CHAPTER 9
JAMES
Present Day
June 22
Los Gatos, California
“Aimee.”
Her name fills the room before he realizes he spoke it out loud. The agony from not seeing her, hearing the smooth richness of her voice, folding her lean frame in his arms, the press of her feminine curves against his solid plane, floods the hollowness inside him. It nearly brings him to his knees.
The bottle slips from his fingers, lands with a thud on the wool carpet. Amber liquid bleeds into the cream fibers, soaking the sole of his bare foot. He barely feels it. Every sense is sharply tuned to the woman in the vehicle parked out front.
The headlights turn off; then after a few ticks of the ugly, ancient clock behind him, a family heirloom someone had the terrible sense to leave behind, they turn on again. It’s as though Aimee’s trying to decide what to do.
She’s going to leave.
Like his beer-soaked foot, James hardly registers his long stride consuming the distance between them, or the front door slamming into the wall because he opened it with such force. He swore to himself he wouldn’t contact her. She has a husband and a child. He doesn’t want to disrupt her life, further complicating the mess Thomas created. He doesn’t want her hurting any more than she already has. Hurting just as much, if not more, than he is.
But here she is, after years of separation for her and what seems like months for him, and nothing is going to stop him from getting inside that car. He wants to feel her nearness. He wants to hear her voice.
He knocks hard on the passenger window. She bucks in her seat, turning toward him as she white-knuckles the steering wheel with both hands. A complicated stew of emotions ravages her face, visible under the misty glow of the streetlight that floods the vehicle’s interior. He sees the same longing he feels deep into the marrow of his bones, along with a haunting regret. But there is also disappointment in, and resentfulness toward, him. His heart crumbles a little more. He hurt her and betrayed their trust. He’d kept so much from her. He’d been so ashamed.
“Aimee.” He rattles the latch. “Unlock the door.” His pulse races. He can feel it throb in his throat. His skin is hot and uncomfortable. Sweat drenches his armpits. “Please.” He rattles the latch again.
The lock clicks and he hauls open the door, sliding inside. He shuts the door behind him and plasters his damp back against the leather to stop himself from crashing into her. His lungs heave and nostrils flare as though he sprinted a 10K. A quickening tightens his chest as he breathes her in. Jasmine and orange blossom. Aimee’s signature scent. Much more powerful than the memory.
Their gazes meld across the center console, and something electric rushes through him, a flash flood of emotion. He heatedly whispers her name, his own expression worshipful.
A river of brown, wavy hair—hair he used to twine around his hands when he kissed her deeply—falls gracefully over her shoulders. The Caribbean-blue orbs he knows so well swim in pools of unshed tears. Her lashes glisten—the pale, delicate skin encircling her eyes, puffy. She’s been crying for some time. There are teardrop stains dotting her jeans.
He watches his hand reach for her. He wants to caress the concave of her cheek, kiss away the tears, wind his arms around her, and never let go. But she’s no longer his to care for, to soothe away the worry. The gold band on her finger, bright like starlight in the glow of the street lamp, is a grim reminder. She’s no longer his.
His arm drops into his lap and her gaze follows. “You’re shaking.”
“Because I want to touch you so badly,” he rasps.
She shifts her face away, revealing her profile. The soft slide of her nose, the quiver of her chin. With the base of her palm, she wipes away the moisture that makes her cheekbone shine.
“Aimee.” His own eyes dampen. He blinks rapidly, fighting the burn. “Aimee, baby. Say something.”
She briefly squeezes her eyes shut and James curses the endearment that slipped from his tongue. He doesn’t want to scare her away.
Her breath hitches on a long inhale. “I’ve been driving in circles for the past two hours.”
“Baby . . .” This time he ignores the slip. He doesn’t like it when she’s upset or sad. Make that devastated.
She wipes her face again. Her hand trembles and his restraint shatters. He grasps her fingers and his tears fall.
For an instant she tugs her hand, startled by the contact, only to grip his palm tightly. She turns fully toward him, tucking her nearest leg underneath her. “I’ve known for a while that you remember again.”
“How long? Since December?” And she never reached out to him.
She nods. “Kristen called me after you called Nick. I always wondered if you’d recover. Carlos didn’t think so. I mean, you didn’t think so. But I still wondered. I also wondered what it’d be like when you came back. I’ve wondered that since the beginning,” she quietly admits.
“Since Mexico?”
“Yes, since I found you.” She glances out the front window with an unfocused gaze and James wonders if she’s back with him in Puerto Escondido. All he knows about that visit is what Carlos wrote in the journal. Aimee had been honest with him and herself before she left. It had been achingly difficult to read, but he admired her strength. He didn’t like it, but understood why she had to walk away from him.
“I wasn’t sure how I’d feel living near you and not be with you. Would I realize I was still in love with you? Would I leave Ian to be with you?” Her voice diminishes until barely audible. She moistens her lips and stares at their joined hands, her fair Irish complexion a vivid contrast to his deep tan from years living under the Mexican sun.
“Nick called yesterday and told me you’re here.” She motions at the house. “With your sons. And suddenly . . .” She pauses, lips parted as though figuring how to word what she has to say. James gives her hand an encouraging squeeze and she looks up at him from under her lashes. “Suddenly I didn’t have to wonder anymore. I knew. I can’t invite you over for Saturday-night barbecues. And I won’t go to Nick and Kristen’s house for their pool parties. Not if you’re there.” Her mouth contorts into a watery grimace and James wilts inside. She’s right, though. Still, it doesn’t hurt less hearing it. It’ll be awkward for both of them.
“I wish . . . I wish I’d listened to Lacy. I could have found you sooner.” Her shoulders shake as she cries harder, forcing out the words. “But she was so odd. She scared me and I didn’t know her, and the thought of you still alive . . .”
“Honey . . . darling, don’t,” James soothes. She’s beating herself up and he feels every verbal punch. He knows of Imelda’s friend, the one who approached Aimee at his funeral. Imelda told Carlos everything she knew about how Lacy, whom she’d known as Lucy, convinced Aimee to seek him out. Imelda had finally gathered the courage to draw Aimee out. She was weary of the deception and willing to risk Thomas’s ire and Carlos’s hatred for the sake of his well-being. He was entitled to the truth. James shakes his head. “Don’t blame yourself. You can’t blame yourself.”
She bites her lower lip, absently nodding. James shifts his hand, twining his fingers between hers. “Aimee.” He whispers her name again and again. He can’t stop saying her name, even murmurs it against her skin when he brings their linked hands to his lips.
She whimpers. “Kristen said you were at the café this morning. That’s why I wasn’t there. I couldn’t be there in case you . . . showed up. I was . . . I was afraid.” She stops and a fresh current trails down her cheeks, thin streams that soak her lips and cling to her chin. A few tears spill onto her lap, further staining the tight jeans that adorn her legs. Legs he desperately craves to have cradling his hips.
Before he can make sense of what he’s doing, James unlatches her seatbelt and drags Aimee onto his lap. He wraps one arm around her waist and burrows a hand through the curls he loves so much. Cupping the back of her head, he offers his shoulder for her to cry on. To his shock, she kisses him instead, crying into his mouth.
God help him, he kisses her back. The connection strikes him with tremendous force. He’s missed her terribly. Her taste, her touch, her scent.
Her.
They pour everything they are, everything they have, and everything they’ve lost into the kiss. Tears mingle as they cling to each other, shaking in each other’s arms.
He breaks the kiss and cups her face, pressing his forehead against hers. There’s so much he has to say, so much he needs to explain. He knew it bothered her he never liked discussing his parents, or what it was like growing up in a home where a parent’s love had to be earned. Nothing was freely given like the affection the Tierneys doted on Aimee. It had been especially difficult keeping from her the truth about Phil, that he is his brother, not a cousin, as his entire family led everyone to believe. Each of them had been disgusted in their own way that his mother had an incestuous relationship with her brother. James, though, he’d been ashamed. His family and the way they treated each other, the way his mother disregarded his art, and the way his father dealt out his punishments. It all embarrassed him.
Looking back, though, he understood why Phil’s favorite pastime had been knocking around his brothers. His mother refused to recognize him as her own in public. He might have been Donato Enterprises’ CEO’s son at the time, but to the outside world, the mother who birthed him was a mystery. Uncle Grant never talked about her. He never admitted he’d slept with his own sister, not until Phil and James saw them more than wrapped in each other’s arms.
James makes a rough noise of despair in the back of his throat. Words gush into his mouth. He wants to explain why he followed Phil to Mexico. How Donato Enterprises would go under if Phil continued to pour drug money into the company’s accounts. The Feds would confiscate their assets. James would lose everything, including his own dreams. With his investments depleted, he wouldn’t be able to open his gallery, and he wouldn’t be able to support the life he believed his future wife deserved—not on an artist’s salary. Phil didn’t have to assault Aimee to get to him. The trade laundering would have been enough to destroy him. It almost ruined Thomas.
But those aren’t the words that tumble from him. He kisses Aimee’s forehead, her temple and cheekbone. “I’m so sorry I left you. I never should have left you,” he says, and Aimee sobs harder. “I’m sorry for so many things. I should have told you about Phil. I should have been there for you, helped you heal—”
Aimee cries out, and before James can comprehend she’s gone, she’s back in her seat and buckling her seatbelt, leaving behind a cold and empty space where her body had been pressed against his. James feels just as frigid and hollow inside.
Tears cling to her chin. He wipes one off with his finger and she flinches. She grips the steering wheel with both hands and starts the ignition.
“Aimee?” He hesitates over her name. He feels her pulling away from him and she’s taking his heart with her.
“I love you, James,” she sobs without looking at him. “I will always love you.” She lifts her Caribbean blues and locks onto his brown eyes. “But I love Ian. I love him so much. We have a beautiful daughter. We named her Sarah, after Ian’s mom. We’re a family, a very happy family.”
His heart lands on the floorboard. She’s killing him. He knows deep down inside they will never be together again, but hearing her say the words knocks the wind out of him.
He can’t breathe. He has to get out of the car.
James snaps the latch and shoves open the door. He unfolds from the car before he does something stupid, like yank her back to his lap or switch seats and steal her away into the night. He quietly shuts the door and stares down the street, unsure what to say next, or what to do.
Where to go.
He doesn’t want to return inside. The house doesn’t feel like his. It will never feel like home, not like the house he once owned with Aimee.
The passenger window slides down. “James?”
He forces himself to look at her one last time, because this may truly be the last time. He’s come to realize he can’t live near her and not have her.
She leans toward the passenger seat to look up at him. “I forgive you.”
His soul withers. He nods tightly.
She releases the brake, shifts into gear, and drives away. James dips his hands into his front pockets and watches her until the taillights flash and she’s disappeared around the corner. Disappeared from his life. His fingers curl around the engagement ring he’s kept with him since December. The ring she’ll never wear again.
He wants to curse the world.
He wants to beat the crap out of Thomas.
His phone vibrates with an incoming text. Thomas has been buzzing all evening. What the hell does he want? He digs out his phone. Four text notifications light up the screen.
Phil’s release date is confirmed for next Tuesday.
Talking on the phone with him now. He wants to move back into Mom’s house.
Damn, James, I swear I didn’t tell him, but he knows you’re alive. How the hell does he know?
He wants to see you. He wants to talk about what happened on the boat in Mexico. What did happen?