Chapter 4 Aiden
Aiden
Winter Financial’s headquarters gleams in glass and steel, a reflection of the empire my grandfather started, my father nearly broke, and I rebuilt.
I modernized the family business. Tripled its worth in five years—three as Senior Vice President, two as CEO. And yet, my father still acts as if he had something to do with our success.
I let him.
I was raised to respect my elders. And while I resent how long it took him to hand over the reins—not until the investors finally told him to step down or they’d take their money elsewhere—he’s still the patriarch of the family.
My phone buzzes as I step into the elevator. It’s Tristan, my brother. He can’t make it to a meeting and wants me to handle it. Again.
He doesn’t make it to a lot of meetings.
I’m sure if you look up ‘nepo hire’ in the dictionary, his face would be flashing there like a damn GIF.
Tristan is Director of Strategic Partnerships—a title that sounds impressive until you realize it’s basically code for “talk to clients, schmooze, and let someone else do the follow-up.”
He’s supposed to cultivate high-value investor relationships, smooth things over when the numbers don’t add up, and act as a bridge between our brand and our top-tier stakeholders.
Instead, he dumps half his work on Marissa—his boss—who happens to report directly to me. She’s sharp, no-nonsense, and probably two ignored emails away from putting Tristan’s face on a dartboard in her office.
I text back: What’s up?
Tristan: Just can’t.
Me: It’s the Williams account. It’s important.
Tristan: That’s why you need to take it.
I grit my teeth, and slide my phone into the inside pocket of my suit jacket.
In the real world, Tristan would have been fired for bullshit like this—where he checks out without any explanation.
I’m his brother and his boss, so he doesn’t even bother with a “my grandmother is sick” excuse.
Just that he can’t make it, and that’s that.
Because he knows I’ll cover him. Like I’ve done his whole life.
It’s expected. My father and mother have babied Tristan—and now I’m paying for it.
But he has something I don’t. He has a son. An heir.
Eight-year-old Nelson Junior—of course, they named him after Dad—is the heir apparent. They also have a daughter, Carla, who is five. I adore those two. They’re well-behaved and kind, probably because they’re being raised by their French Nanny, Lulu, instead of Betty, their mother, or Tristan.
One day, Junior will take over Winter Financial, which means I can’t tell his father to fuck off. Tristan knows this, which is why he spends his time perfecting his golf handicap or doing God knows what rather than working.
But this is what family does, right? At least that’s what I’ve been taught. We bury the mess for the people we’re supposed to admire.
The elevator doors open straight into the executive wing.
My assistant greets me with her usual clipped efficiency. “Diana’s waiting for you in your office. The board packet is on your desk.”
“Thanks, Jolene.” I don’t slow my stride.
I push the door open and can’t stop the grimace when I see Diana.
She’s got her hip settled on my desk as she browses through her phone. She’s in a navy sheath dress that hugs every inch of her ambition.
She’s blonde. Beautiful. Polished.
She’s got the demeanor of someone who owns the room she’s in—and right now, in my office, she’s smiling at me like she thinks she owns me.
That blasted kiss!
I toss my coat on the rack. “I thought we had a meeting later.” Where there will be other people.
I’ve been avoiding being alone with Diana since Thanksgiving.
The predominant feeling in my chest is guilt. But I recognize the curiosity lurking there as well. I’m a red-blooded man. Diana is a walking wet dream.
But I’m also thirty-eight and married. I don’t tempt easy.
And that compounds the guilt that even a small part of me was ever drawn to Diana, that my love for Mia could be pushed aside, even for that small inch, that gave this woman the right to put her lips on mine. That I ever allowed my affections to wander even for a nanosecond.
I’m at fault. I know it. I spent too much time with Diana. I gave her ideas. Our professional chemistry is awesome, and it bled out to the personal, just like Huxley warned me it could.
“I wanted to see you alone,” she replies, unfazed.
“I have fifteen minutes before a call with Lancaster Bank. What can I do for you?” I walk around her, sit on my chair, and keep the massive oak desk that my grandfather had built between us.
She walks to my side of the desk and leans her shapely ass against it, close to me. There’s an intimacy in how she’s standing. I never noticed it before. Didn’t think of it. But now I do. Because…that fucking kiss.
“Can you sit?” I wave a hand at the client chair.
She frowns but does as I ask.
She sets her phone down. “I wanted to go over the Kittridge projections.”
“You emailed them to me last night, Diana. I haven’t had time to check them.” I am going through my inbox. I want to look at pretty much anything but her.
“Aiden,” she murmurs.
I sigh. Raise my head. She holds my gaze. Her smile is tight. She appears to be angry and frustrated. “You’ve been dodging me.”
I lean back in my chair and steeple my hands. Once, a business coach told me that’s a way to feel like you’re in control of a room during a meeting.
“We’ve been in at least one meeting every day,” I say, even though I know what she means. We haven’t been in a room alone.
“We’re adults, Aiden,” she croons. “We need to talk about Thanksgiving.”
My heart stutters at her calling it out, bringing it here, into a space that should not be tainted by nonsense like this.
Who am I kidding? It’s already been contaminated with the personal. I allowed that to happen. Even encouraged it.
Huxley’s voice rings in my head. “They call her your work wife. That’s just corporate speech for ‘you are straying with a colleague.’”
“I’m a married man, Diana.” I keep my tone on the level, even a little sharp. I don’t want to further encourage this conversation. I need to go home and be with my wife—the one I’ve been ignoring for the past two years since I took over this damn job.
“I can’t pretend that kiss didn’t mean something.” Her eyes are soft, inviting.
Right now, she doesn’t look attractive. No, she looks…malicious. And it is, isn’t it, to pursue a married man?
She’s not the one who made vows, asshole, you did. She’s free and clear. You’re married, and if your wife ever finds out about that kiss, it’ll destroy her, end your marriage.
“I’m going to say this once so we don’t have to discuss it again. You initiated that kiss, and it was a mistake.”
“You kissed me back,” she throws at me.
Shame coats my tongue. Sharp, painful.
I did kiss Diana back. I tasted her. Let my tongue touch hers. My lips felt hers.
Mia, baby, I’m so fucking sorry.
I give her a measured look, as if I were a man who feels more confident than I do, a man who is on the righteous path when I’ve never been this wrong in my life.
“I’m married, Diana. And I intend to stay married. I love my wife.”
She crosses her arms. “You’re lying. For the past two years, you’ve belonged more to me than to Mia.”
I push out of my chair slowly. Stand tall. “Don’t confuse time with meaning.”
Her jaw ticks. “You spent holidays with me. Dinners. Business trips. You missed anniversaries, birthdays—”
I slam my fists on the table and roar, “And now I regret every fucking one of them.”
A beat of silence.
“I don’t want you, Diana.” My voice is low, crisp. “Not now. Not ever.”
Her face flickers—hurt, maybe, or just bruised pride.
“Your wife is an albatross around your neck.”
“Don’t talk about Mia.”
“You think she can’t see how you and I are together?” she demands. “She can. And she ignores it. She ignores how Edith and Nelson talk about you and me as a team, excluding her.”
My heart thumps at her words. At the truth. That’s what my parents did at every family function, didn’t they?
Diana would be there, and Mia…oh God!
“My wife is never excluded.”
It’s a lie, and I can see it now, so clearly.
When Mia mentioned it in her sweet, kind way that my parents didn’t treat her like family, I told her she was imagining things. Decided that my parents like Diana better because they’ve known her all their lives—they’re just warming up to Mia.
Does it take six years to warm up to your son’s wife?
“Please.” She scoffs. “You think I don’t have eyes? I have seen how Gianna and Betty are with Mia. They’re my friends, not hers. Tell me, Aiden, is anyone in your family close to Mia? Do any of them even like her?”
I almost wince at the pain that strikes through me at the clarity with which she just cracked my world wide open.
It was a year ago, after Dad and Mom’s anniversary party, on the way home, when Mia voiced her feelings…again.
“I don’t think they like me, Aiden.” Mia fidgets with the strap of her purse as we sit in the back of the sedan.
We’ve been drinking, celebrating, so I didn’t drive.
“Christ, Mia, not again. Can we not keep talking about it?” I groan.
“They…Aiden, they asked Diana to give a speech with you. I…they didn’t—”
“They know you’re shy. They know you don’t like the spotlight. That’s why they asked Diana.” I close my eyes. “Diana is family, Mia.”
“I’m family, too.”
I flash my eyes open. “Of course, you are. Everyone treats you like family, Mia. You just…you just need to get used to the Winter ways, that’s all.”
She just smiled at me and let it go.
I rub my chest, suddenly aware that Mia never brought it up again.
There’s a heaviness in my gut—a sense that everything is off-balance, like a snow globe teetering on the edge of a shelf, one careless nudge away from crashing to the floor and becoming nothing but shattered glass and scattered sparkles.
“Aiden, look—” Diana begins, but is cut off when my door swings open.
“Am I interrupting?” My father strides in without knocking, as always.