The Wedding Surprise

The answering silence was deafening.

Aiden leaned his forehead against the door as he tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t put both his size tens right in it again.

‘I just don’t know how else to get through this if we don’t plan it out. My family knows me too well.’

The restaurant obviously meant more to her than he could possibly understand. In a small part of his mind he wanted her to have the guts to get it by herself. To fight and work for what she wanted rather than having it handed to her in some get-rich-quick scheme. He knew only too well from recent experience that she had enough backbone to stand up and fight against him when she believed he was out of line.

So where was that mettle when it came to fighting for her dream? It didn’t make any sense.

But he had opened an old wound and he felt guilty about that. The best way to get rid of that ugly feeling would be to try and make amends.

‘Tell me how you were with him.’

The bed creaked a little, and he could imagine her turning to look at the door.

‘With Liam?’

‘Yes, with Liam.’ He leaned back from the door again and waited, his breath held still inside his chest.

‘We flirted a lot.’

Aiden smiled and let the air escape in a small burst of laughter. ‘You don’t like it when I flirt with you.’

‘You said you weren’t flirting.’

Turning around, he grimaced slightly at the camera and then sat down on the floor with his back against the door. ‘I may have lied about that. I did say I could lie when the cause arose.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Lie to you or flirt with you?’

‘The second one.’

He leaned his head back. ‘Maybe I’m just a flirtatious kinda guy.’

Her smile came through in her voice. ‘Nah, not you. You’re too sullen for that game.’

‘You think I’m sullen?’ A glance at his crew found them both smiling. ‘All right, I guess I can be—a little. But maybe you bring out the flirty side of my nature.’

‘You don’t even like me, Aiden.’

It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. That was one of the things that probably bugged him the most. Having spent all morning alone in her house, he’d done a bit of an investigation and found everything from photograph albums to family videos. He liked what he’d seen just fine. That wasn’t the problem.

‘I think I’m maybe a little envious of you…’ The words made their way out into the big wide world of their own accord. ‘Of all people like you.’

She went silent again for a brief moment, then, ‘Why?’

‘Because not everyone’s had this fairy tale of a life that you’ve had.’

‘Losing Liam was hardly the best thing that ever happened to me.’

‘I know.’ He softened his voice. ‘And I know that’s something you’ll probably never completely get over. But you were right in what you said. You were lucky to have found it in the first place. That doesn’t happen to many people these days.’

When silence followed his words again he let the words keep coming. ‘And you have a great family—a close family who are all there for you. It’s why the show chose you. To see if you could manage to make all the people that know you so well believe in a lie.’

‘And why did they choose you?’

They hadn’t. He’d chosen himself. Because the role he had to play was so complex and only someone who had produced the thing from the very beginning could know what to do when things got difficult. To get the dramatic result they wanted. To make things difficult for Caitlin.

But in volunteering he’d also managed to fulfil another major criteria. He was as opposite to Caitlin Rourke as it was possible to be. In practically every way.

‘Because I’m the flipside of you.’

‘In what way?’ There was barely a heartbeat of a pause before she figured it out. ‘You don’t have a family, do you?’

He frowned hard.

‘None at all?’

The pity in her voice made him sick.

‘Aiden?’

‘What are you going to do about it, Caitlin? Adopt me? I’m a little past the age for you to do that.’

The bed creaked again and her voice sounded a little closer to the door. ‘That’s why you have no experience of fairy stories and your face being scrubbed?’

‘Don’t go crying on me in there.’ He turned his head towards the door a little. ‘There are millions of us around the world who didn’t have a family of their own. I was one of the lucky ones. I had loads of families.’

‘That’s why you spend you life drifting around. No serious relationships, no long-term career. Because you have no grounding in those things.’

Actually, she was wrong on that one. He had a career. A damned good one, as it happened. He’d worked hard to get to the top of his game and he was hell on legs at it. But he couldn’t tell her that or he’d blow the whole thing.

‘I’ve been in serious relationships—’

‘Serious relationships last longer than six months.’

‘Not if they don’t work out, they don’t. Just because they’re short doesn’t mean they weren’t great. That’s life.’

‘And why didn’t they work out?’

He vaguely noticed that her voice sounded very close as he answered, ‘They just didn’t.’

There was a sliding noise against the door as Caitlin sat down on the opposite side of their protective barrier. ‘What were you like with them?’

‘Flirtatious, sullen, jealous, happy. More of everything. More alive. The usual share of things in any good relationship.’

They sat in a silent understanding after he spoke.