Beyond Chance (10 page)

“I’d take complete offense to that if you
weren’t right, but it just so happens, I heard you come down the
stairs before I managed to click on anything.”

My heart raced as my mind shuffled all kinds
of answers that I wanted him to give me without having to look them
up. The problem was that I continued to wait. He offered no answers
as he threw the iPad back on the bed.

“Aren’t you going to explain things to me?”
I asked, trying to hide my anger.

“Explain what to you? It looks like you’ve
got a good handle on it. I’m gonna take a shower. Get this dust off
me.” He walked toward the bathroom, and my pulse went through the
roof.

I detected the same aloofness I’d felt when
I uncovered he was flying off to China, and I began to panic. What
was happening? What had I stumbled onto that would threaten what
we’d built? How could things crumble so fast? Was that why
Elizabeth was so helpful in planting these tiny seeds of
information? She knew this was how he’d react?

“You’re not going to explain to me what’s
going on? You’re just going to take a shower?”

He glanced over his shoulder, but there was
coolness resting behind his eyes. “Seriously, just read a couple of
those articles, and you’ll be all caught up.” He winked at me and
that was when I popped a cork. The dryness in his tone sent me
right back to when I ran into his translator, and I wasn’t going
back there again. Enough sidestepping. I wanted answers now.

From his mouth, not the internet.

“Are you serious?” I demanded, following him
into the bathroom.

He’d already turned on the shower, and steam
was rolling out of the tiled basin.

“Deadly,” he said, stripping out of his
thermal. My eyes coursed down his sharply defined torso, and my
heart literally fluttered despite my best efforts to control
myself. He knew what he did to me, and I was having no part of it
as I turned around and spoke to the blue tiled wall.

I heard him unzip his jeans and found myself
pressing on the wall with the palms of my hand.

“Do you actually think that this is called
for?” I asked.

“What in particular?” His voice changed, and
I realized he was already under the water. I was safe to turn
around.

“Keeping something like this from me?” I
seethed.

“So you do know what it is.”

“No. I have absolutely no idea what it
is.”

“Then how do you know I’m keeping anything
from you?”

A guttural sound rolled out of my mouth as I
fisted my hands. “Forget whatever it is you think I saw on the
internet. We both were there when Tracy happened to mention your
ex-fiancée, Elizabeth. Let’s not forget the obvious. You never once
mentioned you had a fiancée.”

“I told you last night, it didn’t mean
anything.”

“And like I mentioned last night, that’s
more horrifying than finding out you had one.”

“And why’s that?” he asked, baiting me.
“Would it have changed things between us if you knew?”

This was the Aaron I rarely saw. The cold
and calculating businessman who knew how to argue deals for the win
and always came out on top. But there was a reason I was the
captain of the debate team in high school and college. It wasn’t
that I always wanted to win. It was that I never lost. I was just
that good.

My cheeks were warm with anger as I marched
closer to the shower.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with
whether it would have changed things between us. I’ve told you
everything about my life. You know things I haven’t even told Gabby
and Lily and none of those things include a long, lost fiancé.”

“Well, she’s never been lost. I’ve known
right where she’s been this whole time.”

His hands reached out of the shower and
pulled me under the droplets with him. I pounded his chest in pure
frustration as his body shook with laughter. I didn’t have a chance
to argue my side. He wasn’t playing fairly.

“Do you think this is funny?” I scowled.

“I’m laughing, aren’t I?”

“Who are you and what have you done with
Aaron? I want my kind, caring, compassionate man back. The one I
flew across the globe to be with.”

“He’s here, babe. He’s just trying to get
you to relax and realize that he wouldn’t ever do something to hurt
you.”

“Quit talking in third person,” I
muttered.

He chuckled and poured shampoo onto my
hair.

“Seriously though…” he paused and lathered
the soap through my hair as my top and boxers continued to drip
with water. “It was a time in my life that I’d like to forget. I’d
abandoned my little sister, the only father I’d known rejected me,
and things outside of my control happened. Being with you has let
me escape all that, and I never wanted to bring it up. Not because
I was hiding it from you, but because it wasn’t a version of myself
that I was proud of.”

“How many versions of you are there?” I
asked.

“Too many,” he murmured, his hands sliding
along my bare arms. “And to be honest, being over here the last
three weeks alone with my thoughts only made things more
confusing.”

He rinsed the shampoo out of his hair as I
maneuvered around him in the small shower. The tenderness in his
touch as he swept my wet hair out of my face made my body crumble
into his, but I was too riled up.

“It’s really difficult having this
conversation with you like this,” he groaned, as I pressed my back
against him to rinse the shampoo out of my hair. I’d managed to
strip out of my boxers and top, but I kept my body turned away from
him.

“Then hopefully that’s incentive to get you
talking.”

“You have no idea.” He reached for the white
towel hanging outside the shower and stepped out of the way of the
stream as he dried off.

“So you haven’t clicked on any of those
links?” he asked.

I shook my head and let the warm water run
down my back as his eyes ran over my body with heated desire.

“How did you know to look up Thatcher?” He
glanced over his shoulder and waited for my response, but I didn’t
have one to give. I’d just given him hell for not being open with
me, and I’d failed to mention that I ran into his ex-fiancée.

I turned off the water and Aaron handed me a
towel to dry off with.

“Why aren’t you answering my question?”
Aaron asked. He wrapped the towel around his waist and walked out
of the bathroom as I wrapped my hair in a towel and followed
him.

“It’s complicated.” I reached into the
suitcase and pulled out a pair of panties and a matching bra.
Quickly fastening my bra, I pulled an oversized shirt over my head
and pulled up my underwear.

“Shouldn’t be that complicated.” He buttoned
his jeans and sat on the bed, waiting for my reply.

I pulled on a pair of leggings and pulled
the towel off my head.

“I ran into Elizabeth last night.”

Before I even had a chance to continue,
Aaron bolted out of the room.

“I changed my mind. Just check out the
links. It sounds like you’d rather find everything out through
secondhand sources anyway.”

I’d only managed to make it to the dining
room when I heard the front door click shut.

“Fine. Don’t mind if I do,” I whispered to
myself as I walked back to the bedroom and picked up the iPad.

With a quick swipe of my finger and a couple
taps, I stared down at the screen. My body slid onto the bed as I
realized I’d never be able to look at Aaron the same way again.

I couldn’t stop looking and clicking on link
after link. Each one painted the same picture of Aaron Thatcher,
and it was all I could do not to shatter into a million little
pieces. Every image of Aaron tore at my heart, and it created more
uncertainty with each new click. I didn’t understand how a man I
loved so deeply could hide something like this from me. The images
flooded my mind as I scrolled through the online reports and
stories about Aaron. My hands were slick as anxiety pulsed through
my system, and all I wanted was to hear it from his lips.

Closing my eyes, I tossed the iPad on the
bed and fell backward as the first tears of deception fell down my
face. How could he not tell me these things? My thoughts were
scattered as my emotions turned from one thought to another. I
wondered if Gabby knew any of this, but as quickly as I thought
about her, my mind went back to Aaron. Did he expect to hide this
our whole lives together? My mind was racing with uncertainty and
confusion, and all I wanted was to be back home.

As the tears continued to cascade down my
cheeks, I half-laughed and half-sobbed as I thought about my first
day in Paris. Crying on the bed wasn’t what I’d planned. None of
this was what I’d planned. Taking a big sniff in, I reached for my
phone and texted Gabby. I was turning into a complete basket case,
and I didn’t know how to stop my free fall.

Did you know about your brother?

I waited impatiently for a reply as I became
a mess of tears and snot. Things weren’t going well. I used my
shirt to wipe the tears, and I continued to stare at the ceiling.
The misery of being lied to by omission was more than I could bear,
and I felt completely stuck—mentally and physically. Not to mention
I didn’t understand why Aaron ran off. Leaving me to discover these
things without him only made it worse.

Gabby responded, and I picked up the
phone.

Know what about my brother? Is everything
okay?

I let out a small amount of air as relief
settled over me. At least my best friend wasn’t keeping secrets
from me. My hands trembled as I held the phone. This was exactly
why I shouldn’t have fallen in love my best friend’s brother. The
situation was too sticky, and the thought of losing both Aaron and
my best friend…

I shook off the almost paralyzing sensations
and texted back.

Look up Aaron Thatcher. That will tell you
everything. He took off because I learned of his “other” last name
and was going to Google him.

I pressed send and walked to the bathroom. I
had to get a grip. If I was going to be getting on a plane to head
back to the states, I at least needed to look somewhat decent. If I
washed my face with cold water and started over, maybe I wouldn’t
look so terrifying. Opening the cabinet door that housed the
towels, I searched for a washcloth and came up empty-handed. I
opened the armoire that was in the hall and only found sheets and
more towels. Why was it this hard to find a washcloth?

Letting out a sigh, I trundled back into the
bathroom and turned on the cold water. My phone rang in the other
room, but I didn’t even care. As I splashed the water on my face,
all I could do was picture Aaron wandering the streets of Paris
alone, and my chest tightened. What was he thinking? Why didn’t he
just tell me? Would this pattern ever stop?

I grabbed a towel and dried my face. Feeling
slightly better about life until I looked in the mirror, I grunted
at the madness that had developed in the last twenty-four hours.
Was this a sign of things to come? Brandishing these fleeting
thoughts around was teetering on insanity. I had to get back to the
first problem. Aaron had hid a couple of doozeys from me, and I
needed answers. Simple as that.

I dabbed lotion on my face to tone the
redness down, but it didn’t help. My eyes and the tip of my nose
were red and my chin was all blotchy. This wasn’t a good look, but
it would have to do. I needed to find Aaron, but I didn’t want to
frighten the Parisians on the way. Something about this scenario
had to change. I hated inaction, and that’s what my world consisted
of in this very second. Everything in life was in a holding
pattern. Being mopey wasn’t going to solve our problems, but my
body was completely useless as I trudged back into the bedroom.
Whatever I was experiencing was far worse than jet lag. Every
second felt like too much for me to handle. I loathed being this
out of control with my emotions, and Aaron’s refusal to discuss
only added to the helplessness pummeling through my veins.

I groaned at the inconsistencies as my
thoughts contradicted themselves. Which was it? Would I powder my
cheeks and face the world or hide in the apartment until he
returned?

We needed to talk. I shouldn’t have gone
behind his back, but he shouldn’t have hid things from me. Not to
mention Aaron Thatcher was a man I wanted to know. I needed to
learn about him, uncover what drove his actions. After all, the
actions of Aaron Thatcher created the man who was now Aaron
Sullivan.

That was it. I would go find him in a city I
didn’t know, looking like I rolled out of the catacombs. No sense
in being vain now.

I glanced at the phone and saw the text from
Gabby.

Holy Shit. I had no idea. None. I’m at a
complete loss for words…