The Pretend Girlfriend (33 page)

"Let's put that bed of yours to use," Aiden whispered when he finished nibbling lightly on her earlobe.

Gwen managed an, "Okay." The syllable hardly left her mouth before Aiden hauled her from the cramped confines of the bathroom. He threw open her bedroom door and pushed her down onto her bed, her cheap mattress bouncing beneath her.

Aiden's hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere at once, exploring the curve of her neck, squeezing her thighs and her bottom, pulling her shirt out of her pants so that he could leave a warm trail of kisses up her stomach.

To put it mildly, she ached for him. He was undeniably sexy, half-naked as he was. The scrapes and bruises lent him a badboy aspect.

The heat building in Gwen's body migrated down, concentrating between her thighs. Aiden's hands kept coming so painfully close to the source of that warmth, but never touched it.

"You tease," she said, ready to grab one of those strong hands of his and put it where she needed it.

Aiden replied with a saucy smile, leaving his hand resting on her stomach, covering her navel. Then he kissed her.

Except this time, Gwen sucked his bottom lip in between her teeth. She bit down a little, enough to hold him in place. Very slowly, she let it slide out. Aiden shuddered with barely contained lust.

Finally relenting with his teasing, that hand of his slid lower. His fingertips pushed down below the waistband of her panties. Gwen squirmed beneath him, impatient for his touch...

And then someone knocked at the door.

They both froze, Aiden looking a question at her. Gwen had no idea who it could be. Beatrice still hadn't forgiven her, and Aiden currently lay beside her on the bed in a rather compromising position.

"Just ignore it; they'll go away," Gwen said, grabbing a handful of hair at the back of his head and pulling his face closer so she could kiss him again.

Things went swimmingly for maybe ten seconds more before another round of knocks again interrupted their rendezvous. Gwen glared out her bedroom door, trying to urge the rude person away by strength of will.
Can't you tell I'm busy?
Gwen thought.

"Maybe if we're quiet they'll think no one is here..." Gwen said, and they paused.

The knocking didn't stop. If anything, it became more insistent. It dawned on her that the only way to make it stop was to answer and see just what it was that was so important.

Sighing with frustration, Gwen let her head fall down onto the pillow.

Seeing Gwen resign herself to that course of action, Aiden pulled his hand from her panties, leaving a rapidly cooling spot behind. Rolling onto his back beside her, he chafed at his eyes while yet another round of knocks intruded on their playtime.

"Somebody better be dead or dying," Gwen grumbled as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.

Marching to the door, she peered through the peephole in time to see the guy standing on the other side start knocking again. She didn't recognize him.

If this guy is selling vacuum cleaners or something like that, he's in for the chewing out of a lifetime,
Gwen thought.

She hauled the door open. "Yes?" she said, the meanest fake smile ever plastered on her face.

The guy's eyes actually widened when he saw her expression. With the door open, Gwen could see he wore a tight bike messenger outfit. A bullet-shaped helmet hung by one strap from his belt. He clutched a thick brown envelope and one of those electronic signature things. "Uh... Gwen Browning?" he said.

Her irritation kept her from realizing what it was he held at first. "Yeah?"

The poor messenger stared doggedly at the wall beside her door, not wanting to suffer that gaze of hers anymore. He thrust the parcel at her. "I have some papers for you to sign for Carbide Solutions in Manhattan."

"Papers...?" Gwen said, the confusion caused by her irritation beginning to evaporate. That impromptu meeting with Henry earlier that morning felt like so long ago.

The messenger gestured with the envelope, clearly hoping she would take it and discharge him of his duties so that he could get out of that hallway.

"Oh!" Gwen said, then, "Oh..."
Those papers
. That new contract Henry promised to send her. Apparently, he still thought she might go through with it despite the circumstances of her leaving his office. "I don't want them."

"But I have to deliver them... Look, lady, I'm just doing my job. If you don't want to sign them, you don't have to. I, on the other hand, have to deliver them and get your confirmation signature."

Gwen couldn't see the harm in that, though she still had some reservations. She took the envelope from him and scrawled her name across the screen of the digital signature device. She always hated those things; no one's signature ever came out right on them. They didn't offer that same resistance or feedback as paper.

Looking markedly relieved, the messenger left hastily, leaving Gwen standing at her doorway holding the envelope. Closing the door, she went back to her bedroom and threw the envelope on her desk.

Still shirtless, Aiden turned around from where he stood by the window. He both sensed and saw her mood. "What is it?"

Gwen flopped on her bed, letting her body go limp while she stared up at the ceiling. Something always happened to ruin her good moods, she noted. "It's from Henry. It's a contract to get out of the one I signed with you. With a few amendments I forced him to add."

"Forced? Nobody ever forces Henry to do anything," Aiden said, "And what amendments? What did you want?"

He went over to the desk and grabbed the envelope. Gwen heard him start tearing it open. She leapt up from the bed.
He shouldn't see that!
she thought.

"Don't!" she said, hopping up and down, trying to grab it as he held it high over his head out of her reach. A few pieces of paper hung out through the tear he'd created.

"Why not?" Aiden said.

"Because I wasn't thinking straight when I got him to draw that up. I don't even want to look at it anymore. Can we just throw it in the trash and forget about it?"

Aiden considered, still not lowering his arm. Why did he have to be so tall?

"Sure," he said, "But can't you tell me? I thought we were being honest now."

"Fine," Gwen replied, sitting down on the bed. Aiden lowered the envelope after a few seconds, when he felt sure she wasn't going to try and snatch it from his hand.

She told him about her thought process that morning, how she thought she'd screwed everything up for him, and how this was a way out for both of them. She told him about the conditions she'd insisted on Henry adding to the new contract.

Aiden sat down beside her, his weight pressing down on the mattress and shifting their bodies closer together. "I don't think anyone's ever shown such concern for me like that before."

Slapping him lightly on the arm, Gwen said, "You know that I... care about you. I just wanted to help."

Aiden frowned, and she didn't know whether he'd heard her or not. "I'm shocked that Henry actually agreed to those... He's always been so merciless..."

Gwen hadn't told him about her yelling at Henry about how he treated his son and the memory of his wife, and his unexpected reaction to that attack. She wondered if she'd actually touched something in the elder Manning, something that made the older man remember his own humanity.

"Well, maybe all this is making him see you in a new light," Gwen suggested.

Aiden patted her thigh. He still seemed lost in thought. Gwen couldn't blame him. Clearly, both he and his father still had a lot of baggage they needed to sort through. She rested her head against his shoulder and watched his fingers drumming on the envelope, making a sharp noise.

"Are you happy I'm not signing it? Because... I still could, if you think it's a good idea," Gwen said, cold fingers clenching up around her heart. She needed to be sure that this was what he wanted, that he wasn't just doing this for her benefit.

Aiden shook his head and put his arm over her shoulders. She liked the way he smelled.

"Of course I'm happy you're not signing it. We don't need any contracts between us anymore. I'm going to have the original one nullified. And as for this one..." he said, hefting the envelope, "I have an idea. Will you wait a bit? I need to go get something."

"Sure," Gwen said, wondering where he could possibly be going. He threw his shirt back on, buttoning it up and tucking it back into his pants. He left the tie off. The envelope he deposited on the desk beside her sleeping laptop.

"I'll be right back, I swear!" he said, slipping out the door. He didn't take the jacket of his she'd borrowed from him off the coat stand, but Gwen didn't say anything about it.

Did I just get ditched?
Gwen wondered.
It feels like I'm being ditched.
It was just an idle worry, she knew. Aiden wasn't the type of person to ditch someone; he had too much integrity for that. If he didn't, she imagined he would have long ago abandoned his quest to reform his father's company.

Just what could he be doing? Gwen went over to her desk and turned the envelope over in her hands, tugging idly at the corners of the sheets sticking out of the tear. A few lines of legalese were legible, along with a couple blank lines intended for her signature.

Letting it drop back to the desk, Gwen crossed her arms and started pacing. She tried not to look at the bed. A mere glance rekindled her body's frustration, and if she closed her eyes she could still feel Aiden's fingertips sliding down her stomach.

"Stupid courier..." Gwen muttered, giving her pile of laundry a less-than-satisfying kick.

How much longer was he going to be? She looked at the clock, but the time displayed didn't really tell her much, since she hadn't looked at it when he went. Judging by her insides, he'd been gone at least ten hours.

She even went back to the apartment door and squinted through the peephole, waiting to catch sight of him.

Her phone chirped, and she went over to her purse, fishing it out. It was a text from Aiden. It read: MEET DOWNSTAIRS, BRING ENVELOPE. All capital letters, like some unquestionable command.

Her thumbs tapped out a response: Not so private downstairs. She hoped he caught her drift.

He didn't. The phone vibrated against her palm and chirped again: COME QUICKLY.

What could possibly be more important than the serviceable mattress in her bedroom, and what they could do to each other on it?

Men could be so irritatingly dense sometimes. Strangely, as Gwen went to collect the envelope, she actually experienced a tinge of excitement. Could this be their first real argument as a real couple?

Looking forward to confronting him, Gwen grabbed the envelope, pulled on her shoes, and hurried downstairs. She avoided the slow elevator, wanting to get to it as quickly as possible.

Aiden waited for her down in the narrow lobby, near the little alcove where the mailroom was. There was an old set of ratty chairs with a circular table between them against the wall, and Aiden rested his forearm on what looked at first glance like a small trashcan that currently sat on that table.

"Hey! Took you long enough," he said.

"Yeah, well, I was expecting you to come back upstairs and join me in the bedroom... What is that thing, anyway? Is that a power cord?" Her righteous feminine fury abated somewhat as her curiosity asserted itself. The device was plugged into the outlet on the wall between the chairs.

"Ah, yes. I'm glad you've noticed. This, my dear, is a paper shredder." He pressed a button on the top and it whirred. When Gwen glanced down at the envelope she held, Aiden smiled. "I see you've caught my drift. What do you say? Do you want to turn my father's contract into confetti?"

Gwen didn't know whether to think this was awesome, sweet, or both.
He really gets me
, Gwen thought. "Um... Let me see... Yes, of course!"

Then Aiden glanced over at the front door. "Good, let's get started. I, uh, borrowed this from that tax place across the street."

"You stole? For me? Aww..." Her heart could have melted.

Aiden put his index finger to his lips, "Not stole. Borrowed. There's a difference. Now, come on, before the nice lady manning the desk over there notices it's missing."

"Semantics," Gwen said, eying the shredder. But he had a point, it was probably better to get it done sooner rather than later.

So she tore the envelope open. That went into the shredder first, the boxy device humming happily as it chewed through the manila paper.

"Music to my ears," Gwen said, "Now... All at once, or a page at a time?" she asked, hefting the contract. She'd already pulled out the staple holding the sheets together.

"That's up to you. What would be more satisfying?" Aiden replied.

A tough decision. Get it all over with at once, or savor it? Gwen pulled the first page from the contract and fed it to the shredder. It gobbled the sheet up. Gwen giggled.

"So one at a time, I take it?" Aiden said, sharing in her enthusiasm.

This was one of the most thoughtful things anyone had ever done for her, and Gwen wanted to savor that, too. She fed the shredder another page, then another.

An old lady in a dark coat, leading a small, yappy dog on the end of a leash, came into the building. She watched the display for a moment and shrugged, walking towards the elevators. Gwen didn't care what the old lady thought. This was too much fun.

"I guess we're just a couple more New York weirdoes," Aiden said.

"You think so? Want to join in?" Gwen said, holding out the half dozen or so remaining pages.

Aiden tried waving them away, "I wouldn't want to steal your thunder or anything."

"Come on! Try it; it's fun. All the cool kids are doing it," Gwen teased.

"Why do I have the sudden urge to smoke?"

"Just take a couple. Do it. Peer pressure peer pressure peer pressure."

Giving an exasperated sigh, coupled with a masterful rolling of the eyes, Aiden accepted half of the pile. "Well, if you insist."

A rather unmanly giggle escaped his lips when he fed the shredder the first page. When he realized the noise he'd made, he shot a look around to see if anyone else noticed.