I breathe like I just ran a marathon.
His eyes wear sadness the way clouds wear rain. He leans in, voice raw. “Please don’t hate yourself. Hateme. You have nothing to be angry with yourself about. I messed up, and I hate myself, Mia, for every time I left you alone. For every missed dinner. For letting my family make you feel small.”
He lifts my hand, kissing my skin softly. It’s intimate in a way that shatters me.
“I failed you, Mia. And that’s something I’ll live with forever. But this—us—these eight dates? They’re not about guilt. They’re about me finally waking up and realizing I had everything and treated it like nothing. I don’t want to go back. I want us to build something new. If you’ll let me.”
Silence stretches.
A server comes, but Aiden waves his hand to send her away, his gaze holding mine.
I close my eyes. I want to believe him—God, I do. But I don’t know if I believe in myself anymore. Of all the things his affair stole from me, the worst is the trust I once had in myself.
I open my eyes.
He’s watching me. His expression is soft, full of affection for me, mixed in with an aching and sincere apology.
I will have to learn to trust myself, I decide.
Iwilllet Aiden try and make this right. And know that I’ll know when there’s no hope for us and have the courage to walk away,again.
Talking to him has eased some of the anger I’ve been carrying, and so I do what comes naturally to me—I reach for light. I try to rise above the pain, to find moments that fill me, that remind me what it feels like to be joyful.
I smile unsteadily. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
He studies me as if trying to discern what’s going on inside my head.
Good luck, buddy, ‘cause even I don’t know what the hell is going on.
“You want to see the menu, or do you already know it by heart?” he teases, his voice hoarse, as he picks up the menu.
He’s letting go of his pain as I just did mine.
I chuckle, and it’s the first time all day I feel the knot in my stomach loosen.
We’re both considerably more relaxed after a glass of wine—and the gorgeous food does its magic as well.
We talk with ease, not like when we were married, but better.
It’s a surprise to feel that.
Did I always worry about saying something to upset him? Yes, I did, which makes me complicit in the debacle our marriage became. I was so scared of losing him because I didn’t feel like I deserved him—not one of those fancy, wealthy Winter men—that I made myself small.
After he pays the bill and we’re still finishing up wine, I ask the question that I’ve been wanting to. One of many, in fact. “How’s your father handling….” I trail off, unsure about how to state what Aiden did with regard to his family.
“My desertion?” he fills in with a broad grin. “Not well. He’s called a board meeting to discuss my firing Diana, and he’s threatened to oust me as CEO.”
He doesn’t look upset about this, and that makes me suspicious. I sip my wine, contemplating how to ask him what I want without annoying….
Jesus, Mia. Give it up, already. Just ask him what you want. If he gets upset, that’s on him, not you.
“I thought the company meant everything to you. Why don’t you look…I don’t know, more bothered by it?”
A gentle curve tugs at his lips. “Losing you has been, by far, the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, Mia. In comparison, Dad can take the company and do whatever the fuck he wants, drive it back into the ground, I don’t give a flying fuck.”
I gasp both at his lazy tone and his words. “What?”
“You know what,” he says flatly.
