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“Wasn’t it amazing?” I demanded as we left. He had been skeptical about the musical I’d chosen.
“Spectacular,” he said without a hint of irony. “Art on that level is the kind of thing that kids who grow up in my old neighborhood miss out on.”
I knew he was thinking about Carl when he said it, though he hardly ever brought him up. I wished he would. The fact that he spent almost every Saturday morning with Carl made me hopeful that maybe, despite what had happened with Shara, hedidwant to be a dad.
The next day wasn’t ours to enjoy. Blake thought since we were all together in New York, we should have a meeting. He wanted to complain about how Gloria’s guidance on how to raise his social media views was inhibiting his creativity.
“But that’s the thing,” Gloria had griped to me before we left. “They’renotcreative, and he can’t keep relying on the same schtick of hot man with cute cats. Views are dropping because people are getting bored.”
To his credit, Aiden was as diplomatic as I’d ever seen him. I knew he couldn’t stand Blake, but he managed to keep the emotion from vibrating off him like I’d seen it do in the past. It helped that, for once, Blake seemed more concerned about his brand than looking down my shirt. Maybe because I’d worn one that crept right up to my collar bone and then bagged out until I tucked it into the waistband of my jeans.
Aiden had laughed when I put it on. “That won’t stop him.”
But it seemed like it had. I left our unnecessarily long meeting feeling very smug.
“Told you so,” I couldn’t help taunting Aiden. “He can’t ogle what he can’t see.”
“You were right,” he admitted.
“Of course I am. He’s the out-of-sight, out-of-mind type.”
“Wait until he sees what you’re wearing tonight though.”
If I had been picking my dress for the charity ball with Blake in mind, I’d have picked one of those oversized kaftan dresses in a jewel tone. But I’d picked it with Aiden’s gaze in mind, so it skimmed my body in black satin.
“Guess you’ll have to stay close,” I said, slipping my hand into his.
He squeezed. “You can count on it.”
CHAPTER28
AIDEN
Iwatched Layla get ready, even though she kept making faces at me in the mirror and telling me to go watch TV or something. I couldn’t help it. She was always beautiful, but as she did her hair and makeup and slid into the dress that fit her like a second skin, she transformed into something ethereally sexy.
“Ethereally sexy,” she repeated with a laugh when I told her so. “I don’t think those two words were meant to go together.”
“Lots of things aren’tsupposedto go together.” I wrapped my arms around her. “But sometimes they work anyway, right?”
Her smile softened. “Right.”
I wanted to tell her then that I’d heard everything she said earlier–about coming back at Christmas, about telling her family. I hadn’t said anything because the prospect of telling Jack twisted my guts out of shape, but we were on the same page. More and more, being unable to tell the world that I was in love with Layla Davis felt worse than what I imagined Jack’s reaction would be.
“I love you,” I murmured instead, mindful of the time.
Her eyes bright, she kissed me hard, and I felt the combination of passion and excitement I associated with being with Layla rise in me. There were other things I wanted to tell her, too. I wanted to talk about the future beyond Christmas. About moving in together. About kids. But again, time was in the way.
I’d do it after the ball. Maybe tomorrow when we woke up together since it always felt so right to start the day with her by my side.
When we got to the fancy hotel that Blake’s patron owned, I felt my mood begin to slide downward. Blake was there, waiting in the lobby for us, but it was only Layla he looked at. I didn’t blame him for that–almost every man had snuck a second look at her. What I blamed him for was the way he insinuated himself between us, and nothing I did could dislodge him. For someone who came off so obtuse, he was suddenly a masterful conversationalist. He spun webs of people around us, and almost before I knew it, I was locked into conversation with a potential client, and he was escorting Layla away.
I was making connections that could keep the lights on at Cross Media for years to come, but I hated every second. I could tell Layla was uncomfortable, but every time I managed to get between her and Blake, he spun another web that bound me to a shop talk conversation and left her to him.
Layla shot me a few looks throughout that told me she was fine and that I needed to relax. Looks that told me she knew what Blake was doing too, and who would have thought he’d be so good at it? I noticed she stuck to club soda instead of her usual preference of wine, and I knew that despite her silent assurance, Blake was unnerving her. This Blakewasunnerving. The man I’d gotten to know in our brand development meetings was irritating, but this person was altogether different. Predatorily charming. His teeth gleamed like pearls; his eyes were sharp as scythes. I wanted to get Layla out of there, as far away from him as I could get, but I couldn’t.
We had a job to do.
Keeping Layla in my periphery, I glanced around the room. I’d told Maureen that the reason I wanted to chaperone Layla myself rather than sending Joe was that a client we wanted to catch was here. Holly Bernstein had cultivated a following on Tik Tok by going through her great grandmother’s recipe book one by one. She was grave and funny, and we could easily see her making the leap to television.
