“How was your grandfather?”
Aiden looked up from pouring himself a scotch while Samira made herself a cup of tea, part of what had become their nightly ritual. She’d been subdued since he got home with the girls, but he’d tried not to read anything into it. Samira was often silent.
Now the girls were asleep and he could find out if there was something going on he should be worried about, but Samira beat him to the punch with her question as she set the kettle on and plunked a teabag into her waiting mug.
“Not having a good day, unfortunately,” Aiden admitted.
“I’m sorry.” Her face twisted with sympathy, but she stayed on the other side of the kitchen, not coming to his side to offer comfort as she’d sometimes done over the last couple weeks. Was something different tonight? Or was the stress of the day making him see problems where none existed?
He shrugged off the paranoia. “What can you do?” Except get better funding for Alzheimer’s research. Something he wouldn’t be able to accomplish at the firm. More and more he couldn’t stop thinking of how limited his reach was in his current position. How much he felt called to do more. “I spoke with my mother today.”
“Oh?” Samira poured the hot water into her cup and he watched the movement, hypnotized by the graceful movements of her hands.
“I finally had a chance to tell her about my plans to run for office. She practically started buying space for campaign commercials on the spot. Though I guess I should have predicted that.”
Samira’s hands hesitated midair in the act of setting the kettle back on the stove before restarting again, moving with extra care. “I didn’t realize you wanted to run for office.” Her tone was jarringly neutral.
Aiden frowned. “I must have mentioned it to you. I’ve been considering it for months.”
“No, you haven’t.” She wrapped both hands around her mug and didn’t meet his eyes. “I thought you liked practicing law.”
“I do. But think how much more I could do.” She hadn’t rounded the island to join him as she usually did so he set aside his scotch and came around it himself. “This is a real opportunity.”
He came within reach and she shied away, keeping space between them. He dropped the hand that had been reaching for her.
“Samira? Is everything all right? Did something happen today?”
* * * * *
Did something happen today?
Everything had happened today. The other shoe had dropped. The happy little bubble she’d been living in for the last few weeks had been popped by reality. She’d known already that her life didn’t line up with Aiden’s, but this…
He wanted to run for office.
And she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about that damned nanny article in the gossip magazine. His dirty little secret.
That was what she would become if he ran for political office. The media would make it ugly. She knew they would. And then there was the fact that her father had been detained. The way the press could frame that, pundits smearing her entire family… She’d seen enough Scandal to know how these things went. Her father would be a terrorist. She would be a whore. Aiden would be a womanizing, Muslim-lover running for a Republican seat—she’d always known where his family’s political bread was buttered.
And he just announced that he’d been planning to run for political office for months as if it was nothing.
For months.
She’d told him things about herself she’d never told anyone, exposed a huge part of herself to him and the entire time he’d been keeping equally huge parts of himself secret. Or worse, it hadn’t even occurred to him to tell her. Like she didn’t even exist except in relation to him and what she could do for him—which she knew wasn’t fair. She knew she was hearing echoes of her ex in what he was saying and he didn’t deserve that, but now as she stood in the kitchen, she was shaking her head and couldn’t seem to stop.
“I could have sworn I’d talked to you about this,” he went on, his tone soothing. “I should have. It affects you too. I know it will be a big adjustment. We’ll have to get used to being in the public eye and I know—”
His dirty little secret.
“No.”
He drew back. “What?”
She focused on the part that she could wrap her head around right now. “I don’t want that life. I’d be miserable in the public eye. I’m not Chloe.”
“I know that. I never thought—”
“I knew this wasn’t going to work.” She should have trusted her gut. She wasn’t cut out for relationships. She was better alone.
She set down her tea and tried to move past him but he caught her shoulders. “Samira.” He bent his head to meet her eyes. “What is this?”
“You don’t even see how this affects me, do you?” She brought up her hands to brace against his chest, to keep him back. “I was already worried about going out in public as your wedding date, but now—Aiden think about this. I can’t be with you.”
“Why not? Because I might run for office?”
“Yes.”
He blinked, visibly startled by her bald response.
She forced herself to take a breath. “You’ll be amazing at it, I know you will, but it changes things” she said, speaking over the voice in her head that kept whispering, But what about us… He was under no obligation to think about an us. They’d never talked about it. And now she was glad they hadn’t. Glad she’d never said that L word. Never let herself go all in. “You’ll be under scrutiny. And you’re my boss.” What had she been thinking? “I never should have let it get this far.” I never should have let myself fall in love with you.
“Samira…”
She twisted out of his grip and he let her go. He was bigger than she was, so much stronger. He could have kept her there if he wanted, but that wasn’t who Aiden was. He was good down to his core in a way that couldn’t be faked.
He’d be an amazing public servant. One of the rare good guys.
He could change the world. Just not with her.
“I’m sorry, Aiden.”
She had to get out of here. That horrible trapped feeling closed in on her until all she could think of was putting distance between them, adrenaline fueling her steps.
“Samira!”
She didn’t look back, bolting out the front door. Benjamin Franklin barked at her departure, but she didn’t slow until she was half a mile down the road and realized she didn’t know where she was going.
Thankfully it was a warm night and she had her cell phone in her pocket, because at that moment, all she was thinking was that she needed to get away. That the world wasn’t fair and she was so freaking sick of the unfairness. So sick of a world that would dangle Aiden in front of her and threaten her father and make her feel so weak and helpless all the time.
She passed the house where Jackie worked, but it was Saturday night. Jackie would be home with Amal. A home that was two miles away in a more moderately priced neighborhood.
Jackie would be home with her husband who loved her. Her functional relationship. Her love life that wasn’t in danger of being splashed across the nation’s tabloids.
Samira walked faster, trying to escape the thoughts circling like sharks in her brain.
She never should have fallen for him. Never should have been so stupid.
She walked all the way to Jackie and Amal’s, powered by agitation and remorse. It was only when she was climbing the steps to their condo that she realized she hadn’t called in advance. Not wanting to drop by unannounced on a Saturday night, she paused on the stairs and pulled out her phone—and saw three texts from Aiden.
He was worried. Please come back so they could talk about this. Where was she?
She didn’t reply, pulling up Jackie’s number in her contacts. The phone rang three times and she thought it was going to go to voicemail when Jackie picked up, her voice harried. “Samira?”
“Hey. Is this a bad time?”
“Only if you want to bail me out of jail tomorrow. Your timing just saved Amal’s life.”
The edge to her voice startled Samira. “Is everything okay?”
“I made the mistake of telling him that I was more relieved than disappointed when our first month of trying for a kid was unsuccessful. What’s up? Did you get more news about your dad?”
“No, I…” Words suddenly abandoned her. If she confessed she’d had a fight with Aiden, Jackie would immediately—correctly—read into that and know that they were more involved than Samira had admitted. But right now her friend’s advice was worth the crap she was going to have to take to get it. “Aiden and I had a fight.”
After a long, slow pause, Jackie said, her voice excruciatingly calm, “Please tell me your fight was about him matching contributions to your 401(K).”
Samira winced. “I wanted to tell you.”
“Oh, Samira.”
“I know! I know it was stupid. I knew it was stupid when I did it, but he just… Jackie, he made me feel good in a way I haven’t since before I met Trevor. He made the world technicolor. How do you walk away from that?”
Jackie sighed. “Are you okay?”
“I shouldn’t be bothering you. You and Amal—”
“—really don’t need to continue this stupid fight. He’s closed himself in his office with his video games so there isn’t even the promise of make-up sex. Do you want me to come pick you up? You can crash here tonight if you want.”
Tears clogged her throat. Jackie hadn’t even given her a hard time about her epic stupidity. “I was kind of hoping you might say that. I’m on the steps outside your place. I was walking and trying to think things through and I sort of ended up on your doorstep.”
On the landing above her, the door popped open and Jackie stuck her head out, phone still pressed to her ear. “Well, come on. Get in here.”
Samira smiled wetly and pocketed her phone, climbing the stairs. Thank God for friends like Jackie.