2. Bedhead #2
“If you don’t know already, I can’t tell you,” he says, grinning back at me, but his eyes don’t meet mine entirely. He’s probably awkward about having commented on the huge income difference between us. I’m farther from rich now than ever, and he just rubbed that in my face.
“Don’t worry, all your secrets are safe with me,” I say matter-of-factly.
Aiden coughs and opens the door.
“This door should stay, by the way,” I say, running my hand down the carved wood. It’s painted a glossy emerald. “It’s magnificent.”
Aiden’s gaze follows my hand over the floral relief. “Agree,” he says and walks through.
He flips the light switch on the inner wall and walks down before me. There’s no railing on the steep staircase, so he offers a hand.
“I’m okay,” I say, reluctant to cross that boundary. It’s been two years, and I’ve not touched Aiden since I shook his hand that first time.
He leaves his hand outstretched for a moment, but when I don’t move, he shrugs, dropping it to his side.
“So this is your basement nightclub space?” I ask, instead of acknowledging my weirdness, craning my neck to peer down without attempting the unsafe descent.
“This is it. I’ll get a temporary railing for these stairs so your team can scope it out safely when they’re ready. They can enter from the street as well.”
The space is small. With this and the ground floor, I can probably keep the team half-busy, or half the team busy, for about three months if I use my wages to cover the designers who aren’t on the project.
“Thank you, Aiden,” I say and offer him a rare smile. The words carry more weight today than ever before.
“Of course.”
Is he aware he’s throwing me a lifeline?
He juts his chin towards the door behind me, and I turn, walking up the stairs again. Extremely aware that my backside is pretty much in Aiden’s face, I step promptly up and out.
“Hey, Linnea, hold on,” he says when we’re back in the hallway.
“Yes?” I stop and turn to look at him, finding his eyes on me.
“Don’t tell anyone about this place yet. There are a few competitors lurking around.”
“Of course. We have an NDA.”
“Not even your boyfriend,” he says, waving towards the front door, and he’s got that face again. No smirk. No jokes. Is he having a bad day?
“My boyfriend?” I furrow my brow.
“Yes,” he answers, his voice gruff, and I’m taken aback.
I blink at him. “There’s no one to tell. It’s just me.”
He scans my hair and face.
“Right, I thought the lateness and the crazy bedhead meant you… Never mind, that’s none of my business.” Aiden laughs a weird bark of a laugh I’ve not heard before, and I brush a hand over my hair, gaping at him.
Is it that bad?
Shit, I’ve had it up in a messy bun all day. I normally keep it down to hide my blushing ears. It’s the one thing that can betray my feelings. And they’re burning hot right now.
“Oh, did I hit a nerve?” he asks, his eyes darting in my lava-ears’ direction, that classic easy smile of his pulling at the sides of his mouth.
“No,” I snap. “If you must know, I was exhausted and fell asleep in a chair in my library, which is quite embarrassing.”
My stomach reminds me why: because I hadn’t eaten and then had a large glass of red wine that took me out on the spot. I still haven’t eaten, and I’m starving, but I have a long day ahead mapping out this space and Aiden’s vision for it.
Aiden cocks his head at me. “You’re hungry.”
“It’s fine, I’ll grab something later.”
“I’m famished,” he says. “Let’s go eat.”
Go eat?
Small talk and hanging out?
With Aiden?
“Is there anything open at this hour?” I ask. “I’ll just pop to Pret around the corner.”
“Please, you insult me,” Aiden quips. “Millefleuré is closer. We can raid the kitchen there.”
Millefleuré—Aiden’s restaurant, my design.
The most floral and wild I’ve ever gone.
He opened it a year ago, but I hardly remember the success it was.
I even got an award for it. Yet what I remember best is the opening night and Henry’s hand on Harriet’s back.
The way he whispered into her ear. When I caught one of my designers’ eyes across the room, it was obvious she’d seen it, too, and there was no surprise in her expression.
How long had she known? I stood there with a glass of champagne turning warm in my hand, the same glass I’d clinked against my husband’s ten minutes earlier, celebrating my thriving business.
My stomach complains again, from hunger and the visceral memory, and my ears burn with unease.
Fuck.
“Okay,” I relent.
“Your ears are blushing,” Aiden points out as we exit the house. “I haven’t noticed that before.”
“Yeah.”
No point denying it. At least I’ve hidden it well so far. He doesn’t need to know all the emotions that make me blush. It’s too much of a tell when I get annoyed with him.
We walk side by side down the street lined with Victorian townhouses and red-brick apartment buildings. The sun is just climbing above one of them, lighting up the white houses on the opposite side.
“I bet you’re fantastic at poker with your hair down, then,” Aiden says.
“I am, actually.”
“You play?”
“I used to, with my grandfather, and a bit at university. Not much playing of any sort in the later years.”
“I love playing games,” he says, and I can hear the grin in his voice, but it’s another one of those buttery versus potentially genuine comments that I’m not sure about.
“What’s your favourite game?” I ask because I’d rather continue talking than be rude and leave an awkward silence between us. As much as he irks me, I need him on my side.
“Oh, you don’t know me well enough for me to tell you that, Linnea,” he says in a deeper voice and my eyes cut back to his.
I wish I hadn’t done that.
There’s a playful smirk on his face, and his eyes are darker, looking at me instead of the street ahead. Suddenly, I’m extremely aware of my warm ears. I recoil, turning my head, and he chuckles.
Two years I’ve worked for the man and kept myself at arm’s length from his charm and teasing, never letting him get to me. Visibly, anyway.
The man can annoy the hell out of me, but I refuse to melt at his feet like everyone else.
Except—of course—the one day I’ve got my hair up, and my traitorous ears exposed, he gets a reaction out of me. All from a silly innuendo in a bassy voice. I don’t want to play games with him, anyway, so why the hell am I reacting?
That was the only time. Won’t give him the pleasure of that again.
We arrive at the restaurant. It’s currently closed, the outside eating area empty, but the faux-flower canopy is still colourful and inviting. He leads me down the side of the building.
“But to answer your question,” he continues as if I didn’t get all awkward at his previous comment. “My favourite card game is bridge.”
“Bridge?”
“Yes.” He gives a small shrug. “I play with my mum and her partner. Sometimes she invites friends.”
“Huh.”
He unlocks the side door to Millefleuré with his keycard and opens it, allowing me in first, but I quickly step aside to let him lead the way. He gestures for me to follow him through a fire door and to a narrow hallway I recall leads to the main part of the restaurant.
“Bridge is one way to weed out the people she tries to set me up with. If they can’t figure out bridge, it’s a hard no.”
“She does that a lot, then?”
I follow him through another fire door to the left.
“Yes, it’s been relentless since she met her partner last year.” His voice reverberates off the stainless steel kitchen surfaces in the vast space.
“That sounds tiring,” I say quietly, feeling like we just walked into somewhere we shouldn’t be.
“You could say that. What about you?” Aiden asks, stopping by the cold-room, his eyes still on me.
“My parents are in Oslo. They couldn’t care less about my love life.”
I shake my head and wave it off. Total overshare.