The Pretend Fiancé (17 page)

And what made it worse was that the Ben incident wasn't the only thing that she hid from him.

"It's nothing. Really. All of this stuff with the new contract is just getting to me is all."

Aiden balled his hands into fists and shook them, a snarl on his face. "Stop that! We both know that's not it! Tell me the truth. Just tell it to me! Stop lying." His face darkened as he spat the words at her.

Gwen's own anger was instinctive and defensive. It mixed with her fear, twisting around in her stomach. She tried again to force the words out, to tell him. They still wouldn't come.

"I can't!" Gwen said, "It's nothing. Please stop asking!"

Aiden buried his face in his hands, hiding his eyes from view. Slowly, his fingers clenched back into fists, the knuckles turning white and his arms shaking from the strain. He let those fists drop slowly to his sides.

Gwen had never seen him like this. Not even during some of the bad spells dealing with the aftermath of Henry's death. It scared her.

He scared her.

"Can't you just say it?" Aiden said, "Can't you just tell me that you don't want to get married?"

That Gwen didn't expect. The question, the accusation, numbed her, made her throat clench up and sent awful, cold fingers crawling up and down her spine.

"How can you even ask that? Of course I want to marry you! If I didn't then I wouldn't have said yes when you asked me."

"If it isn't that, then what else could it possibly be?" Aiden said. He looked so heartbroken, so crestfallen.

Again, Gwen urged herself to tell him. But she feared that would simply hurt him even more.

"It's not that," she said.

"Then enlighten me, because I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I could have possibly done to drive you away from me like this. And that was the only reasonable thing I came up with. The only reasonable explanation for your behavior," he said.

"It isn't," Gwen said, gale-force trembles wracking her body.

Those fists of his unclenched, and he spread his hands out before him in supplication. "Then what?"

"I..." she said, getting that first, all-important word out. The rest of them proved more difficult. "I can't be here right now. I can't be with you right now. Don't try to follow me."

"Gwen!" Aiden said, trying to catch her as she turned around and started for the door. He missed.

This time, Gwen remembered not to skip the purse-grabbing step while storming out of the suite. She shouldered the strap, wrenched the door open, and disappeared out into the hall.

She got three steps down the hall before stopping. "Please follow me," she whispered, hanging her head and waiting. Waiting for the sound of the door to open up behind her, waiting to feel Aiden's hand on her shoulder, turning her around to face him.

She held her breath waiting. She held her breath until stinging tears formed in the corners of her eyes and her lungs burned for want of air.

Aiden didn't come.
That's what I deserve
, she thought. So she straightened her back, wiped at her eyes with the pad of her thumb, and headed for the elevators.

"Miss Browning?" a male voice with a Swiss accent asked.

She looked at the owner of the voice. "Aren't you Judith's butler?"

"I am. She wished me to give you this message."

***

A
iden waited. The palms of his hands hurt where his fingernails had dug into them, but he ignored the throbbing pain. That hurt had nothing on what he felt inside, beyond the physical.

"Come back," he said, as though on command the door might open and disgorge the woman he loved back into his arms. It didn't.

Don't follow me
, she said. It was an order. It was a threat. And Aiden didn't want to risk the consequences of disobeying. So no matter how hard he urged them, his feet refused to budge from their places on the polished floor of his lavish and lonely hotel suite.

Slowly, it dawned on him that Gwen was not going to return any time soon. That, and she still wouldn't tell him what bothered her so deeply.

He went over to the fridge in the kitchenette, intent on grabbing enough of those little sample bottles to fill a tumbler with alcohol. He reached the fridge, wrenched the door open, and stood there as the cold air washed over him. It felt nice on his overheated body.

He didn't take any of the liquor samplers out though. No, he stared at them instead, his fingers clenching and unclenching. It wasn't the right thing to do, even though it was the thing he wanted to do.

Why do you always have to do the right thing?
Aiden asked himself.
When do you get to do what you want to, instead of what you should do?

He knew an analyst would probably all bring it back to Henry. He'd taken an intro to psych class in his freshman year and got all the Freudian daddy issue stuff he could handle and more on top of that.

It was all some pubescent rebellion. Some desire to be different from his father. And like all teenage rebellions, it went too far, making him not just different but opposite. He had internalized that Henry was ruthless, willing to do anything to get ahead. And anything was often the wrong thing.

So, to balance that out, he always did the right thing. Or at least the thing he thought other people would consider the right thing. Even if, for him, it was the wrong thing.

He sighed and let the fridge door slip out of his fingers and swing shut.

"And that's why I didn't take any more psych classes," he muttered.

He then wondered where Gwen went. And whether, if he left right then, he might find her. He even went so far as to start towards the door, intent on finding out.

She wants to be alone
, he thought, stopping short.
She doesn't want to see you right now, so why should you want to see her?
Aiden asked himself.
Because
, he began,
it's the right thing.

Oh, not that right thing stuff again. It's not working out very well right now, is it?

Then a knock interrupted his internal debate. "Coming!"

His first instinct was that it was Gwen. However, he'd seen her take her purse, which he knew contained her room key. There was no reason for her to knock.

He didn't want to see anyone else but her at that moment. However, there rose a dilemma. He'd already called out, so whoever was on the other side knew that he was in. He couldn't simply pretend not to be there.

He decided on a perfunctory greeting followed by an, "I'm actually in the middle of something. Would you possibly mind coming back tomorrow?"

The words waited on his lips as he opened the door. A different word rode over them, though, when he saw the person waiting on the other side. "Catherine?"

Catherine smiled at him. "Yes, me. I'm sorry, I meant to call first before I came over, but it must have slipped my mind. I thought that we could finish going over a few of the details of the Bethel acquisition... And something is wrong. What's wrong?" Concern replaced her smile.

"It's nothing. You know, now actually isn't the best time for me. Can it wait?" Aiden said. The last thing he wanted to do right now was paperwork. Just the thought of reading all those lines of fine print started a throbbing behind his eyes.

Catherine hefted the folder of papers and then nodded. "It can wait. But only if you talk to me about what's going on."

"Catherine..." Aiden said, his voice laden with warning.

"Don't take that tone! That's the deal; take it or leave it. Because if you don't, I'll stand here all night knocking at your door if need be."

Aiden quickly considered the possibilities. He reached the conclusion that giving her what she wanted resulted in the speediest end for this. Besides, he'd known her for years now, and he knew that she wasn't given to idle threats.

"Fine. You get five minutes, then you're out."

"That's all I need!" Catherine said, brushing past him into the suite. She went immediately to the wingback she'd been sitting in during her first visit, once again sitting down and crossing her legs.

She also wore that same black dress, Aiden noted.
I'll bet she's not wearing any underwear
, Gwen's voice intruded into his thoughts. He shook his head, not wanting to think about that right then.

"So come on, sit down and tell me what's eating you," Catherine said, once again all smiles and exuberance.

Aiden sat on the couch across from her, clasping his hands in his lap. He looked at Catherine, thought about how long he'd known her, how long they'd been friends. Of things they'd told each other, back in Harvard.

She really was quite intelligent, he knew. And shrewd. Besides, he felt about ready to burst, keeping all this to himself.

"Gwen and I had a fight," he said.

"You know, I thought that might be it. What about?"

He spread his hands and looked down at his palms. He could still see the pale, bloodless marks in them where his fingertips had pressed so hard. "She's hiding something from me. I'm not sure what. At first, I thought that maybe she didn't want to be engaged anymore, but now I just don't know. She just stormed out of here a few minutes ago and told me not to follow her."

Catherine gave him a polite, tight-lipped smile. "Oh, Aiden. You never were good at this sort of thing. When a girl rushes from the room and tells you not to follow them, you get your butt out the door and stay on their heels." She clicked her tongue at him.

He knew she was right. He could feel it. "Then why didn't I follow her?"

"Maybe," she said, standing up, pulling her skirt back down to cover her thighs, "Because you didn't want to, even though you knew you should."

"No, that can't be it. Where are you going?"

"Hold that thought. Just need to pay a quick visit to the restroom," Catherine said. She walked away, her hips swaying.

Aiden braced his elbows on his knees and then put his face in his hands, passing the time by wondering just what he could say to Gwen to fix all this.

"I'm back," Catherine said.

Aiden peered back over the couch. His heart lurched.

"Just had to get a little more comfortable," Catherine said, her full, luscious lips smiling again.

He knew the answer to whether she had any underwear on or not. The answer was Yes. Or perhaps Sort Of. Her bra and panties were of matching, lacy-black material. And they both seemed designed to reveal rather than conceal.

Suddenly, Aiden's collar felt far too tight. Aiden's eyes circumscribed the curves of her body, trying not to notice the legs that never seemed to end, the perfect complex of the skin, the...

He pulled his gaze away. "What? What are you doing?"

"Only what I've been thinking about doing since I got on that plane back in New York."

She swayed over behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. She squeezed, and Aiden's throat went dry. From there, it only got worse.

She swung her leg over the back of the couch. Then she climbed onto it, still standing. She planted a foot on either side of him, trapping him there.

And then she sat down on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. She wasn't heavy at all, but her weight still crushed him somehow.

"Kiss me, Aiden," she said, those full lips of her glistening and her big, doe eyes smoldering.

C
atherine's beautiful face moved closer and closer, her eyes shutting in anticipation. Her features filled his vision, blotting out the rest of the room.

Then her lips parted slightly, getting ready.

Aiden put his hands on her waist.

"Oh, yes, touch me," she said. He could feel her trembling. And then she said, "What?" when he lifted her off him and placed her down on the cushion next to him. Aiden then did his best to stare at the wall next to the door, fixing on the pattern of the paint, on the baseboards, on anything that wasn't the semi-naked woman sitting next to him.

"Aiden, what's wrong?" Catherine said.

"This. This is wrong. I'm getting married to Gwen. You know that. I love her."

"Are you sure about that?" she replied.

Aiden shook his head. Why did so many people in his life presume to tell him what he did or didn't feel? Henry did it, Judith was doing it. Now Catherine, a person he'd known and respected for years, did it too. "Of course I'm sure about it. I'm so sure that I put a ring on her finger to seal the deal."

"Oh..." Catherine said, her confidence fading. She looked down at herself and saw the poor excuses for underwear she wore. She crossed her legs and covered herself with her hands. "And you're sure that you're sure?"

"I am. What is it about me that makes people think I'm not?"

Catherine shrugged. "I think people are sensing the tension between you two. I know I did."

"So you figured you'd come by and sit on my lap the moment Gwen was gone?"

"No... It's not like that, you don't understand," Catherine said. She got up and started pacing in front of the couch.

If she was basically naked in front, the back was even worse. Aiden swallowed against the lump in his throat and again fixed his eyes on the wall. He still managed to catch the sway of her hips in his peripheral vision, so he turned his head.
Why did Gwen have to go on so much about how beautiful Catherine is?
He was going to strangle that girl when she got back.

And then another terrible thought occurred to him. One that squeezed his stomach and left his skin prickling.
What if Gwen comes back with Catherine still here, still walking around in her underwear?

"Then please tell me what I'm not getting here. I thought we were friends, Catherine?" Aiden said. He eyed the door and prayed that Gwen wasn't about to walk through it.

"That's right! You always thought we were friends. Ever since college, you thought we were friends. You think this and you think that. Well, did you ever stop to wonder if maybe you were projecting those thoughts onto me? Did you ever even ask yourself what I might be thinking?"

"I... I suppose not. I'm sorry," Aiden said. "Do you think that maybe you could, I don't know, put on some more clothes?"