Trade Off (18 page)

“It’s okay,” he said, brushing his lips back and forth over her cheek, her ear, her neck. “This is me, baby. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you, never push you further than you’re willin’ to go.”

“I know.” She tried to slide her chair back to put some distance between them, but he refused to let her escape. “I just need—”

“I know what you need—time to figure things out. So do I, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you get away without tellin’ you how much I missed doin’ that.”

A trace of a smile crossed her lips. “Me too.”

“Good.” He dropped one more kiss on her lips before he stood up. “And just so ya know, that won’t be the last time.”

By the time Sela excused herself to refresh her coffee, she could barely breathe. He’d kissed her, or she’d kissed him. Either way, they shared a kiss, and it was so much sweeter because she never expected to have the only man she ever loved back in her arms again, especially not after he learned the truth. But here he was, in her office, her life, promising to follow that incredible kiss up with another. Her stomach tingled with excitement when she thought about where this might be going. He didn’t tell her he forgave her or he understood the choices she made, but he didn’t hate her, and that was a start.

She walked back into the office, trying to pretend her legs weren’t trembling as she reached for her cell phone. “They’ll be here in about an hour. We need to amend the offer before they get here.” No one else would show up for half an hour, which meant she had to push everything else aside and focus on the task at hand. She’d prepared dozens of offers, but she hadn’t been overwrought at the time.

Aiden sat back to study her, a smile on his lips, as though he knew the effect his presence was having on her. “You look a little stressed. Anything I can do to help with that?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled when he laughed at her. “Okay, maybe I’m not fine. Too little sleep and too much caffeine tends to have this effect on me.”

“I remember.” He moved in behind her chair, brushed her hair to the side, and began working the stiff muscles in her neck and shoulders. “Remember when we used to stay up half the night before an exam? We were supposed to be studying, but I couldn’t keep my hands off you long enough to get any work done.”

“How could I forget?” she whispered. She told herself she needed to focus on changing the clauses in the contract, but she couldn’t think about anything but his magic fingers dissolving her tension. “God, that feels so good.”

He sat down on the desk and shifted her chair so he could continue to provide the decadent massage. “You’re wound so tight.” He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “You know what you need to help you relax, don’t you?”

She wished she’d worn anything other than the gauzy tank that revealed her beaded nipples. “Aiden, I…”

“Has it been a long time?” She felt his hands tighten around her shoulders. “Since you and he made love?”

She couldn’t believe he had the audacity to ask her that question, but no topic had ever been off limits during their relationship. “It’s been a long, long time.”

“Why?”

Sela shrugged. She felt disloyal, talking to her ex-boyfriend about the man she was preparing to divorce, but she knew she had a long road ahead of her if she wanted to earn Aiden’s trust. If he wanted to hear about the intimate details of her life since they’d been apart, she would acquiesce. There was little she wouldn’t do to repair the rift between them. “I knew he was with other women. It didn’t feel right. Maybe I worried about whether he was being careful.”

“Have you been tested, just to be sure?”

“Of course I have. Just last month in fact.”

“Good. I’d have to kill him if he did anything to hurt you.”

Sela held the hand gripping her shoulder. “You don’t have to protect me anymore, you know. I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself.”

“Old habits die hard,
beautiful
.”

She closed her eyes when she heard the familiar endearment. He always used to call her that, usually in the heat of an intimate moment. “Aiden…” She didn’t know what she wanted to say. So many thoughts and feelings fought to escape the confines of her jumbled mind. Her love for him, the sorrow over the years they’d lost, the pain she still felt when she thought about how much her deceit cost them. “I hate that I hurt you. You’ll never know how sorry I am.” His hands fell to his sides, and she immediately wished she hadn’t re-opened the wound. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He crossed his arms and stared at her. “So, why did you?”

“Because we can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Can’t we?”

Part of her wanted to try, if he was willing, but she knew if they didn’t deal with their issues, they would claim their happiness again someday. Losing him once was bad enough, a second time would be unbearable.

“I can’t.” She reached for his hands, saying a silent prayer of gratitude when he didn’t pull away. “I want to make amends for the past. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive me, or trust me again, or whether you even want to try, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make up for the mistakes I’ve made.”

He withdrew a hand from hers to brush his fingertips over her cheek. “You don’t know how much I want to pretend this never happened. I’ve wasted so much time wishin’ we could get back what we had, and now that it’s a real possibility, I realize we can’t go back.”

She knew he was right, but hearing they’d passed the point of no return still hurt. They weren’t idealistic kids anymore. They were adults who’d lead separate lives for a long time. “I’d like us to try and be friends, if you think that’s possible?”

“Friends, huh?” He smiled. “It’s a start.”

Aiden struggled to sit still as he waited for Sela to return with the good news that he’d just bought a house. He couldn’t imagine the sellers would argue with his conditions since he was offering the full asking price. The only issue may be the fact that he requested a quick closing, but he was willing to negotiate.

He glanced at Sela’s computer screen and saw the condo she’d been looking at earlier. It was small, barely more than seven hundred square feet with one bedroom and one and a half baths. At least it was in a newer building with twenty-four hour security. He questioned what he would do with all of the wasted space in his own house. Five bedrooms and baths were too many for a man living alone. That house needed a large family to feel like a home again.

He wondered if Sela had ever thought about adopting a baby with Neil. Just thinking about it left a rancid taste in his mouth, and he wondered if he could ever leave the past where it belonged so he and Sela could find their way back to each other.

“It’s a done deal,” she said, grinning as she came through the door. “Congratulations.”

“Yes!”

He picked her up and spun her around in a low circle as she threw her head back and laughed at his enthusiasm. The sight of her happy, carefree, and lost in his arms reminded him that everything he’d ever wanted was still within his reach; all he had to do was take it. His mouth came down on hers, hard and possessive, as he tried to erase the memory of the man who’d come between them. His hands were everywhere, in her hair, skimming her face, her breasts, cupping her bottom, and finally struggling to free the button securing her skirt so he could take what they both wanted.

“Aiden,” she said, striving to catch her breath as she reached for his hands. “Sex won’t solve our problems. It won’t make you forget what I did, and it won’t change the fact that I’m still married to another man.”

“Goddammit,” he muttered, trying to catch his breath. “Why the hell are you even thinkin’ about him?”

“Because he’s still my husband.” She took a step back and tried to restore order to her tangled waves. “You need to understand, I’ll always care about what happens to him. He was there when I needed someone, and—”

“And I wasn’t, isn’t that what you were thinkin’?” He shoved his hands in his pockets because, more than anything, he wanted to hold her again, and this time he didn’t want to let go.

“What? No! I wasn’t thinking that at all.” She sighed. “You left because you had to. I don’t blame you for that.”

“Are you sure?” He still blamed himself for putting his career above her. If he’d stayed, she wouldn’t have married Neil, and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t have lost their baby.

“Of course I’m sure. I blame myself for what happened, not you.”

“I blame him.” He knew it wasn’t entirely Neil’s fault, but blaming someone else helped to ease some of his frustration. “He moved in on you first chance he got.”

She leaned on the edge of the desk and looked up at him. “That’s not the way it was. You and I were drifting apart, you admitted as much earlier. You had your life in Vancouver, and I had my life here. We couldn’t have made a long-distance relationship work. Even if I hadn’t gotten pregnant—”

“Do you have a picture?” He didn’t know why he wanted to see it when just thinking about it tore him up inside. “An ultrasound picture… Do you have one?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to—”

“Yeah, well, you don’t get to decide!” he shouted.  He suddenly had so much rage pulsing through his body he didn’t know how to contain it. Every time he thought about the life they’d lost, he just wanted to hit something. “Because of you, our baby is gone, and—”

Her shoulders slumped as her head fell forward.

“Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

She raised her hand. “Yes, you did. You hold me responsible for what happened to our son.” She looked up at him and the pain twisting her features ravaged him. “So do I. I always will.”

“Please, don’t.” He wanted to say or do something to put the sparkle back in her eye, but he feared he’d stepped across the line, and he couldn’t undo the damage. “I’m still tryin’ to come to terms with everything, Sela. I mean, you hit me with this out of nowhere, and…” He wanted to drop to his knees and retract the ugly words that had hurt her, but he knew there was no forgiveness to be had in the small room that was suddenly closing in on them.

“I think you’d better go. I have a lot of work to do.” She moved to the other side of her desk and eyed the blinking cell phone on her desk. “My office will need a certified check as soon as possible. Corine can give you the details on your way out.”

“That’s it?” He wanted to say or do something to erase the vacant look in her eye, but he didn’t feel equipped to ease her sorrow when his own was still so palpable. “We’re just gonna move on with our lives and pretend these feelings between us don’t exist?”

“We can’t live in the past.” She looked him in the eye. “I’ve wasted too many years wishing I could change things, blaming myself for being imperfect.” She took a deep breath. “I’m tired of living this way. The divorce is for the best. It has nothing to do with you. Even if you hadn’t come back to town when you did, I still wouldn’t have gone with Neil.”

“So you’re gonna pretend that my bein’ back in town doesn’t matter?”

“Nashville is your home as much as mine. You belong here, with the people who love you.” She forced a smile and extended her hand. “You’re a good man, and I want you to be happy. I don’t hold you responsible for anything that happened, and maybe you’ll be able to forgive me eventually as well.”

He knew she wanted him to take her hand, but the polite gesture seemed too impersonal. He wouldn’t allow her to negate their past with a respectful dismissal and a few kinds words intended to soften the blow. “Is this supposed to be some kind of closure? ‘Cause it ain’t workin’ for me.”

She let her hand fall to her side. “Closure’s a myth in my opinion. Some things are destined to remain an open wound forever. I’m convinced our relationship is one of those things.”

“We have another chance,” he said, quietly. “We can fight for what we want this time.”

Sela closed her eyes briefly before she sat down. “No, we can’t. We can’t erase the past, no matter how much we might want to.” She looked up at him. “And believe me, I want to.”

“I said some things I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.” Growing up, his parents had always told him a sincere apology had the power to bridge most gaps, but the void between them felt deep and dark enough to get lost in.

“Please, don’t be sorry. I think we’ve both wasted enough time on recriminations and regrets. Can’t we just agree to let go?”

He knew she was asking for him to free her from the love still connecting them, but he couldn’t do it. “I’m not ready to let go, Sela. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to let you go.”

“I’m ready… more than ready.”

Hearing her say those words, whether she meant them or not, felt like she’d stabbed him in the back. “You don’t mean that, you can’t mean that. Look, I know it might take some time to figure things out, but—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” She pressed a palm to her forehead. “I’m tired, so tired. I’ve spent my life trying to do the right thing. I wanted to be a daughter my parents could be proud of, a wife Neil could trust, an employer people could count on, but somewhere along the way, I lost myself. I need to figure out how to get that back. I need to decide what
I
want. Can’t you understand that?”