CHAPTER TWELVE
When she got to the living room, she could hear Aidan humming along with the kitchen radio. She peeked around the corner and watched in amazement as he cooked. How was it possible that this Aidan could be the same cocky, self-absorbed womanizer who sometimes drove her crazy? It was like he was two people inhabiting the same body.
Aidan caught her staring, and she smiled shyly at him as she padded barefoot into the kitchen. She inhaled deeply. “Something smells wonderful.”
A pleased expression grew on his face. “I decided on the scampi. I thought we could eat out on the patio if that’s okay?”
She nodded. “Sounds great.”
He opened the back door, and she stepped outside. Beau came galloping up to her. “Down boy! Don’t even think about it!” Aidan shouted.
Beau reluctantly nudged Emma’s legs. “Good boy,” she replied, rewarding him with a scratch behind the ears. As she gazed around the immaculately kept patio and backyard, her eyes widened at the sight of an in-ground pool. “This is all so beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
He held out a chair for her, and she eased up to the table. He already had it set it for them complete with linen napkins. A glance at her full plate of scampi sent her stomach growling. When Aidan sat down, she smiled at him. “I can’t thank you enough for the bath and the clothes. I feel like a new person.”
“You’re welcome.”
After taking a bite of pasta, she glanced up to find Aidan staring at her chest. Self-consciously, she crossed her arms over her breasts, trying to hide the fact they kept straining against the material. She cleared her throat, and he quickly looked away. “Aidan Fitzgerald, are you staring at my boobs like a horny teenage boy?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “It’s kinda hard not to when they’re about to bust out of the shirt.”
She huffed exasperatedly. “Well, I hated to stretch it since it isn’t mine, and it fits everywhere but the chest.” She glanced down and shuddered. “Ugh, I so want to get a breast reduction.”
“Jesus, why would you ever want to do that? Your breasts are amazing.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “That’s such a man thing to say. You have no idea what a real pain they are. My back kills me, not mention it’s hard finding shirts to fit. Then there’s the whole factor of them getting bigger when you’re pregnant.”
Aidan licked his lips. “They do?”
“Yes, pervert, they do.”
He laughed. “Sorry, but I’m a total boob man, so that prospect really turns me on.”
“A boob man as opposed to what? An ass or a thigh man?”
He nodded. “Of course, it goes without saying that both your ass and thighs are amazing, too.”
She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Oh, thank you so much. Here I was worrying that they were hideous, and you’d been traumatized to have to see them. Glad I’ll rest easy tonight.”
“I’ll overlook that sassiness considering the day you’ve had. Instead, I’ll offer you more wine,” he remarked.
She held up her glass. “Thank you. It’s delicious.”
As he poured, Emma glanced out over the fading sunlight shimmering across the water. “I’ve got to say I’m more than a little jealous of your pool.”
It’s actually what sold me on this place. Like I told you before, swimming was my passion growing up, and after I left home, I always wanted another pool.” He took a sip of wine and then turned his intense gaze on her. “So what was your passion when you were younger?”
“Hmm, it’s probably a total cliché but singing.” She ran her fingers over the rim of her wine glass. “Well, I guess it still is my passion.”
“Really?”
Emma was shocked by the eager expression on Aidan’s face. “Yeah, my family is really big on Bluegrass and Country. I grew up singing with a band that’s made up of five of my male cousins. We would play at festivals and at the bar my Uncle Gary owns.” Emma laughed. “I guess you would call it a honky-tonk more than anything.”
He shook his head. “Why is it almost impossible for me to picture you singing in a smoky, rough and tumble bar?”
“Oh, I didn’t just sing there. I did at church, too.”
Aidan grinned knowingly. “Ah, you’re a church girl. That explains a lot.”
She stopped swirling the pasta around on her fork and shot him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Now I know why you felt the way you did about sleeping with me—why you don’t have any sexual partners in your past besides your fiancée.”
“Having morality and spirituality aren’t bad things,” she countered.
“I didn’t say they were. In fact, it’s what I like most about you.”
Emma snorted. “You can’t be serious.”
“Well, I am.” He moved his hand across the table to graze his fingers against hers. “Until I met you, I never knew innocence could be so damn sexy.”
Although her cheeks warmed at his compliments, she couldn’t help the smirk that curved on her lips. “You really are a smooth one, aren’t you?”
Aidan jerked his hand away from hers and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t realize I was being smooth at the moment. I was just trying to flatter you a little.”
Emma chewed thoughtfully on a bite of shrimp. “I think it oozes so naturally you don’t even realize you’re doing it. I think you’d even manage to do it in a coma.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, all your nurses would be fawning over you—even the male ones. You would probably end up getting really shitty care. Not to mention there would probably be a daily fist fight over who got to give your sponge bath.”
Aidan threw his head back and roared with laughter. When he gazed at her, his blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Jesus, Em, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed with a woman as much as I have with you.”
“I assume that’s a compliment, right?”
“Oh yes, a big one.”
Emma nibbled on the edge of her fork, trying to decide whether she had the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing her for a while. “So have you really never been in love before?”
Aidan choked on the bite of scampi he had taken. He succumbed to a coughing fit before taking a long gulp of wine. “That one came out of nowhere,” he replied, in a strangled voice.
“Not really. You just want to avoid the question.”
He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. After staring out at the glimmering water, he finally said, “Yes, I have been in love before. Are you happy now?”
“That’s all I get?”
“Were you hoping for some salacious details?”
Emma grinned. “Maybe.”
“Well, I think that’s enough for tonight.” He picked up her empty plate and started to rise out of his chair when she reached over and lightly touched his arm. Emma could see the struggle in his eyes, not to mention he kept clenching and unclenching his jaw. He appeared to internally bashing himself about whether to be honest with her.
Not wanting to cause him pain, she shook her head. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. It was rude to ask.”
“No, no, I’ll give you the gory details,” he replied, easing back down.
Emma’s jaw dropped open. She couldn’t help leaning forward, expectantly waiting to hang onto every word. Between hearing about his parents and now his love life, so many pieces of Aidan’s puzzle were coming together.
“Her name was Amy, and we were fifteen. We were both on our high school’s swim-teams. She was my first relationship, my first sexual experience, and…” He fidgeted in his chair. “The first girl’s heart I broke.”
Emma’s own heart suddenly ached for a girl she didn’t even know. “Why did you break-up?”
“We dated through high school and tried making it work the first semester of college, but my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. More than anything, I didn’t want to be tied down. So I got the wandering eye.”
“She caught you cheating?”
Aidan rubbed his hands over his face. “F*ck, I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”
“Please finish.”
“No, I broke it off before she found out. Then three years later, I ran into her at a friend’s wedding, and we started seeing each other again. Neither one of us were swimming competitively anymore, we had finished up college and were starting our careers. After another year together, the logical thing to do was…”
“Get engaged.”
He grimaced. “But as much as she wanted a proposal, I just couldn’t man up and do it. The thought of being tied to her the rest of my life made me physically feel choked.” His body gave a slight tremor. “And then I did something really, really shitty, so she broke up with me.”
“What did you do?” Emma questioned softly.
“She walked in on me having sex with another woman.”
Emma’s hand flew to her mouth, and she stared at Aidan in horror. “That’s…so cruel.”
His expression darkened. “Yeah, in case you didn’t get the memo, I’m an a*shole, remember?”
“But you can be so kind and considerate. The very fact I’m not at home alone, crying into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s proves that. Instead, I’m sitting here eating the dinner you cooked and wearing your clothes. That’s true compassion.” She shook her head sadly. “Those are the reasons why it’s so hard imagining you could do something so callous to someone you loved.”
Aidan shrugged. “The past is the past I guess. At least she found someone else and has been happily married for the last eight years.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“No. My mom used to at Mass with her husband and kids” Aidan grinned sheepishly. “Mom seemed to love rubbing it in my face.”
“She was probably still mad at you for ruining such a good thing.”
“Probably.” Aidan emptied the rest of the wine bottle into his glass. “So now that you’ve heard my sad story, what about you?”
“You already know mine.”
Aidan shook his head. “I’m not talking about being in love. I’m talking about breaking someone’s heart.” He propped his elbows on the glass table. “With your face and body, it isn’t possible you haven’t broken at least one guy’s heart.”
“I never said I didn’t,” Emma protested.
“Aha! So spill,” Aidan said.
“It’s certainly not as salacious as yours.”
He smirked at her. “I would imagine not, Goody Two Shoes. I’m sure the fact you wouldn’t sleep around broke quite a few hearts.”
Emma crossed her arms over her chest. “Last time I checked, your heart is above your waist, not below it.”
Aidan laughed. “Okay, okay. I get it. So what’s the story?”
“Fine. Here’s the Sparknotes version: his name was Steve, we were eighteen, and I was in love with his best friend.”
“Ouch, that had to suck for ol’ Steve.”
“I never meant to hurt him, but from the time I turned sixteen, there was never anyone in the world for me but Travis.”
“Did you go out with him to make Travis jealous?”
“No, at first I thought Steve would make me forget him. We were all in school and church together, but Travis acted like I was nothing more than a friend. Steve was the kind of guy who brought you flowers and called you in the morning to see how you were doing. He also respected my boundaries about sex.”
“Poor Steve,” Aidan joked.
Emma laughed. “Now I didn’t say he wasn’t getting any sexual satisfaction.”
“Just not the full enchilada.”
She wrinkled her nose. “If you have to put it that way, I guess so.”
Aidan grinned. “So what happened?”
“Even though he should have been everything I could ever want in a boyfriend, I felt nothing. It wasn’t fair to him, so I broke up with him. He was so devastated he got Travis to come and talk to me.”
Emma ducked her head, fighting the dreamy smile spreading across her cheeks. “Travis came stomping in my room, red faced and furious, demanding how the hell could I break his best friend’s heart. After listening to him rant and rave for about five minutes, I finally just screamed I was in love with him.”
Aidan’s eyes widened. “Holy shit! That took balls. What did he say?”
Emma laughed. “That he was in love with me too, but he didn’t want to hurt Steve. So we waited a few months to start dating, and then we were inseparable.”
“And Steve was okay with it?”
“He wasn’t thrilled, but he found someone else.”
Aidan stared at her for a moment and then grinned. “After unloading that heavy shit, I think we need some more wine.”
“Yes, I think we do, too.”