was useless. He couldn’t get the image of Ellie and Blake out of his head.
And why the hell had Blake come back now? Had he gotten word somehow that Aidan and Ellie were together? Not that they were together, not really. But since no one else but Logan knew about their pregnancy pact, it might look that way to outsiders.
“We’re not a real couple…” Aidan heard Ellie’s voice in his mind again and felt the same sharp stab of something….
He shook his head to push those thoughts out of his mind. Blake. The issue right now was Blake. Was Ellie contemplating getting back together with him? We’re not a real couple. Damn it. Aidan had no real standing to make demands on her, so how could he insist that she stay away from Blake? Ellie had agreed that Blake was a jerk, but did she mean it? Or had she just said that to placate Aidan?
“Probably just said it to shut you up,” he grumbled to himself.
Who could blame her?
She was right. They weren’t really together. He had no claim on her. Damn it.
Fine. He’d made a mistake. But if he stepped aside, wouldn’t Blake swoop in? Wouldn’t that be a bigger mistake? Hell. He had to talk to Ellie again. Apologize. She wasn’t pregnant yet, so if she wanted to renew her relationship with Blake, all Aidan could do was step aside. It was the right thing to do, even though Aidan would rather chew on glass than let her go.
Not that it mattered. If Ellie left him for Blake, Aidan could find another woman in a heartbeat if he wanted to. But that wasn’t the point.
“Yeah, what’s the point, knucklehead?” he muttered, as he pounded down the beach.
The point was, he liked Ellie. A lot. More than any other woman he’d ever been with, if he was being honest. Not that it meant anything because Aidan had no intention of ever settling down with one woman. Even though his brother had finally met his match with Grace, it wouldn’t happen to Aidan. He just wasn’t the type to settle down.
Why would he? Look around you, he thought. He loved this place, loved the carefree lifestyle. Loved surfing, sailing, wheeling and dealing, beautiful women in bikinis bouncing around everywhere.
Yeah. The more, the merrier. It was way too easy to love ’em and leave ’em when plenty of beautiful women arrived on the island daily and only stayed for a week or two at the most. He called that a win-win.
On the other hand, if he were the type to settle down—which he wasn’t—Ellie would be the perfect woman to settle down with.
But since he wasn’t that type, he had to give Ellie the space she needed to make her own choices. If she would rather have Blake be the father of her baby, then…fine. Although it grated on Aidan. No, it more than grated. It infuriated him. It made him want to take his fist and shove it right in Blake’s face.
He had a feeling that wouldn’t make Ellie happy, but his own satisfaction quotient would be through the roof.
Aidan reached the end of the peninsula and stopped to breathe for a minute while enjoying the stunning view of clear blue water as far as the eye could see. He grabbed the small towel he’d tucked into his back pocket and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead and neck. Then he pivoted in the sand and started the long run back to the hotel.
Hell, if Ellie wanted to go back to Blake, Aidan would have no choice but to let her go. And now that he was thinking about it, he had to admit that from one objective angle, it would be the best of all worlds. Ellie would have a father for her baby, someone she cared about (even though Aidan couldn’t figure out why she would care about Blake), and she would stay on the island and raise her kid here and continue to work for Sutherland Corp. That was all Aidan had ever wanted in the first place. It was a win-win-win. Wasn’t it?
Of course, there was still the irritating fact that Blake would end up as her baby’s father, not Aidan. And that didn’t work for him at all. That part was not a win. Aidan knew in his gut that he, Aidan, was the one who needed to be Ellie’s baby’s father. She couldn’t trust Blake.
The man had already dumped her