One month later
Aidan walked into the hushed lobby of the federal courthouse. Caroline and Jason Stark were scheduled to plead guilty to criminal charges this morning, and he wanted to be there to see it happen. He stepped up to the security line, placed his phone and belt in the bin, and walked through the metal detector. As he retrieved his belongings on the other side, a woman who’d just done the same turned around and gasped.
“What are you doing here?” Lynn Lombardo said.
The security guard was right there watching. Aidan didn’t need to get into some confrontation with Caroline’s sister. If nothing else, the past weeks of chaos had taught him to keep a tighter grip on his emotions.
“I’m here for the guilty plea. It’s open to the public,” he said calmly, and walked away.
Lynn’s high heels rang out on the marble floor as she pursued him.
“Aidan, wait.”
He turned. She caught up with him by the elevators.
“I didn’t mean to sound so hostile. Can we talk for a minute? Please,” she said.
“All right.”
They moved out of the stream of people to a bench against the wall.
“I owe you an apology,” Lynn said.
“That’s an understatement,” he said.
“Caroline lied to me, like she lied to you,” Lynn said. “She told me you were stalking her and her family. That’s the only reason I came after you at your job. I’m sorry. I should have known better than to believe anything she said.”
“Wait, you’re apologizing for yelling at me at the bar? I don’t give a crap about that. I almost went to jail for life for killing a man who was still alive. You knew about it and did nothing. Try apologizing for that.”
“Yes, I’m sorry for what happened to you, and my part in it. You have to understand, though—Caroline told me you were trying to kill Jason. I knew nothing about the Russians or the money laundering or any of that. She told me you were a jealous lover, and that she had a way to make it look like Jason was already dead, so the police would finally arrest you. It made sense to me at the time. But she was lying, like she lies to everyone.”
“I heard Caroline is living with you. If she really put one over on you, then why take her in?”
“Because she’s family, and she had nowhere else to go. The judge let her out on bail, but only on house arrest with an ankle bracelet. The feds seized all their assets. Not only their money. The beach house and the apartment in the city, too. My place was her only option.”
“They seized the beach house?”
“Yes, it’s going on the auction block next month.”
The idea flashed into Aidan’s mind that this was his chance to get Gramps’s land back for his family. But, no, it was impossible. Even heavily damaged by the hurricane, that house would sell for a bundle at auction, and he barely had a dollar to his name. He could try to talk to Tommy. Maybe if they pulled together, they could raise the money somehow. It was something to hope for, anyway.
“Caroline won’t be staying with me after today,” Lynn said. “Once she pleads guilty, they’ll take her straight to jail. Her lawyer thinks she’ll get one to three years. Jason’s looking at ten, and that’s only if he testifies against the Russians, which is like a death sentence. So, you see where Caroline’s greed got them.”
Aidan looked away. He nursed a cold fury at what that woman had done to him. But her hooks had sunk in deep enough that it still troubled him to think of her in jail.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
“Are you? If I was you, I’d want to see her punished. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Aidan didn’t answer.
“Court is about to start. We should go,” he said.
As they waited for the elevator, he thought of something.
“Lynn?” he said. “Would you tell Hannah I’m sorry for the way I approached her at her school? I thought she was in danger. In my mind, I was there to help. It seems far-fetched now, but Caroline had me so confused.”
Lynn nodded. “I understand, and I’ll tell her. I talked her out of coming to court today. It upsets her so much to see her dad in handcuffs. She’s back in school now, and I want her to focus on herself. I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive Caroline for what happened. But Joe and I are there for Hannah, always. We’ll make sure she comes out of this all right.”
Aidan watched from the back of the courtroom as Jason Stark entered guilty pleas to conspiracy and money laundering and was led away by two guards. It was jarring to see the Wall Street titan in prison blues, manacled and unshaven, his once impeccably trimmed hair looking gray and disheveled. As Stark reached the holding cell door, he turned, raised his fingers to his lips, and blew his wife a kiss. In the front row, Caroline was too busy consulting with her lawyer to notice—or else she didn’t bother to respond. Aidan wondered where things stood between them now that their perfect life had been destroyed so completely.
Aidan stared as Caroline huddled with her lawyer. She wore a dark suit and had her hair pulled back in a twist. Her face in profile, the fine tilt of her head—everything about her still called to him. But he was wiser now. He leaned into his anger to fight the attraction, and it worked, mostly. Aidan had come close to spending his life in jail for a murder he didn’t commit because of this woman. She’d used him; she’d played to his weaknesses and set him up for a terrible fall. His deliverance had come at the very last moment and as a matter of sheer luck. His new lawyer didn’t get to court on time, which meant his plea hearing got postponed for a day. In the meantime, the police found Jason Stark alive, or else Aidan would be in jail for a murder that never happened.
The judge walked off the bench, and the court clerk announced a fifteen-minute recess before Caroline’s case would be heard. Aidan watched as she went over to hug her sister, who sat in the front row. Then she turned, and before he realized what was happening, Caroline was coming up the aisle directly toward him.
He’d come to watch her take her punishment. He’d never really imagined that they would speak. But now that it was a possibility, he wanted that closure. He had questions. He would demand an apology. He stood up and went toward her, expecting her to back away. But she stopped.
Their eyes met, and words deserted him.
“Aidan,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you.”
He hadn’t been expecting that.
She looked to the front of the courtroom. Her sister and her lawyer had noticed that they were talking and watched them with worried expressions. The lawyer stood up and started walking toward them.
“Let’s go outside for a minute,” Caroline said.
“Are you allowed to?”
She looked like he’d punched her.
“I am, until I plead guilty. This is actually my last chance for a while. Come on.”
He held the door for her. She glanced back over her shoulder. They took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out onto the busy Brooklyn street. There was a park across the way, and they crossed to it. Aidan noticed the lawyer following a discreet distance behind them. He obviously didn’t trust his client not to up and run.
It was a gray November day. The leaves were off the trees and the wind was bitter. As the air filled with fumes from a passing bus, Caroline breathed in with a longing that Aidan recognized. He’d felt it himself not that long ago, staring out the window of the patrol car as they carted him off to jail. That desperate love for the outside world, right when you were about to lose your freedom. He wanted to take some satisfaction in this moment, to feel a sense of triumph at her fall, but he couldn’t. Caroline had lost in the end, as she deserved to. But that didn’t mean that Aidan won.
“Why did you come today?” she asked, as they walked.
“I want to see you pay for what you did to me,” he said, and realized how true that was.
She turned on him angrily. That wasn’t the answer she’d been looking for, apparently.
“What I did? Here you are, walking free. Jason and I are both going to jail. My daughter hates me. My sister hates me. I’ve lost everything I ever owned. I’m the one who’s suffering.”
He stared at her in disbelief.
“Are you serious, playing the victim here? I went to jail, Caroline. You would have let me rot there forever for a crime that didn’t even happen. You branded me a murderer. What did I ever do but love you, and try to help you? I thought we had something real. But you set me up. What I thought was the start of an incredible relationship was just another con job to you.”
“No. I honestly did care for you, Aidan.”
“Don’t lie. You lied enough already. This whole thing was a setup from the beginning. You went to Harbor Gourmet and had them put me on your bartending gig, so you could lure me to your bed and use me as your patsy. You got me to follow your husband, so you could tell people I was stalking your family. Then you drugged me. You planted all sorts of evidence to frame me up for murder. You even defaced your own car. That ‘Die, bitch’ thing? You did that yourself, to make it look like I was crazy, didn’t you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. But she didn’t deny it.
“You’re not even sorry,” he said, and he was shaking with anger.
“I did what I had to do. Jason was in a lot of trouble with the Russians. I was trying to save his life. Besides, Aidan, you brought this on yourself. Do you know how I found you? You would stand outside my house, casing it. You scared me. I thought you were one of the Russians. So, I investigated. I asked around about you.”
“And found out I was an outcast with a criminal record. The perfect fall guy.”
“You put yourself in this situation.”
“By looking at your house? That land belonged to my family. It’s no excuse for what you did to me. You’re evil, plain and simple. I wish you would admit that to yourself.”
“Oh, please. You made your choices. Everything that happened, you wanted. I wanted it, too. We had real chemistry. We’re more alike than you think. Remember that. From the beginning, I felt like I knew you. We were never really strangers.”
She took a step toward him, looking up into his eyes as she leaned in to kiss him. Her soft, warm lips, the sweetness of her mouth, were as intoxicating as ever. Time stood still as he breathed in the scent of her perfume. He could have held her forever. But there was only one thing left to say.
“We’re strangers now, Caroline.”
And he turned and walked away.