Page 84

He’s tried to give me the illusion of space, but I’m not happy. I can’t live with my mother forever, and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t see a future without Aidan in it.
“It’s wrong. Everything about this whole thing is so wrong,” I say.
“I know. But let’s just be wrong together, okay?”
When he says it like that, it somehow seems right. I’ve been trying so hard to be the “good guy”, maintaining the socially acceptable mask, trying to pretend I’m still the same person I was last year. And it’s not that I even think it’s evil for me to be with him. But I can’t move past the fact that I killed my own father. No matter what else he was, he was my dad, and I shouldn’t get to have a happy ending after that.
“I could just take you,” Aidan says, those tendrils of darkness seeping around the edges of his voice.
That would be easier, and a big part of me prefers it. Then I could be the innocent in all this. Choosing him is somehow so much worse. How can I reward him for all his years of stalking graduating into coercing and imprisoning? How can I allow myself to have any bit of happiness after I shot my own father?
Aidan tips my chin up so that my gaze is level with his. Then he kisses me. It’s soft and sweet, and probably more like how our wedding day kiss in front of hundreds of people should have been. Yet it still takes my breath away.
“Do you not think you could find happiness with me?” he whispers when he finally pulls away.
I want to argue, pretend he’s got some nerve, act like he’s too arrogant for his own good. But he reads my truth too easily.
He doesn’t ask me to give him a verbal agreement. I think we both know that no matter how much I want to, I just can’t bring myself to say the words. I can’t say Oh yes, Aidan, please carry me away to your castle where we can live happily and evilly ever after. I mean I know you’re probably not much better than a serial killer and who the fuck knows what you get up to with crime every day? I just want to be Mrs. Aidan Stryker forever!
Cue swooning.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen, even if my warped brain wants this dark fairy tale ending so much more than I’ll allow myself to admit.
He opens the passenger side car door. “I’m taking you home. Get in and eat your cupcake.”
“I don’t have anything to drink,” I say, stalling. Because the real moral dilemma here is not having a beverage to go with my Valentine cupcake.
He nods toward the interior of the car, and I see a small carton of milk like the kind we had at lunch in elementary school sitting on the arm rest between the two front seats. And it’s chocolate, my favorite. Since it’s winter, I’m sure it’s still cold.
“Well, you appear to have thought of everything,” I say.
“I did.”
I glance back at the house and spot my mother in the front window. Oh good, someone who can be alarmed and judge me and pull me away from the precipice before I stupidly jump off this cliff to my obvious doom.
But she nods at me. Does she actually approve of me with Aidan? How can she? My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to find a text from my mother.
You should go home. I’ll be fine here. We’ll get together for brunch on Sunday.
She plays it off as though I’ve just taken a break to help her for a while now that my father is no longer here, even though we both know all the reasons I’ve avoided Aidan.
She waves at me from the window, and honestly it’s more of a “shooing me off” wave than a “goodbye” wave. I wave back. And then, having no other reasonable options, I get into the SUV with my cupcake, and Aidan takes me home.
Thirty-Two
Aidan
When we get home, I lead Maddie up to my room. She doesn’t protest when I scoop her up and carry her over the threshold. No discussion has been had about any of this, but I think we both know I’m trying to redo everything, start things better. From the cupcake and valentine, to feeding each other cake, to carrying her over the threshold… Do I think this is some magic that can erase our history? Or the cause of our long separation?
I don’t know, but I have to try.
I’ve watched her all this time. I had her guards follow close behind her, to make sure she was safe. Yes, I still had surveillance on her. I’m not a good guy, and I know I never will be. But maybe I can be good enough… for her.
Maybe we really can just be… wrong together.
I sit her down on the edge of my bed. I pull the heavy drapes darkening the room, and shut out the snowy landscape outside. I start a fire in the fire place.
“Aidan…”