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“I see how he looks at you. He puts his fucking hands on you right in front of me. What do you think he’s going to do if he gets you alone in a hotel elevator?”
“Have you thought about whatI’ddo?” I counter. “I’m not some damsel in distress, Aiden. You think Jack Davis didn’t put his kids through self-defense classes? You think I let my boyfriend take care of me when I was working with LA guys who were ten times more entitled than Blake? Believe me, that’s not what happened.”
“Then your ex is a fucking idiot,” Aiden snapped. For the first time, his arms tightened around me. “No wonder Jack didn’t like him.”
That was news to me. I leaned into his embrace and turned it over in my head. My dad hadn’t liked Christian. Funny, he’d never let on, and my dad wasn’t shy about sharing his opinion. That had my mom’s influence all over it. I could practically hear her counseling him.Jack, nothing makes a guy more attractive than parental disapproval. So unless you want him as a son-in-law, keep your mouth shut.
I smiled a little, thinking about how hard that must have been for him.
Aiden cleared his throat as if he were going to say something, then stopped.
“What?” I looked up at him.
I could see him clearly. The sun wasn’t quite down yet, and the sky was a rosy orange that put a touch of gold in his skin.
“Nothing,” Aiden said after a second. “Let’s change the subject.”
* * *
The next morning at work, I got a pretty good clue about what Aiden hadn’t said the night before. What he should have gone ahead and said so I didn’t have to find out about it from Joe.
“Guess what,” he said morosely in the break room. His skin looked gray, like he hadn’t slept well. His usual good mood was gray, too. I assumed he and Gloria were fighting again.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m your honor guard for the charity ball in New York.”
For a moment, I was distracted by the way he tried to put enthusiasm into his voice and failed miserably. Sympathy was beginning to pulse through me when the meaning of his words sunk in.
“Wait, what? You’re my what?”
Joe had never looked less swashbuckling, but he made an attempt. “Upper management decided that sending you alone might be more in Blake’s best interest than yours. So now I’m going, too. Never fear, I will be here. There. Whatever.”
“Upper management?” I repeated.
“Maureen and Aiden. I assume. Aiden is the one who told me.”
I lost my appetite. “When did he tell you?”
Joe glanced at me, sensing for the first time that this news might not be as benign as he thought. “Um, yesterday?” He scratched his nose and eyed me, checking to see how that information went over. When my face darkened, he added, “Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Well I just talked to Maureen about it yesterday morning, so either it was yesterday or it was really early this morning,” I said evenly.
“Yeah, it was probably yesterday.” Joe pulled an apologetic face. As if he were the one with something to apologize for. Then he wrapped up his uneaten egg sandwich and made a quick exit.
I stayed in the break room for another few minutes, trying to get a handle on my anger. My tendency was to go with the emotion–let it swell and break and deal with the cause of it. I didn’t like to let things fester. This time, though, I really did try to tame it. I asked myself if I was being unreasonable–maybe this wasn’t actually Aiden treating me like a child. Maybe there was some way in which he could ask my male colleague to babysit me and still think of me as a professional.
No, I answered my own question. There wasn’t.
I pulled out my phone. I wasn’t going to confront him in his office. It would look too suspicious. I would text him and ask him to meet me in one of the upstairs conference rooms. But as I unlocked my phone, I saw a message from my father.
Hey Layla, can you give me a call? I’m a little concerned about something.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Did he know? Had Aiden let something slip last night that tipped him off?
There was only one way to find out. I took the elevator down to the ground floor, stepped outside, and pressed ‘call’.
“Layla,” he trumpeted by way of answer when the call connected.
