Which was ironic because nobody rattled me more than he did.
Figuratively and literally.
I wasn’t even sure how long we stayed standing there like that, but eventually, we heard knocking on the doors, some kind of creaking that had my heart pounding again, and someone called out, "We’re working on getting you out of there."
Aidan’s cell buzzed at the same time, and as he let go of me with one arm, I saw that his screen was lit up and could read Conor’s message:
They’re predicting it’ll take over an hour.
Gulping, I whispered, "Aidan?"
As he put away his phone, he hummed. "Yeah?"
"Does nothing scare you?"
He grew quiet. "You really want to hear the answer to that?"
"Of course. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise."
Slowly, he said, "Very little scares me."
"I want to be like that."
"You’re fearless in your own way," he disregarded. "But you’re used to being protected, and you’re used to that protection being silent and hidden. There’s a difference."
"Maybe."
"No 'maybe' about it."
"Pain suffocates me, but it doesn't trigger fear in me, just..." He sighed. "Desperation. That’s a new Achilles’ heel of mine.
"You weren’t made for this life, Savannah. I’m not sure any woman is. I see my ma, she’s been in this world since she was born, and it’s broken her. The shit that’s happened to her, the crap that’s befallen us all things considered..." He hesitated. "You know that evening we ate together?"
"How could I forget?" I wasn’t even teasing.
"You went to the restroom, and I was just sitting there, minding my own business, when two things happened." At his sigh, I braced myself for the worst. "This guy got on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes," he muttered absentmindedly as his hand came up to toy with my hair.
I had no idea how he even saw the strand well enough to play with it, but I wasn’t about to complain. I wouldn't have been shocked if he'd have pushed me away when he uttered those initial words, but instead, he was hauling me closer by connecting with me.
"That was a good thing, wasn’t it?" I queried, nestling into him, not wanting any space between us. For all that this terrified me, the only thing that felt right was his presence.
His touch.
I didn’t want to be anywhere other than with him—whether that was in an elevator or in Conor’s apartment, it didn’t matter.
"It was, I guess. I’m not exactly a romantic," he mocked. "We’re not bred that way."
"You are, actually," I corrected quietly. "Everyone knows how much your parents love one another."
He grunted. "For Ma, it’s more like goddamn Stockholm Syndrome. Da, well, she’s his. He loves her, but his love isn’t the clean kind of Hallmark love everyone thinks about."
"No love is the Hallmark kind of love," I chided. "He went to war for her."
"After his business got her kidnapped and gang-raped," was Aidan’s harsh retort. "She was a goddamn shell for months afterward. He had to hospitalize her at one point."
"Jesus, I didn’t know." Everyone knew about the Aryans and how Aidan Sr. had annihilated them, just not the personal aftermath under the O’Donnellys’ roof.
"Why would you? We paid a lot to make sure it never came out. God forbid, we look like humans to the rest of the world."
"Humans can be hurt. Gods can’t."
He grunted. "True that."
I reached up and pressed my hand to his lapel. "I’m sorry about your mother."
"She’s never been the same. Hopped up on meds most of the time. You’d never know it to look at her. Well, you’ll see tomorrow. She plays a good game."
"Tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Conor has to replace the elevator, but we’d have been moving out regardless. We spend the 23rd at the family estate."
Jeez.
"You know, two days ago, I’d have been so excited about that."
He snorted. "I’ll bet. Weirdo."
I wasn’t offended. I’d been called worse over the years. Instead, I tugged on his lapel. "Carry on. Tell me what happened at the restaurant."
Aidan sighed. "It doesn’t really matter."
"It does to me," I countered with a growl. "Aidan, that was the best first date ever. I-I never felt like that before or since. It was... jarring when you disappeared. I fully expected you to realize you’d made a mistake, but you never did," I ended softly. Sadly.
"Men in my family don’t really propose to their women," he said with a grunt, his fingers still playing with my hair. "We don’t get the chance. This generation is a little different but I’ve been reared knowing that my woman will be picked for me.
"I’d never get to do that whole bending down on one knee thing—ironic, of course, because now I couldn’t fucking do that if I wanted to—but still, as I saw how much freedom that bastard had, I was envious. Envious because things were so right with you.
"I went into our initial meeting with zero expectations. I knew you were beautiful. Hell, a Google search told me that. But in the flesh, you were different. More different than anything I’d come across.
"I could see us dating. I could actually fucking see me reaching a point where I wanted to do that whole restaurant/engagement meal thing, and it freaked me the fuck out because I didn’t know you. You just felt...right. It made no sense to me, and it still doesn’t.
"What I knew back then was that Da already wanted you dead because of Paddy. If I wanted you in that way too, he’d have had double the reason to get rid of you—"
"He wouldn’t have hurt me if he knew you had feelings for me, surely?" I argued, heart racing at his admission that I hadn’t been alone in being crazy where he was concerned.
What I’d felt, this insta-lust/insta-need combo, he’d experienced too.
The validation soared inside me, taking away that weird sense that I’d been a creep or something, incapable of judging a good date from a bad one, reducing how big of a fool his ghosting me had made me feel. I mattered. His words mattered. More than he could know.
"Of course, he would have," Aidan rumbled tiredly. "You asked me if I ever get scared, Savannah. I don’t because of my father. You can’t be raised by him without learning what the real fear of God is like. There is no bigger monster in this city than him—" He gritted his teeth, I literally felt him grinding down as he rasped out, "then there’s me."
"You’re not a monster," I snapped, pissed on his behalf.
"I am," he countered. "I’m what he made me. We’re all what he made us. The laws don’t count for us, Savannah. What we do on the daily would make a normal man have nightmares and send him running to his therapist. I told you what I’ve done, that’s not even a whisper of the other shit I’ve pulled over the years.
"Had he learned that I was dating you, I just knew how it would end."