Page 112 of Ramshackle
I shouldn’t want him around.
He tolerates me for the others, but that’s as much a concession as I think he’ll ever give.
Why can’t I let him go?
Aiden sets his pen down as he watches me watch him in silence. He gives me an assessing once-over, dragging his gaze over my night clothes and bare legs in slow measurement.
I resist the urge to pull my robe tighter and hide the flush that his stare incites. Just one look and my skin warms with an ache that can’t be satisfied. I hate to admit that I miss his chastisements. The way he’d cage me in his shadow. His words were meant to warn, but the way he looked at me offered dark promises instead.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask, teetering on the edge of if I’m going to start a fight or walk away.
“Looking at you? Or what was I doing before you appeared in my doorway to stare at me?”
A spark ignites in my chest.
“Why aren’t you asleep like everyone else?” I challenge, feeding that flame a little bit more.
“I’m working.”
“At four in the morning?”
“If that’s what time it is.”
“I didn’t ask you to stop sleeping,” I snap defensively. The anger swells in my chest, and I let it grow and take hold of me. “I didn’t ask for anything from you but a little trust. Or is that still too difficult for you?”
Aiden stands abruptly and stalks over to me. “You’re here for a fight. Why?” he demands, backing me into his desk. My thighs hit the edge, and I half-fall, half-sit on it.
My heart races furiously, trapped between anger and desire now that he’s invaded my space.
“I can’t sleep,” I admit. “And rumor has it that you don’t do that anymore, either. That you’re too busy trying to fix all my problems, which I would find hard to believe, but somehow you found someone to fix my knee, and now I might have a father. Why are you doing this?”
“I didn’t think a simple apology would mean anything to you.”
“It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt to try.”
I’m expecting hesitation. Side-stepping the apology in some way. But he doesn’t even stutter.
“I’m sorry.”
I freeze, stunned by his admission while my heart is hammering like it’s trying to break free of my chest.
“I’m sorry for what I did on the island. For not taking you with us on the boat. For not trusting you. For failing you as miserably as I have when I should have been the one protecting you. I know I’ve broken your trust, so these words may not mean anything toyou. That’s why I’m going to fight to earn it back. I’m going to do whatever I can to fix my mistakes. To make it up to you.”
His words—words I never thought he’d say to me—make my eyes burn with emotion. Make my throat tight and my chest ache.
“I don’t understand. What changed your mind so suddenly?”
Aiden plants his hands on the desk on either side of me. “So suddenly?” he croons. “You risked your life for us. Went willingly back to hell and torture. You also didn’t give me a chance to respond when you finally talked to me in the locker room. I’ve had a lot of time to think of nothing else. And…” he hesitates.
“And?”
His eyes find mine. “I know what Gordon did.”
The fire that was stoking through my veins instantly chills.
“You…what?”
“We all know,” he tells me like he isn’t dropping a bombshell of catastrophic proportions in my lap.
