To my utter relief, Aidan didn’t hang around for rehearsal. It was bad enough I needed to shower him off me, I didn’t need him watching me in revulsion while I was on stage. But I couldn’t get through the night with his smell on me, with the feel of him between my legs.
So I faked sickness and I must’ve been pretty convincing because Quentin told me to get out of his rehearsal in case it was something the rest of his actors could catch.
Without looking at anyone, I left, so desperate to get home and shower that I grabbed a cab rather than take the bus.
I was shaking.
Trembling to my core.
Deep down I was filled with dread, that awful feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know something is gone or lost or over for good.
I refused to allow the feeling to float up to the surface, however, creating a metaphorical hard layer of concrete in my mind that bricked over those emotions so I could function.
Once in my flat, I hauled my dress up over my neck and threw it and my underwear in the wash. Then I got straight into the shower and I scrubbed. I scrubbed my body hard in hopes of cleaning away not just the smell of him but the feel of him. I didn’t want to remember his hands on my body or how he felt inside me. Who wanted to remember something like that when they were never going to have it again?
It was emotional torture.
I was proud of myself I didn’t cry. Finally, I had a lock on my emotions.
Afterward, I pulled on a robe, wrapped my wet hair in the towel, and I’d walked into the kitchen to make myself tea when there was a knock at my door.
Aidan? I instantly thought, feeling rapid flutters in my throat.
“Nora, are you home?”
It was Seonaid.
I snorted at my ridiculousness and wandered over to open the door. “Hey.”
Her eyes narrowed on my dishabille as she pushed past. “I thought you would have just gotten home from rehearsals by now.”
“I left early. You want tea?” I gave her my back as I moved into the kitchen.
“Aye, sure. Why did you leave early?”
Why lie?
“I was there early, first there, in fact. Then Aidan appeared. He’s friends with the director and has been at a few rehearsals lately. He’s angry at me because he thinks I left him after Sylvie was taken from him. So he called me some nasty shit. I kissed him to shut him up and we ended up fucking.” I called it that because there was no other word for it. “Afterward, he told me he didn’t know what he’d ever seen in me and I told him I was just scratching a two-year itch.”
At first, she gave me nothing.
Then suddenly, her hand was on me, forcing me to turn to her. Her concerned eyes searched my face and whatever she saw there made her jaw muscles lock with tension. Confusing, because I was doing a wonderful impression of a blank piece of paper.
“You sound like you’re reciting something that happened to someone else.”
“It might as well have for all that it affected me.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Nora, he’s the first man you’ve had sex with since Jim and it sounds like ugly hate sex. How is that okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“Stop saying that,” she huffed. “Stop acting like this.”
“How would you have me act?” I said calmly, crossing my arms over my chest. “Wailing and crying and acting like a weak fool? I’m not her anymore, Seonaid. I’m in charge of my life.”
Her face crumpled. “At least that Nora felt something. This Nora is scaring me.”
“I’m fine.”
“What happened between you? I’ve been thinking over it since you told me last Sunday that he never left for California. Did his friend lie? Why did she lie? Does he know she lied to you?”
“Yes, she lied. I don’t know why but I think she was jealous. And no, he doesn’t know.”
“So you let him treat you like that when you could have told him that this was all a big misunderstanding? Why?”
“Because my life is calmer without him in it,” I explained patiently. “Life has been good for me lately, Seonaid. I don’t need the complication.”
Anger clouded her expression. “And I would totally bloody agree if you weren’t looking at me with dead eyes right now.”
I looked away because I didn’t know what else I could say to convince her I was okay.
With a noise of exasperation, my friend turned and marched toward the door.
“What about your tea?” I asked.
“Drink it yourself. Maybe it’ll heat the bloody chill out of your heart.” The door slammed shut behind her.
“Shit,” I muttered, collapsing against my kitchen counter. I was pushing everyone away. “Nice job.”
April in Edinburgh, I’d come to find over the years, was wet. Very, very wet. I finally understood the term “April showers.” It was only the first week in April, but already it had rained every day. It wasn’t constant, which made it worse—I’d go outside wearing stupid little ballet flats because the weather was dry and then ten minutes later, I’d get stuck in a deluge. The downpour usually only lasted thirty minutes but by that point, I was soaked to my skin.
I didn’t mind it too much. If the days had been filled with the delights of spring sunshine, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it anyway. I was pretending I was numb, after all.
Pretending and actually being that way were, of course, two different things. As I made my way to rehearsals on Wednesday, I was filled with trepidation, wondering if Aidan would be there. I hoped, after our encounter on Monday, he’d see sense and stay away. We were terrible for one another.
Turning up for rehearsal later than usual, I discovered Jack outside the building talking on his cell. He glanced up from the sidewalk, saw me, and said into the phone, “Hang on a sec, babe,” he pulled the phone from his ear and warned me, “the arsehole is here.”
“Aidan?” My belly flipped with nerves.
“Aye.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I murmured, wanting to turn around and go home. But I didn’t. I threw back my shoulders and forced myself to enter the building.
Feeling anxious, I took a deep breath and pushed open the double doors to the auditorium. Chatter from the stage end reached my ears as I took in the sight of our cast hanging around on seats and talking. Quentin stood by the stage with Aidan at his side. They’d been speaking about something but both looked up at my entrance.
They both stared.
My pulse fluttered.
As I approached, my gaze unwillingly drew toward Aidan and my breath stuttered at the anguish in his eyes. Not loathing. Not hate.
Pain.
And if I wasn’t mistaken: guilt.
What the hell?
“There you are. I thought for a second you weren’t going to make it,” Quentin said to me, yanking my eyes to him. “You’re better, yes?”
“Excuse me?”
“You left rehearsal early on Monday because you were ill,” he reminded me.
Discombobulated by Aidan’s expression, I could only nod, not quite sure what I was nodding for.
“Fine, let’s start. Where is our Orsino?” Quentin looked beyond my shoulder. “No doubt conversing on that dratted phone to an unsuspecting soon-to-be-infected-with-an-STD female.”
We eventually made it on stage but I could feel Aidan’s eyes on me the whole time. My lines eluded me, and I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, like I might burst out of it at any second. I couldn’t have been further from Illyria if I’d tried. Selfishly, I was glad when it seemed some of the other cast members, including Jack, were equally distracted.
Quentin called time on rehearsals early, yelling, “And when you return next week, I expect to be greeted not by this talentless, tatterdemalion cast! Understood?”
“If I bloody well knew what tatterdemalion meant, then aye,” Jack muttered as we walked offstage.
I gave him a weary smile of agreement and wished him goodnight. He left while I found my way over to the seat I’d been using and started to put my schoolwork back in my bag.
“Nora.”
My breath caught at the sound of Aidan’s voice at my back. Slowly, I turned, lifting my bag onto my shoulder and reluctantly looked up at him. Was it just me or did he look nervous?
What the hell was going on?
“Can we talk?” Aidan asked.
Suddenly, I was seeing him glaring down at me with fierce need as he pounded into me, feeling him stroke in deep, rough thrusts.
I flushed, breaking eye contact.
Nope. I should not be allowed to be alone with this man. We were magnets, he and I, and I couldn’t deny that. Staying away from him was my only course of action. “I have to go,” I said, turning to leave.
But he followed. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
“Apparently, there is a fuckload to say.”
What the hell did that mean?
I didn’t ask, even though my curiosity was tickling my tongue. “Aidan, I don’t know what you’re after now, but I want to be left alone.”
Marching out into the damp, dank, spring evening, I hurried along the road onto one of the main streets in Tollcross, Leven Street, and as soon as I spotted a cab, I lifted my arm in the air. The driver saw me and began pulling toward me.
“Nora, I’m not going anywhere.”
I sucked in a breath at finding Aidan right beside me.
Everything around me was dulled with the rain. The buildings, the road, and the people hurrying along in their dark-colored raincoats and umbrellas. The only startle of color was in the brightly painted doors of the shops and flats here, and in the banner across the entrance of the King’s Theatre opposite us, advertising a musical.
And Aidan.
To me he was a bright, vivid beacon in the dreary world around me, and I knew that more than anything, I needed to shut whatever this was down.
Glowering up at him, I said, “Well, I am. I’m going home. You should go home too.” The cab came to a stop and I reached for the door only for Aidan to beat me to it. I found myself ushered into the car. And then he got in beside me!
“Fountainbridge Square,” he told the driver.
“What are you doing?” I looked at the driver frowning at us in his rearview mirror. “Not Fountainbridge Square, it’s—”
“Fountainbridge Square,” Aidan insisted.
“Are you kidding, mate?” the driver gaped. “That’s just around the bloody corner.”
“I’m going to Sighthill.”
Aidan scowled down at me. “I know everything, Nora. Seonaid tracked me down at the music studio yesterday.”
I had no words.
Inside my head, I was screaming at my best friend, but for Aidan, I had no words.
He looked at the driver. “Fountainbridge Square and then possibly Sighthill.” He stared at me with a mixture of remorse and frustration. “Why the fuck did you not tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I murmured, feeling all the emotions I’d kept under that concrete layer starting to poke through little cracks.
“Tell me what?” he asked in disbelief. “That Laine lied to you.”
“I wasn’t sure she had,” I lied.
Aidan’s expression darkened. “She and I had words last night. She fucking lied, Nora.”
“You texted,” I said, dazed, stupidly trying to hold onto the misunderstanding. “You told me you were leaving. That it was over.”
That made the muscle in his jaw pop as he grit his teeth together. His hands curled into fists and then flexed as he exhaled, like he was trying to control his temper. “I lost my phone the day after I last saw you. When you left, I let fucking Laine talk me into getting a new number so you couldn’t contact me. I was so angry at you for leaving that I thought it was a good idea. I didn’t realize she was trying to make sure I never saw the last text sent from it to you.”
God, she was despicable. Truly despicable.
“Oh, it gets worse. Cal made it clear he wanted space for him and Sylvie to bond so even if I’d decided to leave, I couldn’t go to California. And I certainly wouldn’t have gone without you.” His expression turned so pained I glanced down, unable to bear seeing him look at me that way again. Like he cared.
Like he more than cared.
Oh God, Seonaid, why did you do this?
“When you weren’t answering your phone and there was no answer when I came to your flat, I remembered the salon Seonaid worked at. I found her and asked her where you were. She told me you’d left. That you’d gone home to the States.
“No word of warning, no goodbye, just gone. During the worst time imaginable, I thought you’d left me.”
“I know,” I whispered, and then cleared my throat of emotion. “I didn’t. I went to see you the morning after Cal took Sylvie. Laine let me up. All of your instruments were gone and she told me so were you. That you had packed up and gotten a job in California to be close to Sylvie but the job meant leaving right away. I didn’t want to believe it, but all your stuff was gone … and then when I tried calling you, I got no answer. I texted you and you confirmed what Laine told me. I couldn’t … I … I needed to leave, get away, so I did.”
His warm, large hand with its calloused fingers slid over mine and I wanted to pull away from his touch but at the same time, I wanted to hold on tight. Tears burned my eyes as I let him hold my hand.
“I was at Cal’s, seeing Sylvie. I know a woman who runs a home removals company and I called her and paid her an obscene amount of money to get out there with a team and pack up Sylvie’s stuff. I was drunk. Miserable. And I didn’t want to have to deal with it. So they took it all to Cal’s that night, and I moved all my instruments into Sylvie’s old room. The next morning, I felt like shit. I didn’t want Sylvie to think I was throwing her away, so I went there. It was just Cal, no Sally, and he felt bad for doing what he’d done, so he let Sylvie and me have the day together. I was out all day and I didn’t have my phone on me because I’d left in such a rush that morning.”
“Oh my God.” I felt sick that someone could lie like that. “Laine should’ve been an actress.”
“She admitted to deliberately misleading you.” His grip on my hand tightened. “She stole my phone. She was the one who texted you.”
“She’s not well, Aidan,” I stated the obvious.
“She has feelings for me that I don’t return. I knew that. I thought we’d gotten through it over the years. Obviously, I was a fool. She decided you were too young for me, too immature to handle everything I was going through. I told her—” His voice began to rise in anger and he stopped himself. “I told her she was vindictive and jealous and she tried to ruin the best thing that had ever happened to me.”
I gaped at him in disbelief, his words so beautiful but so painful. “She succeeded, Aidan.”
His eyes darkened at my comment. “My relationship with Laine might be well and truly fucked. But our relationship needn’t be destroyed, Pixie.”
My eyes closed against the nickname. I couldn’t see him stare at me with affection and hear his name for me at the same time. It was too much. Way too much!
Like he sensed my thoughts, he slid his hand around the nape of my neck, gently forcing me to look at him. His smell, his warmth surrounded me, and I found my eyes dropping to his lips, longing for them even though part of me wanted to jump out of the moving vehicle.
Voice hoarse, he told me, “I have missed you so damn much, Pixie.”
“We’re a mess,” I whispered, thinking of the last few weeks.
“I’m sorry I treated you so badly. I was a bitter arsehole. But you have haunted me for eighteen months, and I resented the hell out of you for it. I thought you’d betrayed me, Nora, at a moment I needed you the most. That’s my only, and terrible, excuse for what I’ve done the last few weeks.”
“Did you know I was a member of Quentin’s cast?”
“Aye,” he admitted. “He asked me to help him out and I saw your name on the list of players. I had to see if it was you.”
“So you could torture me.” I pulled away from him, remembering his callous treatment and my equally horrible treatment of him after we’d had sex.
“I wanted closure. I couldn’t find it.” Aidan brushed my hair off my face, refusing to let me create a physical distance between us. “I still wanted you, even when I’d thought you betrayed me.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
He was silent and then he leaned in and I felt his warm breath on my ear as he whispered, “If coming inside you is the last thing I ever do, I’ll die a happy man, Pixie.”
Tingles fizzed to life between my legs and despite my fight against him, my whole body swelled toward in him in arousal. “Aidan,” I breathed.
His lips whispered across my jaw and I felt his fingers press gently to my chin, forcing me to look at him again. He spoke his next words against my mouth. “Let’s start over.”
Images of us together, laughing, making love, talking, and being at peace with each other flitted through my head. However, those images were quickly crushed by the agony I had experienced when I’d lost him once before. The pain was too fresh, too sharp to have forgotten what it felt like to lose Aidan Lennox. More than that, however, I was afraid of losing myself. It had been a messy, twisted, unpleasant road to liking myself, forgiving myself. I feared that somehow being around Aidan would take me back to the person with insecurities and little self-worth.
I shook my head, dislodging his hold. “I can’t.”
Disbelief quickly turned to frustration. “If it’s because of how I treated you, or about Nicolette, I promise you she and I aren’t together. And I won’t see her again. As for how I treated you, it fucking guts me to remember. I promise that will never happen again. Never. Please say you understand.”
“I do understand. It’s not about that or Nicolette.” I brushed my fingers along his cheek, feeling the familiar bristle. “This isn’t punishment, Aidan. I would never want to punish you. I just can’t be with you. I’m not her anymore. I’m not the girl you cared about. I have a good life now and things are the way they’re supposed to be.”
Before Aidan could speak, the driver announced impatiently, “Look, I can’t sit here all bloody night.”
It was then I realized we were at Fountainbridge and probably had been a while.
Aidan shot him a glower and then turned it on me. “You need time to think.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then I need you to take time to think.”
“I don’t need time,” I insisted and said to the driver, “Sighthill.”
The driver nodded and looked at Aidan expectantly.
My disgruntled Scot whipped out his wallet and handed the driver enough money to cover the entire car journey. “Aidan—”
“This isn’t over, Pixie,” he said, exasperated, as he threw open the cab door and got out.
I tried and failed not to look back at him as the taxi pulled away into traffic. My whole body hummed with nervous energy and I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight.
Because Aidan Lennox had said those words to me before and the determined, beautiful man meant them then—and I knew he meant them now.