Page 58

“Just once.” I bite my lip. “Fine, a few times. There was a woman on your social media. Marguerite.” I hated her , I don’t say. The green-eyed monster inside me has always wanted Aiden for herself.

“Yeah, Marguerite.” He says her name like she only ever had half his interest. His thumb reaches my collarbone. “So pretty, Em.” His eyes track his hand. I shiver under his touch. “Does anyone tell you how pretty you are?”

“You tell me all the time.”

“And yet it will never be enough.” He skims the side of my neck. “Gorgeous girl.” His voice is thick with need. My nipples pinch under my bathing suit.

“Focus, Aiden.”

“I am focused. I don’t want to talk about her when I’m with you.” He presses his thumb to my lips, then sighs. “Yes, my ex. We weren’t together very long. Long enough for her to live with me. Long enough for me to propose.”

I can’t help the jealousy that snaps under my skin, a living, breathing thing.

“She cheated on me.”

I can’t help the sound that comes out of my mouth. “Who would cheat on you ?”

“Thank you for that,” he says dryly before he reaches back to tuck his arm under his head. “She would. I think she was trying to get my attention, actually.” He grimaces.

I wait to hear the rest of the story before I defend him, because clearly Marguerite is an idiot.

“I wasn’t in love with her, but I felt like I should be.

We dated for a few years. I proposed because she wanted me to, and then she moved in.

I came home to her sleeping with some guy she knew from the gym.

I watched them for a minute or two. I remember feeling disgusted that I’d have to bleach the couch, and then I went into my study, locked the door, and told her when she was done to leave the keys on the counter. ”

My sharp inhale makes him shut his eyes briefly.

“You probably think I’m a psychopath.”

“No, I think she’s an idiot.”

He shrugs, his face unreadable. “She freaked out. Told me she deserved more than someone who couldn’t even get mad about her cheating. She was right. I told her I loved her because she wanted to hear it. I didn’t mean it. That’s messed up.”

“Aiden—”

“It’s all good,” he says.

“It’s not all good.” I lie back down next to him and fit our bodies together. My head to his shoulder, my hand around his veined forearm.

“It’s in the past,” he whispers.

“It’s still in your heart,” I tell him.

“I like you all soft and sweet for me, evil queen.” His voice is gently teasing, but I have the insane urge to cry. Instead, I press my cheek to his shoulder.

“So no marriage means no one to let down?”

He makes a noise of agreement. “Something like that, yeah.”

“You don’t disappoint me,” I say quietly. It feels like too much to share, and yet not enough. Words can’t be a balm to Aiden’s wounds, but I can try.

He huffs a laugh. “I know,” he says dryly. “In your eyes, I’ve always been too much.”

“Too smart,” I agree.

“Too handsome,” he says.

I press my face into his soft shirt. “Way too handsome,” I say. “Way too handsome and way too brilliant and way better than me most of the time. Except at math.”

“I liked competing with you,” he admits.

It’s my turn to let out a laugh. “No, you didn’t. You hated that I was better than you.”

He pushes up on to his elbow to look down at me.

Clouds and sky are replaced with his thick hair, his finely arched brows, his green-gold eyes.

“I loved competing with you,” he says, his gaze serious.

“At home I was never enough. But with you? You looked at me like you wanted to destroy me , and I loved it.”

“You’re a twisted man, Aiden Prince.” I reach up to press my own fingers to his lips. He nips at the pads, then winces as his siblings shout from the back of the boat.

“You’re my original sin,” he murmurs.

Need wavers under my skin. Right there. So close. His siblings shout with laughter.

“We’re not alone,” I tell him. Even I can hear the longing in my voice.

“I know.” He flops back down, groaning. “Let’s shove them overboard.”

I laugh and watch the clouds scud by, slowly at first, then faster, a sick metaphor for the time I have left with Aiden.

“What about you?” he asks. His voice is lazy and looping.

The weed feels stronger now, making me shut my eyes and twine my fingers in his just so I feel anchored to the earth.

“What about me?”

“Any men in your future?”

He keeps his voice light, but I wonder if he, like me, would never have the courage to ask this normally.

“If my dad has his way, then yes.”

He stills. “What’s that mean?”

“It means he thinks he knows best.” I sigh. “He’s made noises about me marrying a nice Italian boy of his choosing.”

“So he’s going to marry you off?” Aiden sounds incredulous, and I can’t help my laugh.

“Isn’t that what your grandfather is trying to do?”

He makes a sound in his throat. “We’re not talking about me. Who is it?”

“No one.” I bump him with my shoulder. “I told him I wasn’t interested.”

I feel Aiden’s body relax next to me. “Good,” he says. There’s a bite to his voice that makes me shiver. He sounds jealous. Just as jealous as I was. “I don’t want to see him,” he says, his voice low and rough.

“My dad?”

“No. Your future husband.” He rolls onto his elbows, wedges a thigh between mine. His face is intent, all angles and planes tempered with the softness of his lips, the thick sweep of his lashes, the spill of his hair.

“There is no future husband.” I whisper the words, shivering at his nearness, at the hotness of his gaze, at the cage of his body.

“Good.” He grazes his nose over my neck. “Because I don’t know what I’d do if I met him.”

“You’d be a gentleman,” I say, my voice breathy and uncertain. I arch under Aiden.

“Like hell I would.” He growls the words in my ear.

I hear the patter of footsteps as his siblings round the deck. They’re not here yet, but they will be.

“Aiden.” My voice shakes as I thread my fingers through his hair. There’s a feral light in his eyes when he raises his head. “I want to kiss you.”

His eyes flare once before his lids lower, then his mouth hovers over mine. His exhale feathers over my lips.

“No one is watching,” he whispers back.

“That’s the problem.” I can’t stop myself from reaching up to cup the side of his jaw, right where it meets his neck. “Everyone is watching.”

He leans into my touch, lids falling shut. “I find I don’t really care,” he says, more breath than sound. “Kiss me, wife. Make my dreams come true.”

I close the distance between us, my heart thudding, my lips just brushing his before there’s a whoop from Sienna, then a man’s laugh and a wolf whistle.

Aiden buries his face in my neck. His erection is thick and hot against my stomach.

“Meet me downstairs. Ten minutes. I’ll go first. Then you follow.” He presses an open-mouthed kiss to my neck before he leaps off me and heads below deck.