He was Ice.
In control, always.Always.Except when he was around Sienna. Then, his famed control felt like it was constantly slipping away from him. It felt like a damned myth.
‘Have you ever been here before?’
He carried the mug towards her. As he approached, as if she wanted to keep some distance between them, she stepped out onto the balcony and rested her elbows against the wrought-iron railing.
Those stunning island palms were silhouetted against the night sky. The moon, high and full, was a big ball of silver glittering over them, forming a triangle of light that bounced on the ocean’s waves. The sky was a moody black, with hints of pale grey clouds floating towards the moon every so often.
‘Yeah,’ he answered, as he positioned himself beside her and looked away from the line of palms and directly beneath them. ‘For a couple of team bonding things.’
She let out a low whistle. ‘So I could have called and asked about the tea situation,’ she said, tilting an unexpected smile in his direction. His heart popped. Guilt almost choked him.Don’t call me again, Sienna.
‘Listen, Si, there’s something I want to say to you. Something I should have explained before this.’
The diminutive version of her name just slipped out; her eyes were instantly wary. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it’s not. Listen. The whole… not taking your calls thing. And telling you not to call me again. That was a bullshit thing to do. I’m sorry.’
She turned away from him, staring out to sea. In profile, her face was set in serious lines. There was no sense of relief at having finally apologised. He just felt… hollowed out. Because no apology could change what he’d done. Nothing could fix it.
‘It’s okay,’ she repeated, with a lift of her shoulders that only seemed to emphasise her tension.
‘You deserved so much more.’
‘Aiden, it was?—’
‘Don’t say it.’ Frustration made his voice curt. ‘Don’t tell me it ages ago. I mean, I know it was. But I still feel like an asshole for doing that to you. That didn’t go away.’
‘You were an asshole,’ she said simply, surprising him again, because she followed it up with a short laugh. But her eyes were hollow. Her lips were held in a tight line. ‘Did you ever wonder why I was calling?’
His eyes roamed her face. ‘I don’t know.’
She nodded slowly, though it was hardly an answer. He tried again.
‘I just knew that if I picked up that phone and heard your voice, I’d come home again. Stuff my career, Blake’s career, stuff our mom getting away from Dad. I’d screw it all up, just to go back to you. You have no idea how much I wanted to do that, Si. How long it took before I stopped feeling that aching pull to you and the town I’d sworn I’d break free of.’
Her lips parted. She stared at him, shaking her head a little. ‘I don’t believe you.’
How could she not? Wasn’t it obvious? ‘It took every ounce of my strength to walk away from you. So much was on the line. Not just for me, but for Blake and Mom. Even for my dad. He’d have ended up killing one of us if we didn’t get the hell out of there.’
‘Aiden…’
‘I never wanted to hurt you.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, unevenly. ‘But you did.’
‘I know.’
She turned back to the ocean, taking a sip of her tea, then gripping the railing with one hand. Her skin glowed white at the knuckles, as though she were holding on for dear life. As though she were bracing herself for an inevitable fall.
In the end, though, it was Aiden who fell. Aiden whose whole reality crumbled apart at the seams, when she uttered, so softly the words were almost carried away on the sea breeze, ‘I was pregnant, Aiden. That’s why I was calling you.’
* * *
‘What?’ He couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d told him his face had sprouted shimmery golden wings. ‘What did you just say?’ He moved closer, urgency in the words.
She held her ground, even when she felt all light-headed and dizzy after admitting something to him she’d thought she never would. But somehow, standing there together, reaching back into their shared past and discussing his not taking her calls, she’d felt a need to set the record straight. To make him understand something about what that had been like for her; how badly he’d hurt her. And why she hadn’t been able to let him go. They’d created a baby together. They’d lost that baby. And she alone knew it. She alone had known and grieved. Suddenly, it felt like the baby deserved for Aiden to be aware of this important event.
