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It was exactly two weeks until Jade and Eli’s wedding, and it wouldn’t be the only time Aiden and I would have to be in close proximity to each other. But it was only fourteen days. For the most part, I’d managed to stay out of his company since I’d returned to Citrus Beach almost a year ago . . . until today.
“You look exhausted,” Aiden commented gruffly. “But you smell like fresh lemon. How does that happen?”
I chastised myself silently for the shiver that slithered down my spine from hearing the sound of Aiden’s sexy baritone. Grudgingly, I turned my head toward him. “Lemon supreme pie was the special today,” I snapped.
It was embarrassing that I hadn’t had time to go home and wash the smell of citrus fruit from my skin, and change out of the jeans and T-shirt I’d worked in all day. But I’d already been late getting here.
“It wasn’t a criticism,” he answered huskily. “You smell good. Lemon pie is my favorite.”
“I know,” I said automatically, and then wanted to kick myself for remembering.
My brief relationship with Aiden had ended almost a decade ago. Shouldn’t I have forgotten all that minor stuff?
“Someday, you’re going to have to explain why you hate me so much,” Aiden said in a low voice as he leaned in close to my ear.
I looked around the table. There were so many conversations happening, and being at a table composed mostly of Sinclairs was deafening. Nobody was paying the least bit of attention to us.
Honestly, I had plenty of reasons to hate Aiden. “You know exactly why,” I said sharply back at him. “Let’s not go there right now, okay?”
I had to get a grip. I needed to retain control. I could not let Aiden Sinclair shake the facade of coolness that I’d worked so hard to acquire.
“I need to go there,” he argued in an infuriatingly calm tone. “It’s been over nine years, Skye. We had a great summer fling. Yeah, it didn’t end well. But it’s been over for a long time.”
Dishes filled with food were being passed around the table, but I handed most of them on without taking much on my plate. I was nauseated just because I was in such close proximity to Aiden. He made me nervous. But I was actually forced to talk to him to avoid being noticeably rude.
I refuse to disappoint Jade. I can’t.
We were getting close to the day of my best friend’s wedding. Jade was so happy. I could suffer through whatever I had to endure to not make a scene.
I’d been back in Citrus Beach for almost a year. Fortunately, I’d avoided getting anywhere near Aiden—for the most part, anyway. Yeah, we’d had a few encounters, but I’d always been able to walk away.
Right now, I was a captive. It was either make myself speak to him, or screw up the dinner.
Not a difficult choice since Jade’s happiness was important to me.
“It has been a long time,” I agreed in a voice that sounded bitchy to my own ears. “Let’s just drop it. We can be cordial.”
Liar. I’m such a liar.
Cordial wasn’t a demeanor that worked very well with Aiden, even now.
He wasn’t the type of guy to make polite conversation.
I hadn’t had a real conversation with Aiden since he’d left at the end of the summer, over nine years ago, for an eight-week commercial-fishing gig. Maybe my anger should have been gone, but it wasn’t. And it was pretty damn hard to pretend that what had happened didn’t matter anymore.
He probably shouldn’t have been able to rattle me, but there were plenty of reasons that he did.
“You need to eat something.” Aiden added a large pile of mashed potatoes to my plate without asking, and then smothered it with gravy.
I glared at him. “I didn’t want that much.”
He shrugged. “It’s your favorite. And you have next to nothing on your plate.”
I opened my mouth to say something else, but I promptly closed it again.
How in the hell had he remembered that I could make a meal out of mashed potatoes?
“I’m not that hungry,” I answered.
Really, my stomach was rolling.
I started to eat, hoping it might calm my upset stomach, but I couldn’t help but watch Aiden out of the corner of my eye as he devoured the massive pile of food he’d amassed on his own plate.
Aiden Sinclair hadn’t always been a billionaire like he was now. In fact, the Sinclair family in California had always been incredibly poor—just like my mother and I had been when I was younger.
Aiden and I had shared a common bond because neither one of us had ever had any money.
But God, had Aiden’s fortunes changed since we’d last talked to each other nine years ago.
He’d inherited massive wealth. He and all of his siblings had, including my best friend, Jade.
I, on the other hand, had . . . not.
For most of his adult life, Aiden had been a commercial fisherman. He’d spent long periods of time out at sea, burning so many calories that he could barely manage to keep enough in to maintain his incredibly muscular build.
Apparently, he was still making up for all those lost calories.
He nodded at my plate. “Eat,” he said, making it sound like an order instead of a request.
I ignored him and reached for one of the many bottles of wine sitting on the table instead, filling my glass nearly to the brim before I slugged half of it down.
I can do this. It’s just dinner. I can ignore Aiden. I don’t have to react.
I dug into the mountain of mashed potatoes, knowing the sooner I finished, the quicker I could excuse myself.
Unfortunately, Seth was involved in another conversation, so I couldn’t talk to him. So I chose to occupy myself with getting some food down.
Aiden was silent until he’d cleaned his plate.
“The café is looking better,” he said in a casual tone once he’d placed his fork on his empty plate.
I pushed my half-eaten food forward. I was done. “Thank you,” I answered stiffly. “It needed some improvements.”
I’d done a ton of cosmetic work on the building. It had been pretty outdated, so I’d been doing some painting and décor work on my own. My mother had let everything go for years before her sudden death from a heart attack. I hadn’t known how bad things really were until I’d moved from San Diego to Citrus Beach to take over the café after she’d passed away.
“Did you have to do it all yourself? You really do look tired.” Aiden’s attention was suddenly focused entirely on me.
I took a deep breath. “There was no money in my mother’s estate to do it. So yes, I had to save as much as possible on repairs and improvements.”
I wasn’t about to tell Aiden that I’d barely scratched the surface. The building where the restaurant was housed was old and needed a hell of a lot more than paint.
“Weren’t you married to a rich guy?”
My ex-husband, Marco, had been a wealthy man . . . until he and his entire Mafia family had ended up in prison for life. “We’re divorced,” I said sharply. “And criminals don’t usually get to keep the money they stole from other people.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have run off with him in the first place. You were too damn young to be married. You were only eighteen.” His voice was harsh.
