Page 44 of Settling the Score (The Karma Club #4)

He prepped for pre-season training to begin. He told himself this was his life – the same life he’d had before the wedding – and eventually he’d feel like he belonged in it again.

But no matter how much he told himself that, he still felt the growing, aching, expansion of a black hole in his chest.

He still felt lost at sea. Adrift.

And his anchor was all the way back in Ashbury Falls, determined to never see him again.

There was no solution to that. No magic fix. He just had to accept it and learn to live with the pain.

* * *

Aiden ‘Man Mountain’ Carter hadn’t become a man mountain by accident. Even as a teenager, he’d pushed his limits constantly. His height he couldn’t really control, but the rest of it was sheer willpower and determination.

Nonetheless, as she stood in the back of the gym and watched him lift the bar of weights, so every muscle in his body pulsed and vibrated, his face taut from the effort, sweat running down his shirtless back in rivulets from the monumental all-body stamina it took to hold the thing at shoulder height, her mouth went dry, and her gut clenched up.

She’d known he worked hard but this was next level.

She couldn’t hear him grunting, or panting, because the music in the gym – some kind of thrasher metal – was up way too loud, but she could see the way his lips were parted, his fierce concentration as he stared at himself in the mirror and presumably counted or whatever it was he did to know that he’d pushed himself just the right amount.

Afraid of startling him and having him drop the thing on his feet, she stayed exactly where she was, where the security guard had let her into the gym, wincing a little at the barrage of heavy beats thrumming around them.

Though Sienna had hated bothering Astrid and Blake on their honeymoon, a quick text explaining the situation had resulted in Blake pulling strings – immediately – to get VIP access to the clubrooms and gym of the training grounds.

Chuck had happily let her hitch a ride back on his private jet, and had spent a lot of the time going over the mechanics of flight in a way that finally seemed to unclog something she’d been holding onto for years.

Or maybe it was just that for the first time ever, she was so excited about where she was going, and who she was going to see, that she almost forgot to feel terrified.

Even above the decibel-bending level of the music, she heard the metal hit the ground and saw the way his whole body seemed to tighten up in relief at no longer holding the thing.

He stood still, staring at himself, frowning, sweating, for several seconds and then went to pick it back up again, so she knew that if she didn’t move now, she’d have to wait all over again.

And she didn’t want to wait any more.

She was completely done with waiting.

‘Aiden.’ Her voice barely made a dint in the song.

She had no choice but to walk over to him. To grab his attention, before he picked up the bar again.

The second she stepped out, his eyes flicked to hers in the mirror and his expression turned into something anguished. Something awful. Something that ripped her heart out of its cavity and made the whole world spin too fast.

Just like the way he turned to face her, as if his mind might have been playing tricks on him in the mirror, showing something that didn’t exist.

You’re in every nook and cranny of Ashbury Falls.

Was it possible that he was just as haunted by her as she was him?

‘Sienna.’ She couldn’t hear him say her name, but she read it on his lips.

With fingers that weren’t completely steady, she pointed to her ears, and he nodded jerkily, striding across to a sit-up bench and grabbing his phone to flick off the music, then a towel to wipe his sweaty face and torso.

He did not put on a shirt, she noticed, but rather slung the towel around his neck before walking back to her, his expression now one she was more familiar with – neutrality. Cautious, careful nothing. Ice.

‘Hey.’ His voice though was filled with all the feelings he wouldn’t show. In that one single syllable, she heard hope, surrender, pain, need. All the emotions that were a part of her, that she intrinsically understood.

‘Hey.’

They stood several paces apart, just staring at each other. With the absence of his metal music, the silence in the gym was deafening.

‘You’re here.’

She pulled a face. In any other circumstances, she would have made a joke.

Like, no shit, Sherlock. Or, yes, I’m aware, Captain Obvious.

But it wasn’t any other circumstance. This was a huge circumstance.

Quite possibly the most important circumstance of her whole life, and she wasn’t going to ruin it by being flippant.

‘Yeah. I’ve got a bone to pick with you.’

He nodded, but his brow furrowed, like he didn’t understand.

‘You’re angry.’

She nodded, took a step forward. His whole body was perfectly, utterly still, except for the rivulets of perspiration that ran down his delicious torso.

She felt like she’d been jammed full of electricity. Her whole body was reverberating with a power source she couldn’t place. But she had to get through this. Everything that had seemed murky and incomprehensible was now perfectly, crystal clear.

‘How come you didn’t tell me about Blake?’

He opened his mouth and stared at her.

‘The police. The charges. The reason you had to leave town.’

His eyes shuttered behind thick, dark lashes, like he wanted to hide himself from her. Like he was desperately seeking his defensive structures.

‘Blake and Astrid told me,’ she muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have had to hear it from them.’

‘Yeah.’

Anger exploded in her chest. Anger at all their wasted time. Missed opportunities. At the cruelty of life, backing Aiden into just the kind of corner that had taken him away from her.

‘Damn it, Aiden. You should have told me.’

A muscle jerked in his jaw. ‘Yes. I should have. But at the time, I just wanted to get us out of Ashbury. And you were…’ He dragged a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every line of his body. ‘You were too much.’

‘Too much?’

‘Too much risk. Too much feeling. Too much of everything. I’d never wanted anything like I wanted you. Not hockey. Not safety. Nothing. But I didn’t have the liberty of thinking just of myself, Si.’

‘I know that. I get it. I understand.’ Tears built in her eyes and she moved towards him then, quickly: one step, two steps, until they were toe to toe, and she pressed her hand to his chest, feeling a wall of tears threaten. ‘The thing is, I was wrong, on the island.’

He made a growling sound. She didn’t know what it meant. Agreement? Disagreement? Surprise?

She ploughed on.

‘Last week wasn’t closure. It wasn’t an ending. It was another chapter in our story.’

He stared at her without speaking, without moving.

‘It’s a story we started a long time ago. Once upon a time, a boy met a girl and fell head over heels in love. And when they broke up, it ripped her apart.’

‘It ripped him apart too,’ he said. ‘He just didn’t understand what he could do about that. He was in denial.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Until he saw her again, ten long years later.’

‘And he realised he was just as much in love as ever. More so, for having lived through so long without her.’ Now Aiden stepped forward.

‘He realised that there is no greater sight on earth than her face, on the pillow beside his, first thing in the morning. No greater feeling than being able to reach out and just take her hand. No greater sound than her laugh.’

‘And she realised that being afraid of something isn’t a good enough reason to avoid it.

I was so scared of letting you back into my heart Aiden that I fought it, tooth and nail, the whole time we were on the island.

Which was stupid. Because you were there, just like you always have been. Just like you always will be.’

His jaw shifted as he ground his teeth.

‘I don’t want to live the next ten years of my life in Ashbury Falls, missing you, wanting you, knowing that this time, I’m miserable because I walked away from what you were offering.

I don’t want to spend another day of my life missing you.

I love you,’ she said, half-holding her breath as she waited for his response.

She felt like the bravest woman on earth.

She felt like a freaking superhero. She felt – terrified and amazing, all at once.

‘What?’

She flattened her smile. ‘We love each other – and I get that now. I love you and you love me.’

‘We do?’ He, on the other hand, looked shocked, and incredulous. ‘I mean, I know how I feel, but I’ve spent the last week pretty damned sure that you don’t – and would never – love me again. So, I just… need a second to understand…’

‘What’s to understand?’ she asked. ‘It’s the most straightforward thing in the world, really.’

‘Sienna.’ He shook his head. ‘Are you – is this part of your whole revenge thing?’

She blanched. That he could think that made her bitterly regret ever agreeing to the whole damned scheme, even when it had been responsible for mending four broken hearts.

‘Because I get it, you know, and I’m here to be pranked if you need to get it out of your system, but is there any chance you could choose something less barbed than pretending you feel something for me you don’t?’

She actually laughed, then. She couldn’t believe it.

‘I probably deserve it, I just don’t think… I don’t think I can take it.’

She stopped laughing. Her heart splintered.

This big, macho, man mountain of a guy was admitting his vulnerability to her.

She was his weakness. She was his everything.

It was something she’d never take for granted.

She lifted her hands and cupped his face, her fingers splayed wide, her body finally now pressed against his.

Her chest rose and fell with the force of each breath.