Chapter 18
18
LYLA
At Aidan’s murmured words, a memory comes rushing back from our time on the plane, and my cheeks heat to inferno-levels of hotness. I don’t think I’ve ever been this mortified in all twenty-three years of my life.
I called Aidan Daddy. In an airplane bathroom. While I was completely delirious from dehydration after puking all night.
I’ve always been intrigued by that sort of dynamic in some deep, dark corner of my mind, but I’ve never acted on it with anyone. At first, it felt too taboo, then I didn’t want to bring to light my obvious daddy issues, and then Sebastian was an absolute nightmare and would use anything he could against me.
Burying my burning face further into Aidan’s chest, I try to will the ground to open up and swallow me whole. “Jesus, Aidan. I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I called you… that . Do you accept verbal resignations, or do I need to write one up and slip it under your bedroom door before I run as far as humanly possible in the opposite direction?”
His husky chuckle rumbles through his chest, and one muscular arm tightens around my lower back as he lifts the other to cup my cheek, bringing my face to his.
“Lyla, if you really want to quit, you already know you have my support and a letter of recommendation. And if I’ve made you uncomfortable, I’m truly sorry. But if you’re embarrassed by what you said, you don’t need to be. It was a surprise, yes, but not an unwelcome one.”
Peeking up at my boss’s sparkling blue eyes, I see nothing but honesty and desire staring back at me. My teeth dig into my bottom lip as I think about how to respond. “Aidan…” I trail off.
There’s so much sadness hiding behind his smile, and I don’t want to add to it with my drama, but I think I was right before, and he’s going to make resisting this pull between us nearly impossible.
“There are things you need to know about me, but I don’t know if I’m ready to tell you yet. In the interest of transparency, Copeland is using some of his legal contacts to help me resolve the situation, but it could be another three weeks before things even begin to iron out. I want you, but I don’t want to add any stress to your life when you already have so much going on.”
His eyes widen when I mention Copeland, but he quickly schools his expression into something neutral. I expect Aidan to question me about the secrets I’m keeping from him, but instead, he surprises me by pivoting completely.
With a nervous look on his handsome face, he grips my hand in his and attempts to smile reassuringly. “Will you come somewhere with me? And then we’ll swing by and pick up Crew on the way home.”
I don’t even have to think about it before nodding in agreement. If there’s one thing my life has taught me, it’s that truly good people don’t come along often. Yet somehow, I’ve managed to find myself an entire family of them here in Charleston. And I think it’s about time I allow myself the grace to carve a permanent place here in this little slice of happiness just for me.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re turning onto a dirt lane that’s so overgrown I never would have seen it if Aidan hadn’t made the turn. It looks like nobody has been down the road for months, if not years.
Sending a questioning glance to my left, I see tension written into every line of Aidan’s face, and it puts me on high alert. Whatever we’re about to do isn’t something he wants to do, and that has every nerve ending in my body standing at attention.
After a few hundred feet, he pulls his truck into an even more overgrown clearing of sorts, only this one has a clearly marked footpath right in the center, leading to what looks to be a set of headstones rising out of the tall grass.
I unbuckle and grab the door’s handle, thinking we’re visiting someone’s burial site, but Aidan takes my hand in his and squeezes it tightly, not saying a word.
Sensing he needs a few minutes, I release the handle and wrap both of my hands around one of his, offering whatever comfort I can. When he’s still quiet several minutes later, I raise the center console and slide across the bench seat so I can press myself to his side.
If being here didn’t feel so ominous, I think I’d be enjoying myself. It’s a dreary, overcast day, but a storm is coming, and you can feel it in the atmosphere. It’s like the air is electrified, charged with endless possibilities, and the knowledge that the coming storm has the potential to wash away anything unwanted.
It’s more than ten minutes later when Aidan finally speaks. “When I was eight years old, my father told me I would never go anywhere in life. That I would end up just like him because we were one and the same.”
I stifle my noise of surprise and wrap my hands around his bicep, clinging to him. My mouth opens to speak but he gently shakes his head and uses one finger to close it back.
“My father was a bastard, Lyla. He was a mean drunk who couldn’t hold down a job and took his anger issues out on his kids and wife. When I was eight years old, he told me I would grow up to be just like him, and then when I was eighteen, I watched him die in front of me, and I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”
Tears cloud my vision for a young Aidan who was dealt such a terrible hand in life. “Aid…”
He shushes me. “Please, let me get this out.”
I nod, and he continues.
“My father was notorious for driving home from the local bar when he was too drunk to function. We lived in a shitty, run-down, one-bedroom trailer on the opposite side of town that only had enough hot water for one shower a day. And that hot shower never went to me or my younger brother, Wesley, unless our dad was passed out drunk. He drank so much it’s a wonder the alcohol could still have any effect on him by the time I was eighteen, but it did. He still had awful anger issues, and by that point, he knew he couldn’t get a hit on me or Wes because we’d fight back, so he’d taken to beating up on our mom when we were at school or practice when we couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it.”
Aidan takes a deep, shuddering breath before continuing his story, and my heart cracks straight down the middle. He’s mentioned his mom on several occasions, so I know she’s still alive and well. But it’s obvious that whatever he still has to tell me is tearing him up inside, even after so many years.
“One day, I came home early from a two-day baseball tournament to find him slapping my mom around. Wesley was still at his own tournament, so he thankfully wasn’t around to see it go down. But the image of my mama on the floor curled in on herself while her husband beat her black and blue is so burned into my damn brain no amount of alcohol could wash it away. I lost it, Lyla. I got so fuckin’ angry I attacked my father. One good hit sent him to the ground, but it was like eighteen years of pain just bubbled up and finally overflowed.”
I squeeze his hand hard as he talks to remind him that I’m still here, and he sends me a grateful look.
“He came to a few minutes later mad as all hell and took off for the bar. I helped Mama patch herself up and settled in for what should have been just like any other night. Only it wasn’t. You see, the bartenders in that part of town didn’t give a shit what their patrons did after last call. One of those ‘you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here’ type of establishments. Little did I know the sheriffs had been cracking down on this particular bar for letting their patrons get behind the wheel after being cut off, so the bartender took dads keys and called me to come pick his drunk ass up.”
His voice lowers to a whisper, and the more upset he gets, the more his accent thickens .
“Maybe if I’d refused, the sheriff woulda brought him home, and he’d still be alive. But that’s not what happened. We didn’t have a second car, so I walked the three miles to the bar, and when I got there, he was drunker than I’d ever seen him. Slurring his words and stumblin’ all over the damn lot, rantin’ about his miserable life. I got the car keys, loaded him up, and took off like a bat outta hell. It was three in the morning, I had school in just a few hours and was exhausted. We lived on a deserted back road in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina, so you really had to concentrate on navigatin’ the road safely, especially at night.”
I grip his arm even tighter, knowing now where this is going.
“Dad was up in arms about me driving and kept tryin’ to open his door, but he was three sheets to the damn wind and didn’t realize I had set the child locks before we left. He got pissed, turned to me, and grabbed the wheel in a fit of rage.”
Aidan turns to me with tears in his eyes, and the amount of guilt shining back at me nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
“The car swerved, and we hit a massive tree stump. It all happened in less than ten seconds. One minute, I was shoutin’ at my dad to knock it the fuck off, and the next, we were upside down with a tree nearly splittin’ the front of the car in half. The officers who responded to the call told me we likely hit the stump and flipped over it, sending the car careening into another tree. I lost consciousness, but I have no idea how long I was out. Long enough for Mama to call me a dozen times. But my phone was on the roof of the car so I couldn’t reach it. Against my better judgment, I looked over at my dad, but he was so still. And there was so much blood. But… I waited. I managed to use my pocket knife to cut myself out of the seatbelt and get out of the car, but I waited to call for help.”
His voice grow more ragged as he tells the story, and I can tell without even asking that this is the part that eats away at him, the part that drowns him in guilt every day.
“I wanted him to die, Lyla. I waited to call for help because I was hopin’ he wouldn’t make it out alive.”
My heart breaks for this man who was dealt such an awful hand by fate. One who’s spent his entire adult life taking care of people to atone for his perceived wrongdoings.
“Aidan… your father wasn’t a good man. There’s no way you can know that waiting for help caused him to die. But honestly, even if it did… you may have saved your mother’s life.”
He snorts derisively and wipes his nose on a napkin he pulls out of the glove compartment. “You know what’s ironic? It’s been eight years, and I still beat myself up about it to this day, wondering if anything would have been different if I called the second I woke up. But the asshole died on impact. He didn’t suffer. He wasn’t hanging upside down, bleeding out while I sat there sobbin’ like a scared kid. His neck snapped and severed his spinal cord, killing him instantly.”
A strangled gasp escaped my throat, and I climb into Aidan’s lap, resting my back against the steering wheel. Using my hands to cup his face, I angle my head to meet his watery gaze. “Listen to me, Aidan. You did nothing wrong. It’s tragic that your father died so traumatically, but there was not a single thing you could have done to change it. You can’t possibly think you deserve punishment for something you didn’t even do.”
His large hands cover mine on his cheeks, and he uses the contact to pull me closer so he can bury his head in my neck. He’s so much taller than me that it’s almost comical how far he has to bend to make it happen.
I stroke my hands through his shaggy hair in what I hope is a soothing motion, trying to reassure him without words that I don’t see him any differently after his confession.
“I’ve never told a single soul about my part in what happened that night. They know about the crash and that my dad died on impact, but they all think I was passed out until I called 9-1-1. And I didn’t correct them. How could I admit to my mom and brother what I’d done? What kind of person waits to call for help, hoping their parent dies before anyone arrives?”
My hands continue their soothing motion in his hair as I pull him even closer. “A teenager that had been repeatedly brutalized by the one person that’s supposed to love them more than anything. Someone who had to watch his mom and younger brother be tortured at the hands of a monster who used his family to exercise his demons.”
Taking a deep breath, I offer him another small piece of my truth. “I know what it’s like to feel powerless at the hands of someone who’s supposed to love you. That’s how I know you did nothing wrong.”
He lifts his head to meet my eyes, unanswered questions thick in the air between us. I can see in his eyes he wants to ask, but I also see the moment he decides against it. I can’t hide my sigh of relief.
Aidan takes the opportunity to press his forehead to mine. “I need to know soon, Ly. Even if you decide you never want to be more than friends, I need to know what kind of danger you’re in so I can keep you and Crew safe.”
Guilt squeezes my chest, and my eyes sting with the imminent threat of tears. Aidan was brave for me, so I swallow the bitter taste of my fear and dig deep for some of the bravery I had when I left Sebastian and started a whole new life hundreds of miles away from home.
“I was born and raised in a small-ish town in Maryland by a rotating horde of nannies hired by my famous father. I don’t remember my mother or even know who she is. All I know is she wasn’t there.”
Understanding dawns in his eyes, and I’m sure some of the things I’ve said are starting to make sense, but I keep going so I don’t chicken out.
“Shortly after I turned twenty, my dad introduced me to an associate’s son, hoping we would hit it off.” Aidan growls, and I grimace up at him. “To make an incredibly long story short, we did. We dated for a few months before he proposed and convinced me to move in with him.”
Aidan pulls me to his chest with a hand on the back of my head, and his beachy scent calms the storm raging in my mind. “My ex wasn’t a good man, Aid. He hurt me in so many ways, and one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. During his last blow-up, I managed to knock him out by sheer luck, so I took what I couldn’t live without and ran. I took the first bus out and landed here. I met Wren a week later, and the rest is history.”
My eyes lock on his, and I hope he knows how much I mean my next words. “I promise I’m doing everything I can to keep you and Crew out of it, but when I started getting threatening texts, I finally caved and accepted the help Wren offered on behalf of Copeland. He got in contact with the FBI and managed to help build a case against my ex, but they can’t meet to exchange information for another three weeks.”
I finish my explanation with a huff as if the weight of all the events from the last year suddenly dropped off my shoulders now that someone else knows. For the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe for a moment without looking over my shoulder.
A strong hand tilts my chin up, and the sight of Aidan’s understanding gaze makes my earlier tears spring back to the surface. I’ve kept so much from him, and the fact that he’s able to look at me with anything but anger is more than I ever could have hoped for.
“I’m going to want a name eventually, angel,” he grumbles roughly.
Raising a brow, I stare at him skeptically. “Why?”
He growls, shifting to grip my chin tightly between his thumb and forefinger. “So I can kill the son of a bitch who thought he could lay hands on you and get away with it.”
My breath catches at the conviction in his voice, and I know in that moment he means every word. If I gave him Sebastian’s name right now, he wouldn’t hesitate to hunt him down. I’ve never had someone defend me so fiercely before, especially for something that happened before he even met me.
Aidan eyes me like he’s worried I’ll panic over the threat of violence, but it seems to have had the opposite effect, and whatever he sees in my eyes has a pained groan leaving his throat before he yanks my head forward and kisses me.