Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aiden noticed the dumb grin plastered on his face somewhere between cutting spears of pineapple and washing his hands.
He’d spent entirely too much time arranging the fruit in a spiral pattern on the plate, finding paper to write a note with, and then gearing himself up to drop the tray off for Evelyn.
He managed to stop whistling halfway down the hallway, not wanting to wake her.
He eased the door open with a wave of his wrist, his master ID tag allowing him entry to all the guest rooms. A gentle click, nearly imperceptible, was the only noise the door made as it swished into the wall.
Evelyn was out cold. She was splayed, starfish like, across the creamy sheets.
The emerald and gold bedspread was bunched at the foot of the bed.
Her golden curls half-covered her face, almost obscuring her partially open mouth.
Completely disheveled and vulnerable, Aiden wasn’t sure he’d seen a more beautiful sight.
I am so screwed.
If you had asked him to manufacture the worst possible situation to find a person you’d like to date, Aiden doubted he could have come up with a more satisfactory example.
It was reprehensible to be considering possibilities with the woman he was currently charged with transporting across the galaxy — especially since he still wasn’t clear if he had rescued or kidnapped her.
It seemed highly unlikely Vinnie had entirely nefarious reasons for having them free Evelyn. Really, they had done her a favor, if you thought about it. But even if they were on the right side of the equation morally, he couldn’t get past the obvious power imbalance inherent in their meeting.
Aiden flirted with pretty people the way other people breathed or said hello or commented on the weather.
Men, women, nonbinary beauties, he didn’t much care — and Evelyn was as beautiful a woman as Aiden had ever seen.
Every moment he spent with her, another facet of her personality shone.
She was smart and funny and brave as hell.
Cairn had once told him that when he eventually found the one, it would hit him like a brick to the face.
Aiden was afraid that he was right. Especially when every other thought in his head seemed to flit towards Evelyn.
Earning one more breathtaking smile, hearing one more yummy flavor moan. It was all he could think of.
Fucked. You’re so fucked.
He also didn’t see a way out of going to the damn drop with Vinnie.
Even setting aside the payment factor, speaking to her in person was the only way they were getting any answers.
Unless something monumental dropped in their laps in the next forty-eight hours, they were going to have to go through with the meeting.
Aiden realized he’d been standing in the doorway watching Evelyn sleep for entirely too long.
Creep. Get it together.
Gently, he placed the tray on the floor on her side of the doorway and eased it closed again with another wave of his wrist. He tiptoed back down the hallway several feet before allowing himself to take normal steps.
When he entered the lobby, he saw his mothers having their breakfast next to the grand piano. Lillian loved dining in the atrium when they had no guests on board.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve seen him in the kitchen in a preparatory capacity since he was sixteen,” Lillian said, sotto voce. He recognized the look on her face, the sure smile she wore when she knew she was about to win a bet.
“I do my shame cooking in secret. You know I get flustered when I have to check the oven thermometer.”
“Shame cooking, my left foot. You make excellent food when you can be bothered,” Elenor said. She grinned over the rim of her coffee cup. “Clearly, you’re bothered.”
Aiden let out a deep breath and flopped into the remaining seat at their table. He couldn’t prove it, but he was sure his mothers had some sort of emotional X-ray vision. They saw right through every air he’d ever put on.
He dropped his head onto the table, arms limp at his side. “I have to meet this girl while kidnapping her. I can’t meet her while I’m out picking up a head of lettuce.”
“You don’t shop for lettuce, dear.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Aiden said to the table.
“Chin up, kiddo,” Lillian said. She patted him on the shoulder. “Also, stop slouching. No one likes a man with poor posture.”
Elenor laughed. “Yes, slouching is going to be the deal breaker here. The most red flag of the bunch.”
“Wouldn’t responsible parents tell me to not shit where I eat or something?” Aiden again asked the table.
“Well, kiddo, we steal things for a living. I met your mother when she was interrogating her former partner at knifepoint. I can’t speak for meeting women in appropriate places,” Lillian said.
“Are you looking to avoid or spur Stockholm syndrome? How can we help?” Elenor asked, swigging her coffee.
“Avoid. Avoid is preferable,” he mumbled into the marble top.
“I’m just saying, that girl has a spine of steel. If she can take being liberated from political imprisonment with that much grace, I doubt a little piracy is going to ruffle her feathers beyond repair.”
“Specialty acquisitions and facilitations!” he said indignantly, finally snapping up from his slouch.
“Do I look like I have a peg leg? An eye patch? A sleeve of crackers on my person?” He was beginning to think he was protesting too much.
Still. Piracy had connotations. Theirs was a far more boutique operation.
Lillian snorted and rolled her eyes. Aiden knew breakfast was no time for a semantics battle.
Besides, it was a battle he was steadily losing.
He watched her take a bite of her scrambled eggs.
Elenor looked like she was trying not to spit out the mouthful of coffee she’d just sipped. She managed to swallow it down.
“Yes, dear, you’re very respectable. How do you want to handle today? Evelyn needs clothes and such.” Elenor picked up her bowl of oatmeal. “She’ll feel better if she has some more autonomy.”
He could almost hear her say that he would, too.
Aiden tapped his fingers on the table. Evelyn had pulled herself together by the time Lillian had shepherded her off to rest, but the sight of her with tears rolling down her cheeks was one that had played on repeat in his mind.
He had wanted so desperately to go to her and wipe her tears, despite knowing that he needed to keep his hands off her. Anything else would be unprofessional.
Plus, he didn’t want to look like an overbearing lunatic.
What he did want was to find Vinnie and shake her for sending him into this job so unprepared.
He wanted to feed Evelyn pineapple on the beach, listen to the delectable little moans she made when eating delicious things.
He doubted he was going to get away with any of those things.
“We have plenty of operating capital. I assumed it was to pay for hyper fuel to get back to the drop point ASAP, but it seems less likely now,” Aiden said.
“Vinnie plays her cards close to the vest,” Elenor said. She threw her spoon down. “Honestly, though. She should have prepared us. We’re trustworthy.”
“Yes, love, we’re very trustworthy thieves,” Lillian said. She smirked at Aiden before he could voice his objection again. “What? I didn’t say the ‘p’ word. I’m just saying I get why she didn’t clue us in from get. Too risky to let the intel out before the job is well underway.”
“I kind of want to stab her. Just a small maiming. Like in the calf. She’ll have plenty of time to think about hiring us to traumatize that poor girl while she heals.” Elenor poked at the air with her spoon.
“See, babe, this is why Aiden gets Veronique to do the diplomacy.”
Aiden grinned. He loved his moms. They were loyal and ruthless and sort of terrifying if the right circumstances presented themselves.
Lillian and Elenor loved hard, and they presented Aiden with an example of marriage that was staggering to envision living up to.
Not that he’d ever envisioned himself married.
Relationships had fallen off his radar in the last few years.
He generally envisioned himself eye-fucking a bartender in a spaceport until their break, then engaging in a quick but mutually satisfying tumble in a storage closet.
Aiden had been envisioning the princess in his guest cabin entirely too often in the last twelve hours.
He stopped his brain from meandering down another entirely inappropriate pathway and refocused.
“I would feel better if she had a full security detail going down to 14 And. But that would draw entirely too much attention, so I’ll settle for you two and Nannette keeping an eye on her. Veronique has good situational awareness, too, if she’s not busy.”
Lillian nodded and scooped up more eggs. “I think between the four of us we can keep her safe. Who knows if they’re even looking for her yet? And honestly, who would start the search for an escaped political prisoner in a mall?”
“I suppose if we were prepared, we’d have provisions, and then where would we be? Hurtling toward a sensible place to start looking for a liberated prisoner. Shit. Maybe I can’t stab Vinnie.” Elenor picked her spoon back up and poked at a blueberry. “She has no idea how lucky her calves are.”
Aiden laughed. “It’s a wonder I didn’t wind up more feral.” He got up and kissed them both on the cheek before heading to his office to plot next steps.