Chapter Five
No More Pretending
Dinner with Darius lasted forty-three minutes.
Aisha knew because she checked the time twice before the appetizers arrived and once more when he leaned back in his chair and said, “So, are we going to discuss the fact that you’ve looked toward the door six times?”
She lowered her wineglass.
“I have not.”
“Seven now.”
The restaurant sat along the marina, ten minutes from the hotel and safely beyond the damaged coastal road. Candlelight flickered across white tablecloths. Outside the wide windows, boats rocked gently beneath a darkening sky.
Darius looked relaxed.
Aisha felt like she had brought a live electrical wire to dinner and concealed it beneath the table.
“I’m distracted,” she admitted.
“I noticed.”
“The project is complicated.”
“The project?”
“Yes.”
“The project is forty-eight, wears custom suits, and glared at me like he was considering whether the ocean could conceal a body.”
Aisha stared at him.
Darius smiled.
“He was not subtle.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I’m an architect. Imagining things is half my job.”
“You design buildings.”
“First I imagine them.”
Despite herself, Aisha laughed.
Darius lifted his glass.
“There she is.”
Guilt settled in her stomach.
He was handsome. Intelligent. Kind. There was no reason she could not enjoy dinner with him.
Except that every time she tried, she remembered Graham’s mouth.
The rough sound he had made when she pulled his hair. His hand against the back of her neck. The anger in his face as she crossed the lobby with Darius.
Worse, she remembered what came afterward.
Camille can never know.
Aisha set down her glass.
“I owe you an apology.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I shouldn’t have accepted tonight.”
Darius studied her.
“Because of Graham?”
She did not answer.
He sighed.
“That is an answer.”
“I was angry.”
“At him.”
“Yes.”
“So you chose dinner with me because you knew it would bother him.”
Hearing it aloud made the decision uglier.
Aisha looked down.
“That wasn’t fair to you.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
Darius was quiet for a moment.
Aisha expected irritation. She deserved it.
Instead, he reached for a piece of bread.
“For what it’s worth, I did want to take you out.”
“I know.”
“And had you arrived tonight interested in me, I would have been delighted.”
“I know that too.”
“But I have no desire to become a prop in whatever intense, emotionally constipated situation is happening at Hale House.”
Aisha laughed before she could stop herself.
“Emotionally constipated?”
“You have a better description?”
“No.”
“Then I accept your apology.”
She relaxed slightly.
Darius tore the bread in half.
“Can I give you one piece of unsolicited advice?”
“You’re going to anyway.”
“Correct.”
He leaned forward.
“Whoever has you this distracted had better be worth it.”
Aisha’s smile faded.
“That’s the problem.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know whether he is.”
Darius nodded once.
“Then find out before you let him waste your time.”
They finished dinner as friends.
Darius drove her back to the hotel shortly after nine.
The lobby was empty except for two lamps glowing near the front desk. Most of the work crew had left hours ago. The building settled around her with the familiar groans and creaks of old wood.
Aisha stepped from her heels and carried them up the staircase.
Graham was waiting outside her room.
Of course he was.
He stood with his back against the wall, tie loosened, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He looked as though he had been there long enough to become angry with himself for staying.
Aisha stopped several feet away.
“Is there a problem with tomorrow’s schedule?”
“No.”
“A delivery?”
“No.”
“Did someone die?”
His eyes moved over her dress before returning to her face.
“How was dinner?”
She walked past him and unlocked her door.
“Pleasant.”
“Only pleasant?”
Aisha glanced over her shoulder.
“You’re asking for details now?”
“No.”
“Then good night.”
She pushed open the door.
Graham caught it before she could close it.
“We need to talk.”
“You’ve had several opportunities.”
“I mishandled what happened.”
“That is one way to put it.”
Aisha entered her suite and placed her heels beside the sofa. Graham followed, shutting the door behind him.
She turned.
“Let me save you some time. You wanted me. You kissed me. Then you panicked and made me feel like something dirty.”
“I never thought that.”
“You said Camille could never know before my heart rate had returned to normal.”
“I was thinking about the consequences.”
“You were thinking about controlling them.”
His expression tightened.
“Camille is my daughter.”
“And my best friend.”
“Then you understand what is at risk.”
“I understand better than you seem to.”
“How?”
“Because when she finds out—and eventually she will—she will be hurt by the secrecy far more than the relationship.”
Graham went still.
Aisha folded her arms.
“That is what you do, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You hide difficult things until you can arrange them into a form everyone else can tolerate.”
“I am trying to protect her.”
“No. You’re trying to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.”
His voice sharpened.
“You think this is easy for me?”
“I think you are so accustomed to being in control that you call anything you cannot manage a mistake.”
“I do not consider you a mistake.”
“Then what do you consider me?”
The silence stretched.
Graham looked at her as though the answer frightened him.
“That is the problem,” he said.
Aisha laughed bitterly.
“Still not good enough.”
She turned toward the bedroom.
“Aisha.”
“No. I am not doing this all night. I’m tired.”
“I was not ashamed of you.”
She stopped.
Graham’s voice had changed.
The defensiveness was gone.
“I was ashamed of myself.”
Aisha faced him again.
“For wanting me?”
“For wanting someone so closely tied to my daughter’s life.”
“That still makes me sound forbidden.”
“You are.”
“I am thirty years old.”
“I know.”
“I own my company.”
“I know.”
“I negotiated my own contract. I am not financially dependent on you. You do not control whether I work again. You are not exploiting some helpless girl who wandered into your hotel.”
“I know all of that.”
“Then what exactly is immoral here?”
Graham stepped closer.
“The fact that I noticed you before I should have.”
Aisha’s breath caught.
He continued before she could speak.
“Not like this. Not then. But I remembered you. I followed your career. Camille mentioned your projects, and I looked them up. I knew when you opened your firm. I knew when you won the preservation award in Savannah.”
“You never said anything.”
“What could I have said?”
“Congratulations would have worked.”
“I had no place in your life.”
“You could have.”
His face tightened.
“You were Camille’s friend. That was the only thing keeping me honorable.”
The words landed between them.
Not because they were romantic.
Because they were honest.
Aisha stared at him.
“Wanting me does not make you dishonorable.”
“It felt that way.”
“Lying about it might.”
Graham nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
She blinked.
The admission came without argument.
Without qualification.
It disarmed her more effectively than anger could have.
He moved closer until only a narrow space remained between them.
“I was afraid that if I admitted what I wanted, I would lose control of it.”
Aisha lifted her chin.
“And now?”
“I already have.”
His hand rose, but he stopped before touching her.
The restraint was different this time.
Not a decision made on her behalf.
A question.
Aisha closed the distance herself.
She kissed him.
Graham’s arms came around her instantly.
There was no panic in this kiss. No startled retreat. He lifted her against him and carried her backward until her shoulders met the door.
Aisha wrapped her arms around his neck.
“You are incredibly irritating,” she whispered against his mouth.
“I am aware.”
“And arrogant.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Mostly by me.”
“Exclusively by you.”
She kissed him again.
Graham’s hand moved along her back, slow and deliberate, as though he had spent weeks imagining every inch he was finally allowed to touch.
Aisha pulled away just enough to look at him.
“This does not happen if I am a secret you visit after midnight.”
“You are not.”
“You don’t get to become distant tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t make decisions for me.”
His gaze held hers.
“I’ll try.”
“That wasn’t agreement.”
“I have spent forty-eight years making decisions.”
“And I’ve spent thirty ignoring men who think they can make mine.”
Something almost like pride entered his face.
“That is one of the things I want most about you.”
Aisha studied him.
Then she took his hand and led him toward the bedroom.
Graham stopped at the doorway.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“You are angry.”
“I’m less angry than I was.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Aisha stepped closer, placed her palm against his chest, and felt the hard beat of his heart beneath it.
“I am certain.”
His control broke quietly.
Not with violence or urgency, but with the look that crossed his face when he finally allowed himself to believe her.
He kissed her forehead.
Then her temple.
Then her mouth.
The tenderness surprised her more than his hunger had.
Graham touched her like a man unwrapping something precious he had no intention of damaging. Aisha refused to be handled as though she might break. She pulled him closer, challenged every careful movement, and made him understand that she had not chosen him to be worshipped from a distance.
When they finally fell into bed, there was nothing shameful between them.
Only heat.
Trust.
And the unmistakable sense that whatever line they had crossed had been waiting for them long before either had dared to approach it.
Later, Aisha lay against his chest while his fingers traced slow circles over her shoulder.
The hotel was silent around them.
“This is the part where you usually become difficult,” she murmured.
Graham’s chest moved beneath her cheek.
“I have been reliably difficult from the beginning.”
“True.”
She waited.
He did not move away.
He did not mention Camille.
He did not tell her she should sleep.
Instead, he pulled the blanket higher around her and pressed his mouth to her hair.
“Stay,” he said.
Aisha closed her eyes.
For tonight, she did.
When morning came, pale light filled the room.
Aisha woke alone for half a second and felt disappointment sharpen through her.
Then she heard movement from the sitting room.
Graham returned carrying two cups of coffee.
His hair was rumpled. His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. For the first time since she had arrived at Hale House, he looked entirely peaceful.
He handed her a cup.
“No meeting?”
“Not for twenty minutes.”
“You canceled one?”
“Moved it.”
“For me?”
“For coffee.”
Aisha smiled into the cup.
“Coward.”
Graham sat beside her.
“Perhaps.”
His hand settled over hers beneath the blanket.
This time, neither of them pretended it meant nothing.