Chapter 12 Aiden
Aiden
It’s been four days since Christmas Eve, and I can’t find my wife.
Katya isn’t home, and Mia isn’t there. I checked several times and even camped outside her place for a couple of hours to see if anyone came in or out, until a neighbor got suspicious and asked me what the hell I was doing.
I was so sure she’d be with her best friend.
I’ve tried to call Mia, but she’s blocked me.
I called Katya, and she went into lawyer mode before I could even say hello.
She’s not my wife’s friend, she told me when I tried to find out where Mia is; she’s Mia’s lawyer, and all I’m entitled to is a conversation about the divorce papers. Documents I haven’t bothered to read.
I don’t want to divorce my wife. I want to apologize to her.
“So the shit finally hit the fan?” Huxley isn’t smug about it, just matter-of-fact.
I asked to meet because I need to talk to someone and figure out how to fix my messed-up life.
We’re at the bar of Huxley’s newest hotel, The Roaming Finch—an upscale boutique spot nestled in downtown Burlington.
Nineteen-forties jazz plays in the background. The lighting is speakeasy moody, designed for quiet conversations and expensive drinks.
I’ve been here for half an hour and haven’t ordered anything.
Huxley sits next to me, angled to face me. He’s drinking scotch while wearing an infuriatingly calm expression when I’m in crisis, which pisses me off.
He hasn’t said I told you so. That’s not his style. Also, he doesn’t have to, does he?
“Yeah, it hit the fan.”
“Drink?” he asks.
I shrug and stare at the glass of water in front of me.
I did get drunk the first two nights after I couldn’t find her.
Now I feel like I have a perpetual hangover, which bites into me as soon as I walk into our home.
It’s empty…or rather, it feels that way because she isn’t there.
“I can’t believe she planned the whole thing.” I’m still baffled that my Mia did what she did on Christmas Eve. The whole Winter family is dealing with the fallout.
Mom is threatening to leave my father unless he gives up his mistress, Kitty. That’s her freaking name, and every time my mother says Kitty, I feel inappropriate laughter bubble up inside me.
Lulu has been fired and shipped back to Lyon.
Nelson Jr. and Carla are crying, upset to lose their nanny.
Betty is yelling and screaming at everyone—except Tristan, who is spending more time in the office than ever before. He’s not doing any work, though.
Gianna is now openly asking for money. Patrick has gambling debts.
His family, we find out, cut him off a year ago when he started to steal from the family firm. Apparently, he emptied his trust fund, as well as Gianna’s, and their joint savings accounts, blew through their investments, and then, finally, got caught when he resorted to embezzlement.
I told Gianna to divorce his ass and get a new job—and not necessarily in that order, but I wasn’t giving her a goddamn dime.
She feels she’s entitled. Is she? I don’t know, and I don’t care.
She got a sizeable payout when she married, based on the value of the company at the time, which is tradition for Winter women.
They don’t get shares and don’t have to work their butts off to make those shares valuable.
Besides the Winter family shit show, I have Diana, who is insisting that if I fire her, she’ll take it to the EEO and sue me. She says she’s doing this because she’s fighting for us. She’s obviously lost her fucking mind.
“Mia is resourceful.” Huxley chuckles. “I’d have liked to be there. Too bad no one recorded it.”
I huff out a laugh. “It was epic.” I run my hands over my face. “What do I do, Huxley?”
He regards me thoughtfully. “I have no fucking idea, man.”
I suck in a breath, and let it out in frustration. “I lost her. You told me I would, and I didn’t listen. I was so cocksure that she wouldn’t leave me, no matter what, that she loved me too much to do that.”
“Everyone has a breaking point.” He nods at his bartender and points to his scotch glass, and gestures to pour me one, too. The man does so with alacrity.
I pick up the scotch and smell it. “Bardstown.”
“Only the best for us.” He raises his glass, and I clink mine against his.
I set my glass down and twirl it on the smooth mahogany bar top.
“I don’t even know who was driving the SUV that night. Maybe it was an Uber or a friend? I’ve checked all the hotels in Burlington, and no one has seen her. I have no idea where the fuck she is. If she’s okay. If she’s….” Still crying as she had been when she left.
Huxley takes a slow sip. “It’s obvious she needs time. I don’t think you’d achieve much talking to her now, even if you found her.”
I lean against the bar counter, fingers idly tracing its surface. “I know. But I need to fix this, and I can’t unless she’s there…. Though, to be honest, I have no clue how to make any of this right.”
A flicker of compassion crosses his face. “Then maybe it’s time to stop chasing her physically and start figuring out how the hell you’re going to mend what you broke.”
I stare at my untouched drink. "I didn’t sleep with Diana."
"That’s your opening line?" Huxley raises an eyebrow.
I laugh, bitter and humorless. "She kissed me, and now I know she did it because she knew Mia could see us. But I kissed her back, Hux, for several seconds, before I pulled away.”
“The length of time your mouths were joined is just semantics,” Huxley points out. “Mia didn’t leave just because of the kiss, Aiden. She left because you did…two years ago.”
I close my eyes and groan. He’s not wrong.
"It wasn’t about sex with Diana," I admit. "I’m not sexually attracted to her. But I looked forward to seeing her. For a while, I talked to her more than I did to Mia. I depended on her when I took over as CEO. It was like...she understood that world."
Huxley inclines his head slightly. "Emotional affairs are just as poisonous to a marriage as you getting your dick wet elsewhere."
I pick up the scotch and drink it. I feel the liquid burn my esophagus. “Mia did say that she felt uncomfortable about how my family treated Diana and me like a couple.”
“Did they?”
“Yeah.” I dip my head in assent. “Didn’t see it then. I can see it now.”
“I’m assuming you told Mia words to the effect that she’s imagining things?”
I give him a sardonic look. “How did you guess?”
“’Cause you’re a dumbass,” he drawls. “Look, she’s carrying a couple of years’ worth of hurt. She’s thinking: what does Diana have that she doesn’t?”
I feel the jagged edge of his words scrape my insides.
“She’s thinking that Diana can probably get pregnant while she can’t,” I conclude, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.
“Bingo! You’re not as dumb as you look,” he mocks.
I lean back in the booth and scrub my hands over my face. "She believed in me. Even when I didn’t. When Dad told me I’d never be more than a mid-level manager, when I had panic attacks before board meetings, she was the one who got me through it. And what did I do? I left her behind."
"You didn’t just leave her behind, Aiden. You looked down on her."
“No!” My response is immediate and defensive.
"You did," Huxley rebukes calmly. "You thought because you made more money, because she taught kindergarten, and you ran a hedge fund, that you were more. That you were the important one. That inequality was always baked into the marriage, and you never questioned it."
I want to yell at him for being right.
“She never asked me for anything,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “She gave so openly. And now I realize, I just took, took, took.”
“Whoa! Stop the pity party.” Huxley gives the back of my head a playful slap.
“What’s with all the physical violence?” I mutter, picking up my drink.
“There are two people in a marriage. You were selfish, but she let you be that way. She didn’t say a word about how she felt. She didn’t confront you about the kiss; instead waited weeks, and then flung it in your face.”
I run a hand through my hair. “She was insecure with me. What a joke! Here she kept thinking I’ll leave her, and I kept thinking she’ll never leave me—and we both were wrong.”
I think back to all the dinners where she sat in silence, absorbing my father’s cutting remarks, while I stared at my plate and said nothing. To the charity galas where she stood beside me—radiant, gracious—offering smiles to strangers, while I barely spared her a glance.
“I need to show her that I respect her as an equal. I need to make her feel seen. I need to make her feel like she never ever has to doubt my love for her.”
Huxley’s expression softens. “It sounds like a good start.”
But what if it doesn’t work?
"I’m lost without her, man.”
Huxley puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I say this as your friend, but your family sucks. Big time.”
He’s never been a fan of my father—hates his guts, actually.
Has done so since the time we interned at Winter Financial during our university years.
We were barely twenty, eager to impress, presenting a mock portfolio project we’d spent weeks on—high-yield bonds and mid-cap growth stocks, the kind of stuff that made us feel like The Wolves of Wall Street.
Dad walks in mid-presentation, stands at the back with his arms crossed, listening. When we finish, he claps slowly—mockingly, not impressed.
Then he says, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Good effort, Aiden. Remind me never to let you near actual client money. You clearly don’t have the instincts for finance. Some people just aren’t wired for it.”
He looks right at Huxley. “You, though—you’ve got a sharper head. Why the heck are you hanging out with my son?”
Everyone laughs. Everyone except Huxley. He doesn’t say anything at the time, but later he tells me, “That man’s poison. You don’t need his approval. You need distance.”
“The men in my family certainly have a penchant for cheating on their wives,” I remark with a high degree of self-loathing.
He regards me thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s time you find out who you are without your family. And who knows, if you’re lucky, Mia will like who that man turns out to be."