Page 51 of Best In Class (Savannah's Best #7)

Aiden

“ B aby, you haven’t eaten anything.”

I looked at Mia’s plate, barely touched. She’d cooked dinner like she always does—fish and rice, and vegetables.

She opened a bottle of dry Riesling to go with it. She’d drunk two glasses. One more than usual.

She looks small, lost, and guilt swarms through me.

That kiss!

God! How could I have done that to my marriage? To myself?

The only saving grace is that it was one kiss, and Mia didn’t know. I can’t stand the idea of her finding out. She’ll break.

My wife loves me. Completely.

My family doesn’t see it.

“Not hungry,” she says, her eyes staring into the distance.

“You packed?” I ask because she’s not looking at me, and I’m trying to extend the conversation so she will.

Now, she does. But there’s a faraway look on her face. I’ve never seen it before. She seems detached. “I packed.”

We leave for Stowe, Vermont, tomorrow for the Winter Christmas week as we always do.

Bliss—the estate that has been in the Winter family for several generations—is a forty-minute drive from Burlington. There are several cabins around the estate and one large house, my parents’, where we stay and spend most of our time during this week, eating, drinking, and being a family.

“Skis?” I ask.

“Of course.”

I nod and press my lips. “Are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She looks confused enough that I wonder if I’m transferring my guilt onto her.

I feel like shit.

Diana and I grew up together.

Her parents were close friends of mine. When they passed when we were in our twenties, we enfolded her into our family. She got married and lived in Los Angeles, but after her divorce, she returned and has become a fixture.

She’s close to my sister and sister-in-law. She goes on spa days with my mother. My father adores her. She works at Winter Financial as the Chief Financial Officer. We spend a lot of time together at work.

My colleagues joke and call her my “work wife.”

When I ask my assistant to let my wife know I’ll be late, she teases and asks me which one. It’s usually Mia who has to hear from my assistant.

I don’t love Diana. Not like I love Mia. However, over the past two years, since Diana returned to Vermont and started working for me, I have been to more restaurants with Diana and had more meals with her than with my wife.

“Be careful,” Huxley, my oldest and closest friend, warned me when we met a few months ago for drinks.

He owns a chain of hotels across the state. We met in high school and have been close since.

“What do you mean?” I asked, perturbed.

“You’re planning a business trip and missing your wedding anniversary.”

“And?”

“And…you’re taking a business trip with Diana to Paris.”

I shook my head. “What the fuck are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying, Aiden, I’m telling you that you’re having a fucking affair and you’re going to lose your wife over it.”

I laughed. Hard. “I’m not having an affair. Diana is family, Hux. We’re colleagues and ? —”

“You’re having an emotional affair. Your colleagues call her your work wife.”

I waved a dismissive hand. “Everyone has a work wife. Means nothing.”

“How does Mia feel about her?”

“My wife isn’t insecure,” I snapped.

“She’s not happy about all the time you spend with Diana. I can guarantee that, even if she hasn’t said a thing.”

It’s not like she hadn’t, but she understands that work is work and Diana is family. She brought it up a lot when Diana first moved back to Vermont, but I shut it down by telling her to grow a spine and trust me.

“You don’t know Mia, so stop pretending like you do.”

“But I know Diana,” he pointed out. He did. We all grew up together. “She wants to be your wife.”

“But I don’t want her. Not like that. Never like that.”

He gave me a measured look. “You sure about that?”

I lied to him then and said I was.

But the truth?

I enjoy Diana’s company.

She looks up to me and talks to me like I’m some kind of financial genius. It soothes my ego.

Mia is a kindergarten teacher. She knows nothing about high finance. I love her. But for a while there, she didn’t excite me.

Even remembering how I felt makes me feel guilty, especially now, after that damned kiss.

Especially now that I realize I confused new and shiny with excitement, which made me ignore my wife, maybe even resent her a little.

I can’t believe I let it happen. Let another woman kiss me. Place her lips on mine. Be intimate with me.

It was after Thanksgiving Dinner.

Diana says she wants to talk about work. We go outside in the snow and walk to the gazebo. My mother just had it built.

It comes with a glass cover.

It’s pleasant, even on a frigid day.

“Aiden, I want to ask you something.” She looks nervous. I give her a reassuring look.

“Anything, Di.”

She smiles, licks her lips. “I…don’t….” She trails off, shaking her head. “I…never mind.”

“Sweetheart, what’s up?”

She looks at me with moist eyes, and my heart pounds in my chest. Something is wrong, and I want to fix it. I don’t like seeing Diana upset.

“Are you happy in your marriage?” Her words are a whisper.

I frown. “What?”

“Are you?”

“Yes…I think so.”

She puts a hand on my chest. “We spend a lot of time together, Aiden. I can feel it, too.”

I look at her painted nails, Fire Engine Red, against the white of my dress shirt. I raise my eyes to hers. “Feel what?”

“Us.”

She steps closer. Goes on tiptoe and…places her lips against mine.

It’s a shock.

My mouth opens without me thinking about it. Her tongue touches mine.

For a moment, we stay locked.

Then, an eternity later, reality slams into me. I step back, away from her, away from the man I don’t want to be.

“What the hell, Diana?” I snap, furiously swiping my mouth with the back of my hand, as if I can scrub away the taint she’s just put on my marriage.

Whatever flicker of attraction I once felt for her—something I can admit now—vanishes in an instant, burned out by anger and disgust.

She’s exciting. Interesting. Understands my work. Beautiful as fuck.

But she isn’t Mia.

She isn’t soft, warm, and gentle. She doesn’t make me laugh with stories about her students.

She doesn’t make sure that I have my migraine pills with me, because she can see, even before I can, that it’s coming.

She doesn’t hold my hand when my father makes me feel small. She doesn’t do any of that.

I love my wife.

I’m happy in my marriage.

What the fuck have I done?

“I know,” she breathes. Steps closer.

I hold a hand up to stop her, to keep her away from me. “Know what?”

“That you’re not happy in your marriage.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

My entire being is horrified at what just happened.

I kissed another woman. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Since I met Mia, there has been no one else. Not even in fantasy. Even when I masturbate, it’s to her.

“I know you want a child.”

I freeze.

Her words slice through me like a sharp, merciless blade.

I told Diana recently—something that isn’t a secret in the family—that Mia can’t have children. Endometriosis stole that from her. She wants to adopt, and God, I wish I could give her that without hesitation. But my parents are dead set against it, and the truth is, so am I.

I know exactly how they’ll treat an adopted grandchild—like they’re less than—and I can’t bear the thought of bringing a child into that. So, I said no. And every time I think about it, I feel like I’ve failed Mia twice over.

“And?”

“I can give you a baby, Aiden. She can’t.”

I shake my head as if that’s going to help clear this mess I made.

“She’s my wife, Diana. I love her.”

She scoffs at that. Her blue eyes blaze with irritation. “Do you? You spend more time with me than with her, even on weekends. You have more dinners with me. You have more breakfasts with me than you do with her.”

“That’s work, Diana.” But I’m lying. It was not always the case. I know it. She does, too.

“You missed your wedding anniversary to be with me in Paris.”

“We had a client meeting,” I protest.

“You took me out to dinner on your wedding anniversary. A romantic dinner at the Eiffel Tower,” she reminds me.

“That was…that was just because you said you wanted to eat at the Eiffel Tower.”

Why did I do that? Why did I miss my wedding anniversary and take this woman, who isn’t my wife, anywhere?

I clench my jaw. “It appears I have given you some signals that I didn’t intend. I love my wife. I don’t care that she can’t have children. I’m not interested in you…sexually. What you just pulled, Diana?” I let out a huff of breath. “Don’t ever do something like that again.”

Three weeks have gone by since Thanksgiving, and that kiss weighs like a ton of bricks inside of me.

At work, I’ve cut my interactions with Diana down to the bare minimum. No more casual chats, no more small talk. If I speak to her, it’s strictly business—and whenever possible, I make sure there’s a chaperone in the room. Sometimes two.

She’s not taking it well.

“I know you’re feeling guilty, but if a marriage is not working, it’s not,” she tells me after my first week of keeping her at an arm’s length.

“I know from experience. You’re a good man.

You don’t want to hurt Mia. But staying with her when it’s not right will end up hurting you both in the long run. ”

I kissed another woman. I’m definitely not a good man.

However, that kiss made one thing crystal clear—I don’t want Diana.

She might have been a stimulating mind to spar with about Winter Financial, but that’s all she ever was: a colleague, not a partner.

She was never someone I could be with emotionally.

She’s been a decent sounding board for the CEO in me, but never for the man I am.

The man I am needs Mia. Loves Mia. Without her, my days would turn black.

“Don’t talk to me about this bullshit again,” I retort. “If you do, I swear to God, Diana, you’ll be looking for a new job.”

She went straight to my father, who told me to man up and take what I want. In the past week, my mother has told me that maybe it’s time to let Mia go. My sister, Gianna, has also shared her thoughts on the matter, as has my brother, Tristan.

My family’s never liked Mia—never thought she was right for me. And when they found out we couldn’t have kids, that pushed them right over the edge.

But my wife? Hell, she’s a saint. She still tries with them. Still smiles. Still offers kindness they don’t deserve. Still holds her patience, even when I know every word from them is designed to cut.

And what do you do, Aiden?

You let her work hard for their approval and never tell them to accept your wife for who she is.

Why the hell else would they think you’d be interested in leaving her?

Since that kiss, I’ve spent more time in introspection than my whole life put together. I can see I’ve been a terrible husband to the best wife a man can have.

Mia’s love is clean. Pure.

She has no one. Like Diana. No siblings, no parents.

Her friend Katya’s family is hers, just like the Winters are Diana’s.

But the similarities end there. Diana is entitled.

I can see that now. Mia is absolutely not.

Diana is polished but also a little fake.

Mia is genuine. And most importantly, there isn’t a situation, not even with a gun to her head, where Mia would make a pass at a married man.

“I’m going to bed,” Mia announces, bringing me back to our dining room, to our marriage that I know is fraying at the edges. She looks at the table and the dishes in the kitchen and sighs. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

The hits keep coming.

She cooks and cleans.

After dinner, I usually go into my home office and spend a couple of hours there. I’ve always worked long hours. But since I took over as CEO after my father stepped down a couple of years ago, around the time Diana joined Winter Financial, I’ve been busier than ever.

Mia says she understands but implores me to pursue balance. “Can’t work all the time, Aiden. You have to make room for play, to relax, to even get bored.”

“I’ll clean up, baby.” I smile at her.

There’s a flare of surprise in her eyes.

That’s the kind of shitty husband I am that my wife feels shocked to have me help her with a household chore.

She shrugs. “You don’t have to.”

She doesn’t wait to see if I agree with her or not. She just leaves.

I know something is very wrong. I can feel it.

My premonition proves correct.