Chapter 11 Raven
ELEVEN
RAVEN
Ipeeked my head into Aiden’s bedroom and immediately noticed the shower running. A smirk tugged at my lips as a devious plan—and some rather erotic images—flickered through my mind.
Pushing the door open, I tiptoed across the bedroom toward the bathroom, the door cracked just enough for mischief. I was primed to scare the absolute hell out of him—or, more accurately, his stubborn, overgrown heart—when his voice cut through the rhythm of the running water.
“If you’re my wife, refrain from gawking. If you’re not… well, I should warn you, I have a gun and I have no qualms about killing a man while naked.”
I stifled a laugh, shaking my head. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re completely nuts?”
“Many people,” he shot back. “So… what are you doing here, Raven?”
I leaned closer to the crack, peering through the steam-fogged glass. The swirling mist made him almost entirely invisible, which only fueled my naughty imagination.
“Good morning to you too,” I called. “I just wanted to check if you were still here or if you’d gone off to work. Or maybe, should I say, off to commit your usual criminal shenanigans?”
He chuckled, voice teasing. “I’m sure when you heard the shower, you guessed I was still here. Pretty obvious, don’t you think?”
I pressed my back to the wall and slid down onto the hardwood, crouching next to the slightly ajar bathroom door. My eyes searched the fog for a glimpse of him again, but to no avail. No matter, he’d get out of that shower and I’d get my show.
“I know you’re still there,” came his muffled voice through the door, water drumming a steady rhythm behind it.
I smiled, twirling a strand of hair around my finger. “Did you sleep okay?”
His chuckle echoed against the tile. “I sure did. And you?”
“For the most part,” I admitted.
“Something on your mind?” I could hear the concern in his voice, and despite the weird situation—and the forced marriage—my heart fluttered. Damn that organ.
“Just… things,” I answered vaguely. “Do you think we should… I don’t know, fool around or something?”
I thought I heard him let out a string of curses, but when he spoke again, it was in an annoyingly measured tone. “Do you want to?”
“How else are we going to get to know each other?” I teased.
He scoffed. “By talking.”
“You must be the only boy—”
“Man,” he corrected smoothly.
“Pardon, the only man who’d rather talk than fool around.”
“Wrong. I’m all for fooling around, but there’s no need to rush it. I already have a ring on your finger.”
“You sure do,” I muttered, shifting on the floor. “You know, the younger generation fools around on the first date. Second, worst-case scenario. And I’ve been in your place—”
“Our place,” he corrected.
“Fine. I’ve been in our place for days, which surely warrants at least five dates, so we should test the waters… chemistry-wise.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “You make it sound like a lab experiment.”
“I barely passed chemistry, but I still think it counts.”
“I see my wife isn’t a science wiz,” he said dryly.
“If you don’t want to fool around, then we need a date. I’m not staying in this tower of yours, sewing or whatever women of your old generation do. I need more.”
There was a pause, then a teasing edge crept into his tone. “Fine. Date night tonight, then. We’ll test the chemistry.”
I clapped my hands. “Lovely. I’ll handle dinner. Be home by five.”
The words barely left my mouth before I froze. Home. Could it be that I already thought of his place as home? Two years in any apartment with Mom and me moving constantly, I never felt that.
He chuckled, completely unaware of my inner thoughts. “See, we’re already learning about each other. Chemistry isn’t your strong suit, and apparently you can cook.”
I didn’t bother correcting him.
I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, juggling a spoon in one hand and a jar of marinara sauce in the other while reading the recipe that made no sense at all.
The phone rang and rang, and just as I was about to hang up, my mom’s voice came through the line.
“Raven, when are you coming home?”
I winced, hearing the slight panic in her voice.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. I ran into my friend… you know, Athena.” I crossed my fingers at the bold-faced lie I was telling her. I couldn’t break the news to her over the phone. Besides, how could I possibly explain something so wild?
“I thought she was in Europe?” There was tension in her voice and regret hit me because I was the cause of it.
“Umm, no. She’s here in the city with her mom.” Before she could ask another question, I asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I’m just anxious.” She let out a heavy sigh. “We should probably move before summer is over and you’re off to college.”
Surprise washed over me. “But it hasn’t been two years yet.”
“Just about,” she retorted.
I sighed. “Don’t you think it’s time you stand still, Mom? It cannot go on for another two decades like this. It’s not living, just floating without any real connections.”
I could hear her shoes clacking against the floorboards through the phone line. She had to be pacing, and then she stopped.
“Attending the boarding school ensured you have some real connections,” she rasped. “You made some good friends there and you’ll be off to college soon.”
“I’m still trying to get the funds I need for the flight and months of living expenses,” I muttered, feeling like shit for lying to her.
“We’ll find a way,” she claimed. “We always do.”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.”
I didn’t know what else to say or do. Maybe honesty would be best, maybe I should admit to her what had happened.
But then she’d realize I’d been lying to her about my coffee shop job.
Dammit. I opened my mouth when her voice came through, “I have to go to work. Spend time with your friend, but when you get home, we have to talk.”
“Yeah, Mom… I know,” I said, stirring the pot of tomato sauce and only now realizing it had turned a weird brownish color.
I headed for the spice rack, but then stopped at the window overlooking the city.
I imagined I could see my mom across town, in the apartment too close to the slums and dirt. “I have much to tell you too.”
“We’ll move, and then you’ll be off to Paris.”
“I worry about you,” I whispered. “You’re alone too much, just existing and not living.”
“I haven’t been a good mom.”
“No—”
“Baby, don’t lie. We’ve both witnessed my parenting. My drinking. My failures.”
I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. “You did the best you could.”
“You, away from me and with your friends, is the way it should be. Seeing you happy and living is what’s important. Everything I’ve done… it was for you. You live and be your own person. We don’t need men.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I just… Everything is happening so fast.”
“One step at a time, baby,” Mom said calmly. “I have to go.”
“Okay.”
The line went dead, but I stayed frozen, the phone still pressed to my ear.
A dull ache spread through my chest, along with worry for my mother, my only parent.
My only family. She had no one else but me.
Her parents had died when she was just a child, leaving her to grow up in the cold walls of an orphanage.
And now, after everything she’d already endured, life had dealt her another cruel hand, binding her to a man who broke more than promises.
He should have given her a warm home and a family, not cruelty and fear.
The sharp, piercing beep of the smoke alarm shattered the quiet, jolting me out of my thoughts.
My heart lurched as I spun toward the stove just in time to see a thick, black cloud billowing from the pot.
The smoke curled upward like a sinister little ghost, twirling lazily toward the ceiling before spreading out in a hazy, choking veil.
“Oh no, no, no…” I sputtered, waving my hand uselessly through the air. The acrid smell of burning filled my nose, making my eyes water as I coughed and fumbled to switch off the burner. The dinner had transformed into a scorched, bubbling disaster.
The alarm shrieked again, a relentless, accusing cry. I grabbed a dish towel and started fanning it toward the ceiling, muttering a string of apologies and curses, as if that might calm both the alarm and my racing heart.
“What the hell is going on?” A deep man’s voice had me nearly jumping out of my skin. The dish towel slipped from my hand and landed in the puddle of something unidentifiable on the floor.
I turned to see Aiden, watching the scene, amused.
“I—uh—it’s fine! Just a little smoke,” I said quickly, waving my hand as if that might erase the evidence. “Dinner got… overenthusiastic.”
He sniffed the air, grimacing. “Smells like you set a tire on fire, not dinner.”
I forced a weak laugh, coughing as another puff of smoke curled toward us. “The recipe didn’t specify how long to leave it unattended.”
Aiden’s lips twitched almost as if he was fighting a smile while he crossed his arms. “It seems I was wrong, wife. You can’t cook.”
I smiled sheepishly and he shook his head as he headed to open all the windows and doors. I fumbled to help, the summer breeze chasing away the haze in my lungs.
As the alarm finally quieted, silence settled over the kitchen and I looked at the unrecognizable mess in the pot that would surely have to be thrown away.
I let out a heavy sigh. So much for our date and getting to know each other.
“I’m sorry again for smoking us out of the penthouse,” I said, sliding the glass doors wider, grateful for the light breeze whooshing in. We’d been attempting to air out faint traces of smoke lingering in the kitchen, dining, and living room.
I’d attempted to make spaghetti and homemade sauce—out of the can—and failed big-time. Talk about embarrassment.
“Don’t worry about it.”