Page 58 of One Moment in Time
‘What are you doing in Vegas?’
Those were her first words and they immediately put the hackles on the back of his neck up, especially since she sounded none too pleased about his geographical location.
‘Sorry, did you expect me still to be waiting at the beach?’ It was a low blow, but it was out before he could stop himself. Still, he tried to smooth it over. He’d finally managed to speak to her and he didn’t want her hanging up before he had answers to the questions that had been keeping him awake at night. There was a silence at the other end and for a moment he thought he’d lost her. Again.
‘Aiden, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
Her voice cracked with emotion and Aiden knew she was crying. He immediately dropped the challenge and softened his approach.
‘I am too, Layla. But I need to know what happened? I just don’t get it.’
There was a sniff, then a deep breath and he could picture exactly what she would look like right now. He couldn’t hear any office buzz in the background so she must be working from home. In that case, her raven black hair would be pulled up in a high ponytail and her huge brown eyes would be framed with those flicks she did at the edges. She’d be wearing her glasses because she wouldn’t want to get emotional if she were wearing contacts and she’d be on the cream sectional sofa at her mom’s home in the city, the one with views right out over to Drum Island. She’d have been to Pilates this morning, so she’d still be wearing sports leggings and one of those crop top thingies, under a sports jacket that had those thumb holes in the cuffs. Oh, and there would be a pile of South Carolina trade and lifestyle magazines on the coffee table in front of her, because she was in travel and event marketing, so it was her job know every hotel, bar, restaurant, nightclub and venue on the east coast. And she’d be holding her phone in front of her because she’d have it on speaker as she answered his question.
‘I panicked. I know that’s a terrible excuse, but I did. I panicked. Derren called me the night before the wedding…’
Aiden closed his eyes. Derren, her ex-husband.
‘I swear nothing happened, I promise, Aid. But he got in my head, told me this was a rebound, went on about how I’d only known you for a few months. And then I remembered how destroyed I was when we divorced and I know I couldn’t handle that again.’
‘You wouldn’t have had to,’ he said, quietly, knowing that was true. He’d loved her. He’d have married her, he’d have been faithful, and he’d have done everything he could to make her happy. He’d have trusted her. Adored her. Woke up every day and been glad she was lying there next to him… And he just realised that whole stream of consciousness was in the past tense. When had that happened? When had his mind shifted his feelings for her from present to past? Was that just some emotional defence mechanism or had there been a profound shift? And if so, had a fleeting meeting with someone else caused it? Chaos and confusion were usually on the other side of his desk – it was taking him a moment to absorb that they were now much closer to home.
‘I see that now,’ she said softly. ‘I just needed time to think, to get everything straight in my head. I know I can’t ask you to forgive me, but… well, forgive me. Please.’
He wanted to say yes, to tell her it was all going to be okay, that there was no harm done, nothing they couldn’t fix. He just wasn’t sure that was true.
‘Look, I’ll be back in a couple of days, Layla. This isn’t something we can do on the phone. Let me call you when I get home and we can meet Sunday. We can talk properly then.’ Yep, by then he’d have sorted his thoughts out. This strange apprehension in his gut would be gone and he’d know how he was feeling. Wouldn’t he?
‘Okay, I can do that. And Aiden…’
‘Yeah?’
‘I love you.’
She didn’t wait to hear if he said it back, and he was glad, because he had no idea if he could. Fuck. Why now? If he’d got married last month, then this wouldn’t be happening because he wouldn’t be in Vegas, he wouldn’t have met Zara, and he wouldn’t be asking himself why he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
It had to stop. Enough. This was crazy. He’d only met her in person this week and already some warped part of his brain was trying to convince him that he had feelings for her? She was a stranger. She lived in Glasgow. She had a boyfriend. It was ridiculous. This was the kind of situation he saw on his desk, when a couple filed for divorce a month after meeting and getting married in a moment of spontaneous derangement. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t his father. He made good decisions, decent, smart ones that he could live with and that were based on common sense. He had no idea if he could get back to that place of love and security with Layla, but this madness with Zara had to stop right now. And if this moment of self-castigation didn’t make a difference, then his buddy downstairs at the bar would keep him right. Trevon was the most steady, the most focused guy he knew. He didn’t sleep around, didn’t get distracted by casual affairs or one-night stands. After Aiden had represented him in his divorce from the wife he had married straight out of college, Trevon had gone on to have a couple of long-term girlfriends, but nothing for over a year now, saying he didn’t want distractions while he was building his company. Aiden respected that. He was beginning to wish he’d done the same.
He grabbed his room key, his phone, and his common fricking sense and headed back downstairs, checking out the bars on the ground floor for Trevon. He eventually found him in the Lily Bar, not far from the restaurant that had hosted the meeting with the Jones family, and smiled when he saw who Trevon was with.
‘Hey, Mom,’ he said, giving her a hug and thinking that she looked different from earlier. Lighter. And was he imagining it, or did her smile reach her eyes for the first time in as long as he could remember? ‘How did it go with Brenda?’
‘Better than I expected. Then there was the added bonus of bumping into this guy when I got back here. He flew in to check on you, so I’ve completely hijacked him and I’ve just been filling him in on everything that’s happened.’
‘You know, your half-assed texts didn’t really capture the magnitude of the events I’m hearing about,’ Trevon chided him, then pointed to a Modelo on the bar. ‘I ordered you a beer.’
Aiden shrugged apologetically. ‘Yeah, sorry about that. What bit are you up to?’ he asked, pulling over a chair and lifting the bottle. He rarely drank at home. The odd beer while he was watching a game, maybe a glass of wine with dinner at the weekend. Yet, somehow he felt like he’d rarely been without a drink in his hand since he got here. This was clearly the effect that drama had on him.
His mom took over the conversation. ‘I was just about to get to the bit where Colin punched your dad in the face.’
‘No!’ Trevon exclaimed, laughing. ‘Okay, tell me this in every detail because I think I’ll enjoy it.’
Aiden listened as his mom did just that, then moved on to the rest of the story. They shifted the conversation into the hotel’s Prime Steakhouse restaurant and carried it on over dinner too. There was some obvious embarrassment when she told Trevon about her past, loads of reassurance and sympathy going the other way, a few tears, all of them his mum’s and most of them when she was saying that she had a glimmer of hope that her friend might, in some way, forgive her.
Aiden was happy for her. She deserved this. Sure, she’d made a mistake, but he saw now that she’d spent thirty years paying for it in one way or another. No one deserved that.
He reached over and hugged her, just as the waiter brought the check. He and Trevon tussled over it and he won, signing it to his room.
‘Okay, but if you’re paying for dinner, I’m getting the nightcap. I know this pretty cool bar with views over the city. You down?’ Trevon asked.
