Relentless Hope (Resilient Hearts) (16 page)

Balancing those in my high heels with the couple of drinks I had earlier proves to be harder than I expected. I focus my eyes on the bottles in my hands to make sure my grip is tight, right before I slam into a hard chest, scattering the empty bottles all over the floor.

In my futile attempt to grab the bottles before they all fall, I catch a corner of a broken bottle and cut my finger. I feel the sting of the cut, right before strong arms go around my waist to steady me. I turn into his arms and can’t help the small sigh escaping my mouth, as I bask in the feeling of security and comfort that only Aiden’s arms can provide. My body automatically leans into him, his presence making me forget the sting of pain in my throbbing finger. But the illusion of security doesn’t last long, as he pulls away quickly when he notices the blood on my finger.

“You’re bleeding,” he hisses, “come with me.” He grabs my hand and pulls me into the first empty room we come across, locking the door behind us after we walk in. He then turns my hand slowly around in his, examining the cut.

“What were you doing carrying a gazillion empty bottles in these heels?” he asks, as he firmly presses his finger on mine to stop the bleeding.

“I just got home. I was trying to slip upstairs quietly, but one of the girls sitting on the steps mistook me for a server. She kept asking me for a beer…”

“You just got home,” he jumps in. “Why were you out so late?”

“I was out with a friend,” I reply, surprised at the sudden turn of the conversation.

“You were out with a friend? Like on a date?” he asks with a hint of anger, as his eyes look me up and down, as if to appraise my outfit. His reaction makes me mad. After the girls I’ve caught him with, what right does he have to question me?

“So what if I was? What does it matter to you?”

He looks away for a few seconds before he responds. “It’s not safe for a girl your age to be out this late.”

I burst into a bitter laugh. “Really? That’s the best you’ve got?
So how come it is safe for all these girls that are here at your party to be out this late? It’s okay for them, but not for me?”

“You’re different.”

For some reason this statement gets under my skin. “How?” I ask in anger. “How I am different? Just because I was married to your grandpa? Does that mean that I have to act like a widow now?”

He looks away and takes a deep breath, shaking his head a few times, as if to calm his tempter.

“Your finger is bleeding pretty badly,” he finally says, clearly trying to change the subject. “I think you need stitches. Let me get Nick to take us to the emergency room.”

“No,” I yelp, “it doesn’t need stitches. I promise. I’ve had way bigger cuts than this that I was able to take care of on my own before. Please don’t make me go to the hospital,” I almost beg.

A small smile turns up the corner of his mouth. “Do I sense that someone is scared of hospitals?”

“No. Not hospitals in general, but needles are a different story.”

He bursts into a laugh.

“You can laugh at me all you want. I’m not going to the hospital.”

“Okay then, let me go grab a first aid kit so we can clean this up and wrap it up… I’ll be right back.”

He comes back a few minutes later with a big first aid kit. He places the kit on the table, and walks me to a small sink next to the bar, where he proceeds to wash my finger under warm water, before applying hydrogen peroxide. I whimper like a kid as he’s pouring the liquid over my wound.

“I’m sorry. It’ll be over soon,” he says, as he begins gently wrapping my finger in a tight gauze and securing it with a band aid.

“You look like you’ve done this once or twice before,” I ask in surprise.

“Yea, I have a little sister who would get into all sorts of trouble when she was a baby. She always had a cut somewhere on her body. I learned how to take care of her cuts pretty early on.”

“You’re not that much older than your sister, are you? Why didn’t your mom do that?”

He releases a deep sigh. “My mom was never really around when were young. We had a nanny who was really nice, but she couldn’t handle seeing blood. It made her feel nauseous, so I ended up having to take care of my sister’s many cuts instead,” he replies with a sad smile.

My heart melts a little. Who knew the tough looking bad boy has a soft spot for h
is sister and is such a good nurse? Is it possible that I’ve misjudged him? Before I have chance to mull this over, he jumps in. “So you never told me why you were carrying all those bottles?”

I recognize his attempt at changing the subject and decide to go with it. If he’s not comfortable to talk more about his past, I won’t push it either.

I take a deep breath and think of how to respond his question without insulting his friends. “I told you, I came in and was trying to slip up the stairs without getting any attention, when a girl who was sitting on one of the steps grabbed my ankle and started asking me to get her a drink. She seemed drunk and started getting pretty rowdy when I told her I didn’t work here. People were starting to turn around to see what’s going on, so I figured I’ll just go to the kitchen and grab her a drink instead of making a scene, but then before I walked off, she shoved her empty bottle at me. On the way to the kitchen, a few more people started giving me their empty bottles to take.”

“This girl that asked you to get her a beer, what did she look like?”

“She had long blonde hair, tall and real skinny, wearing a short red dress.”

“Jessica. That bitch...” he hisses, muttering a few curses under his breath.

He runs his fingers through his hair and releases a deep sigh before looking away. “She probably knew exactly what she was doing. She knows who you are and knows that you’re staying here. I suspect that most of the people who gave you their bottles knew who you were,” he says with a hint of apology.

Confusion swarms my head. “I don’t understand. Why would they do that if they knew who I was?”

“Because they’re jerks, that’s why. They probably wanted to get under your skin, and see how you react.”

“But why would they want to do that?”

“Out of spite, jealously I guess.”

My jaw drops. I feel like my ears are deceiving me.

“Why would
anyone
be jealous of
me
?” I ask in surprise.

A small smile crosses his gorgeous lips. “You have no idea, do you?” he asks, taking a step towards me. “That’s one of the most amazing things about you.”

He slowly crosses the space between us, his eyes never leaving mine. Once he is close enough, he places his hands on my arms, gazing deeply into my eyes. “I’m really sorry about my friends. First, my family treats you like crap and now my friends... You don’t deserve to be treated this way. I wish I could make that up to you somehow.”

My heart’s screaming for me to tell him there are a million ways he can make that up to me, but my head tells me to run the other way. My internal struggle momentarily mutes my voice, as I mull over how to respond to him. We stand there silently for a few seconds, him gently rubbing my arms and I being mesmerized by his proximity, until I finally find the nerves to tilt my eyes up to his.

The intensity in his gaze instantly makes my stomach drop. I feel as if I am about to go on a roller coaster. My heart rate picks up and my knees start to go weak, and all this man had done is merely look into my eyes. I tell myself that I need to get a grip before I make a total fool of myself. That I have to say something. Do anything. But for the life of me I can’t move any of my body parts, can’t even make my eyes look away. I’m utterly and completely under his spell.

From this close distance, his eyes are mesmerizing.

Riveting.

Captivating.

I feel like I can live in those eyes forever and never let ago.

I sense his body lean into mine. And I lose all sense of coherent thought. He keeps his eyes locked on mine, while moving his head ever so slowly towards my face, until he is so close I can feel his breath on my lips.

I close my eyes in anticipation of his kiss. But just as I think he’s about to close the minuscule distance between our lips, he tears himself away from me, taking a sudden step back with a curse under his breath.

I instantly feel cold.

Exposed.

And intensely disappointed.

I look up to see him leaning against the wall in the furthest corner of the room. It’s as if he can’t get far enough from me. My pride is hurt at that realization, making me want to get as far away from him as possible. I think of a graceful way to make a quick exit, before tears start falling.

“I should really get back out there and clean up the mess. Somebody’s going to trip on the broken glass, injure themselves and sue the estate for millions,” I manage to say nonchalantly.

He lets out a bitter laugh. “Always trying to protect my grandpa, huh? Even after his death, you’re worrying about his estate losing a fraction of its billions?”

“Well technically, I am trying to protect you. Seeing as your grandpa’s billions will probably all go to you.”

“Don’t worry about my billions.”

“Okay, but we still need to go clean that up. I don’t want anyone to injure themselves.”

“Don’t worry. I asked Maria to clean it up when I went outside to get the first aid kit.”

I nod my head, as I study him. He seems tense, angry even. I wonder what I could have done to irritate him like this. Did I do something wrong when he was about to kiss me? Or is it the fact that I assumed he wanted to kiss me? Maybe he was just trying to provide comfort, to apologize for his friends’ behavior and I misunderstood him, making it really awkward between us now. How I wish I had more experience with men at this moment. Maybe I could read him better if I did.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, I decide that I have to say something, anything to break the silence and get myself out of this awkward situation. “Well, you should get back to your party and your guests. They’re probably starting to wonder where you are.”

He releases a deep sigh. “Believe me, the last thing I want to do right now is to go back out there,” he says, avoiding my eyes.

“Why? It is your party, isn’t it? You seemed pretty excited about it when you invited me the other day.”

“Na, I may have been excited about the idea of you coming to the party, but I was never excited about throwing this party.”

My heart skips a beat. Did I hear that correctly? He was excited about me going to the party? Confused by his conflicting signals, I decide to ignore that part of his statement. Instead, focusing on the party itself.

“Why did you do it then if you weren’t excited about it?” I manage to ask in a smooth voice, despite my racing heart.

“A mistake. Peer pressure I guess. All my friends kept telling me now that I lived in the Pierson Mansion, I had to throw a party. I guess they wanted to experience one of the legendary Pierson parties, though this one is not anything close to one of those.”

“Legendary Pierson party? What is that?”

“You didn’t know. My grandpa used to throw these playboy type parties at this place, when he was younger. They were the talk of the town… Pretty epic from what I hear. He invited a lot of the playboy models and a bunch of Hollywood celebrities. There is a lot of talk about how wild it would get at those parties.”

All the blood leaves my face, as I feel like my heart has just stopped. “David used to have playboy parties at this place?” I ask, unable to hide the shock in my voice.

“You seem surprised. You knew that stuff about Grandpa, right? Please don’t tell me you didn’t know his reputation.”

When I just stare at him, he rubs his hand over his jaw, muttering a curse under his breath. “Wow. I can’t believe this. You didn’t talk to anybody when you worked at Pierson Investments? Did you at least Google him?”

“I did Google him when he first gave me his business card, but all that came up was business related and a couple of articles about his illness and his retirement. I didn’t see anything about
that
stuff… I mean he told me he wasn’t proud of the way he lived his life. He had a lot of regrets, but I never suspected that it would have been quite that bad.”

He runs both of his hands through his hair, cupping his head, and for a split second, I see anger in his eyes. He takes a deep breath to calm himself.

“Come here. You should probably sit down for this,” he suggests, leading the way to the couch.

“I hate to be the one telling you this, but you should know. This way, if someone makes a comment or you hear something, at least you know what it’s about,” Aiden starts. “My grandfather had a real reputation. In his business and his personal life. In business, he was ruthless. Always drove a hard bargain. He also made a lot of deals that were questionable, both legally and ethically. I have heard a lot about how he manipulated and played a lot of people he did business with.”

I start getting a sick feeling in my stomach, and I know Aiden is just getting started. I don’t know if I want to hear the rest of this. I knew David wasn’t a saint. He told me over and over again that he made a lot of mistakes in his life. That he had regrets, but it is hard for me to imagine him being anything other than the kind sweet old man I had gotten to know. To me he was my savior. The guy who took me in when no one would and who looked out for me till the very end. I just can’t picture him any other way.