I chanced a glance at Aidan who stood beside Quentin, and I frowned, watching him watch the actors. Why did he have to be here? Did he really need to be? Couldn’t he just study Quentin’s production notes and the costume and set designs? It wasn’t like we were in dress rehearsal.
From the angle I was sitting, I could only see Aidan’s profile. A rush of feeling flooded over me as I studied his familiar face. Memories flooded me. Smiles. Laughter. Kisses. Soft touches. Tears. Him falling to his knees. Not meeting my eyes and telling me to leave and get rest. The last thing he ever said to me.
I’d never felt such a confusing mix of fury and longing in my entire life. I at once wanted to go to him, make him look at me, hold me, and I also wanted to march up to him, grab his sweater in my fists, and shake him, even though he’d barely budge under my assault.
I remember you, Pixie.
I closed my eyes, in pain at the memory. If he called me by his nickname for me again, I didn’t know whether I’d burst into tears or smack him across the face.
Probably both.
“Viola!” Quentin spun on his heel to look at me. “On stage.”
Nerves hit me in a massive wave and I took a moment to exhale slowly before I stood and walked toward the stage. I hoped I appeared calm and ready to do this because inside, I was under attack.
I joined Eddie up on stage; he gave me a bolstering smile.
In my entrance on performance nights, I would be accompanied by Eddie as Captain and we’d have extras with us as our sailors. “‘What country, friends, is this?’” I said in a faux upper-crust English accent, slowly walking across the stage, looking awed.
“‘This is Illyria, lady,’” Eddie said, following me.
I swiftly turned to look at him. “‘And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium …’”
We fell into the scene and I was feeling pretty good about it when it came to an end, until I looked over at Quentin and Aidan. Finally, I had Aidan’s attention. But I’d take him ignoring me over the scowl he wore.
As my director opened his mouth to speak, Aidan called up to me, “You need to work on that accent.”
I flushed, turning expectantly to Quentin. He looked a little taken aback by Aidan’s input but he nodded at me. “If one person thinks it’s not great, others might. Practice it. It’s not a huge concern yet.”
“The way she’s wandering around the stage like a bewildered child is,” Aidan said, like he hadn’t insulted the hell out of me. “Viola is bold enough to dress as a man in order to find her brother. She wouldn’t be wild-eyed and frightened.”
Wild-eyed and frightened?
I hadn’t been acting wild-eyed and frightened!
Quentin quirked a brow at his friend and then smirked up at me. “Play it a little less vulnerable in your next scene.”
Seething, I could only nod. Completely unable to look at Aidan, I turned to Eddie. He gave me a sympathetic smile and we left the stage together. The actors playing Maria, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew took the stage.
Ignoring Aidan, I strode farther down the aisle to get away from him, and Amanda gave me a smug smile from her seat next to Hamish. “You’ll get better with practice,” she said.
I returned her smile with a tight one of my own and flopped down on a seat near the back.
It wasn’t much later, however, that Quentin was calling me up to stage again with Will and Jack. After Aidan’s criticism—something he did not dole out to anyone else—I was on edge but fighting the feeling because I didn’t want it to affect my performance.
We were halfway through the scene when Quentin called up for us to stop. Dread filled me as we looked down at him.
But it was Aidan who spoke. “You’re doing it again. All doe-eyed while he’s talking.” He gestured to Jack.
Anger flared out of me. “I’m supposed to be in love with him,” I argued.
“And you’re masquerading as a man. You’re good at deception,” he bit out, and I couldn’t miss the hiss of anger in his words. Were we still talking about the play? “At this point in the play, you can control your feelings for this man.”
Reeling from his words, I couldn’t argue this time. In fact, the whole atmosphere in the theater had changed, as if everyone else had heard the underlying fury in his words and were confused by them.
As confused as I was.
Why the hell was Aidan mad at me?
Attempting to shake him off, I stepped back into character and tried to rein in the vulnerability. Jack was incredibly charming as Orsino, playing him with the right amount of sensual masculinity and silly, lovelorn comedy.
When he’d finished his last line of the scene, I gave him a bow. “‘I’ll do my best to woo your lady.’” And then I strode off, as if exiting stage, but stopped and turned to the audience. I gave them a pained look, my hands in tight fists at my sides. “‘Yet, a barful strife. Whoe’er I woo … myself would be his wife.’”
“Again!” Aidan called up.
I gawped down in astonishment and even Quentin was gaping at him. Aidan caught his friend’s look. “I can’t get the feel of the play until all the actors are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
“What do you think was wrong here?” Quentin, to my utter surprise, entertained Aidan’s overstep.
“Now she’s not giving enough emotion. I need emotion to write music.” He cut me a sneer. “This one needs more practice than the others.”
This one? This one!
Quentin frowned. “It’s the first rehearsal, Nora. You’ll get there.”
I nodded, grateful for his kindness, but my cheeks blazed with mortification at Aidan’s hurtful critique. As I walked offstage, I heard Jack hurry to catch up with me. He threw his arm over my shoulders and squeezed me into his side. For once he wasn’t smiling; he actually looked annoyed on my behalf. “Ye did great.”
“Thanks. Apparently not.”
“What the fuck does he know?” he whispered. “He’s just some jumped-up music producer.”
Whom I used to be in love with until he left me.
Which apparently wasn’t enough damage.
Furious, my eyes went to Aidan as Jack walked with me, his arm still around me in comfort. Aidan was glowering at me with such vitriol, my muscles locked as if preparing for battle.
Dazed, I couldn’t even remember getting into the seat next to Jack. I couldn’t take my eyes off Aidan, not even when he whipped his fiery gaze from mine to turn back to the stage. But I knew him. His body was stiff with tension, with anger, and I was a mass of confusion.
How Aidan had treated me on that stage, deliberately humiliating me, was so out of character. It was like I was faced with an entirely different man. A stranger, like he’d made himself out to be. The only time in our past that Aidan had been truly angry with me was when I’d deserted him at lunch after he’d confided in me about his sister’s death.
He’d treated me with cool aloofness then too.
With cold anger.
Looking at it rationally, the Aidan I had known would only be this angry with me if he thought I had done him wrong.
Cold sweat prickled under my arms.
“Yesterday after you left, he suddenly started making arrangements to leave the country. He took a job in LA so he can be close to Sylvie but it meant leaving early this morning.”
I’d taken the word of a woman I didn’t trust over a man I’d grown to trust more than anyone.
What if Aidan hadn’t left? What if Laine had orchestrated the lie somehow?
No.
That was too ridiculous, right?
But then why was Aidan so furious with me? That kind of fury could be born of the fact that I had left him the day after his kid was taken from him. Right?
Yet … Aidan had texted me.
Aidan had texted me, right?
I tried to put the pieces together, the entire theater falling away as I thought back to that time eighteen months ago. I had left that night.
My phone didn’t work in the US so I’d left it, and I got a new number and cell when I returned months later. The old contract had ended and I threw out the old phone.
So if Aidan had tried to contact me, I wouldn’t have known.
But he knew where I lived. He knew where Seonaid worked because I’d told him. Wouldn’t he have gone to Seonaid when he couldn’t get in touch with me?
And still, what about his phone? If he hadn’t text me, if it had been Laine all along, then why didn’t Aidan know about it?
Nothing made sense.
But something was wrong.
I looked at him, fear coalescing inside me, and I realized I was more afraid of discovering it had all been a huge misunderstanding, a deliberate manipulation on the part of his jealous friend, than I was of being faced with an indifferent, cold Aidan.
The Aidan I’d loved terrified me more.
Because I was finally in a good place, taking care of me, and I was nowhere near ready to face the kind of volatile emotions Aidan Lennox brought out in me.
The sound of girls’ laughter drew me out of my concentration, and I glanced over at the group of eighteen-year-old freshman giggling under a tree. Like me, they’d decided to make the most of the beautiful spring day and were sitting out on The Meadows behind the main campus.
I was by myself. As usual.
It wasn’t that people in my classes hadn’t made overtures of friendliness toward me. They had. Because of my height, some had even mistaken me for their age, surprised when I told them I was twenty-four. Six years didn’t seem like a huge spread, but the difference between eighteen and twenty-four was massive, especially for someone like me who’d been married, widowed, and lost a child and a man I’d loved.
As if conjuring her ghost, a little blond girl dashed by the students, turning to laugh behind her. A woman, presumably her mother, hurried after her. She was much younger than Sylvie had been when I last saw her.
God, Sylvie.
I didn’t often let myself think about her because all that came with it was longing and worry. She’d be twelve now. Was she happy? Was Cal taking good care of her?
Looking beyond The Meadows to across the street, I felt a sudden urge to go to the hospital. I hadn’t visited since returning to Edinburgh. It was too full of ghosts. But I found myself packing my books into my shoulder bag and getting to my feet. My steps took me out of the park and across the street and up.
Maybe it was Aidan’s return in my life that finally pushed me toward the hospital. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for as I walked toward the red brick building. All I knew was that before Aidan came back, I was feeling pretty sure of myself and of life, and now I felt like I was floating untethered again. Totally lost.
Aidan’s cruel behavior at rehearsals wasn’t helping.
I’d had two more rehearsals with him and each time, he’d found something to criticize in my performance. I wanted to believe that Quentin was getting as impatient with him as I was. Jack definitely was.
Tomorrow I had rehearsal again and I’d have to see him. I longed for Quentin to tell us it was Aidan’s last day in the theater.
Pushing through the hospital’s entrance door, the familiar smell brought with it a wave of memories.
Sylvie running to hug me. Grinning up at me with a mouthful of mac and cheese. The kids laughing as I prowled around the room like Count Olaf in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Aidan’s face close to mine as we braced on the Twister sheet, his sexy smile making my heart flip in my chest.
I wrapped my arms around myself, as though to keep my insides from falling out. Why did I come here? It was stupid.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered, turning away.
“Is that you, Peter Pan?”
I spun around, coming face to face with Jan.
She smiled at me tenderly.
And I rushed her.
Jan laughed, rocking back on her feet as I hugged her. She returned my hug and then pressed me gently away. Concern and fondness mingled in her expression. “What brings ye to my doorstep, Nora?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
Twenty minutes later, Jan had me seated in the quiet cafeteria with a cup of coffee, and I told her everything.
Absolutely everything.
It blurted out of me, uncontrolled, word after word.
“It doesn’t sound right,” Jan mused. “That definitely doesn’t sound like Aidan. He’d never treat someone he cared about so poorly.”
“Well, he is.”
“I think ye’er right. I think his friend must have deliberately misled ye. As far as I’m aware, Aidan never went to California back then. He certainly still lives here.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I said. “We’re better off as we are.”
“Then why do ye look so sad?”
I gave her a strained smile, my fingers gripping my coffee tightly. “I miss Sylvie.”
“Sylvie’s doing fine.” Jan patted my hand.
Stunned, my heart rate sped up. “You’ve heard from her?”
She exhaled slowly. “Aidan drops by every now and then to let me know how she’s doing. I … uh … knew something had happened between ye because when I mentioned ye, he clammed up. Everything makes sense now.”
“And Sylvie?”
“She likes California. She’s doing well. Her dad let her stay with Aidan for a month last summer, and he brought her back to Scotland at Christmas so she could see Aidan then too.”
I wondered if she’d ever asked about me. If she missed me or worried where I’d gone. But above all, I was relieved to hear she was happy. “He’s taking good care of her, then?”
“Do ye think Aidan would allow anything else?”
“Right.”
“Ye need to talk to him,” Jan said. “Explain and get this misunderstanding sorted out.”
“I hate when he looks at me like he loathes me,” I confessed on a whisper, “but I think I’m more afraid of him looking at me like he used to.”
Confused, Jan shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m finally doing okay, Jan.” I touched my book bag. “I’m at school and I’m in a play, and my life is not complicated. For the first time in a long time, I’m where I want to be. Aidan and I … we were what each other needed back then. Not now. Now we’re two completely different people on completely different paths.”
She stared at me so long I began to shift uncomfortably in my chair. Finally, she said, “If that’s true … why are ye here?”
“I was missing Sylvie.” It was a half-truth.
And we both knew it.
For not the first time in the past week, I was faced with Amanda flirting with Aidan and him grinning down at her like he enjoyed it. When she touched his chest and giggled at something he said, using the motion to bring them closer together, I turned away.
Why was I doing this to myself? Jealousy burned in my gut.
Quentin had asked to take a five-minute break while he answered an “important phone call” and I’d used the time to pull out notes for the Classics course I was taking.
However, Amanda’s laughter kept grabbing my attention and I could feel myself growing more and more agitated by the second.
The main doors to the auditorium squeaked open and I turned in my seat to see a tall brunette strolling down the aisle like she was on a runway.
My God, her legs went on forever.
I glanced across the aisle and saw Jack’s tongue practically fall out of his mouth as she passed him. About to ask the model-like creature if I could help her, I noticed her exotic-shaped eyes were trained on Aidan.
I felt like someone had kicked me in the gut.
Amanda stepped back from Aidan, scowling as the woman strolled right up to him, leaned into him, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Aidan’s hand rested familiarly on her hip, and I felt myself die inside.
Looking down at my notes, I couldn’t breathe.
I w
as near tears.
Of course he was dating someone else. And of course she was five foot ten and looked like an older version of Gigi Hadid.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, pretending my notes were the most interesting thing in the world when really, I was wondering how on earth Aidan could have been interested in me when he could get women like that?
No!
I mentally slapped myself for the thought. That was not happening. I was not going back there to that insecure girl who constantly wondered why Aidan wanted to be with her.
No, I did not look like Gigi Hadid. I wasn’t beautiful but I was pretty. I could finally look in the mirror and see that now. I was the pretty girl-next-door type, and I was okay with that.
Damn Aidan Lennox for re-entering my life and kicking up my self-esteem issues.
“Seriously?”
I jumped in my seat and looked up at Jack who was standing by me, his gaze hostile on Aidan who still had the model buried into his side. “Who does this arsehole think he is?”
“Have you Googled him?” I said.
He shook his head.
“Google him. He’s kind of a big deal.”
Jack looked down at me. “He treats ye like shit, Nora. He’s kind of scum.”
Grateful, I smiled up at him and something mischievous came over me. “Then why don’t you show his girl how much more charming you can be? You know you want to.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “She is pretty gorgeous.”
“She is.”
To my surprise, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You’re just as gorgeous, gorgeous.”
I laughed and swatted him away playfully. “Liar.”
He winked and turned away, and my eyes flew over to Aidan. I stiffened in my seat to find him glaring at me.
But I didn’t look away this time.
Instead, I locked mental horns with him, willing him to back down first.
I wondered if either of us would have if it hadn’t been for Quentin reappearing and clamping a hand on Aidan’s shoulder, breaking our staring contest.