Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
BLAKELY
Dear Diary,
I have no idea what I’m doing.
I was done saying this was a mistake as that would just be repeating myself. And maybe it wasn’t one after all. The moment that I texted my address, it felt as if I had had an out-of-body experience. So now here I was, frantically cleaning my house, and wondering why I had invited Aston over.
No, that wasn’t exactly how that had happened. He had asked to come over, and I was freely giving in.
This didn’t mean anything other than he would be in my house, but it meant more than that. It had to.
I swallowed hard and tossed my throw pillows on the couch and tried to make my blanket look casual on the corner, but I wasn’t a decorator. I had no idea what I was doing. I ran to the bathroom and pulled my hair out of the bun I had put it in when I had gotten home, and fluffed out my hair, and tried to look somewhat normal. I hadn’t bothered to take off my makeup from earlier in the day, so there was at least that. I slid on some lip balm, put my bra back on, and decided he was just going to have to deal with the real me.
The same linen pants, but I’d put on a double tank top with a cardigan. And every mess that I made. Including this evening.
When my doorbell rang, I nearly jumped out of my skin, grabbed my phone so I could turn off the alert that someone was at my door, and did my best not to run to the front door. It still felt as if I was doing this whole adult thing wrong.
When I opened the door, he stood there, in all of his six-foot-something broad-shouldered, thick thighs glory.
The fact that I was even thinking about his thighs told me that I needed to get a grip.
And not a grip on Aston himself.
He stood there in dress pants and a button-down shirt, looking so poised and professional, and a far cry from what I currently looked like.
His gaze swept mine.
“I feel like one of us might not be dressed for the occasion.” And then I blushed, wondering exactly what this occasion could be. He raised a brow, and I swallowed hard, trying not to let him see more.
“I just left a horrendously annoying dinner with my family, and Mother always makes us look slightly presentable. ”
“So you’re saying I don’t look presentable?” I teased, before taking a step back.
“You’re just letting me walk into that one, aren’t you?” he asked dryly.
“I try. But why did you leave your dinner? Was it terrible?”
He shrugged, his gaze going around my place, and I tried not to feel slightly awkward about it. I had made a decent living and had only gone through some of my savings after losing my job. But it wasn’t like a house a Cage would have. We clearly had grown up in different tax brackets.
I had grown up in a normal household, at least as normal as anyone could be this day and age. I had gotten student loans, had made my way through college, and now was here, trying to earn a living. It wasn’t grand, but it was home. And I wanted it to stay that way at least for a little bit longer.
“I think I might’ve overreacted with my brothers. And I just needed to get out of there.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” I said softly.
“And you can tell exactly how I would react already?” he asked, and he didn’t sound condescending, he sounded honestly curious. Of course, he was right. I had no idea who he truly was. In essence, I had no idea who I was to this man, nor did I truly know him at all. He had been a figment in my mind, something that began with conversations in which we’ve been strangers, into something far bigger in my mind than it was in reality. And that was something that I needed to understand, to cling to .
I wanted to know who he truly was, beyond who I thought he was. I wanted to know why every time I thought about what we could have had, my heart ached. Or why I couldn’t stop thinking about him—even when I knew it would be better to walk away.
“I didn’t mean to overreact. We were just talking about nothing and everything, and then as usual, someone said something stupid, and somebody else overreacted. It’s just the fact that I’m usually not the overreacting one.”
“Maybe it was your turn?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I just feel a little off kilter.”
His gaze met mine, and I swallowed hard. Why was he here?
“So you didn’t eat then,” I blurted. “I can make you a sandwich.”
He smiled. “You don’t need to make me a sandwich, Blakely.”
“You didn’t eat, let me feed you. Please?” I asked, wondering why I was begging him to let me feed him. I had no idea what my brain was doing, but I was just going with the motions. Whatever motions those may be.
“Okay, I could eat. Honestly, I don’t know why I left before dinner was served. Mother usually has a decent roast beef.”
“So your mother cooks?” I asked, wondering about the tone in his voice. Of course, I really only knew about the other woman from Isabelle’s single meeting. And it hadn’t been pleasant .
“My mother doesn’t cook,” he said, that deep chuckle from his chest oddly attractive.
“Oh. But I thought you said…” I trailed off, and he shook his head.
“My mother has a great chef. Or she has had a few great chefs in her lifetime. She gets tired of them after a while and fires them.”
I scrunched up my nose as I pulled out ingredients for a sandwich. “Well, I do have deli meat roast beef. How about that?”
“That sounds perfect. You really don’t need to make me one.”
“No, I’m doing it. Just going to have to get over it.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want,” I said after a moment.
“So, what was it like growing up with a chef?” I asked, feeling only slightly awkward.
“Not as fancy as it might sound,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’m sorry, but the fact that you call your mom Mother in that upper crust tone, and you have a private chef? Sorry. You’re a little higher class than you’re trying to have me believe.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay true. But it wasn’t always like that. The family only started making the money that they’re making now recently. At least in the last twelve years or so.”
“So you didn’t grow up with that silver spoon?”
“Not really. I mean, we had the town, but that wasn’t exactly how it sounds. ”
“Yes, because having a town named after you isn’t unique at all.”
I thankfully still had a baguette, and cut it in half, and pointed to the condiments. He tapped the mayonnaise and mustard, and I was surprised because it was what I liked too. Most people in my life happened to hate mayonnaise, so this felt like a perfect match. Or maybe I was thinking too much about condiments.
I quickly finished setting up the sandwich and pushed it toward him, and he just shook his head.
“What?” I asked, slightly crestfallen.
“I can’t believe I just made you make me a sandwich.”
“You didn’t make me. In fact, I’m making you eat one. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water’s fine.” His stomach growled, and I swore he blushed. “Okay, thank you. I’m really in need of this sandwich.”
I poured two glasses of water, because I was suddenly parched with him at my kitchen island, and stood across the granite with him, as he ate.
“So, town?” I asked.
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and shrugged. “The story goes that my great-grandfather helped found the town. Although, that story doesn’t really make sense in terms of actual time and history.”
I laughed. “Okay, so someone rewrote history.”
“I’m pretty sure what is now Cage Lake was called something else. My brother Hudson would know more since he lives there full time. ”
I wanted to ask more about that, but I held back, wanting to hear about Aston himself.
“But the town was fully incorporated, rather than what it had been before with my great-grandfather.”
“And he put his name on it?”
“Of course he did. The lake itself was manmade. And it actually helped some of the irrigation and ice flow. When the highway was put through the mountains, it changed the way that the natural formations worked, and the lake was a good idea. Again, you should ask Hudson, I’m not quite sure exactly how all that works.”
“Says a man who helps build environmentally clean architecture.”
“I help fund it, and I help with the paperwork. I also help with the overall designs, not so much the structural engineering. That is why I hire others.”
“Well that’s good to know at least.”
“Are you going to tell me you know all about the structural engineering?”
I shook my head. “Not even the slightest. Although I’m doing my best to learn a little bit of everything with these microloans program.”
“That’s James’s baby, and I’m proud of him for it. He’s kicking ass. And you are going to help make that even better.”
“That’s the goal. Now, go back to that town. I’m intrigued.”
“There’s not much to it. We spent our summers there. I’m now realizing that we might’ve spent our summers there so that way Dad could say that he was working in town, but really he was spending time with his other family.”
I nearly choked on my water and shook my head. “I hate the logistics of that.”
“I have no idea how he did it. Other than the fact that he wasn’t around as much as I really thought he was. He was just so big in my mind, that I didn’t realize that many of his business trips weren’t actually business trips.”
“And Isabella had always said that he was absent often. I guess nobody realized how absent.” I didn’t want to divulge into Isabella’s truth any more than that, so I just gave him a sad smile and he nodded, seeming to understand.
“We didn’t live in a mansion, in fact, I had to share my room with two brothers.”
“Of course you did. But there are many of you.”
“Seven of us. At least in the house. The fact that my mother, a woman who perpetually didn’t like children, and was ice cold to most, had seven children still astounds me.”
I winced. “Oh, that’s not nice.”
“Not even a little. We didn’t have nannies, we had Mother. And yes, she makes us call her Mother. Dorian gets away with calling her Mom, and I bet the others do as well. I just got in the habit of it, and frankly, I do sometimes add that little accent to it just to annoy the fuck out of her.”
The curse surprised me, and I beamed. “Oh, look at that. See you don’t always follow the rules. ”
Something slid over his face, but I didn’t know what exactly that meant.
“I try to follow those rules,” he whispered. Then he cleared his throat. “The town is far west of Denver, up in the mountains, but not the high hot elevations where the side of the mountain will make part of the area perpetually dark.”
“I’ve driven by those places, where there’s always snow no matter what.”
“Except during fire season,” he said with a shudder, and I joined in, remembering the fires that had crested over the mountains throughout the years.
“Well, considering that Isabella and her family grew up east of the Colorado Springs suburbs, and moved up north later, it sort of makes sense that you guys didn’t cross paths.”
“I guess so. Still though, the miles that man must have put on his car.” He rolled his eyes as he said it, but there was still an anger there.
“Well, I’m glad that you didn’t have that silver spoon, even though you do have a town named after you.”
“Not after me. After my great-grandpa, the land baron.”
I laughed at that. “You should look more into that history.”
“I should. I was too busy looking toward the future, trying to make sure that I could bring the company to this new age along with my brothers. Not everyone wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps, at least in terms of work.” He scowled a bit, and I had to wonder exactly what footsteps he was thinking about in that moment.
“We were pretty normal. I don’t know if we’re too normal right now,” he said dryly.
“No, I don’t think secret families are too normal. I, however, was blessedly boring and normal,” I put in, wanting to steer the topic away from the hard parts, at least for now.
“I would love to hear about boring and normal.”
I shook my head. “My mom’s a lawyer, Dad’s a firefighter.”
He raised a brow. “Really?”
“Really. They worked a lot, but between all of my after-school programs and sports and everything, it really worked out that I could see my family often, and yet they were out of the house more often than not.”
“And you’re still in touch with them?”
I nodded. “I had that walk with my mom this morning. And I have dinner with them often. I’m very blessed with my parents. I’m an only kid, which sounds a little shocking with your eleven siblings.”
He shook his head. “I could barely keep up with the seven before,” he said dryly.
“Totally. I can’t even imagine.”
“So, blessed and boring. Any ex-boyfriends I should worry about?” he said, surprising me with the straightforwardness.
I swallowed hard. “No. I had two serious relationships in my early twenties, but they didn’t go anywhere.” I shrugged as I said it, and honestly, I didn’t feel anything. They had both been nice guys, but nothing had happened. I didn’t feel that heat. Nothing like I felt right now. And that should worry me.
“That’s oddly surprising,” he said, as he stood up and took the plate to the sink. He just raised that brow at me, as he washed his dishes and set them in the drying rack. I stared at him, wondering why this felt so domestic. And normal.
“One ended after college because he wanted to go to grad school on the east coast, and I wanted to stay here. And the other was right out of college, and we just didn’t suit.”
“Did he want you barefoot in the kitchen making him a sandwich?” he asked, that smirk on his face.
This time I rolled my eyes. “Pretty much actually. He wanted marriage and babies, and he didn’t want marriage and babies with me. And honestly, I didn’t want that with him so I wasn’t too heartbroken when we broke up.”
“So no current boyfriends.”
I scowled at him. “I’ve kissed you how many times now? No, no serious boyfriends at all. But what about you?” I asked, softly. “Is there someone I should worry about?
Other than him of course.
He shook his head. “I don’t share. And I don’t cheat. I was in a serious relationship for most of my twenties, and I was engaged.”
I choked on my own spit and blinked at him.
“What? ”
“Yes, I was engaged. Meredith was a wonderful woman, and in the end we didn’t suit.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. I hadn’t known he had been engaged. Although, when was I supposed to have figured that out. “Can I ask what happened?”
He shrugged again, and yet I wasn’t quite sure if he was as nonchalant as he was trying to seem.
“She broke it off.” He said it so succinctly, that it took me a moment to catch up.
And something inside of me twisted, just ever so slightly. As in the other woman had walked away. And was he still thinking of her? No, I couldn’t let that get in my head, and yet, there it was.
“But I would’ve done it soon anyway.”
I felt like my emotions were all over the place in this moment. “Oh?”
“She was nice. Good at her job. Pretty,” he said, that humor in his gaze again, and I narrowed my gaze at him.
“Oh really?”
“Really?”
“I don’t know if I should be hearing about other pretty women while you’re in my kitchen.”
He leaned forward and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “But she didn’t make me lose my mind.”
I swallowed hard at the low growl of his voice.
“She didn’t make me forget that I’m in a fucking meeting and all I wanted to do was text you.”
“Oh,” I whispered .
He smiled then, the heat in his gaze intoxicating. “Yeah. Oh.”
And then he lowered his mouth to mine, and everything went blank. His hands were gentle on my face, but his kiss was anything but. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—and I didn’t want to.
Instead, I kissed him back with the same ferocity, all doubts about what could be firmly pushed out of the window.
And then he was gone—standing two feet away from me, chest heaving.
“That’s why I can’t think,” he growled.
“I know the feeling.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I’m going to go. Not because I don’t want more. But because I don’t want to fuck this up. And I tend to fuck these things up.”
Frowning, I moved forward. “Aston…”
“I already screwed things up with us once, so I’m going to go. Not forever, but just so I don’t fuck you against that counter and lose my damn mind.”
I pressed my thighs together, my eyes wide. “That’s…that’s a picture.”
“Yes it is. One that I want. Sometime. But first? First we take the time so I don’t screw it up.” And before I could say anything to that and dig deeper into the whys of it, he left me with one more bruising kiss…and then he was gone.
Out of my kitchen. Out of my home.
But definitely not out of my memories.
And I hoped…not out of my life.