Aiden walked intohis father’s home office, Alex Sterling’s favorite room in the house.Times had changed and he no longer used the room for work.After his latest heart attack and surgery, he’d been instructed to cut back and relax more.He’d spent too much time ignoring doctor’s orders and now, things were serious.Alex was forced to listen.
Jared, the only Sterling sibling who worked for the family business, had stepped up and taken over.But with Jared’s baby due soon, Aiden would be helping out while his brother took temporary leave.
It had been a long time since Aiden considered working behind a desk.Once he’d made up his mind to follow his dreams, he’d happily ditched the idea of being indoors all day in favor of travel and news.But that was before.Before his family needed him.And before Aided decided it was time to step back from the reporting he loved.
“Aiden!”Alex rose to his feet, meeting Aiden halfway into the room and pulling him into a tight hug.“I’m so glad you’re home.”
He squeezed his dad tight.“Me too.”No need to think of the whys.Right now, Aiden was glad to be here.
“Come, sit.Lizzie left us iced tea and homemade cookies.She says they’re chocolate but I know damn well they’re carob.What the hell is carob?”he muttered, complaining about his new diet.
Lizzie, his housekeeper and current… could you call her his girlfriend at their age?Aiden held back a chuckle, just pleased his father was happy again after being a widower for so long.
“It’s fine, Dad.Let’s have some cookies while we talk.I’m sure they’re good.”
They settled into the two large, leather Queen Anne chairs in the room, the food on a tray sitting on the leather ottoman in front of them.
Aiden picked up a glass and took a drink of Lizzie’s infamous iced tea and it was as delicious as he remembered.“Tell me, Dad.Are you really okay?”His father looked thinner, which was good for his health, and his coloring had returned.On their FaceTime calls post-surgery, Alex had been pale.“You look good.”
His father nodded, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his face.“With my kids and Lizzie keeping me on the straight and narrow, yes.I’m fine.I’d rather hear about you.”
Aiden’s shoulder muscles tensed.He didn’t want to discuss his last assignment, but he could reassure his father in other ways.“I have an article coming out in a few weeks and that will be my last one.I’m here to help Jared for as long as he needs me.”
“And after that?”his father asked him.
“Then, I have decisions to make,” Aiden admitted.
His dad raised his eyebrows.“What kind of decisions?”
Aiden shifted in his seat.“I’m done traveling.”
Alex pinned him with a serious stare.“You gave up a lot here to report from abroad.Why the change?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Aiden considered how to reply.He didn’t want his father worrying, so he’d keep quiet about the danger in his last assignment.Danger that had followed him home.But there were other things about traveling he’d come to realize and those were truths he could share with his dad.
Aiden leaned on the arm of his chair, sliding his legs to the side in order to face his father.“Lately, I’ve done a lot of thinking about why I left in the first place.”
“Well, you’d double-majored in business and journalism, so the job itself wasn’t a shock.The travel aspect was.”
Aiden nodded.He hadn’t just shocked his family, he recalled, his mind drifting to Brooke, the girl he’d both hurt and let get away.He pushed thoughts of her aside because once he started working at Sterling Investments, he’d see her every day and have to face that part of his past.Right now, there was something else he needed to come to terms with.
“The journalism part called to me.The travel, too, but for different reasons.”He pressed his palms against his eyes.“It’s about Mom,” he said.
“Your mother?”His father sounded surprised.“What about her?”
Aiden let out a rough breath.“The night she was… killed,” he said over a lump in his throat.“I was at camp.I don’t think I ever got over the guilt of that.Of being away when she needed me.Of not being able to stop it.”
Alex stared at him through now glassy eyes.He’d adored his wife, Gloria, and when a disgruntled client turned to drugs and killed her, his father had been destroyed.So had Aiden and his siblings.
“Son,” he said in a broken voice.“You were twelve years old.If you’d been there and gone downstairs, I’d have lost you too, and I know I couldn’t have coped with that.”
Aiden managed a nod.“The adult me knows that, but the kid?I suppressed the feelings.”Everyone was having a hard time getting over the trauma, and he’d never wanted to add to their pain, so he’d kept his own hidden.
“Taking the traveling journalism job was an escape.I thought I’d be able to leave the memories and guilt behind.Instead, I realized it followed me wherever I went.”
His father shook his head.“I wish I’d known how much pain you were in.Maybe I was too wrapped up in my own to realize what my kids needed.”
“Dad, no.You were our rock.None of us would have survived the days after without you.Never doubt you were the best father we could have had.”
