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I was suddenly alarmed, and I looked up into his ocean-blue eyes, searching for the truth. “Is that really what happened?”
I turned his hand over and over. It was pretty swollen, but he seemed to have a full range of movement. I finally gave his hand back to him after I was satisfied that most likely nothing was broken.
“He deserved it,” Aiden said hoarsely. “If he hadn’t decided to burn that letter, things would have been way different. Maybe I wouldn’t have had a lot of money, but you and Maya would have been cared for by people who gave a damn.”
“In all the years I’ve known Jade, I’ve never seen a single Sinclair lay a hand on another one,” I mused.
“Usually we don’t,” he said as he ran his injured hand through his hair, leaving it spiking in a couple of places. “This was a special circumstance.”
I felt sad that I’d caused a rift between him and Seth. “I’m sorry this happened. I know how close you are. And I think he was only trying to be helpful, even though he was misguided.”
“I’ll get over it someday,” he said. “But right now, I can’t forgive and forget. This shit is too raw. I hate what happened to you, Skye.”
I sighed. I couldn’t blame him for being confused and angry. He’d missed way too much of his daughter’s life. But it really touched me that he’d obviously been ticked off about what had happened to my life, too.
“It’s over, Aiden. We can’t go back and redo it. Maya is a healthy, normal child. Both of us made it out of our situation relatively unscathed.”
Yeah, there were a few issues. The fact that I couldn’t seem to show my emotions out in the open came to mind.
And Maya hadn’t been raised in the best environment, even though I’d tried my hardest to shield her from the truth.
But I was determined to move on from my past.
He shot me a turbulent look. “Did you really come out unscathed?” he asked huskily. “You protected Maya. But who in the hell protected you? He beat you up, Skye. And he beat you down. You barely show any emotion about any of that.”
“Because I never could,” I said truthfully. “Showing emotion was a weakness I couldn’t afford, Aiden. Please understand that it isn’t that I don’t hate the bastard I married and divorced, and that I’m not pretty damn happy his ass is going to sit in a federal prison for the rest of his life. But being in that life meant that I could never let him or his family know how I felt. It wasn’t possible without consequences. He’d take those feelings and use them against me. I’m so used to being numb that I don’t know how I feel about anything except Maya.”
I was breathless by the time I’d finished. I hadn’t meant to blurt out my confusion to Aiden, but it seemed important that he understood exactly where I was at emotionally.
I didn’t know how to feel anything, and the sooner he understood that, the better we’d get along.
I didn’t know how to be happy. I’d been in survival mode. I hadn’t felt any kind of joy since that summer I’d been with him.
I didn’t know how to be truly sad.
I didn’t know how to really connect with other people, because I’d been so isolated.
It wasn’t like I didn’t crave connection, but for me, trusting anybody was dangerous.
Aiden must have sensed that I was conflicted, because he did the most extraordinary thing. He opened his arms wide.
Instinctively, I threw myself into them without a thought.
And nearly broke when he wrapped those strong arms around me protectively.
I basked in the warmth and protection of his muscular body as I rested my head on his shoulder.
Aiden was an enormous man. I might be tall for a female, but the top of my head barely reached his mouth.
But for some reason, we always fit together perfectly.
“I care what happened to you, Skye,” he rasped against my hair. “I care that you had nobody to be with you when you were eighteen and pregnant with my child. I’d like to kill Marino myself for ever laying a hand on you. I can’t help the way I feel.”
I closed my eyes and tried to absorb Aiden’s strength. The man had more conviction in his little finger than many men had in their entire souls.
We stood in the kitchen, wrapped around each other for so long I lost track of time.
I felt stronger when I finally backed away, like being close to him had given me some of his strength.
“I’m really sorry about Seth.”
He shook his head as he picked up his mug of coffee. “Don’t be. It made me do a lot of thinking about where I’m headed in the future. How do you feel about being married to a fisherman?”
My eyes shot to his. “What? You are a fisherman, Aiden. You always will be. It’s something you love.”
Not only had Aiden caught fish for a living, but it had always been a passion for him, even when he wasn’t working. I was never fooled into believing he went recreational fishing just to help feed his family. He’d always loved the sport.
“I’m leaving Sinclair Properties to Seth, and I’ll be starting up my own seafood-supplier business,” he said as he looked at me, apparently to see what my reaction would be.
“Oh, my God. That’s fantastic. Tell me about it,” I said excitedly.
Aiden laid out his plans and answered all my questions.
He concluded, “It will help the city provide more jobs, and the whole model is based on sustainable fishing. No more killing species inadvertently. We have to use only what we need. If I open a processing plant outside the city, and we do our own fishing from here for the species we can get here, it would provide a hell of a lot of jobs for Citrus Beach.”
I laughed. “You’ve convinced me. If I had any money, I’d invest. What do you do about getting the seafood you can’t get here?”
“I hire some damn good people around the world to source stuff for me that’s caught sustainably.”
I was quiet for a moment before I said, “You look happy.”
He nodded. “I am. As handsome as you think I look in a suit, I’m not really that kind of guy.”
I hit him playfully on the arm. “You look handsome in anything. You know that. And the whole blue-collar billionaire thing is pretty appealing.”
He shot me a sideways glance. “You think so?”
I nodded emphatically. “It’s especially nice that you’d be doing something you care about.”
I hadn’t bothered to argue about the fact that we hadn’t agreed on the marriage part of our deal. At the moment, it didn’t matter. Aiden had been through a huge life change, and he needed to get comfortable with his switch of business.
“Seth and I haven’t worked out the details yet, but I may take him up on his offer to stay as a silent partner in Sinclair Properties in exchange for him having a silent partnership in Sinclair Seafood.”
“That’s the official name of the new business?”
He nodded.
“I like it,” I agreed.
“I’ll start out working from my home office. I have a lot of building to arrange, and boats to purchase. The marina was just expanded, so it should work to house the boats for now.”
“Since I won’t have the restaurant open for a while, I’d like to help however I can. I don’t have that many skills, but I’d do anything you needed,” I offered.
