“Like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies”
I read the next line of Byron’s poem with a fiery band in my throat. It takes a moment to find the words. Even when I do, I simply dissolve in his neck, kissing his fragrant skin.
“Thank you. I think I’m going to sleep with it on.”
“Lucky dress.”
“Are you ever going to tell me Byron’s significance?”
His eyes shift as though he is reading something. “It’s just a beautiful poem, Elisa.” He shrugs but I have the feeling he is not telling me everything. I push it aside for now.
“Did you make Benson learn embroidery?”
He chuckles. “Not yet. This is a local designer, Margolis. He specializes in 1950s vintage, I’m told.”
He caresses my jawline while I try very hard not to jump him again. I know Margolis. I have spent a good amount of time in the last four years drooling at its store windows, Audrey Hepburn style.
“He’s yours whenever you want something,” Aiden says. And there it is, that finite, terminal tone in his voice.
“So does this mean you’re taking me out on a date?” I smile because that tone makes me want to wail.
“As it happens, I am.”
“Where?”
He watches me for a moment as though he is not sure he wants to tell me, or perhaps even take me at all. But then he answers. “A place I think you’ve wanted to see for a while.”
“You’re not paying for a trip to NASA, are you?”
He laughs. “No, but that reminds me—not that I need reminders. I put some money in your bank account, and before you ask, I memorized your number when I saw your checkbook on your desk.”
“What?” I meant to speak in a properly outraged volume but it comes out as scandalized screech.
He is still smiling. “It’s not for you, it’s for your family. As I understand it, they need a water heater and I’m sure you’ve always wished you could help them.”
“How did you know the Solises need a water heater?” Still screeching. Bloody hell, can he see the future too?
“Benson has special talents.”
I watch him, opening and closing my mouth like my biology professor’s guppy fish.
“How much?” I ask eventually.
“Enough to help them, but not enough for us to fight about.”
“Can it be on loan?”
“No. Unless you want ICE to question your finances.”
I take a deep breath, running out of arguments. “All right, thank you. But why are you so concerned about the Solises all of a sudden?”
His eyes shift to a careful setting. “Because I thought that if you have some way to help them financially, you will not feel compelled to also be around them and potentially risk your immigration status.”
“You mean you’re buying me off?” Voice back to screeching.
“Technically, I’m buying them off.”
I scoot away from him, furious. “I don’t choose to be around them out of obligation, Aiden! I want to be around them because I love them. So, no, buying them a water heater wouldn’t replace them anymore than looking at my mum and dad’s pictures brings them back!” The last words cut my lips like glass and I’m breathing hard. I close my eyes trying to calm myself, but even Mendeleev is not helping me now.
I hear a deep sigh and feel his index finger under my chin. It rests there, probably waiting for me to open my eyes. Damn him and his touch because the moment I feel it, anger evaporates. I open one eye. He looks like the dragon may be sniffing around, waiting for an outing to roar. Glinting eyes, thin lips, clenched jaw.
“I’ve never pretended to understand love, Elisa. So fine, use the money as you see fit. But I will be damned if I let anything risk your immigration status. Now, get ready. We leave at sunset.” With that military order, he marches out of the bedroom.
The moment the door closes behind him, I feel terrible. He was only trying to help. But how can he think a water heater would compensate for the only home I have known these last four years? Is that how he loves? Oxygen freezes in my lungs the moment the question forms in my head. As suddenly as the anger surged, just as quickly I understand what it really was. Fear. Fear that this is how Aiden loves—with deals and price tags. My insides start twisting again but before I deposit the contents of my stomach in the toilet, I hang on to one truth: the visceral pain in his eyes when he talks about his mother. No man who hurts like that lacks knowledge of love, no matter how much he denies it.
Strangely, I feel better even though his love is not directed at me. But ever since my new mission in life became to save him, I suppose I have needed to know that he can allow love in his life.
I leap off the bed and sprint out of the bedroom to find him. He is out on the patio, leaning against the cedar wall and hissing about low EBITDA on his cell phone. When he sees me, he snaps at the poor soul on the line.