He looks over at me, seeing how nervous I am. He adjusts his seat, moving closer to me, and underneath the table, he places his hand on my thigh, rubbing it. His comforting touch helps me to stop fidgeting.
“Well, I am a businessman. I own many businesses, while also running the family business that was passed down to me,” he explains.
“Really? I love that.” My mom looks over at me, giving me a pleasing look. “What’s a couple of businesses that you own that I may know about?”
“Hm, well, I own the business that your daughter works at, Crypto, and Delfino’s is my new restaurant with a night club attached to it. I just opened them and some other businesses.”
My mother holds up her hand. “Wait, you’re my daughter’s boss? Now that is a surprise.”
“I know. It was a shock for—” Aiden holds up his hand, interrupting me
I looked over at him, confused at why he stopped me from talking.
“It’s not like that, Mrs. Davis. When we met, it was the night I opened my new restaurant and night club.” He grabs my thigh again, squeezing it under the table. “I didn’t even know your daughter worked for me until our first date.”
I look over at my mother and see that she didn’t like him cutting me off like that. However, I know my mother isn’t going to say anything about it. She would just act like he didn’t do anything, continuing the conversation.
She reaches for her glass taking a sip of water. “Hm, well, that’s good to know. Thank you for explaining.”
Aiden laughs, looking at me than my mother. Obvious to the way my mother is acting now. For the rest of the night, she listens to Aiden telling her more about himself, and every time Aiden looks away or talks to the staff, she looks over at me, giving me disapproving looks.
This isn’t good. I can already tell she doesn’t like him.
“FOR YOUR FIRST-TIME COOKING, YOU did a great job,” my mother praises. I help her put her coat on to leave. “Aiden seems like an interesting guy.”
We just finished up dinner for the evening, and my mother’s getting ready to leave. Aiden invited my mother to come over again anytime she wanted. His home was now her home, which made my heart smile at the effort he’s trying to put in to get her to like him. Except I know, it didn’t work. She doesn’t like him.
I tell Aiden that I’ll walk my mother to her car, giving us time to talk about dinner tonight and what’s been going on since she’s been gone.
“Yeah, he is.”
My mom turns to me, and the atmosphere changes instantly. She crosses her arms and glares at me. This takes me back to when I was a kid. Whenever she wanted to talk to me about something that I wasn’t going to like, she would cross her arms and look at me.
“So, how have you been since I’ve been gone? Want to tell me anything?” she hints.
“Um.” I shift back and forth on the heels of my feet. “Well, yes, I do have some things to tell you.”
Her eyebrows raise, and she leans up against her car. “I’m all ears.”
“My house burnt down while I was out of town.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” she snaps.
“I planned on telling you when you got back. I didn’t want to tell you while you were on your trip, because I knew you would fly back right away.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “Edith, it doesn’t matter if I would have flown back. You are my child who just graduated from college. You will sometimes still need my help, and now your house burnt down. You should have told me. Where have you been staying? Are you living with Nancy?”
It’s not that I didn’t want to tell my mother about my house burning down, I just wasn’t ready to tell her about Aiden and I living together. She will think I’m crazy for living with him right now when we haven’t even been together that long. She believes in really getting to know someone first before you just jump into bed or start living together. So, I already know she’s going to have things to say.
“Aiden and I have been taking care of everything. He wanted me to stay with him instead of with Nancy,” I try and explain.
My mother shakes her head and comes towards me. “You’re living with him? Edith, I can’t believe you right now. You’re still getting to know him; you don’t need to move in with him right now. Slow down; you guys are moving too fast.”
“Mom, wait, we’re fine. He wanted to help me out, take care of me. What’s so wrong with that?”
I look over at the front door and see someone coming towards us. I don’t want anyone to hear this, so I need to defuse this situation quickly.
“What’s wrong is that I can see that he’s really into you, and I don’t think you understand just how deep he’s in this. This is your first time really dating someone again since—”
I put my hand up. “Don’t say his name, please.”
“Fine, I won’t. But you need to be careful. You guys are still getting to know each other.” She wraps me in her arms, hugging me. “I think you need to come home with me. You don’t need to stay with him. Come home with me.”
I understand her concerns, and I guess I haven’t been thinking clearly. I have let my feelings be my navigation through this whole relationship. We haven’t even been together that long, so jumping into moving in together is too fast. However, we are so deep into our relationship. I don’t know how we can pump the brakes. I know that she’s looking out for me, it’s just that we’re both in love with each other.
“Mom, I get it, and you’re right. We are moving a little too fast. This was only going to be temporary, though. I wasn’t going to stay living with him forever,” I say, rubbing her shoulders. “But for now, I’m going to stay here, mom. I think it will be rude of me to get up and leave. He will ask questions.”
The person I saw coming to the front door ended up being Aiden. I don’t know how long he’s been standing there, but it’s evident that he heard at least the end of our conversation. His arms are crossed, and his face is blank.
A chill goes down my spine, and I can already tell this conversation with Aiden is going to be a hard one to have.
I give my mother a pleading look to drop this discussion. I don’t want Aiden to overhear anything else.
She huffs, dropping her arms around me. “Okay, baby. But know you can come home; you don’t have to stay here.” She kisses me on the head and grabs the side of my face, looking me in the eyes. “You call me when you get a chance, and keep me updated on what’s going on, okay?”
I tell her, okay. She turns around and is shocked to see Aiden standing at the front door. She waves at him, telling him goodbye. Aiden quickly changes his expression and smiles back at her, waving back goodbye. She gets in the car, and I stand there watching her drive off to stall me having to go in and speak to Aiden. But once her car disappears around the corner, I know time is up. I can’t put it off any longer.
I turn and look up; he’s still standing there, waiting for me.
I guess it’s now or never.
Walking into the house, he shuts the door behind me.
“Did your mother have a good time at dinner?” He walks up behind me, putting an arm around my waist.
“Oh, yes, yes, she did.” I wrap my arms around him, and smiling up at him, I reach up on my toes to kiss him. “Did you have a good time?”
“I did. Your mother is a great woman. I’m glad she came over for dinner.” I laugh as he takes us upstairs to our bedroom.
“I think we should have another dinner with her again. I loved having you two together getting to know each other.”
I walk into our bedroom, turning around so I can face him. I walk backward to our bed, untucking my shirt and undoing the buttons to take it off. It’s been a long day, and after cooking dinner tonight, I know now why I’m not particularly eager to cook again. It’s too much, and I almost burnt our food. Next time I will either pay someone to cook or order out.
But for now, I want to get in bed and go to sleep.
&nb
sp; “That can be arranged. We will have to see how my schedule will be.” He walks over to his dresser and drums his fingers on it. I can tell that something is off with him. He seems to be on edge. I know I want to go to bed, but that’s not going to happen right now, I see.
I finish getting dress and walk over to him. He doesn’t look at me; he just keeps drumming his fingers on the dresser. “Hey, what’s wrong?” I touch his arm, trying to get his attention.
“Do you want to tell me what you and your mother talked about outside?” His voice shifts dropping low. He’s talking to me like he spoke to Grace earlier tonight. I don’t know what to do. It’s like the Aiden that I knew has left, and this new Aiden has taken his place.
“I told her about my house burning down.”
“You didn’t tell your mother about your house burning down before tonight?”
“No.”
He stops drumming on the dresser. Tension rolls off him in waves, and I am confused about how to act around him. I feel that if I make the wrong move or say the wrong thing, he is going to explode. I can understand him being mad, because he probably heard me say that living with him is only temporary. But it’s not like I’m breaking up with him. I want to be with him, but my mother has a point. We need to slow down, or this may not last long, and that’s not what I want.
I stand there, watching him rub his forehead in frustration.
Part of me wants to run away from him and just sleep somewhere else, giving him time to cool off. But the other part of me feels like I need to talk to him and get him to calm down.
“How did she take you telling her that you’re living with me?”
I bite my lip, taking a few minutes to gather my thoughts on what I should say. “She thought it was nice of you to open your home to me. However, she wishes I would have called her and told her what happened. Then I could have moved in with her,” I partially lie. I won’t tell him the rest of what she said, because that will only cause him to look at my mother differently, and I don’t want that. I need them both to get along if Aiden is going to be in my life.
“Really? But then you wouldn’t have moved in with me. Do you feel that you should have told her so that you could have moved in with her?”
“No, it’s been nice living here with you. You’ve been so good to me, and I thank you for that.”
“You sound like you’re leaving me.”
I swallow; this is harder than I thought. “Do you think we’ve moved too fast?”
“No, I don’t. Did your mother say we’re moving too fast?”
“She just feels that we should take things slow, especially with me moving in with you. We haven’t known each other that long, and she thinks we need more time to get to know each other.”
I can tell that each word that comes out of my mouth is making things worse. He’s completely shut down on me, and it’s making me wish we could go back in time to when we were okay—two people, in love and enjoying each other, before my mother told me to rethink things between us. Then we wouldn’t be talking about this.
I put both of my hands on his arms to grab his attention so I can finish what I was saying. “Listen, I believe my mother has a point. We have been moving too fast, and I think we should slow down a little.” He shakes his head and grabs onto me, squeezing me. “Aiden, listen, I’m not saying we should break up. All I am saying is that we should slow down. Meaning, I think I should move out and go live with my mother for a while until I get back on my feet. We will still get to see each other and spend time together. I will just be living somewhere else.”
His grip on my arms tightens, and his face hardens. He moves in closer to me, letting his guard down, allowing me to see how angry he is and feel the tension coming off him. This is when I realize that I really don’t know this man standing before me. He’s no longer the man who makes me feel special by handing me roses or telling me that he loves me. No, that man is gone, and in place is someone else—someone I haven’t met yet.
But I am about to get acquainted with him right now.
I hiss, feeling pain shoot up my arm. His grip is too tight; I tug and wiggle my arm to get him to release me. When he doesn’t let me go, I push on his chest, trying to detach us.
“Aiden, you’re hurting me,” I cry.
He moves his face closer to me, and our eyes connect. “You are not leaving me.”
Grace’s voice comes back to my mind in a whisper. “There are some things that you don’t know about him.” I’m thinking she was talking about this side of him that I hadn’t known was there. The side she feared I would one day see.
I touch his hand and rub back and forth, getting him to calm down. He loosens his grip on me, and the anger fades slowly.
“Here, let’s take some time away from each other. I can—” His hand moves fast, slapping me across the face. I gasp, falling to the ground and grabbing the side of my face. The whole side of my face is burning from the force of his slap. Tears appear in my line of vision, threatening to fall down my face. I look up at Aiden in shock. I’m rendered speechless that Aiden, the man I say I love, and who tells me that he loves me back, just hit me. I never saw this coming.
“I told you that you are not leaving me,” he says harshly, like he’s talking to one of his men or staff.
I cry out from the pain. “I wasn’t leaving. I was going to say, why don’t I go to bed, and you can go off to do whatever? Put some space between us so we can think clearly, then we can talk again,” I whisper.
He stands there looking lost. For a second, I don’t think he heard me, and that he’s only going to hit me again. I start scooting back, using one hand to help get me away from him. I make it to the bed. His face changes, softening a little, almost like he feels sorry for putting his hands on me. But that look quickly vanishes as he fixes his shirt and buttons the buttons. When he sees that I have made it over to the bed, he approaches me.
I jerk back from him, not wanting to be close to him.
“I didn’t get that impression, but now that you’ve said this, I agree with you.” He reaches out and touches the side of my face, gripping it too hard. I wince from the pain as I look up at him. “I will give us some space, but this conversation is far from over. We will talk about this again, and you are not leaving me, ever. So, for now, I will go do some work, and you can go to sleep. Sound good?”
Scared to say anything out loud, I nod my head, letting that be my response to his question.
He stands there, looking down at me one more time, then walks towards the door to leave. Touching the door handle, he stops, just looking at the handle, and I hold my breath in fear, because I don’t know what he’s about to do or say.
“Edith, I want you to know something. I really do love you. You mean more to me than you know. I’ve given you more of me than I have ever given any other woman. You are it for me. You are mine.”
He turns and looks over at me. I search in his eyes for my man I fell in love with, but he’s isn’t there, and that scares the hell out of me.
“I am never letting you go. Don’t try and leave me; you won’t like what I will do to keep you with me.”
Turning the handle, he walks out, leaving me with my thoughts and emotions. The tears I tried to hold back fall down my face as I lay on the ground, crying out.
What have I gotten myself into?
WHEN AIDEN TOLD ME THAT he’d give us some space, I didn’t think it meant he’d give us four days of space. I know I should be thankful for it, but I’m not. In these four days, he has sent me a dozen roses each day. Sometimes they will appear at work, but most of the time, he has them delivered to the house an hour before I get off work. I know it’s a sweet gesture. He’s using the roses to show me that he’s sorry and he loves me. But it doesn’t erase the fact that he hit me.
I keep thinking about what went wrong. What did I do that made him feel like he needed to put his hands on me to get his point across? I knew he wouldn’t like me telling him that we should
slow down, but I didn’t foresee him getting so angry that he would slap me across the face.
Maybe I could have gone about things differently. I could have told him that I wanted to talk to him about something tomorrow or come up with another way to present some of my concerns about how fast our relationship was moving. Perhaps I could have told him that my mother liked him, and never told him that my mother talked to me about us, and how it’s making me rethink some things. That would have been a great way to end the night.
But even though I’ve thought about this, playing last night over and over in my head. The fact is that it doesn’t change anything. Things didn’t turn out that way, regardless if I wish they had.
Sighing, I lean back in my seat, feeling so confused.
“There are some things that you don’t know about him.”
Grace’s voice comes back, whispering to me once again. I understand that I don’t know him. We were still in the beginning stages of our relationship. Of course, I don’t really know him yet. But I’m getting to know him like you are supposed to do when you’re in a relationship. No, it isn’t right that he hit me, and I’m going to tell him that he can’t put his hands on me in the future. But I don’t think he meant to hit me. He just let his anger get the best of him. After he hit me, he looked kind of sorry after realizing what he did before I could explain that that’s not what I meant. Plus, he keeps sending me roses, showing me that he is genuinely sorry for what he did. I don’t think he will do it again.
At least, I hope he doesn’t do it again, or I will have to make a hard decision. One I don’t really want to make, but if he hits me again. I will have no choice.
Sighing again, I pick up my pen and make myself concentrate on writing up this last page of my marketing report for Amos. I know I won’t be able to leave if I don’t get this done, and I need this finished so I can go home, so Aiden and I can talk.
I’m going to hear him out, because I honestly love this man. I need to give us a fighting chance. As much as he doesn’t want to let me go, I don’t want to let him go, either. We just need to figure out a way to work through this and for him to understand the boundary lines that can never be crossed in the future.
Roses Are Red (Edith's Fatal Love Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
