Chapter FOUR
Aidan had barely put the car in park by the curb when he hopped out. “What—” she began, but then she realized he was getting out to open the door for her. She couldn’t help but cock her eyebrows at him. “My, my, aren’t we the gentleman tonight?”
He gave her a tight smile. “If you’ll really stop and think about it, I was always a gentleman.” His body gave a slight tremor when she crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, for the most part, at least.”
“I guess,” she replied. He motioned for her to get inside. With the biting chill in the air, Emma gladly slid across the warmed leather seats of Aidan’s car.
He closed the door and then hurried around to his side. “It’s awfully cold for October, isn’t it?” he mused.
Shivers went all down Emma’s body like rivulets of rain. Immediately she thought of their parking lot conversation after Aidan first propositioned her at O’Malley’s. He had been nervous then and talked of traffic. She knew now just how nervous he was since he had resorted to talking about the weather. The memory touched a raw nerve, sending a longing ache for the past through her.
To ease the chill of emotions, she rubbed her hands together. Aidan reached forward and turned the heater on. She glanced over at him. Her heart thumped wildly at his continued attentiveness. “Thank you.”
“You wanna grab some dinner?” he asked.
“I’m not really hungry,” she lied.
Aidan grunted. “Guess Dr. Nadeen filled you up, huh?”
Emma tensed at the jab. “He just brought me a snack.”
“Well, you need to eat.” He glanced away from the road to pin her with his stare. “For Noah’s sake, if not yours.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m well aware of what Noah needs, thank you.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “It’s just I figured you needed to eat for him, even if you were still upset about what happened today with Pop.”
The sincerity in his voice, along with his compassion, softened Emma. Her eyes took in his thinner frame. Patrick hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said Aidan hadn’t been eating. “From the looks of it, you could stand to eat as well.”
His jaw tensed. “Maybe if you’ll eat with me, I can.”
Emma knew the last thing in the world she should do was agree to dinner. But she felt her resolve slowly fading as her traitorous stomach growled. She winced when it caused Aidan to smirk at her. “Hmm, so you are hungry? Was it just the company you wanted to refuse?”
She twisted her fingers into the hem of her top. “Let’s not argue anymore, okay?” At his hopeful expression, she sighed. “Take me to dinner.”
The corners of Aidan’s mouth turned up, and Emma could tell he was suppressing a beaming smile.
When he pulled into a familiar parking lot, she couldn’t help but gasp. “Here?” she squeaked at the flickering green and orange neon O’Malley’s sign.
Aidan shrugged as he turned off the ignition. “It was the first place I saw. Besides we both like the food here and atmosphere, right?”
A rush of painful memories crashed against her like ocean waves in a turbulent storm. “I suppose,” she murmured.
Ever the gentleman, he held the restaurant door open for her. For a moment, she was thankful not to see Jenny at the hostess stand. Then a piercing squeal caused her to snap her gaze toward the bar. “Emma!” Jenny screeched. Her face lit up as she hopped off her stool so fast it crashed to the ground.
After bounding over, Jenny threw her arms around Emma’s neck. “Oh my God! I can’t believe it!”
Warmth filled Emma’s cheeks as well as her heart at Jenny’s over the top enthusiasm. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Jenny pulled away. Her blue eyes flashed with happiness as she took in Emma’s appearance. “You look absolutely stunning!” Her gaze honed in on Emma’s protruding belly. “Man, I hope I look as hot as you do when I’m pregnant!”
Emma laughed and placed a hand on her stomach. “Thank you. I don’t exactly feel hot at the moment.”
“Trust me, you look it, sexy mama! Hell, you barely look pregnant, and you’ve got to be what, like six months now?”
Emma nodded.
“Congratulations on it being a boy.”
“Thank you.”
Jenny turned her attention to the hostess. “Why don’t you take Aidan on back to a booth? I want to hear more about the baby.”
With a nod, the hostess grabbed two menus and motioned for Aidan. He reluctantly followed her. He even threw a few cautious glances over his shoulder at Emma.
Jenny took Emma’s hands in hers. Her once jovial expression faded into one of concern. “I just want you to know how worried we’ve been about Aidan. That first week my dad had to drive him home a few nights.” Shimmering tears pooled in her eyes. “We were afraid we were going to lose him.”
Emma sucked in a breath. Before she could respond, Jenny shook her head. “Look, I know he screwed up. I tried to warn him when he had the audacity to bring that skank in here.”
“H-He brought her…”
Jenny bobbed her head. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t refused him a table. I think maybe if he had thought about it a little longer he would have never taken her home.”
Over Jenny’s shoulder, Emma saw Aidan staring expectantly at her. “I have to go.” She started to pull her hands away, but Jenny squeezed them tight.
“I don’t know what I would do in your shoes. I hope and pray I never have to. But I do know I’ve never seen a man more miserable over screwing up in my entire life. He’s been so eaten with guilt and remorse that we’ve been afraid it would consume him.”
Emma didn’t know what to say, so she merely jerked her head in acknowledgement. On wobbly legs, she made her way over to Aidan. Thankfully, the waitress hadn’t put them in the same section where they had been before.
Aidan had already ordered their drinks. Since she hadn’t had any caffeine so far, she didn’t ask for something different than the Coke that was already on the table. After taking a sip, she started scouring the menu. Glancing up, she asked, “What sounds good?”
Aidan shrugged. She could tell from the way he twisted his bottom lip back and forth between his teeth that he was struggling with something. She opened her mouth to question him when their waitress returned. “What can I get for you?”
Emma peered at the menu. “Hmm, I’m having a hard time deciding.” When she looked up, she met Aidan’s haunted eyes. She knew she needed to do something to ease the tension a bit. “Are you paying?”
His brows furrowed. “I can. Why?”
She grinned. “Good. I was torn between ordering something less expensive and then something more expensive. But if you’re paying, I’ll treat myself.”
When she winked at him, a slow smile tugged at his lips. “Order the whole damn menu. I don’t mind.”
“I think I’ll have the Ribeye, well-done, with the steamed vegetables. And I’d like a salad too with honey mustard on the side.”
Nodding, the waitress scribbled down the order. She then turned to Aidan. “And what about you?”
“Just the beer is fine for me,” Aidan replied.
The waitress started to leave for the kitchen, but Emma banged her fist on the table. “Oh no, you don’t! You’re not just going to sit there and drink like a fish. You better order something and do it right now! That was part of the deal, remember?”
“Em, I don’t want—”
She swung her hostile gaze from him over to the waitress who had paled a little at the growing tension. “He’ll have the Porterhouse steak, medium rare, with a loaded baked potato. You can also bring him a side of the garlic mashed potatoes because he’s is addicted to carbs and potatoes. He’ll also have a salad, but make his Caesar. And can you please bring a loaf of bread with lots of butter as soon as you can?” She cocked her head at Aidan. “He loves your bread so much he could make his meal just eating that.”
He stared at her in shock. The waitress’s pen hovered over the pad until Aidan bobbed his head in agreement. “Okay then. I’ll put your order in and bring the bread.”
“Thank you,” Emma replied, handing her the menus. After taking a sip of Coke, she found Aidan staring at her. “What?”
“You remembered what I like,” he murmured.
She slammed her glass down harder than she meant to. “Of course I do. The only thing predicable besides your outrageous libido is your stomach. You ordered the same thing each and every time we came here.”
A ghost of a flirtatious smile played at Aidan’s lips. “If I don’t clean my plate, are you going to spank me, Mommy?”
Emma crossed her arms over her chest. “No, but I will force feed you myself like the damn petulant toddler you insist on acting like!”
He brought a hand to his chest. “Ouch, Em.”
“Don’t start with me, Aidan. You look like hell, and you need more nourishment than alcohol all the time.”
He plopped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“What?”
“That I look like such hell, yet you look so f*cking beautiful.” A pained sound came from deep in the back of his throat as he eyed her green maternity top. “And you’re wearing green just like the first night I ever saw you.” One of his hands reached out to brush against hers. “God, you were and still are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She blew out a frustrated puff of air. “I don’t want or need any of your pick-up lines or compliments, thank you very much!”
He shot her a wounded look. “Can’t I tell the mother of my child how beautiful she looks? How pregnancy has made her blossom into an even more breathtakingly sexy woman.”
Emma’s heart stilled and then restarted at both his words and the passion in which he delivered them. The gleam in his eyes elicited a response between her thighs as well. She wanted to smack her traitorous body as well as the pregnancy hormones pumping through her.
“What I need more than compliments is for you to shape up, Aidan,” she said, softly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
The waitress, armed with a basket of bread, hovered in front of the table. “Erm, here you go.” She practically threw it at them before sprinting away.
Ignoring his question, Emma cut a piece of bread. After slathering it with enough butter to raise anyone’s cholesterol level, she held it out for Aidan. He didn’t protest. Instead, he took the slice from her, letting his fingers linger on hers longer than they should. After he swallowed the bread almost whole, she grinned triumphantly at him. “I knew you were hungry,” she noted, as she fixed him another piece.
“Hungry for your company,” he replied, in an agonized voice.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “Please don’t.”
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes to stare into his blazing baby blues. “It’s the truth dammit! You don’t know the hell I’ve been through because you wouldn’t talk to me! You wouldn’t let me apologize or talk this through. You f*cking cut me off.” He shuddered. “I’ve been dead inside the last three weeks. But now that I’m with you…”
“Let me guess. Now that you’re back in my presence, you’re like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon?” she snapped sarcastically.
“Keep talking that way to me, and I’ll quit eating.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’m glad to see you’re still impossible.”
He winked at her as he finished off his third piece of bread. She twisted her napkin furiously in her lap. “You act like you’re the only one who’s been suffering.”
Aidan’s face perked up. “You mean, you’ve missed me?” he asked, his voice vibrating with emotion.
“Of course I have! How could you even ask such a thing?”
His shoulders sagged. “I just figured when you wouldn’t talk to me that your hate won out over anything else you felt for me.”
“My hatred for you does fuel a lot of my emotions.”
“Touche,” he replied, tipping his beer up.
“Somehow you forget that what should have been one of the happiest days of my life was trampled and spat upon by the man I loved and the father of my child!”
Torment pulsed in Aidan’s eyes as he slowly removed the bottle from his lips. “Jesus Em,” he muttered.
His pained expression overwhelmed her, and her chest rose and fell in harsh pants. Finally she found her voice again. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. Trust me, I may look more put together than you, but I’m not. I’m just as much a wreck on the inside. I can’t shut down this time like when I lost Travis or my mom. I have Noah to think about.” A bitter laugh rumbled from her chest. “So you may think the last three weeks have been hell on you, but you can rest assured they have been for me just as much if not more!” Snatching her napkin from her lap, she dabbed the hot tears that pricked the corners of her eyes.
Aidan’s chin trembled. “I swear to God and all that’s holy I wish I could take it back,” he whispered.
He reached out for her hand, but Jenny appeared with their salads. Emma’s emotions suddenly switched gears, and she felt terrible that their outward animosity had scared the other waitress off. For a few minutes, they didn’t speak. It seemed too much had transpired between them to say anything else. By the time Emma had daintily cut her lettuce, drizzled on her dressing, and taken a bite, Aidan had scarfed down his entire salad.
Emma’s fork paused in midair at the sight of his fingers plunging in and out of his mouth. His tongue licked and sucked off every last bit of dressing. Assaulted with memories, her body trembled as she remembered what those fingers and that tongue felt like. Feeling enflamed, she tried looking anywhere but his delicious mouth. What is wrong with you? The last thing on earth you should be thinking about is sex with Aidan! The hormonal pregnancy roller coaster ride she was on seemed hell bent on careening off on a sex crazed course.
When he met her gaze, his hollowed cheeks flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to act like such a caveman.”
“N-No, it’s okay. I’m glad to see you eating so well. You’re obviously very hungry.”
He gazed up at her through his long lashes. “But too stubborn to admit it, right?”
She swallowed her bite of salad. “You never can admit what you should,” she said softly.
“I know,” he grumbled, as he snatched the last slice of bread.
She sighed. “I meant what I said about you needing to shape up. You have to take care of yourself. I don’t like the excessive drinking—it worries me for your health and safety. Regardless of what we are or aren’t, you’re still going to be a father. I can’t have a drunk in my--” she paused. “I mean, in our baby’s life.”
His tortured gaze held hers as he chewed. “So I can still be in Noah’s life, just not yours?”
Not knowing how to respond, she pushed her salad around with her fork. “Em?” Aidan pressed.
“I would never keep you away from Noah if you truly wanted to be a part of his life.”
Jenny interrupted them by bringing their plates. “Everything okay so far?”
Emma forced a smile at the almost loaded meaning of the question. “It’s delicious thank you.”
“I’d like some more bread,” Aidan said.
Jenny nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
They fell into silence again. “You need to eat your salad,” Aidan finally said.
“Oh, so now you’re telling me to eat?”
“You’re supposed to be eating a lot of green, leafy vegetables for the folic acid.”
She arched her brows in surprise. “And just how do you know that?”
Through a mouthful of baked potato, he said, “What to Expect While You’re Expecting.”
Her heartbeat thundered in her chest so loud she was sure he could hear it. “You actually read the book I gave you?”
He bobbed his head as he shoveled in a bite of steak. “Read some others too,” he muttered between chewing.
She stared at him in disbelief. When he finally looked at her and not his plate, he grinned. “So eat your salad.”
Pursing her lips, she glared at him for a moment before picking up her fork. Once she filled her mouth with an enormous bite of lettuce, she mumbled, “Happy?”
“Mmm, hmm. Eat your steak too. Noah needs his protein.”
Emma snorted exasperatedly but did as she was told. When she cleaned her salad plate, Aidan clapped for her. She laughed in spite of herself. “I don’t think two people have ever been so obsessed with one meal,” she mused.
“I guess we both benefit from having someone take care of us.”
“Maybe,” she murmured.
After pushing his empty plate out of the way, Aidan’s expression grew grave. “I need to tell you the truth about what happened with Amy.”
“I already know.” At Aidan’s puzzled expression, she replied, “Becky told me about how you tried for a year to get her back. How you became an alcoholic…had to go to therapy. It really doesn’t affect us.”
Aidan cringed. “Yeah, well, that’s only half of the story.”
A chill ran over Emma, causing her to shudder. “What do you mean?”
“Only Amy, Pop, and I know the real truth.” He downed the rest of his beer and shook the bottle at the waitress as she passed by.
“So tell me,” Emma prompted.
“After all of our years together, Amy was desperate for us to get married.” He drew in a ragged breath. “She was so desperate that she went as far as to try to trap me into marrying her.”
The world tilted and spun around Emma. “You mean…”
“Yes, she was pregnant.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“The second time we got back together we weren’t swimming competitively, so she started broaching the subject of not doing double the contraception anymore. After awhile, she finally wore me down. She was on birth control, so I figured that was enough. I stopped using condoms.”
Emma arched her eyebrows at his admission. “You told me I was the first woman you’d ever been inside of without a condom.”
He scowled at her. “Yeah, well, excuse me if I thought it would have totally f*cked up the moment by admitting that after going off condoms just twice, my ex-girlfriend got pregnant.” He gave a bark of a laugh at Emma’s gasp. “Yeah, I’m pretty potent, huh? That’s how I knew I would be a good candidate to knock you up.”
“That’s a disgusting way of putting it,” Emma hissed.
Aidan’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
“Anyway, so Amy got pregnant on birth control?”
A bitter smile then twisted on his face. “Oh no. An accidental pregnancy? That would have been easy to forgive. After all, the f*cking directions on the box even admit it’s only 98% effective.” His fingers ripped at the label on his beer. “Nope. A year into us being back together and me running like hell from any commitment, she stopped taking her birth control without my knowledge.”
“Oh Aidan,” Emma murmured. She didn’t know what else to say. “So you’re trying to tell me you have a child out there somewhere?”
The angry expression drained off his face and was replaced by one of absolute sorrow. “I wish that were the case.”
Emma couldn’t help but reach across the table and take his hand in hers. “What happened?” she prodded.
The waitress returned with his beer, and Aidan drowned half of it before speaking again. “A few weeks before I found out she was pregnant, Amy and I had been out partying with some friends, and I got plastered. That night as I was digging around in the medicine cabinet for some Advil, I accidentally knocked her birth control in the sink. You can imagine how surprised I was when it was unused, not to mention the prescription hadn’t been refilled in two months. When I confronted her, she admitted she’d stopped taking it because she thought a baby would solidify our relationship.”
Aidan shuddered. “I was furious. I packed my things and left for my parents. I refused to talk to her or see her.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “Kinda like what you’ve been doing to me.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Finish the damn story, Aidan.”
He held up his hands. “Fine then. She eventually came to my office and showed me the pregnancy test.” He gave Emma a sad smile. “The fact that the Amy I thought I knew and loved had betrayed me by trapping me into getting married was terrible, but the worst part was the fact I was scared out of my freaking mind at the prospect of being a father at twenty-four.” He took two long pulls from his beer. “I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.”
Her stomach turned at the prospect. “Go on,” she instructed.
He sneered at her. “You want me to actually say the words?”
“Fine. That’s when Amy caught you screwing another woman.”
“Yes,” he croaked.
Emma narrowed her eyes. “Wow, I guess we have a lot in common. Maybe we should get t-shirts that say, ‘We were both f*cked over by Aidan Fitzgerald’!”
“Em, please,” he begged.
She huffed out an exasperated breath. “Fine. Continue.”
“Amy threw me out of the house that night. The next morning I went back over and tried to reason with her. I told her I was sorry, that I loved her, and that in spite of what had happened between her trying to trap me and then me screwing someone else, I still wanted to marry her. She wouldn’t have it. She got into the car and sped away.”
Emma’s brows shot up in surprise at the tears sparkling in Aidan’s eyes. “She ran a stop sign in the subdivision trying to get away from me. A car smashed into the driver’s side. Thankfully, she walked away with just a few scrapes and bruises.” His chest rose and fell in harsh pants. “But she miscarried later that day.”
Involuntarily, Emma reached out and took Aidan’s hand in hers again. His expression, his tears, and his words broke her heart. All the pieces of his puzzle finally fell into place.
“All these years you’ve felt guilty about the baby, haven’t you?”
He nodded, swiping the tears from his cheeks. “I never wanted it, and then I…killed it.” He started sobbing then. Emma chewed her lip and fought herself from rising out of the booth and going over to him. Her better judgment lost out, and she found herself cradling him in her arms. The old Aidan she knew would never have cried, least of all in public. He was absolutely broken by the ghosts of the past and present.
She rubbed wide circles over his back. “You’re not to blame for what happened with the baby, Aidan, any more than Amy is just because she was driving too fast and ran the stop sign. Accidents happen.”
Raising his head, he swiped the tears from his cheeks. “Accidents may happen, but people never forget them…or forgive them.”
Emma ignored the double meaning of his statement in regards to her. “I’m sure time has helped to heal any bad feelings Amy had for you. I’m sure she’s struggled with her own guilt over what she did to you by trying to trap you.”
He shrugged. “I hope so. She certainly helped to screw me up for every other woman.” His blue eyes honed in on hers. “Maybe it’s me who can’t forgive. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe I wouldn’t have f*cked things up so epically with you.”
“Maybe,” she murmured.
His fingers came to grip her chin. Tilting her gaze up to meet his, he shook his head. “For the most part, our proposition was about me getting the chance to have sex with you, and I did promise my late mother I would one day have children. But it was also about being able to find redemption with myself…and with God. I thought if I could help you bring a baby into the world, it might take away the hurt of the past.”
Emma’s mouth dropped open in surprise. For a few moments, she could only stare at him in utter and complete shock. All this time he really had possessed a deeper, more admirable desire for wanting to be her sperm donor.
“Do you hate me now because of that?”
She shook her head wildly back and forth. “No, how could you even think that?”
“It’s just you were staring at me and not saying anything. I thought you might feel used or deceived.”
“That’s not it at all. In fact, I was thinking much more highly of you because of what you told me.”
“Really?”
“I’m glad having Noah is a way you feel you can repent for what you did. It’s never too late for redemption, Aidan.”
A hopeful look entered his tortured eyes. “I’d give anything and everything in this world to redeem myself with you. Just please, please give me the chance.”
Emma couldn’t hold the intensity of his desperate gaze any longer. Staring down at her lap, she fought to breathe. Her mind whirled with trying to process her out of control thoughts while her chest heaved with emotion. Did she really want to give him the chance to redeem himself? Could she actually do that to herself and her heart? And if she denied him, how was she even to have him a part of Noah’s life without letting her feelings get in the way?
“Please, Em,” he begged.
“I guess I can try,” she finally replied. When she glanced back up at him, his blue eyes shone with determination. “I’m not making any promises.”
He smiled. “I can take that—I can take whatever you’re willing to give me.”
Jenny interrupted them by bringing over their check. “Would you like some dessert?”
Emma laughed when she appeared to be asking her more than Aidan. She patted her very full belly. “No, I think I’m good.”
Aidan swept his hand inside his jacket pocket for his wallet. Without even glancing at the bill, he stuffed a wad of cash in the envelope. When Jenny started to protest at his generosity, he shook his head. “I owe a lot more than that to you and your dad for taking care of me in the last few weeks.”
“We were happy to do it.” Jenny leaned over and gave Aidan a quick hug. “Just promise to take care of yourself, and we’ll call it even, okay?”
He nodded as his eyes burned into Emma’s. “I’m already feeling like my old self again.”
She cocked her eyebrows at him. “Let’s hope that’s not every aspect of your old self,” she said, rising out of the booth.
“Damn, Em, do you always have to shred me with those freakin’ claws of yours?” he grumbled as he stood up.
Jenny threw a worried glance between the two of them before forcing a smile to her face. “Well, I hope to see you guys again soon.”
Emma gave Jenny a reassuring smile. “Thanks you.” After giving her a quick hug, she started out of the bar. Aidan hurried to catch up with her. He stepped in front of her just before she could open the door.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, trying to ignore the little zap of electricity she felt when his body touched hers. She edged away from him as they started back to his car. The drive over to the VFW was silent except for the muted sound of the radio playing love songs that were like spikes to her broken heart.
When they pulled up to her abandoned car, she didn’t want to leave him. Her brain screamed for her to pick up her hands and feet and get going. Finally, as her hand reached for the door handle, Aidan grabbed her shoulder. “Wait!” he cried.