11. Aria
11
ARIA
B y Wednesday afternoon, spring had definitely sprung in the city. Normally, that was enough on its own to lift spirits. Pair warm temperatures with face painters and magicians, live music and jugglers, not to mention free prizes and more junk food than was probably wise to offer, and you had the recipe for some happy people at the carnival sponsored by the foundation.
“Congratulations!” I handed over a teddy bear roughly the same size as the little boy who’d won it and had the pleasure of watching his eyes go perfectly round like he couldn’t believe his luck. He was overjoyed and all over a teddy bear.
“Don’t forget. Not everybody grew up the way you have.” Something Mom had drilled into our heads from a young age, remembering how hard life had been for her and Uncle Barrett in their youth. There was a lot neither of them would go into specifics over, but Valentina and I had spent plenty of late nights trying to piece things together after family events, especially the one Christmas when Uncle Barrett had made comments about ‘that abusive fuck’ when talking about how their father treated Mom when compared to how Barrett treated Sienna.
I hated to think of my beautiful, sweet mother being abused, but it seemed possible she had been, along with her mother.
Something good had come from that. I wondered if I would have the same strength Mom did, turning my pain into purpose.
“Step right up!” I called out, beckoning passing women and children. “Try your luck!” All of the games were free. This wasn’t a fundraiser. It was a way for everybody to have a good time on a sunny day.
“Hot dog?” Valentina approached with one in each hand, holding one out to me. “Brown mustard and sauerkraut, as you like it.”
“Finally. I’m starving.” When she smirked, I explained, “You try being happy and peppy for two hours straight and see how tiring it is. All you have to do is plop sauerkraut on hot dogs.”
“You were the one who wanted to run a game booth.” Her phone chimed, and she checked it, frowning. “Honestly. What’s the point of having an out-of-office message in my email if somebody’s just going to text me to get my attention anyway?”
“Things will calm down in a couple of days,” I reminded her, referring to the club opening Friday night. As I spoke, I noticed the little boy with the giant teddy bear walking a little awkwardly as he tried to keep hold of his stuffed friend. Though it was slow going, he looked absolutely blissful.
I would ask myself the last time I was that happy, but I knew the answer. And I wished I knew what to do about it. It seemed right and wrong didn’t matter when it came to Miles. Knowing we shouldn’t have slept together while wondering when we could do it again.
In all of my twenty-eight years, I had never found anything or anyone capable of shutting off my brain and turning me into a mindless animal. I hadn’t known it was possible until Miles. Maybe for other people, but not for me.
The worst part? Every ounce of hatred, resentment, and mistrust had melted away like it was never there. I didn’t know what to think about that or what it said about me.
“No one can ever know about this.” Could I believe he would keep it a secret? When had I suddenly decided he was trustworthy? Oh, right, when my pussy started making decisions for me. Ridiculous, probably very stupid, but it was the truth. The responsible, levelheaded twin had gone off her rocker and was sleeping with her incredibly hot stepbrother. Nobody would believe it if they ever knew, which they never would. I would make sure of that.
“Oh! Look who it is.” Valentina jerked her chin toward something behind me. I turned to look and damn near choked on a bite of hot dog at the sight of familiar dirty blond hair now smoothed carefully into place. The last time I was with Miles, I had tousled those curls for hours.
Where had he come from? How did he know about this? Mom had probably told him. From the looks of it, he’d come from something business-related. His button-down dress shirt and silk tie made him stand out from the crowd, but then he would have no matter what he wore, at least to me.
I watched Miles gazing across the lot, his lips stirring in something close to a smile, when three excited little girls ran past, their faces freshly painted with cat whiskers and tiger stripes. It took so little to make kids happy. It was a shame grown-ups lost that somewhere along the way—the ability to be thrilled over the littlest things like face paint or a teddy bear. When had we all become so serious?
Once Miles was looking in our direction, Valentina waved an arm overhead. “Come, try your luck!” she called out while my pulse picked up speed. He chuckled, walking our way, barely avoiding getting run over by a guy on a unicycle.
The sun was already shining, but somehow, everything felt brighter now that he was here. What was happening to me? He had a great dick and stamina to match. Was that enough to wipe out everything that had gone down before Sunday night?
I had to remind myself not to smile too wide. It was only now that I realized how much I’d wished he was there. In a matter of weeks, I had gone from hating the fact that he existed to wishing he was with me.
“How’s your fastball?” I asked once he’d reached us, holding up a baseball and tossing it into the air. “Three balls for five dollars.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Valentina warned, laughing. “It’s free, and don’t let her tell you otherwise.”
“He can afford it.” This time, I tossed him the baseball, which he caught deftly. “Do you think you can hit the target?”
He narrowed his eyes at the ball, then at the painted target behind me. A bell would chime if he hit the bull’s-eye.
“I always do,” he replied with a wink, hinting at a double meaning that left me fighting back a knowing grin. Valentina was right beside him, so I couldn’t afford to blush. A little girl with red pigtails crept up close to where he stood, her gaze bouncing from the stuffed animals to the baseball he held. He noticed my grin and looked down at her. “If you were me, which prize would you choose?” he asked, his voice heavy and serious.
Her head tipped to the side before she flashed a gap-toothed smile. “You talk funny.” She giggled.
“Not where I come from,” he pointed out, solemn. “Come on. Help me choose, love.”
“The pink giraffe.” She didn’t have to think about it. She pointed straight to the toy in question.
“That is a very wise decision.” He nodded sagely, turning the ball in his hand and pulling his arm back. “For the giraffe.”
There was never a doubt in my mind I would hear that bell chime. When it did, the little girl bounced up and down, clapping wildly, her gap-toothed smile almost heartbreakingly cute.
“One pink giraffe, coming up.” I presented it to Miles with great flourish, leaving him to present it to the little girl who looked like her dreams were coming true as she wrapped her arms around the stuffed pink creature.
“Really?” she whispered, eyes shining, while Miles nodded.
“Look how happy you made her,” I murmured as she skipped happily away to join her mother, who exclaimed in surprise at her daughter’s new best friend. “That was really sweet.”
“I already have a pink giraffe,” he told me, winking at Valentina, who laughed before returning to the hot dog stand.
Now, it was just the two of us. At least as much as it could be when surrounded by a hundred strangers. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight, and my lace panties decided to go warm and moist without so much as him brushing against me. “I never would’ve expected you to come out,” I admitted.
“I had time between meetings. Boring HR and administrative bullshit,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “I needed the diversion. A palate cleanser.”
“So everything’s going well, setting up your command post out here or whatever you want to call it?” Because we had to talk about something, right? Like two normal people. Mom was no more than twenty feet away, posing for photos with some of the women and their kids. We had to keep things PG at most for the sake of young ears.
Something made his lips twitch as though he thought the whole situation was funny, watching me scramble for something to say that wouldn’t give away the fact I knew the feeling of him inside me. Not with Mom nearby. “Things are going smoothly,” he murmured like the prick he could be, refusing to meet me halfway as if he got off on making me squirm.
This was ridiculous. Here we were, standing around, talking as if we didn’t know what the other looked like naked. He had seen my O-face, and I had watched the lion’s head on his chest ripple while he pounded me as if his life depended on it. Yet we might as well have been work colleagues during a forced group activity.
“You’ve made yourself scarce around the penthouse these past two days,” I observed quietly while rearranging the prizes that hadn’t been given away yet. “Everything all right?”
“I’ve been very busy.” His eyes shifted to the left, then the right, before adding in a lower voice, “I would love to spend more time at home, if you know what I mean, but I can’t forget why I came out here. I have a job to do.”
“Yes, and new offices to set up like the big hotshot you are.” I was used to it since Dad’s work had been a huge part of his life for as long as I could remember. Even now, when he should’ve taken it easy, I passed his study throughout the day and heard tense muttering on the other side of the door. Not that he would ever share what he was up to.
Smirking, he countered, “A man does enjoy a little stress relief at the end of a long day. I wondered if we might come up with a solution for that.” His hungry gaze crawled over me, leaving no question of what he had in mind. Damn my weakness for him. No matter how many times I swore to myself nothing would happen again, all it took was one look at him to unravel my willpower.
Thank God I was wearing a ball cap since it shaded my face and hid my flushed cheeks. “I think we might be able to work that out, Mr. Young,” I agreed, nodding slowly while ignoring the promise I’d made to myself. “Could you pencil me in for later on this evening?”
“I’ll check my schedule,” he replied with a smirk. It was entirely too easy to forget myself and stare openly at him. He was very easy to look at and admire, especially when he allowed himself to loosen up and enjoy life a little.
A handful of kids ran over, excited to try their luck, and Miles stepped aside to give them space. They weren’t exactly expert pitchers, but I had a box full of smaller stuffed animals under the table that stood between us. The kids who missed the bull’s-eye by a mile received one of those. It didn’t seem right to send a kid away empty-handed.
Miles was still hanging around by the time the kids moved on. “I don’t think there are any future major league pictures in that group,“ I observed once they were gone, chuckling and looking Miles’s way.
He wasn’t smiling—just the opposite. I followed the direction of his hard, cold gaze and found a young, blonde woman scolding a boy who couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. There was an ice cream cone on the ground, some of which had splashed onto his scuffed sneakers.
“I told you to be careful! Am I talking to myself? Dammit!” She swiped angrily at the shoes, not that it did much good. The chocolate ice cream was already starting to set.
The poor kid was on the verge of tears, probably more because of his lost ice cream than anything else. Valentina swooped in with a fresh cone, making it apparent she had noticed too. One of the other volunteers offered wet wipes to help clean him up a little.
The mother shook her head at my sister, scowling. “I told him he would only get one, and if he dropped it, it was on him.” She then dragged the crying boy away by the arm, chastising him as she passed my booth. “Can’t take you anywhere,” she whispered fiercely.
I was heartsick for the poor kid, and by the looks of it, so was Valentina. Her face fell before she offered the ice cream to another little boy, then cast a dirty look at the retreating woman’s back, returning to her stand.
“You all right?” I asked Miles, who continued following the woman and her son’s progress as they left the lot behind the center.
“Sure. Fine.” Though he was anything but. He sounded like somebody fighting hard to keep himself in check. I could only imagine that woman got to him as she had me. If this was how she treated that poor kid in public, how much worse was it at home?
“I guess it can’t be easy for her,” I mused, rearranging the prizes. “All of these women are single moms. Some of them are working two, three jobs to make ends meet. She’s probably tired and burned out.”
He was eerily silent, so much so that I checked over my shoulder to make sure he was still there. He was, and I went cold inside when I caught a flash of what I had seen in him before. The part of him I had tried to forget that I’d convinced myself was all a figment of my imagination. Otherwise, how could I have lived with myself, sleeping with him after I had practically sworn I would take him down for daring to elbow his way into my family?
“Miles?” I almost dreaded his reaction but couldn’t leave him standing there, glaring angrily. He wasn’t exactly giving off the right vibe for the event.
His head snapped around, and I fell back a step when the full force of his unexplained anger landed on me. “I have to go,” he growled out, his teeth clenched, and by the time I caught my breath enough to ask why he was leaving, it was too late. He was already gone, weaving his way through the crowd.
Something had set him off.
And dammit, I wished he would’ve told me what it was. Not that I thought I could help. I only wanted to understand him.