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“Why?” I twirled a hank of angel hair pasta around the tines of my fork and watched his face as he considered his response.
“Because he wants everything for you.”
“You’re everything.”
Our gazes locked.
“You’re everything, too,” he said quietly.
“Isn’t that enough?”
“He won’t see it that way.”
I didn’t argue. In many ways, Aiden knew my father better than I ever would. While Jack had been my dad for twenty-five years, he had been Aiden’s friend for longer. They’d grabbed a beer together once a month for as long as I could remember. If Aiden had had a big wedding with Shara, my dad would have been best man. Instead, they’d eloped, saving me from the excruciating task of watching him marry another woman.
“It’s enough for me,” I said, and then changed the subject. We spent too much time worrying about what other people would think. Worrying about not getting caught. I was looking forward to playing tourist with him in New York City. We would have to be discreet at the event, but other than that, we could be together. The separate rooms the travel manager had booked for us would be superfluous. I doubted I’d even go in mine once.
It was nice to have something to plan, too. It turned out, Aiden had never been a tourist in New York. He’d gone down a few times for a meeting and come right back to Boston. I convinced him that we should go down a day early and do some of the things he never had.
“I don’t know if I need to see a Broadway show,” he said mildly when I booked us one, but he didn’t argue. He seemed to like that I was planning our trip so meticulously.
“What do you want to see more?” I asked him while we were waiting for our dessert to arrive. “The Statue of Liberty or the One World Observatory.”
“Neither. I just want to see you in our hotel room. Preferably naked.”
I grinned. “You’ll get plenty of that, but we aren’t going all the way to New York and not doing some of the classic tourist things.”
Aiden smiled back, but his eyes were serious as he looked at me. “This is new to me.”
I tilted my head. He could have been talking about this trip to New York, but something in his voice told me it went deeper than that. “You’ve never taken a vacation?” I guessed.
“No, I have. But I’ve never had someone else plan one.”
A warm glow spread through me. I had the feeling it would be a long time before the things that mattered most to Aiden stopped surprising me. “This is nothing,” I said. “This is an extended work trip. I’ll plan a real vacation for us one day.” We clinked glasses, as if the cheers would seal the deal. Then I couldn’t help myself. I was curious. “Your parents never took you on a vacation?”
He didn’t talk a lot about them. I knew he was close with his mom though, because he’d bought her a house and I’d heard him talking to her on the phone now and then.
Aiden’s gaze became distant, the way it did when his dad came up. “No,” he said in an offhand way, as though it didn’t matter. “My dad drank up the vacation money. My mom worked three jobs just to keep a decent shirt on my back and a roof over my head.” His eyes came back to mine, blazing in a way that belied his casual tone. “She doesn’t have to work any of them anymore though.”
“I bet she would have planned great vacations for you,” I said quietly. I set down my glass of wine and reached over to squeeze his hand. He didn’t let mine go though, when I went to pull back. Instead, he rose in his seat and tugged me up, too. We kissed across the small bistro table. A warm, heady kiss that was sweeter than the dessert.
After we sat back down, I rearranged my napkin in my lap and said in my own carefully casual way, “Maybe one day I can plan a vacation for all three of us.”
Aiden shot me a grin. He looked almost normal again, though the fire was still simmering in his eyes. “Maybe,” he agreed. “I guess you two should meet before we fly off to the Bahamas together.”
“It’s only fair,” I agreed. “I mean, you do knowmyparents.” I held my breath until Aiden laughed. We were getting better, but the subject of my parentage was still loaded. “I do want you to meet my mom,” he said, sliding his credit card into the bill holder and pushing the last of the dessert closer to me. “It’s complicated though.”
“Because she knows Jack?” I guessed.
Aiden nodded. “She asks about him every time I see her. And she asks about you, too.”
“Me?”
“And your mom, and Bran, and baby Davis.”
I laughed at my youngest sibling’s nickname. Poor thing would always be Baby Davis to us, even when she had grandkids. I felt bad that I hadn’t spent more time with her since I’d come home, but I’d been so busy with work. And the boss, of course. “I’m glad she already has a good opinion of me,” I said.
“Yeah.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I hope she still has a good opinion ofmewhen she finds out.”
