Page 136 of I Knew You Were Trouble

He slides the statuette back on its shelf, comes back to me, and pulls me to him.

‘Wait,’ he says, letting go, and he walks to his bag. He unzips the backpack and pulls out a familiar-looking box.

‘This is yours,’ he says with another smile, taking my bangle from its packaging, discarding the latter and carefully sliding the diamond-encrusted band over my wrist. When the bangle is on, he lifts my fingers, keeping his gaze locked with mine, and presses his lips to the back of my hand. Moving his hands to my waist, he walks me backwards, guiding me towards my sofa. As he sits down, he steers me downward, scooping up my legs to rest on the surface of the sofa, cradling me so that I’m fully curled into his lap, our faces almost touching.

‘Tell me everything,’ he whispers, placing one hand against my cheek, his lips near enough to kiss.

I lay one hand against his chest. ‘After Las Vegas… I fell to pieces,’ I say simply.

Aidan winces, pressing his forehead against mine. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Duncan was so worried he called my dad.’

‘Your dad? Are you talking to him?’

‘I am now,’ I say with a smile. ‘I’ve forgiven him. He put me back on my feet again. Looked after me. Got me in a fit state to go to work. He lived with me here over the last few months. Helped me with the documentary. We reconnected.’

‘Lex, that’s incredible.’

‘Well, I have you to thank for it, in a way.’

‘I don’t deserve any thanks for sending you away. For the rest of the tour, I was miserable. I didn’t know where I was half the time.’

‘You were angry, I get that.’

He raises his head a fraction. ‘I was angry at the start,’ he admits. ‘But only for about a month.’

‘I should have told you what I was doing. I should have been honest about that. I was frustrated, when I first met you in Japan.’

He strokes my hair. ‘I didn’t exactly make it easy on you. Ziggy always tells me I’m overprotective. That when it comes to the band, I’m never going to be able to control everything. Plus, we’d had that argument about those stupid photos on my phone—’

‘Yes, but I looked at your phone. Another thing I shouldn’t have done—’

‘I didn’t care about you looking at my phone. I’ll share anything with you, but you were right to call me out on those photos. I should have put a stop to it a lot sooner. I blocked Taylor before that night and deleted her number. I was embarrassed. But then, when Miller came and told me he’d found out about the filming… I just… exploded. I can’t lie about it. And maybe it was a hangover from Lucy recording me all those years ago, but it hurt like hell that it was you. That I was crazy about you made it worse. At first, I thought if I removed you from my life, I’d move on, maybe not immediately, like I was Miller and one of his groupies, and that I’d be over you soon enough and everything would go back to the way it was. But then you were all I thought about. I tried parties, drinking, some drugs; Miller even persuaded me to get a couple of tattoos. Nothing worked. You were there. Everywhere. By the end of the tour in April I’d lost my mind a bit. By then I regretted everything, but I thought I was too late.’

‘Was that when Paige flew out to see you?’

‘She told you?’

I nod, my fingers caressing his cheek. ‘I hadn’t slept for, like, a week,’ he says, shifting his position but still holding onto me, then pushing the hair from his eyes. ‘We’d all had our fill of hotels, of endless photo calls and shows. I wanted to go home. Cal tried to convince me to call you, but I couldn’t see you forgiving me. I thought you would have moved on. I dismissed everything he suggested outright. I got off on torturing myself. We went to New York after that. We recorded some new stuff, shot a new video… but you were still the first thing that I thought about when I got up in the morning.’ He leans forward. ‘I missed you so much,’ he whispers against my mouth, his arms sliding up my back, kissing me deeply.

My tears slide down my cheeks, onto his collar. He breaks the kiss, running his thumb over my lips, pulling me closer still.

‘As soon as I saw the documentary, I knew I’d totally messed up. I hadn’t understood what you’d been trying to do. I didn’t get your vision. We are all stunned. I think we were expecting this one long video of us mucking about. But you gave it meaning. Your work is amazing, Lex.’

I feel a glow spreading out from the centre of my chest. It’s the first time he’s commented on anything I’ve done professionally.

‘Thank you,’ I whisper in response, resting my head against his shoulder as he holds me. ‘Thank you for what you did. For going to California and for standing up to the management company.’

‘Honestly, without you we wouldn’t have even seen it. I think they were surprised to see me put my foot down. Plus, Paige had my phone by then. I would have contacted you days ago. I wanted to come over here and beg your forgiveness, but the guys persuaded me that I needed to do the song.’

‘It’s a beautiful song,’ I murmur, as he helps wipe away more tears. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

He holds my gaze. ‘I love you, Lex. You didn’t lose me. I can’t imagine myself being with anyone else but you. You’re all that I want.’

‘You’re everything I want too,’ I confess immediately. ‘I never thought I could feel this way. Coming on tour with you… it changed my life. I love you. More than anything, Aidan.’

His kisses are hot and insistent. He whispers his love for me over and over. I shift my position so that I’m straddling him on the sofa, the movement igniting something in me. Suddenly I need to feel all of him. Aidan’s hands go to my waist, still holding my gaze, my fingers in his hair. He raises his hips a fraction, rearranging himself, making me acutely aware of the level of his arousal, sending tingles shooting between my thighs. I tilt my hips forward, delicious friction causing a groan to escape his lips.

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