Chapter 27
Mia
The fields stretch out like a watercolor painting—blush pink apple blossoms dotting the horizon, bees buzzing with purpose in the spring air, and the soft perfume of wildflowers floating on a light breeze.
We’re standing on the edge of the apiary property in East Montpelier, watching as a cluster of golden honeybees dance near a hive box painted a cheerful shade of robin’s egg blue.
I push back my sunglasses. “I feel like I’m about to fall into a Beatrix Potter book.”
Aiden chuckles softly. “I was there when you read The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle at the children’s book festival.”
That was nearly eight years ago, in the early days of our relationship. “You remember that?” I ask, surprised and a little impressed.
His smile is quiet, reverent. “I remember everything.”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. Forgiveness feels impossible when my anger still simmers just beneath the surface, ready to boil over at the slightest spark.
But I can’t deny the truth, either—I’m thawing toward him.
Isn’t that what these dates are meant to do?
To see if there’s still a path back to each other, if one even exists?
Despite all my promises to let the past go, I can’t seem to shake it. Memories rise unbidden, and each one leaves me either aching with sadness or burning with fury—sometimes both at once. I’m caught in a vicious cycle: half the time I want Aiden, the other half I want to hit him.
But what I know now, what I can finally admit to myself, is that his wanting Diana—wrong as it was—wasn’t the cause of our marriage breaking. It was only a symptom of a failing relationship.
“Aiden, why did our marriage not work out?” I ask while we wait for the tour to start.
He looks at me in surprise, caught unaware. Then he smiles as if he’s happy I asked the question. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot, too.” He leans against a maple tree and pulls me close to him, like he needs to touch me when he talks about us. “In the beginning, it was…amazing. Wasn’t it?”
I nod. It was. I didn’t care that his family were douchebags because Aiden and I were doing great, and that’s all that mattered.
“But then the company started sinking, and I buried myself in longer and longer hours.” His hand strokes my shoulder, though it feels like he’s soothing himself as much as me.
“That’s when the distance began. And when I stepped into the CEO role, it only grew.
I didn’t balance my work and my marriage—I let Winter Financial swallow me whole.
And in that space between us, I…let something dangerous in.
” He clears his throat, his voice rough.
“I developed feelings for Diana. Maybe not in a purely physical sense, but I leaned on her, relied on her. I enjoyed her company in a way I should have reserved for you.”
I find that his words don’t pierce the way they used to.
Diana, I have realized, was and is not the problem. Aiden doesn’t love her. He loves me. She was a distraction, yes, and a tangible proof of the issues in our marriage we were papering over—but she was not the cause of those issues.
“I didn’t tell you that I wasn’t happy,” I murmur.
“I should’ve known.”
I lean against him, letting myself melt into his warmth.
He’s shouldering the blame for our marriage unraveling because his sins were loud, visible, and impossible to ignore.
Mine were quieter, harder to name, but they were there all the same.
The times I stayed silent when his family cut me down.
The times I swallowed my hurt when he missed anniversaries and milestones, pretending it didn’t matter when it did—when it mattered so much I could barely breathe.
“If I had told you, ‘No, stay with me’ or ‘Take me to Paris with you?’” I muse.
He looks at me. “Baby.”
I nod and then shrug. “Instead, I said I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”
“You did. But I knew it wasn’t fine, that you weren’t fine.”
“If we ever do this again, then we have to be honest and open.” The words slip out without me pausing to filter them.
He beams. “I absolutely agree.”
I roll my eyes. “I said if, not when.”
“I got you to if, baby,” he says cockily. “I will get you to when.”
I’m saved from revealing how much I want us to be back together, despite all the alarm bells ringing in my head, by Una, our tour guide. She’s a stout woman with silver-streaked braids and an encyclopedic knowledge of pollinators.
“Welcome to Little Wing Apiary.” Una greets as she hands out gauzy beekeeper veils.
“We’re going to take you up to one of the hives, show you the process of honey collection, and yes, if you’re brave enough—” she winks—“you can hold a frame of the comb. The bees are used to us. Just stay calm, breathe, and don’t swat. ”
There are six of us on the tour. An older couple from New Hampshire celebrating their anniversary, a mother with her teenage son, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, and us.
I lean in as we follow Una up a dirt path to the hives. “I’m going to end up getting stung in the face, aren’t I?”
“Maybe,” he whispers back, his lips grazing my ear. “But like they say, no pain, no gain. No sting, no honey.”
“Aiden,” I breathe.
“But the best honey in the world, baby, is between your gorgeous legs. Now, if I could lick that….”
My eyes widen, and heat pools between said gorgeous legs. Even after all this time, he gets me going effortlessly.
“Cut it out.” I slap his shoulder and put on my bee veil as defense against any further foreplay.
He laughs and dons his as well. He looks over, his eyes crinkling behind the mesh of his veil. “No way I’m cutting it out, baby, not when I know you’re wet.”
Alright then! Time and place, buddy. This ain’t it.
Thankfully, we reach the hives. Una goes into a practiced spiel about the parts of the box and how the bees maintain a perfect, humming society.
She cracks open the top of the hive with a hive tool and lifts out a glistening frame. It’s alive with movement, bees crawling and buzzing, golden comb shining in the sunlight.
“Who wants a go?” she asks.
Everyone looks reluctant but curious. As am I, but all those creepy crawly bees….
Aiden steps forward. “I’m not afraid,” he declares, then adds, “mostly,” which makes all the tour participants chuckle.
Una hands him the frame, guiding his hands to the wooden sides. “Keep it level. Breathe.”
He holds it out, arms stiff, face a mix of awe and mild terror. “They’re just…walking all over it. And each other. And me.”
“You’re doing great, honey.” I lift my phone to snap a photo and then look at it critically. “You look like a man who has found the meaning of life.”
“I feel like a man who’s standing too close to a small, buzzing apocalypse.”
I click another picture. He looks both terrified and delighted, the veil giving him the appearance of a wayward explorer. I know I’ll keep this photo forever.
Thanks to Aiden stepping forward, two others and I have some photo sessions with the frame of bees, hoping that we’re not pissing them off by disturbing their day.
After the frame is returned, Una leads us to the honey house.
Here, the air is cool and rich with scent—warm beeswax, sweet pollen, faint traces of smoke from the hive smoker. Rows of gleaming jars line the wooden shelves, each labeled with flavors that read like poetry: Clover Cream, Wild Apple Blossom, Goldenrod Gold, Buckwheat Dark.
Una sets out samples with chunks of warm baguette. “Start with the mildest and work your way to the darkest. Just like wine.”
The first taste—Spring Clover—melts on my tongue like sunlight. Soft, floral, clean.
“Oh wow,” I whisper.
Aiden dips his spoon into Goldenrod. His eyes close. “This tastes like spice and…it’s still sweet. Apricots and toasted almonds.”
I feel light, unburdened for a moment.
“There’s a metaphor in here somewhere.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “Life is sweeter than we expect.”
“Or…we should stop settling for store-bought honey,” I say, my eyes twinkling.
The moment stretches, delicate as spun sugar, and I know this is the kind of day you recollect when you’re eighty.
“Remember, Aiden, when we almost got stung by a honeybee?”
“Baby, I remember tasting honey almost as sweet as you.”
The image of Aiden and me, old and gray, sitting on some porch with unending views and honey in front of us is intoxicating.
We buy a couple of jars of honey and a tray of bread and cheese, and head to the pergola outside. We wash down honey-infused goat cheese crostini with local cider. There’s a sweetness in the air, which isn’t surprising. It is, however, comforting.
“My mother came by this morning.”
I go still.
“She said she’s being arraigned. Asked me to ask you to drop charges.”
My stomach twists.
“I told her I wouldn’t, and that I want her to pay for physically assaulting you.”
I know that in the past months, he’s walked away from his family, but he’s never spoken to his mother this way. He’s always respectful.
“I’m assuming she didn’t take it well.”
He regards me with quiet consideration, his brow furrowed slightly as if weighing the words before offering them.
“No, she didn’t. I thought she might—I expected it to bother me—but I was so damn excited about seeing you that she barely registered.
” A faint smile ghosts across his lips. “It’s happened with my father too…
with Tristan. The things they usually say, the way they needle me—it just doesn’t stick the same when I know I’m walking toward you. ”
He tells me how Tristan came to his office, and how Aiden truly didn’t care one way or the other about being CEO.
“I don’t want you to give up things because of me,” I protest.