pot behind me. The thing he came over to get—coffee. Not me! COFFEE.
I’m so mortified I could melt into the floor. I laugh so loud and so shrill, Ford starts to cry.
“Ford, shhh. It’s okay,” Jolie says, picking him up out of his highchair.
Just great.
“You have such a way with children,” Aiden teases, and I intend on punching him in the arm before remembering we don’t do that kind of thing anymore. Friendly behavior is totally off the table. After last night, this is war.
“How’d you sleep?” I ask, sounding bored.
“Oh great. Think I got a solid eight. You?”
“Pfft.” I snap my fingers. “I was out like a light.”
“I’ll bet. That sort of activity really tires you out.”
“What activity?” Jolie asks.
She’s done tending to Ford and has apparently been listening to us.
I glare at Aiden with a warning that if he so much as breathes a word of last night to my sister, I will end him right here, right now.
“Oh, Maddie and I walked around Vail Village last night after dinner. We watched the ice skaters.”
“That sounds so fun. I’d suggest we all go back tonight, but I booked us reservations at the Four Seasons for Christmas Eve dinner. It was surprisingly difficult to get on the list. Vail society is extremely difficult to break into…”
I stop listening at some point as she drones on about things I couldn’t care less about. Besides, Aiden is still close to me, and I’ve yet to move so he can get his coffee.
He arches a brow as Jolie continues to instruct us to be on our best behavior tonight, and it’s like he’s challenging me right then and there.
“It’s not my behavior you have to worry about,” I tell her. “It’s Aiden’s.”
He laughs and nudges me out of the way so he can get his coffee.
Jolie takes Ford into his room for a diaper change, and I lean in toward Aiden.
“What’s gotten into you?” I hiss under my breath.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re different. Before, when we lived together…you never…” WENT DOWN ON ME, is what I want to shout, but instead, I settle on, “Flirted with me like this.”
“Yeah, well I don’t have the same amount of patience as I had back then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sips his coffee nice and slow, watching me over the rim before finally deigning to answer me.
“I’m going after what I want, Maddie.”
“You can keep trying, but—”
“But what?”
“But it’s not going to happen,” I say, sounding definitive. “Last night is over. Find some other girl to entertain yourself with. I’m sure there will be plenty of willing women at the Four Seasons tonight.”
Especially if he turns that green gaze on them like he’s trying on me. I attempt to skirt around him then, feeling as though I’ve done a very good job of laying down the law. But then he uses catlike reflexes to reach for my hand and stops me before I can pass him.
We’re side by side when he turns his head and, with a tone so dead serious it makes my toes curl, asks me, “And if I want you?”
My mouth drops open, and he uses my momentary shock to turn me around so my back is against the counter. He steps in front of me, putting us chest to chest.
“You are not the Aiden I used to know.”
He smirks.
“I wanted you like this even back then. I just never acted on it.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Call it politeness. Call it cowardice. Either way, I regret it, and I intend to make up for my mistakes.”
I narrow my eyes up at him, still trying to figure out his true motive. It’s all so convenient.
Oh, now he wants me?
Now?!
“I still don’t get it. You say you wanted me, but then why did you leave me and go to New York?” I ask, pushing him on his confession.
“I wrongly assumed my feelings weren’t reciprocated.” He reaches up to cradle my chin, then he tilts it up to bring my lips closer to his. “I thought I was the only one suffering.”
I hear someone coming down the hall, making their way toward the kitchen. Their footsteps echo louder and louder. For a fitful moment, I worry Aiden is going to stay right where he is, pressed against me. But just as James rounds the corner, Aiden steps around me to open the fridge.
“Good morning, guys,” James calls, cheerfully oblivious.
Oh is it a good morning, James?! IS IT?!
I leave the house after breakfast because I have the backbone