Chapter 19
Mia
“Absolutely not!” I shake my head at Diana, who’s standing outside Katya’s front door. I just got healed from the last confrontation I had with Aiden’s mother. I didn’t need a new one with his…what was Diana to him?
“Go away.”
I’m about to shut the door in her face when she grabs the doorknob, preventing me from doing so. “Please, Mia. Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Please.”
The hell!
It’s the second, please, that does it. I swing the door open. “Come in. But you have five minutes and that’s all.”
I march to the kitchen, where I’m chopping potatoes to make a gratin, which I’m serving for dinner with pork chops and a spring salad.
I pick up my phone and text Aiden as Diana makes her way to the kitchen island.
Me: Your girlfriend is at my place. You have five minutes to get here and take her away. I’m chopping vegetables.
I turn on the record function on my phone and set it on the counter. Whatever she wants to say, I want it documented.
I plant my hands on my hips, my stance unapologetically aggressive. I’m done playing nice.
Diana’s been circling my husband for two years, like a vulture waiting for the right moment to swoop in. And when the opportunity came—when I was standing just a few feet away—she kissed him. Deliberately. Knowing I was there.
I don’t pretend she ruined my marriage. That blame belongs to Aiden. To me. Mostly him. But Diana went after a married man, and now she says, “Please talk to me.”
The nerve!
She stands on the other side of the island, and looks at the potatoes on the cutting board.
“Well?” I demand.
She swallows. “Aiden…look, I know he wants to make it work with you. But you know that’s just guilt, right?”
The bitch!
She was here to make me insecure, make me wonder why Aiden was putting so much effort into fixing us. And she was doing a fine job of it because hadn’t I already been worrying, wondering if Aiden’s moral compass, and not his heart, was making him want to reconcile?
“And how would you know?” I ask sweetly.
She licks her lips. “I’ve known him my whole life. And the past two years, we’ve gotten very close. We’ve spent a lot of time together.” She looks me in the eye, holds my gaze. “You must know we’re having sex.”
My heart hammers at her words. She’s pushing all my buttons, and even knowing that I can’t help but feel the trauma she’s inflicting.
“Look, Diana, I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re fucking my ex-husband now or if you were fucking him while we were married,” I lie, and I think I do a good job of it because Diana goes pale.
“Mia, I just want you to understand that things are precarious and—”
“Just tell me what you want and get the fuck out!” I blast her with all my irritation.
I hate this woman as much as I hate every member of the Winter family. Even Aiden…I hate him more than I love him right now.
“Leave Aiden alone.”
I shrug. “Okay.”
She shakes her head as if I don't understand what she’s saying. “I…you have to tell him to leave you alone.”
I’m about to answer when I see Aiden fill the doorway of the kitchen. “And why would she do that, Diana?”
The shock that goes through Diana is entertaining as hell.
She turns so quickly that she almost stumbles.
“Aiden…ah…I…just wanted to talk to Mia about—"
He lifts a hand to shut her the hell up. “Not interested in whatever lies or excuses you’re cooking up.”
“Take your girlfriend, fuck buddy, whoever she is, and get out of my house.” I pick up my knife with a shaky hand.
Edith assaults me, and now Diana is in my house telling me things I don’t want to know. The divorce is coming through sooner rather than later since we’ve both signed the paperwork and it’s filed.
And just for the record, I don’t care who Aiden is sleeping with.
Lies! Lies! Lies!
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Aiden comes to me and takes the knife out of my hand, and sets it into the kitchen sink.
Did he think I was going to use it?
The thought isn’t upsetting. Aiden thinking I could be capable of that makes me feel like I’ve passed the doormat wife phase into the pissed-off ex-wife one.
“She said you two have been fucking.” I use the crude term because the thought is poison inside me.
“I did not,” Diana protests. The mendacious bitch.
I pick up the phone. “It’s been recording since you got here.”
“That’s illegal,” Diana snarls, taking a step closer to me and my phone.
I smile, saccharine, sarcastic. “For conversations, Vermont is a one-party consent state.”
She looks at Aiden, a plea in her eyes. “Aiden, I just—”
“Last week, when you begged me, I gave you a month to find a job.” He pauses and looks at my phone. “Is that still on?”
I want to ask him to take his demands and get lost, but it feels good to have him on my side, literally and metaphorically, against Diana.
“Yes.”
He tilts his chin in acknowledgement. “You’re fired, Diana, as of right now. HR will be in touch with you. Don’t come to the office.”
“Come on, Aiden.” Diana flings her hands up in the air. “I spoke to Nelson, and you can’t fire me without permission from the board, and they’ll never give it.”
“Actually, when you commit fraud, which you just did by lying about having a sexual relationship with me to my wife, with whom I am currently in divorce proceedings—I can.”
Aiden’s never looked sexier.
He’s in a dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up. His suit pants are perfectly ironed. He’s left his jacket in his car or maybe his office. The blue of his pants brings out the blue in his eyes, and the white shirt contrasts against his tanned skin. Someone’s been skiing.
But it’s not about how he looks, it’s about how he’s talking to Diana, how he’s defending me, defending us, that’s the sexiest.
Diana scoffs. “The board is going to fire you as CEO.” She looks at me. “Did you know that he’s told his parents he’s never talking to them again?”
Color me entirely surprised!
I narrow my eyes at Aiden. He winks at me.
“Get out, Diana,” he says pleasantly. “And leave my wife alone. She will be filing for a restraining order against you, just like she filed one against my mother.”
Did I do that? Really?
I huff out a breath as I conclude that it must be something Katya did on my behalf.
“You’ll lose your job…your company,” Diana warns. “You need me by your side.”
Aiden presses his palms against the counter, leans, and smirks. “Diana, I don’t care if I lose my job. And the only person I need by my side is my wife.”
“Ex-wife,” she snaps, so I don’t have to.
“I don’t care what the legal status of my marriage is. Mia will always be my wife.” He looks at his watch. “Now, I think you should leave. If you don’t, John is waiting to hear from me so he can tell the cops in the car outside to forcibly remove you.”
John, as in Police Chief John Frizzell?
Who was this man, and what had he done to my husband?
Aiden is a lot of things, but he isn’t aggressive, not like this and not with family and friends. He’s a peacemaker.
What happened?
Maybe just like you’re out of fucks, so is he, Mia.
Diana spins around and marches out. I turn to look out the window, and yep, won’t you have it, there is a Burlington PD cruiser outside.
After Aiden sends a message, I imagine, to the police chief, I watch the cruiser slowly pull away.
When did they become best buds?
My body is still humming with tension.
My adrenaline hasn’t settled.
I cross my arms and lean against the counter, still feeling the sting of Diana’s words.
“Can you really fire her?”
“Maybe…but she’s right, I can’t do it without the board.” He releases a long breath and adds. “Can you forward the recording to me? I’ll send it to HR and see if it works.”
I nod, feeling bereft, my emotions surfacing. “Have you been sleeping with her?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “What?”
“You know…before we divorced or…now?”
“First things first: I’ve never had sex with Diana. And seriously, Mia, you think I’d be doing something like that when I’m working my hardest to win you back?”
I lift my shoulders in a helpless gesture.
I’m so confused. So lost without him, and still lost now when he’s trying to be with me.
He moves toward me, slow and careful, and gently takes my hands in his. Brings them to his lips, and kisses each knuckle like they’re something sacred.
I pull away and exhale, shaking my head. “What was that?”
His features soften with tenderness. “That was step one in my ‘Win-Back Mia’ plan. That was me protecting my wife, standing with her.”
I meet his eyes—blue, stubborn, kind—and something cracks in my chest.
“You can’t just walk back into my life, Aiden.”
His lips curve as a teasing warmth enters his gaze. “I know. But I’m going to keep trying.”
My breath stutters, air stalls in my throat. “You broke me,” I croak.
His face changes as he looks at me, sees the pain slashing through me.
The teasing vanishes, and in its place is devastation. His expression folds, jaw tight, eyes wide and full of regret.
I press a hand to the counter to steady myself. But I’m shaking. My legs feel watery. And suddenly—
It’s too much.
All of it.
His mother shoving me.
Diana’s lies slithering through my kitchen like poison.
The months—years—of silence.
Of feeling small.
Of feeling invisible.
And now…this man, the one who used to be my safe place, standing in front of me, promising to fight for me, after he was the one who lit the match that burned us down.
My knees buckle. I sink slowly to the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, arms wrapping around my middle to try and hold myself together.
He kneels beside me, terrified, reaching for me. I flinch back. Not because I hate him but because I don’t trust myself not to shatter if he touches me.
Tears pour from me—hot, relentless, as if they’ve been waiting for this moment. Waiting for permission to finally break free.
I sob like I did the night I took that photo.
The night I left.
The many nights when I wondered if he’d leave me because I was barren.
The many, many nights when he did leave me, forgot about me.
“You destroyed me,” I whisper through the sobs, my voice shaking, and sharp with grief. “You didn’t just cheat on me. You erased me. Like I was nothing. And I tried—God, I tried—to be everything for you. To smile through the insults, to be patient when your family treated me like dirt.”
He closes his eyes as if the heaviness of my pain is crushing him. But I don’t stop. I can’t. The words are bubbling out of me.
“I thought if I loved you enough…if I was good enough for your family…it would matter.” I gasp through the tears. “You let them push me aside. You made me feel like I wasn’t a woman. Like I wasn’t enough—because I couldn’t give you a child.”
His head jerks up, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Mia—no. No, baby—”
“Every time I looked in the mirror, I wondered if I was someone you didn’t want anymore.” The heartfelt words tumble out. “I wondered if you’d leave me because I failed at the one thing a woman is supposed to be able to do.”
He reaches for my face, gently now, reverently. His thumb brushes beneath my eyes, wiping the tears that are faster than his fingers.
“I wasn’t jealous of Diana’s job or her confidence,” I tell him, looking into his eyes, letting him see inside of me.
“I was jealous because she could give you something I couldn’t.
She could give you a baby. She fit in with your family and at work, while I was just your quiet, boring wife, who taught finger painting and didn’t belong in your shiny world. ”
He swallows hard, his voice raw when he speaks. “You’re my heart. You’re my home. You’re the shine in my world.”
“Then why didn’t you choose me before you lost me?” I whisper.
His eyes shimmer with tears he’s not trying to hide. He rests his forehead against mine. I let him because I want to be comforted. Because I want to comfort him. Because I love him.
“I was a fool,” he murmurs. “But I’m here now. And I swear, Mia, I will never let you feel unloved, alone, ever again.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t forgive you.”
“You will,” he says it with confidence, with an arrogance that is so Aiden Winter that I give out a watery laugh. “You will because I will do everything humanly possible, and then some, Mia, to win back your trust, to win your forgiveness.”
“I don’t believe you,” I breathe.
He kisses my forehead. “I will make you believe me.”