Chapter 31
“You’re not going to tell me where we’re going?” Aiden asks, frowning and tugging at the silk tie wrapped around his eyes.
“You do this to me all the time, Aiden, so don’t pretend to be upset.”
Yasmine makes a gagging sound in the back of her throat. “Please, I really don’t want to know what kinky shit you two get up to. Catriona, I swear to God, I will leave you both on the side of the road. Putting up with your friends for dinner every Sunday is bad enough.”
I gasp, cheeks burning, and shoot her a glare from the driver’s seat. “Jesus, that’s not what I meant. I just mean he—”
She holds up a hand. “Nope, no. I’m only here because I want to see him—”
“Don’t ruin it!” I shriek.
“There go my eardrums,” Aiden says drolly.
“You’re fine,” I say and pat his shoulder. “Now be a good husband and don’t peek.”
“I’m the best husband. Anyone else would have bailed twenty minutes ago. One of you has been shrieking since we got into the car.”
“We have not,” we protest at the same time.
“My point exactly.”
“We’re here!” I singsong, trying to cover my nerves. He’s either going to love this or hate it. He’d never tell me to my face because he doesn’t like disappointing me, but I’d know.
I pull the tie away from Aiden’s eyes. He looks at me first, gaze flitting over me to check to see if I’m okay, then he peers at our surroundings through the windows. “We’re at City Park? That’s the big surprise? Darlin’, I would have come here with you any time. You didn’t have to kidnap me.”
“Nooo, we’re going somewhere in City Park,” I announce, barely able to contain the mixture of nerves and excitement. Aiden seems dubious, but as always, he’s willing to follow me wherever I want to go. “And I didn’t kidnap you.”
Yasmine climbs out of the car. Her expression is guarded, but I know she’s just as excited as I am.
Between moments at the hospital, she’s been here right alongside me.
I tried to tell her not to waste her precious free moments, but when she learned what happened to us in Ireland, she threatened to move in with us to keep an eye on me.
This little project has soothed both of our nerves.
“You can’t kidnap someone who's willing,” Yasmine mutters as she tosses her hair and winds a scarf around her neck.
I narrow my eyes at both of them as I scramble out of the car and tug at the neck of my peach turtleneck. “You two are both going to be demoted. Aiden, smile and get out of the car. I promise you’re going to love it.”
Aiden’s smile is more confused than anything, but I’m practically bouncing for joy.
It’s been an exhausting, grueling week at my internship.
Aiden hadn’t been lying when he said he could get me another—better—opportunity.
Not that I asked how he accomplished it.
The woman I’d been before him and my mother, one who fought tooth and nail for everything, would have turned it down when he offered it to me because I didn’t “earn it.” But a clerkship at the US Court of International Trade is an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
I’m sure the fact that the connections I’ll make there will be lucrative to Aiden’s interests had nothing to do with his recommendation at all, I think wryly as we move through the pathways.
Aiden is no longer tied to the Irish arm of the former Lynch Crime Family, but that may not always be the case.
There may be a time when he chooses to go back, wrest back control from Niall, and when he does, I’ll do anything it takes to be there to support him.
Part of me still doesn’t quite believe he’s given it up to stay here, to be with me.
The moment we got back from Ireland, this idea has been percolating in my brain.
I didn’t waste any time reaching out to my mother’s various acquaintances in the charity circuit to find the right contacts.
It didn’t take much convincing—or money, really—to be granted a space in the park for my purposes.
Besides, Aiden is always telling me that his money is my money, and I knew this was something he’d want.
After everything he’s done for me, I wanted to do something in return.
“Are you going to tell me what the surprise is now?” Aiden asks.
“It’s just up here, I think. Yes, here it is.” I find the placard and hold my hands together at my chest. My stomach is jumping like I’ve had several shots of espresso. I barely blink as I wait for him to read the plaque and put two and two together.
The patient, indulgent look on his face persists for a few minutes as he looks around, not really getting it.
Studying the plaque, he mouths the words at the same time.
Then his eyes bounce around the plants around him, seeing their little identification cards.
The ones I remembered from his mother’s garden that I could cultivate here.
He spins to me, brushing a hand over his forehead. “What did…” He swallows hard. “Did you do this?”
“You haven’t really had time to mourn her, and you don’t have a place to visit her here.
I know we had the funeral, and she has a gravestone in Ireland, but I thought it might help if you had something here to remember her by that you can visit.
Mourn. I know it’s hard for you, not being in Ireland as much as possible.
We’ll go as soon as you want. Whenever you want.
But your memories with her are there, and I just thought—”
He crosses the space between us in two long-legged strides. His hands thread through my hair, and he crushes his lips to mine in a deep, emotional kiss that has tears burning at the back of my eyes.
“You did this for her? These roses—they’re the same as the ones from her garden?”
I’m nodding, clearing my throat. “Yes, or as close as I could get. Not all of them, of course. And I spent quite a bit of your money to get everything perfect. The New Orleans Botanical Society has never been so thrilled.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” he says, his voice hoarse.
Then he’s turning again, shoving his hands in his pockets, his shoulders lifting at the effort to breathe deeply enough to calm his emotions.
He keeps his back to me as he walks through the aisles, stopping to read each little metal sign with the flower’s name and a brief description.
They’re all roses. None of the poisonous plants she’d used to end her life.
Only the ones that had brought her such joy when she’d described them.
Under each, it says, Donated by the family of Mary O’Connor.
Each time he reads her name, he jolts a little.
I glance behind me to Yasmine, who is trying, and failing, to hide a smile.
She came to the garden with me and bullied me as I agonized over the right varieties and despaired over the growing costs.
She takes my hand now as we watch Aiden touch almost every flower he passes, and I think maybe she finally gets what I’ve seen in him since the beginning.
“Do you promise you like it?” I ask after we drop Yasmine back at the Baptistes’ house. He’s said he does every time I ask, but I like hearing it. “If you don’t, I can have it renamed. I donated a lot to the botanical society, so they won’t care what we call it.”
As he drives down St. Charles Avenue under the canopy of massive oaks, he takes my hand where it’s knotted by my thigh and brings it to his lips. “No matter how many times you ask, the answer is still going to be the same. I love it. Thank you for giving it to me.”
“The gardens?”
He pauses at a stop sign and catches my eye. “Peace.”
I’m grateful for the honk behind us because it tears his attention away, and I can breathe again. Somehow, he still has that heart-stopping effect when he focuses all that considerable scrutiny on me.
“Where are we going?” I ask as historical homes crawl by outside the window.
I’ve always loved this street. The history.
The ties to the city. Mom and I would plant ourselves here for the parades.
Ride the streetcar for fun before Father became too notorious to be out in public.
Since we got back from Ireland, I forced Aiden to take a tour of my favorite places, regardless of the attention.
Restaurants. Tourist hot spots. Tarot readings in Jackson Square.
Walking tours through the cemeteries. “Did you want to ride the streetcar again?” I tease.
Aiden doesn’t answer. Instead, we pull to a stop and park on the side of the street. “Maybe another time. C’mon.”
I glance around. All I see are houses and the lacy overhang of trees. Sidewalks of people strolling by. “Come on? What are we doing here?”
But instead of answering, he’s already striding up the sidewalk to a house with a green construction barrier surrounding it.
I jog to keep up with his ground-eating pace.
When I reach him, he’s punching a number into a lock on the fence.
My mind is on the internship and keeps fluttering back to Aiden’s face when he realized what the garden meant as I read a sign next to the gate.
This property, Allain-Cavaille House, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior.
Maybe it has something to do with one of his investments?
I’ve given up trying to keep track of his various business ventures and charities.
His poor assistant, Finn, must be run ragged by the vastness of his empire.
The gate swings open with a squeal of protesting hinges. Aiden strolls through, then stops when he realizes I haven’t followed. “You comin’?” he asks over his shoulder.
I creep closer, glancing around and expecting a security guard to come running at us. “Should we be here? I don’t know how much more Reggie can put up with, you know. Breaking and entering will be another notch against us at this point.”