Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1) (18 page)

He interrupts my hypothesis. “This would be my first venture into production. I’d like to start with you.” His eyes brighten, never leaving mine, as if he is implying more with his words.

“We would go into business together?” I whisper in astonishment.

“Yes. As you’ve just proven, our business ethics match. You’re bright, hard-working and shrewd. But I could be a passive investor, if you wish. You would have all management power.”

I know why he added this. With Denton here, he can’t say more but he just freed me if I didn’t want to deal with him after our nights together.

Denton is watching me. They’re both waiting for me to say something. How could I ever get over Aiden after this? After he hands me my dream on a lab tray? There would never be another man for me. Of that, I’m certain. I would want him every day for as long as I walked the earth, because it would be more than love for me. It would be that irreversible bond of origin, of the one who gave you life so you could live your dreams. And my only family would be that lab—that one thing we would share. He would move on, with a wife and children, but I would not. The loneliness of the image prickles the beauty of the dream.

I find some air and string the words together. “I think what you’re offering is a tremendous opportunity, Mr. Hale. If it’s okay with you, may I think it over to make sure I’m doing the right thing? For both of us?”

His eyebrows rise slightly at my last words, but he nods. “Yes, but don’t take too long. You have to let Bob know soon, and you don’t want any delays.” He looks intense, anxious even.

“I understand. I’ll let you both know by this weekend.”

“Good. Now, are there any other questions before we sign the agreement?”

I’m about to shake my head when I remember. In my astonishment, I almost forgot. “Why are you interested in military defense, Mr. Hale?” I try to keep my tone light and not give away how much I want this information for my theory.

The tectonic plates shift in his eyes abruptly. He takes a sip from his glass of water, looking like he was hoping this question would never come. I wait.

“You’re not the only one who has fought for the American dream,” he says after a few moments.

Bingo! “You were in the military?”

He nods once, keeping his eyes on me.

“That’s impressive, Mr. Hale. When?” Denton asks. With every word Aiden speaks, I think Denton is developing a man crush on him.

“When I was eighteen,” Aiden answers politely, but his voice is hardening.

“How long were you in the military? Were you in the Army?” Denton presses on. He’s in love.

“No, the Marines. For about five years.” Aiden’s sentences are getting shorter. I know I have only moments before he ends the conversation. I make my move for the final missing piece.

Chapter Thirty

Discovery

“Were you in combat?” I ask.

His jaw flexes for a millisecond and he turns to me. “Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll add your terms to the agreement.”

The moment he leaves the room, my brain jumps into overdrive but Denton interrupts me.

“What an inspiring creature. Marine, then college, then this. When does the man sleep?”

“I don’t know,” I mumble, grateful for my long hair in case my face betrays my intimate knowledge of Aiden Hale’s bedroom.

“Isa, I’d like you to forget about my being a professor for a moment. Can you do that?”

The question takes me by surprise. “Sure, what do you need?”

“I need you to talk to me like a friend.” He smiles. “What’s going on with you and Hale?”

I flush. How embarrassing. Denton was thinking I managed to impress a businessman with my supplement and now he suspects I got this deal with something else. I can’t look him in the eye. I doodle with my finger on the cherry wood table.

“I like him.” I whisper the understatement of the century.

Denton’s hand moves closer to mine and he bends his head to see my face. “I’ll give you some unsolicited advice because I wish someone had given it to me. I think he made you an incredible offer. If you weren’t so taken with him, I’d say jump on it. But if you feel strongly about him and you don’t think he can reciprocate, I implore you to think it over carefully. I don’t want you to jump into this because you feel you have no other options. With your visa, kid, they’ll line up to hire you, and you’ll get your own lab someday. Just think it over.” He pats my shoulder.

A surge of gratitude for this man overwhelms me. It’s exactly the kind of advice I needed, the kind of faith only someone in his position can give. Before I realize what I’m doing, I give him a hug.

“Thank you, Arthur.”

He chuckles. “Here is a scientific observation for you, Isa. When it comes to feelings, the male of the species is an idiot. But the good news is, he eventually comes around.” He winks. I twist the paperclip, laughing. Even his love advice is scientific.

Aiden strides into the room minutes later. He must be the most efficient contract drafter ever. Of course, his supermemory must help. And hurt.

He turns to me. “Ready?”

I nod, the magnitude of the moment settling in. He hands me his pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. The pen is warm from his heartbeat. The new lifeblood pounds in my chest as I recognize it. It’s the one he used to sign my new books. I look up at him, startled.

Aiden smiles. “Sign away.”

I wonder if my hand would have shaken with any other pen. But with this one, it does not. He signs his assertive, no-frills autograph next to mine. Denton takes a picture, laughs and claps. When Aiden extends his hand, I take it, knowing he will hold mine. And knowing it will rip me apart tonight.

“Congratulations!” he says. “Time for a celebration lunch?”

Oh no! Alone time
. I don’t need Reagan’s pearls of wisdom to know this idea would be like sniffing vapors off the fume hood. Addictive and deadly. “I can’t, Mr. Hale. But thank you for all your help. I’ll never forget it.” I put as much feeling as I can in my voice and squeeze his hand.

His grip tightens once—almost painfully—then he lets me go.

* * * * *

Denton drops me off at home. The whole way, he analyzed the pros and cons of Aiden’s business offer. I heard only half of it. Calico runs to me on the steps, and I do a poor job scratching his head. He abandons me, looking offended.

When I get inside, I see a big banner hanging over the living room door. F
EELING
L
IKE
A
M
ILLION
B
UCKS
. It has dollar signs, American flags, hearts and smiley faces painted all over it. Reagan! I call out for her but a Post-it on the TV informs me that she is at her job training.

I march straight to our bookcase for my clinical psychology textbook. I flip through the pages until I find the section I want. As I read, I jot down the key words on a piece of paper.

Marine

Five years—from 1998 to 2003

Combat. Likely Afghanistan and Iraq

Isolation

Hypervigilance

Control

Nightmares

Hair-trigger temper

Rage

Violence

Guilt (“I shouldn’t”)

Lights flickering (To alert him to someone’s presence?)

High-alert at certain triggers—thunder, traffic, honking, camera flashes, new places

Thousand-yard stare (Flashbacks? Memories?)

Physical distance; last through doors; back never exposed; never anyone behind him; won’t go in a crowd (Why?)

Predisposition: eidetic memory

It all fits. Textbook case. Aiden Hale has posttraumatic stress disorder. Severe, by the looks of it. Whatever terror he lived through during combat has never left him.

What got him started down the military path? I don’t know. Whatever it was, he came out of it alive and scarred. But the discipline he learned, combined with his natural intelligence, allowed him to rise to the very top.

At what cost? Loneliness. Self-imposed isolation. Maybe that is why he cannot allow himself to get involved with me.

I hear three distinct slow knocks on the door. They lack Reagan’s femininity or Javier’s friendliness. I peep through the hole. The new lifeblood burns my veins. I open the door.

Aiden leans with his arm on the doorframe. He is looking down at my feet. Then his eyes travel over me, one inch at a time until they meet mine. They are blue fire.

“You have every reason to shut this door in my face. But will you be the miracle I think you are and let me in?”

Chapter Thirty-One

The Truth

I step back against the foyer wall and nod for Aiden to enter. He walks inside and stops in front of me. His face is ashen, the only light burning is in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Of course.” I close the door and lead him to our living room. He follows me, his quiet steps heavier. He ducks under Reagan’s million-dollar banner, treads past the sofa and stops smack in the center behind the ottoman.

“Would you like to sit down?” I ask. “Or something to drink?”

He shakes his head and starts to pace. Left, right. Left, right. With each step, he flits in and out of the ray of sun streaming from the window. Unsure what to do, I perch on the arm of the sofa, listening to the rustle of his suit.

He grasps his forehead like he wants to rip it off. I try to think of something to say but instinctively I know I shouldn’t. He is at the edge of a precipice and he will either jump on his own or not. He stops pacing and fixes me with his stare.

“From the moment you fell asleep in my arms on our first night, I’ve been trying to deserve you. Or if not deserve you, at least deserve the thought of you.” The words gush from his mouth.

“I’d touch your hair, your face. You smiled, then started whimpering in terror ‘six-oh-two, six-oh-two’. I had no idea what it meant but I knew you were in trouble and I knew no matter what it was, I’d try to save you. From anything, especially myself.” His teeth clench, and he runs his hand through his hair, grasping his neck.

“You deserve better, Elisa. Someone to heal you, not to drag you down. Gentle, not violent. The best thing for you is to let you go.

“But I’m selfish. I kept telling myself, ‘One more day, just one more day. I’ll be extra careful, always on my guard, never turn my back.’ The trouble was I hadn’t counted on your effect. All my structure, all my rules, they evaporate around you.” He splays his fingers in the air. “It took just holding you for a few minutes and I slipped… Such a simple, elemental mistake, and it could have been
deadly
.” His voice rises abruptly on the last word, making me jump.

“Deadly?” I gasp. “Why? What mistake?”

His hands turn to fists. “I fell asleep, Elisa… You have no idea how very close you were to getting hurt—” He sucks in a sharp breath and looks away. His eyes lock on the window. His frame shudders like he is seeing something vicious in his head.

But I relax as I finally understand. “You mean your nightmare? Aiden, I was fine. Nothing happened to me.”

Instantly, his jaw clenches. “Yes. By sheer dumb luck.” His voice is harsh, angry. “If you had touched my back instead of my face or had wrapped your arms around me, I would have attacked you and not known what I did until it was too late.” He fixes his eyes unblinking on the scratched hardwood floor.

A chill seeps through my skin to my bones. A gust of fear, if I’m honest. Yes, PTSD has nightmares and flashbacks but this sounds different. “Why would you have attacked me?” I try to put volume in my voice but it’s muted.

He looks up at me for an immeasurable moment. The ever-present tectonic plates slow down until they still. “I have a startle reflex, Elisa. No one can sneak up on me or touch me from behind, whether I’m asleep or awake… If they do, I will rip them apart or crush their bones, much like I did my own mother when I came home from Iraq… All because she tried to wake me one night from a nightmare. Just like you did.” His voice drops to a whisper, and he looks back at the window, beyond the glass pane. His eyes gloss with a liquid film. His right hand closes into a white claw, and his muscle bands quiver under the tailored lines of his jacket. Exactly as they did during his nightmare.

At the sight, my fear scoots to the corner and makes room for something else: for him. What is it about healing the pain of others that liberates us from our own ache? It must be cellular, in our blood, because right now, seeing his anguish, the only thing that matters to me is wiping it away.

I stand to go to him but he steps back, now almost against the wall. He stands tall, in his high-alert posture.

“Don’t!” he says.

I sit back on the sofa to give him the space he needs. “But your mum is okay now?” I ask gently, even though I know she must be if she is traveling to Thailand. But maybe if he starts thinking about the good things, it will help.

He scowls. “Not thanks to me. If my father hadn’t been there to save her, she would have been torn to pieces.” He closes his eyes. Quiver after quiver ripples under his jacket like the flesh of a steed reined close to the bit. My stomach clenches in sync with his shudders. I replay my time with him through this new lens that explains everything. Everything but how this started. What happened to him? Can I ever ask this question without forcing him to relive it?

I have a sudden urge to hold him but his force field is almost tangible. “When did you come back from war?” I ask, hoping this will not trigger any horrors.

“May 31, 2003, at 8:24 p.m.”

“So long ago,” I whisper. A whole epoch away. “And you think because it happened then, it will happen again with me?”

“I don’t
think
. I know.” His voice is resolute. “Remember what I told you about my memory, Elisa?”

I think through our dialogue for something that can explain this. Then the chill returns to my bones and I shiver.

“That once you experience something, you will always relive it with perfect clarity?” I whisper.

He nods. “Once that flashback is triggered, whether I’m awake or in a dream state, I will act exactly as I did then, feel exactly what I felt, and the outcome will be exactly the same.” He speaks slowly, as though he is reading a judgment.

“Always?”

“Always.”

The word hangs between us, having none of the promise that it holds for other couples. Madly, in my mind, I picture another girl across the world in this very second, warm not cold, with another man, beaming not ashen, their bodies tangled on a tight sofa, whispering “always”.

“I cannot control it, Elisa.” The couple vanishes. “
Especially
not with you.”

I look up at him. He gazes at my jawline, at my throat. Another shiver runs through me, this one for myself. “Why not around me? What makes me more in danger?”

For the first time, he smiles. It’s a sad smile, the kind we wear sometimes instead of tears. “There is a complication with you.”

“What complication?”

“The fact that when I first look at you, I feel calm. It is very
difficult
for me to maintain my control and vigilance when you’re around. It’s not a feeling I’ve ever had before with any other person.”

I am only a woman so despite the chill, I cannot help but ask, “Why not?”

His smile becomes true, with a shadow of a dimple. “How to explain this?” He looks around the living room. His eyes alight on a picture on the wall: Reagan and the Solises gathered around me as I blow out a single candle for my first anniversary in the States. He looks back at me.

“See, when we meet people, it’s always in context. Where they are, what they’re saying, doing, feeling. We all have first impressions, but for me those are permanent. Whatever reaction they elicit in me then, that’s what I will re-experience when I see them next. My feelings may develop but that initial perception will always be my first response.

“For example, your roommate and your tango partner. The first time I saw them was from upstairs at Andina. They were letting you get plastered and potentially endangering you. And he was dancing with you, your legs in knots, but you looked so…so lost, sad. I watched you dance. You move like water. So beautiful, but you never smiled once. Then you started downing your drinks like a Marine before deployment and neither of them stopped you. Well, demented as I am, the idea of you upset or sick or drunk or in a car accident with a man who turns out doesn’t even have insurance—it made me taste blood. So every time I’ll see Mr. Solis or Miss Starr, they will piss me off. I may grow to like them, respect them, be grateful to them for the love they’ve shown you—” he points to the picture, “—but still, on first sight, that initial anger will be there until I control it.”

I can’t speak. Even here, discussing my own danger, the idea of his eyes on me while I danced, and his worry about me, starts to restore me.

“But with you, it’s different.” His voice becomes almost a caress. “The very first time I saw you, you were in a painting, only a small, virtuous part of you exposed.” He cups his hands like he is holding a soap bubble. “The light on your shoulder, the way you looked like you were breathing, the gentle curve of your neck…was peaceful. I felt…strangely calm… And calmness is something I’ve coveted for a very long time. It was instantly addictive. I just stood there, watching…” The tectonic plates shift slightly, and the turquoise depths lighten and still. Then they smolder. “But the painting was also sensual so calmness morphed to lust. Maddening lust… It was a perfect storm. The two things that most erode one’s control.”

It’s terrifying that these words warm me when I should stay focused on my impending bone crushing, but they do. Inch by inch, fear leaves my body.

“So now?” I ask, and immediately regret it.

The smile disappears. “So now, every time I see you, I have my guard down. I’m not as vigilant, and therefore, I’m more dangerous.” His voice is sharp again. And his eyes—I’ve never seen them deeper.

For the first time, he steps toward me. I stand to go to him but he puts his hand up. “It all comes down to this, Elisa. I cannot risk hurting you and I cannot give up my own structure either, because without it, I become a monster.”

He shudders, but I feel like he just ripped my chest open. The warmth of his words evaporates as I realize he has not come back to me; he has come to say goodbye. The void that forms when I think of the car accident flares now as though another fatality is looming.

He closes the distance between us quickly, his arms out like he is trying to break a fall. “Elisa, fuck! Are you okay? No—of course, you’re not! How could you be with everything I just told you? Here, sit down.” His eyes are wide. His hand hovers over my shoulder like he doesn’t want to touch me.

“I’m fine. I was just thinking,” I say, blinking at him, confused. Why is he so panicked? It’s not like I collapsed on the floor. Still, I sit on the sofa to calm him.

“Do you need some water? Or food? A break?”

“No, I’m fine, Aiden.” My tone is abrupt despite my intentions. I soften it at the sight of the V between his eyebrows. “I just need to understand you. Why come here at all if it’s just to tell me to stay away?”

His face hardens, his jaw clenches again. “So that you can move on without any regrets.” His voice is sharp. He scowls at me. Then something catches his eye to my right. He frowns and tilts his head to the side. I follow his gaze and freeze.
Oh, bloody hell, my clinical psychopathology book! My PTSD list!

I watch in slow motion as he treads to the table and picks up the list with his long fingers. His eyes change as he reads it, from confusion to horror to fury to relief until the plates settle in their neutral, guarded spot. In the silence, I can only hear my heart pounding in my ears. He picks up the textbook and reads through it in seconds. At last, he looks up at me.

“How long have you known about my defect?” His voice is even, but I don’t know if the storm has passed or it’s coming.

Defect? It’s not a defect, it’s an illness
. “I just put the pieces together right before you came over. After I heard you were in the war.” My voice is faint.

He nods, and with slow, deliberate motions, tucks the list back in the exact page and position he found it. Then he sits on the ottoman in front of me, at the very edge.

“And you’ve been sitting here, with this knowledge, seriously contemplating being with me?” Still even voice.

I nod and swallow.

His jaw clenches again. “Elisa, what you’ve read in this book and these symptoms are all true. But it’s one thing to read about them, and it’s quite another to live with them. And I cannot permit under any circumstances that your life is tainted with this. You need to grasp that, so listen very carefully to my words.” He pauses, waiting for me to look at his mouth where the words will materialize. I have a strange compulsion to close my eyes and ears because I know the words will make no difference. I will still want him and I will try to save him. Much like he is trying to save me.

“Look at me,” he says.

“I am.”

“No, look at me, not at what you see in your head. Put aside all the obligations you feel toward me, what we’ve shared, and listen like a scientist. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’re young, intelligent, beautiful, loving—despite all that life has thrown your way. Hopefully your immigration will work out, and you can finally move on from your past. I cannot. I
will
not. Whether I’m thirty-five or ninety-five,
this
is my reality: I am a trained killer, volatile and dangerous. And you—need—to stay—away.”

Every punctuated word feels like a stab in my chest. Not for myself but for him. Because under all his concern for me lies a big truth: his inability to see any good things about himself, his belief that he is a defective machine. Odd that after all he has told me, it took this moment to grasp the enormity of his struggle. And no matter what it may cost me, now all I want to do is soothe him. I stand, my decision made.

He frowns, but stands as well. I watch his face, feeling as though I broke through chains. Ever since I first saw him, I have been trying to fight him so I don’t get hurt. How little that matters now that I truly see his pain!

I take his hand in both of mine. It’s ice cold. “You also have goodness in you and you need to see it. I’m in awe of you.”

“That’s because you don’t know me.” He sounds defiant.

“I know more than you think. I know what’s here,” I say, putting my hand on his chest. His heart is breaking through his ribs in a strong, jagged rhythm. Like mine.

“I know the circles under your eyes.” I trace them with my finger. “I know the laugh with no sound.” I caress his lips. “I know that in one week, you’ve saved all my dreams.”