Summer's End (Wildflowers #5) - Jill Sanders Page 0,38
couldn’t let him in. Not really. Not ever. She couldn’t afford to let anyone in like her mother had. After all, isn’t that what had killed her?
Chapter 12
There was only so much Aiden could take. Watching Aubrey hide her feelings about her father’s death was pure torture. What he wanted to do was hold her until he felt her relax and let go of the years of pent-up emotions that she’d hidden away most of her life.
Instead, he sat beside her, sipping a beer and listening to her friends try to console her about her father’s death. Of course, he knew how much she’d hated the man.
The will had been discarded on the coffee table as the friends chatted amongst each other, so he picked it up and started looking over it. He’d signed enough contracts in his line of business, he figured he could make sense of it.
Then a thought crossed his mind, and he set the paperwork back down and turned to the room.
“Are we sure he’s dead?” Aiden broke in to the conversation about whether Aubrey was going to go back to New York for the services or not.
Everyone turned to him as if they’d forgotten he was even there.
“Why else would a lawyer be delivering those?” Elle asked, motioning to the stack of papers.
“Are you saying this could be a ruse?” Zoey suggested.
The four friends were dressed in full-on Vegas-style carnival outfits. He knew they held theme dinners but had yet to see these outfits. He wondered if Aubrey had such an outfit, which led him down the rabbit hole of thinking about her dressed in nothing but feathers and beads.
Shaking that thought from his mind, he said, “From what I’ve heard about Harold Smith”—his eyes locked with Aubrey’s and he watched realization dawn on her as he shrugged—“this could be a trick to get her back to New York.”
“Google it,” Hannah jumped in. “The death of a man as powerful as your father would be talked about,” she said to Aubrey.
Someone grabbed up an iPad and searched while he pulled out his own phone and checked himself.
“Anything?” Aubrey asked a few moments later. Someone had filled her wine glass again, and she was nervously waiting.
“Nothing,” he answered.
“Me either,” Zoey said.
“So, it’s settled. This is a trick.” Aubrey sighed and leaned back. “That bastard.”
“It could be, or it could’ve been kept quiet,” Hannah supplied.
“No.” Aubrey shook her head. “Harold would have made sure that his people knew he wanted a big affair. There is no way it would be kept a secret. He loved the attention too much. So long as it was about him,” she added, her eyes locking with his own.
“So, what are we going to do about it?” Scarlett asked.
The five friends huddled over more wine and threw options back and forth.
He enjoyed watching how they interacted and plotted. It gave him a little more insight into the mindset of each of them. He hadn’t thought it possible, but after hearing them come up with a plot to help Aubrey end her father’s hold over her once and for all, he realized that each of them had a dark side.
“So, its settled.” Elle turned to him. “And you’re okay with this?”
“What?” He realized he hadn’t been paying close enough attention. It had been a long day and the beer on his empty stomach had caused him to be a little more relaxed than he’d counted on.
Elle rolled her eyes. “You, Aubrey, New York?”
“Me?” He balked as he looked around the room.
“Sure, you’re the only one we trust with our sister,” Zoey offered up. Everyone turned towards Zoey, who beamed and ran a hand over her flat stomach. “Married, baby, home.” She smiled. “It’s been a crazy year. We trust you with this.”
He opened his mouth to list off his own crazy schedule, but then thought of spending some time alone with Aubrey away from the camp.
Sure, for the past seven months they’d been on a sexual hiatus, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t pulled away before. Over the last year they’d taken plenty of breaks, though this was their longest one. He’d been itching to touch her again, to hold her as long as he could.
He’d been getting closer to her, now that their secret was out. The way he figured it, the more he worked on getting her to accept that there was more between them, the sooner they could move back into the physical side of their relationship.