your first mom. She was an amazing lady who loved you more than anything in the world, but do you think you’d mind having me as another mom?”
“Can we have more dessert?” Maddie asked.
“Con artist.” Aiden snorted from his position buckling Maddie in, ruffling her hair. “No extra dessert. Just extra love.”
But they might get some little brothers and sisters. Samira looked across at Aiden and suddenly all the possibilities she’d written off as impossible were back, possible again.
“Okay,” Maddie declared—and Samira’s heart clenched tight at that blasé declaration from the girl.
Stella nodded her consent to the new mommy idea as well and reached up with both small hands toward Samira. She leaned in, thinking the girl wanted a hug, but soft lips pressed against her cheek in a kiss and Stella whispered, “You’re the best mom.”
Samira’s eyes filled with tears and she smiled wetly. “I
love you, pumpkin.”
“I love you, too,” Maddie chimed, not to be left out.
And the words had never sounded so sweet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Aiden, darling!”
Aiden was tempted to ignore his mother’s call and keep walking, but the crowd heading from the ceremony site toward the reception tent hindered his movements and she had latched on his arm before he could escape. “I really should check on the girls,” he told her, but she tightened her grip.
“Your father has them. I need to speak with you.”
“You’ve already said plenty.”
She pulled him to a stop, forcing the crowd to flow around them. Her smile was bright and photo ready, but her eyes were uncompromising. “I’m your mother and I have something to say to you. You will do me the courtesy of listening.”
He nodded grudgingly, and was surprised when she didn’t immediately start talking, but instead pulled him away from the crowd and around to the terrace. She didn’t stop there, leading him into the house and through several rooms until they reached his grandfather’s study. She walked in and turned to face him. “Shut the door.”
“This is very mysterious,” he said, but he did as she asked. “Well?”
“I would like to apologize for the extremity of my reaction yesterday morning.”
He blinked at the formal words, parsing them since he knew they’d been carefully chosen. “Not for your reaction, but just for the fact that it was extreme?”
She pursed her lips tightly, looking away. “Some things came out this afternoon—or perhaps they were never secret but now they’ve been spoken of.”
He frowned. “I’m not following.”
His mother took a deep breath and looked around the study. “I always loved this room. It feels powerful, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” he agreed, still with no idea where she was going with this.
“I never set out to be the political equivalent of a stage mother. I had my own dreams.” She walked behind her father’s desk, running a hand over the large chair there. “My father was the center of my world—even more so after my mother passed. I always wanted to make him proud. To live up to the Montgomery name. I married Thomas—yes, because he was charming and persuasive, but also because he fit into my vision for our future. I understood politics and he understood people and we were going to run the world.”
Aiden didn’t know what his mother expected him to say, so he kept his mouth shut.
“The goal was for Thomas to build his credentials in Washington for a few years and then run for office when the time was right and he was a little more seasoned. We were young and in love and we had a plan.”
Aiden almost grimaced. It sounded all too much like him and Chloe—and he knew exactly what happened to those plans.
“I had Scott, and then Charlotte, building our dynasty. I felt like American royalty. And I had no idea my husband wasn’t the Prince Charming I thought he was.” A slight grimace was the only indication of emotion, her voice calm and bland. “I was pregnant with Candy when I first learned about the other women.”
She said it so simply. His father’s affairs were the worst kept secret in the Raines family now, but it must have been a shock to her at the time. Aiden started to say something sympathetic, but his mother was already continuing her story, calm as ever.
“Thomas was preparing for his first political campaign and my father had opposition research done. It wasn’t the affairs that stopped our political machine in its tracks. It was his carelessness. The abortions he’d paid for without even covering his tracks properly. I think I was as angry at him for destroying our dreams with his stupidity as I was for the betrayal. He hadn’t just betrayed me; he’d betrayed everything we’d been working for. And my father knew. Everyone on the opposition team knew. That I hadn’t been enough. That I’d failed as a wife—”
“No one thinks that—”
“No. People thought it. Especially back then. It took me years to forgive him—in case you were wondering why there was such a gap between you and Candy. I didn’t tell him I knew, but he must have known we’d found out. We called off the campaign and stopped talking about running for office. Started talking about how to garner the most prestigious diplomatic postings. How high he could rise and whether my father had the influence to bury any skeletons in his closet for Senate Confirmation hearings.”
Aiden wanted to say he was surprised, but none of this shocked him.
“I came to terms with it. I don’t think he wanted to hurt me. I was always his wife. They were just…women. Floozies. He regrets it, in his way. And I got good at looking the other way. I don’t know how many of our nannies were hired because they were already sleeping with him and how many he took up with after they were hired, but I do know he had a child with one of them. Diana.”
Aiden’s attention sharpened—that he hadn’t known. “In Venezuela?”
“You were so young, you probably don’t remember Laura. They lived with us for a while. Until she and Candy were kidnapped. We got both girls back, but they left after that.”
“You’re saying I have another sister?”
“Had. Candy tracked her down. She passed away a few years ago. Drug abuse.” She grimaced then, her gaze falling on a photo of the family—and he knew she was looking at Scott when she spoke. “I pushed Scott harder than I should have, but when your father failed me it was like all my hopes fell to Scott. Charlotte doesn’t have the temperament for politics and Candy would never do anything I asked, but then you said you wanted to run and—it felt like I was finally getting everything I’d worked so hard for. I sacrificed my dignity to salvage our family name for you kids and sometimes I wondered if there was any point to it and then, you wanted to run. That was everything, Aiden.”
“Mother…”
“When I saw you with her, with your nanny, I lost my mind a little. I know you aren’t married. I know you aren’t betraying anyone, but all I could see was your father throwing away his political career, throwing away the life we had both worked so hard for, just because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. It wasn’t the Muslim thing—though that certainly didn’t help—it was a lifetime of regret and disappointment all coming down on you. So no, you didn’t deserve the extremity of my reaction and I apologize.” Her mouth twisted slightly. “I thought you were so like me, nothing like him, and I was so angry to be wrong, but I don’t want to lose you over something so foolish.”
He could have accepted the apology, but he heard himself testing her sincerity instead. “We’re getting married.”
His mother’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t immediately speak. “You love her?” she asked at length.
“I do. And you owe her an apology too.”
“You were always my favorite. When did you become so stubborn?”
He met her eyes. “I come by it naturally. Are you going to apologize to her or not?”
She inclined her head in a regal nod. “We’ll endeavor to get along.”
*
He’d used the girls as an excuse to duck out on the reception as soon as possible, claiming they were exhausted—which wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. The fact was he couldn’t wait to get back to the cottage. To see Samira again.
Part of him was still scared she would vanish on him while he was gone, but the lights in the cottage called him forward. Maddie was draped over one shoulder, Stella over the other, both of them out cold. The excitement of the last few days had hit in the middle of the electric slide—giving him the perfect excuse to leave.
Both hands full of girls, he knocked on the door with his foot and it popped open a moment later.
“You’re back early.” Samira smiled—and he was helpless not to mirror it, everything in his world brightening at the sight of her.
“I missed you.”
“What a coincidence. I missed you too.” She leaned toward him and dropped a soft kiss on his li
ps before reaching for Maddie.
He transferred his daughter to her arms and together they made their way upstairs—and his chest swelled with the feeling of coming home.
“How was the wedding?” she asked at a whisper.
“Good,” he whispered back as they got the girls into their pajamas and settled them into their beds.
Maddie whined and started to stir, but Samira ran a hand over her forehead and she sighed and settled again. Only when they’d closed the door on the bedroom did Samira turn to him with an arched brow, “Just good?”
He shrugged as they started down the stairs. “We made it in time. My mother was murderous that we’d missed the afternoon family photo session—where apparently we discovered that Ren and Candy are not actually married, so we missed a lot of drama, but all Charlotte cared about was having her flower girls back so everything could be perfect.”
“Your sister isn’t really married?”
“Candy? No. Though they still seem to be together so I’m not sure I understand all the details. I heard different things from different people. They ducked out of the reception early too, but I’ll call Candy and get the whole story from her next week. Charlotte, on the other hand, is definitely married.” He made a face and pulled out a bottle of champagne he’d stashed in the fridge earlier.
“We’re toasting the wedding?” Samira asked skeptically.
“We’re toasting us,” he corrected, loosening the cork. “Maddie and Stella were magnificent, sprinkling like pros, though I might be somewhat biased.” The cork jolted loose with a muted pop and he poured into the water glasses she’d fished out of the cupboard—no champagne flutes here. “And how was your night? Did you spend the entire night riddled with second thoughts?”
She shook her head, coming around the peninsula to stand in front of him. “Not even a little bit.” She grabbed the loose ends of his bowtie and tugged him closer by them. “Have I ever told you how sexy you are in a tux?”
He arched his eyebrows. “I think I’m going to like this new, fearless Samira.”
