of her face. The delicate arch of her dark eyebrows, the thick fringe of her lashes against her cheeks as she slept...
Today she looked different than before. Like that night at Murphy’s, she was still dressed flawlessly from head to toe with styled hair and a full face of makeup. This time, she had on impeccably tailored plum slacks and a silk blouse with a collar embroidered with tiny flowers. But something wasn’t quite right. She looked less peaceful than she’d been sleeping in his arms all those months ago. More at the mercy of life’s stresses, with lines around the edges of her eyes and etched into her forehead. Despite having been pregnant, she seemed thinner than before the baby. Almost hollow. Drained. The last year and a half had clearly been hard on Violet.
Although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, it had been hard on Aidan, too. Losing his father three years ago had turned his life upside down, but it hadn’t been unexpected. He’d bounced back. Murphy’s was doing good business again and although he wasn’t a hotshot advertising executive anymore, he’d been happy with where he was in life.
Then his mother got sick.
Owning their own business, they’d never had medical insurance growing up and health care reform had done little to help where she was concerned. She’d had the cheapest catastrophic plan, all she could afford, but it hadn’t been enough once she got sick. The best treatments, the latest and greatest advancements in Europe, were well out of their reach. The big pharmaceutical industries were charging thousands of dollars for a single dose of medication that could’ve worked wonders for his mother. They had to recoup what they spent on research and development, they argued. But that argument couldn’t keep his mother from succumbing to her illness.
Aidan had never felt more helpless in his life as he had watching her waste away in a state-run hospital. His father had killed himself with alcohol, but his mother hadn’t done anything but be too poor to afford the treatment that could have saved her.
Before she passed, his mother did leave him with one task he could control—the halfway house. It had been her idea, one she couldn’t see through to the end. But Aidan could, and he would do it with the help of Violet’s foundation. Life had come full circle in a strange way.
Violet turned to look at Knox as he yawned. “I think it’s naptime for this little guy. Would you like to help me put him down?”
He looked up at Violet and Knox and smiled. “Sure,” he said and accepted the baby into his arms.
The clean, babbling ginger baby went contentedly to Aidan. He hadn’t been around many babies but those he had tried to hold had never been too happy about it. He was thankful his son felt differently. He liked holding his son just as much as Knox liked being held. He smelled like baby shampoo and talc, a combination Aidan wasn’t used to but found soothing somehow. Knox curled contentedly against Aidan’s bare chest and shoved his fist into his mouth.
“Be careful he doesn’t get ahold of that chest hair,” Violet warned. “Come this way and I’ll show you his nursery.”
Looking anxiously at the chest hair he wanted to keep, Aidan fell in step behind Violet. He followed her upstairs and down a hallway to a door that opened up to a spacious and beautiful room for a baby. It was decorated in a gray-and-white chevron pattern with pops of bright yellow and dark blue. There were elephants on the curtains and a large stuffed elephant in the corner of the room. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect nursery.
Violet stopped in front of the large white crib with elephants on the bedding. Aidan watched as she turned the switch on the mobile overhead, making the matching menagerie of elephants in different colors and sizes dance around in a circle to soft music.
“You can just lay him down there,” she said. “He’ll be out cold in minutes.”
Aidan eased his son into the crib, knowing he needed his nap and yet not ready to let go just yet. He had to remind himself that he would see Knox again.
The baby squirmed for a moment, then reached out to snatch a pacifier from Violet. He sucked contentedly as his eyes fluttered closed.
“Told you,” she said. “He loves his naps.”
“Like father, like son,” Aidan replied with a smile.
Violet grinned. “Let’s go.”
They crept quietly out of the nursery, and Violet shut the door behind him. Instead of heading into the living room again, however, Violet crossed the hall to the door opposite Knox’s. When she opened it, Aidan was taken aback to find it was her bedroom.
Why were they going into her bedroom?
She went inside without hesitation or so much as giving him a second glance. He stayed in the hallway, not quite sure what the right course of action was. When they were at her office, before he’d known about Knox, he’d pressed Violet about her attraction to him. He didn’t really need to ask. Aidan could tell by the flush of her cheeks and the way she nervously chewed at her bottom lip that she still wanted him. He just needed her to say it out loud so she would admit it to herself.
Violet had finally broken down and confessed that she still wanted him, but that conversation had gotten sidetracked not long after and they’d never returned to the topic. Was this her way of circling back to where they’d left off?
He didn’t know Violet well. At all, really. But he couldn’t believe for a second that the beautiful, rich perfectionist he’d come to know was leading him into her room to seduce him while their son napped across the hall. He’d like it if she did, of course, but he doubted it would happen.
“Aidan, you can come in,” she said from the far side of her bedroom. She was standing in front of a large oak dresser with a mirror. Between them was a queen-size bed with a plush floral comforter, an upholstered headboard and about a dozen different fancy pillows. Apparently rich people liked to spend their money on pillows.
He gripped the door frame and held his ground. He wasn’t entirely sure that he could refrain from touching her once he set foot into her bedroom. It was too personal somehow, like she was opening up to him. He could already smell her familiar and enticing scent as it lingered there. It called to him. Another touch, another taste, another aspect of his missing fantasy woman was all he’d craved these past lonely months.
“I don’t know if that’s a very good idea.”
Violet frowned at him, her gaze traveling to his bare chest again and staying there a moment too long. When her eyes met his, he could tell she’d been admiring his physique and thinking the kind of thoughts that could get them both into trouble. The blush had returned to her cheeks as she licked her dry lips. He understood how she felt. He’d been having enough of those thoughts about her since he’d arrived and she’d been fully dressed the whole time.
“I’m grabbing something out of my dresser. I’m not trying to seduce you, Aidan.”
He crossed his arms over his chest in a thoughtful posture. He wasn’t so certain of that. “Are you sure? You were just looking at me like I was a tall, cool glass of water you were dying to drink. And to be honest, I’m pretty thirsty myself.”
“I may have been looking, but that’s all I was doing.” She turned back to the dresser and pulled out something folded. “I can’t help but look when you’re half-naked like that. Here. It’s the largest, manliest shirt I own and I need you to put it on, please.”
Violet tossed the
