Seducing the Wolf (7 page)

“You know damn well who I’m talking about!” Aidan shouted, charging after her.

Taylor stared up at him, startled. Aidan rarely raised his voice or lost his temper. He was one of the most mild-mannered people she’d ever known, possessing a quiet dignity she’d always appreciated.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Aidan,” she murmured. “I already told you that I was invited by an old friend—”

“An ‘old friend’ who wasn’t even here to greet you when you arrived!”

Taylor frowned. “That’s not fair. You know Ken’s grandfather passed away. He had to fly home to China to attend the funeral and be there for his family. He assured me he’d be back on Tuesday, but even if he’s not I’ll understand, and so should you.”

Aidan scowled. “That’s not the point.”

“What
is
the point?” Taylor countered. “Even if Ken weren’t a friend of mine, this residency would have appealed to me. Emory has an excellent music program—”

“So does Berklee, Oberlin and Vanderbilt—three other top schools that offered you residencies this summer. But you turned them all down and chose Emory, conveniently omitting the fact that your old flame lives in Atlanta. So again I ask, Taylor. Is Manning Wolf the real reason you came here?”

Taylor rubbed her now-throbbing temple and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Aidan frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what I said,” she bit off.

Aidan glared at her for several moments, then abruptly turned and stalked over to the minibar. Taylor watched as he grabbed a cold Heineken, twisted the cap off the bottle and drank deep. It jarred her to see him guzzling beer when she knew how much he hated the stuff. He must be even more upset than she’d thought.

She sighed, relenting. “You’re right.”

Aidan lowered the bottle and looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Right about what?”

“I should have told you about Manning,” Taylor said quietly. “I’m sorry I kept that part of my past from you.”

“Why did you?”

“Because talking about the past is very painful for me,” she admitted. “There are certain things I’d like to forget.”

“Like Manning?”

Taylor stared at Aidan for a long moment. She couldn’t lie, no matter how badly she wanted to.

“No,” she whispered. “Not Manning.”

“I see.” Aidan clenched his jaw, lips thinning with displeasure. Jerking his tie loose, he dropped into a nearby chair and took another angry swig of beer.

Taylor eyed him guiltily. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear—”

“Of course it is,” Aidan countered with bitter sarcasm. “What man wouldn’t relish the challenge of competing with the memory of his girlfriend’s first love?”

Taylor frowned. “I’m not asking you to compete with Manning.”

“Then why the hell are we here, Taylor? Why did you come to Atlanta if you’re not here to rekindle your relationship with Wolf?”

“I’m not here to rekindle anything!” Taylor insisted. “I haven’t seen or spoken to Manning in over twenty years! I didn’t even expect to run into him while I was here. In case you didn’t know, Atlanta’s a very big city.”

Aidan scowled. “Not big enough, apparently.”

Taylor shook her head, palms upturned in a gesture of helpless confusion. “I don’t know what else to tell you, Aidan.”

“Why don’t you tell me what I’m up against?” he demanded, shooting forward in the chair. “Tell me what’s so damn special about Manning Wolf that you haven’t been able to let go of him after all these years!”

“Who says I haven’t let go?”

“Have you?” Aidan challenged.

Taylor stared back at him, frozen into silence. But she didn’t have to respond. The truth hung unspoken in the air between them.

After several tense moments, Taylor pushed a shaky hand through her hair and leaned back against the headboard with her legs stretched out on the bed.

“All right,” she conceded. “I’ll tell you about Manning.”

Aidan sat back in the chair and folded his arms expectantly across his chest.

“I met him when I was fourteen,” Taylor began softly. “It was our freshman year in high school, and we had precalculus together. I had a crush on Manning, though we’d never spoken two words to each other. He didn’t even know I existed. But everyone knew who he was, and not just because his mother was the superintendent of our school district. Manning wasn’t like most of the other kids. For one thing he was taller than nearly everyone else, so when he walked through the halls, he stood head and shoulders above the crowd. He was from a rough part of Atlanta, so he had this really tough demeanor. He walked around with a huge chip on his shoulder, like he didn’t give a damn about anything. But he was very smart. Brilliant,” Taylor amended with a small smile. “He definitely kept our math teacher on his toes.”

She paused, letting the memories wash over her. “One day after class—after one particularly epic showdown between Manning and Mr. Langenkamp—I worked up the nerve to speak to Manning as we were walking to our lockers. He was warm and friendly, sweeter than I’d expected. I was on cloud nine until some dumb jock decided to pick on me. You’ve seen some of my childhood pictures,” she ruefully reminded Aidan. “I was a favorite target of bullies…until that day.”

“What happened?”

Taylor smiled. “The bully du jour—an asshole named Rory Kerrigan—made the mistake of knocking my books out of my arms. When Manning told him to apologize and pick up the books, Rory refused. So Manning kicked his ass.”

Aidan smirked. “How chivalrous of him.”

“It was. No one had ever defended me like that before. I was a nobody. People either ridiculed me or looked right through me. But Manning was different. He made me feel special…beautiful.”

“You
are
beautiful.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t believe it until Manning came along and showed me.” Taylor smiled softly. “About two years after my parents got divorced, my younger brother and I moved to Colorado with Dad. My older brother, Tru, had joined the army, so he wasn’t around anymore. With him and my mother gone, I was so depressed I actually stopped playing the violin for a year. Manning’s the one who inspired me to come out of ‘early retirement,’ and he never missed any of my recitals. So when you ask me why I’ve never forgotten him—”

“I get it,” Aidan grumbled darkly. “He was the perfect boyfriend.”

“Not perfect,” Taylor murmured.
But pretty damn close. That is, until the end.

“Was he your first?”

Taylor held Aidan’s gaze for a long moment. “Yes.”

He groaned, covering his face with his hands. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Taylor was silent. She knew anything else she said would only make matters worse.

Lifting his head, Aidan asked sullenly, “So what happened? What drove you and Romeo apart?”

Taylor felt her throat tighten. Dropping her gaze to the plush spread covering the bed, she answered, “After my brother died, I moved back to D.C. to live with my mother. Manning and I…well, we didn’t keep in touch.”

“Why not?” Aidan asked.

She shrugged, feigning indifference. “We just didn’t.”

“That’s surprising.”

“Not really. People grow apart and move on all the time. That’s life.”

Aidan fell silent, studying Taylor as she traced an idle pattern on the comforter with her finger. He knew her well enough to know there was more to the story. But thankfully he didn’t press her for more details.

She watched as he drank the rest of his beer and set the bottle down, then stood and came toward the bed.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he said, unbuttoning his white dress shirt, “I’d rather not spend my last night in town arguing about your old boyfriend.”

“No?” Taylor teased as he lowered himself onto her. “What would you rather be doing?”

Aidan smiled suggestively. “You.”

“Mmm,” Taylor purred, curving her arms around his neck and parting her legs. “I think we can work something out.”

“I’m counting on it,” Aidan whispered before his warm lips covered hers.

7

T
he next morning, Taylor was awakened by the sound of a linen cart clattering up to her door, followed by a brisk knock. “Housekeeping!”

Smothering a groan, Taylor lifted her head from her pillow, peered across the suite and called out groggily, “Can you come back later?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the maid acquiesced.

Taylor listened as the linen cart rattled off down the hallway. Squinting at the bedside alarm clock, she saw that it was after nine, much later than she’d intended to sleep in. She’d been tired that morning, though her exhaustion had more to do with the lingering effects of jet lag than Aidan’s lovemaking. After their talk last night, she’d been prepared to give him a proper sendoff to atone for keeping secrets from him. But after one round of lovemaking, Aidan had been down for the count, falling into a dead snore before he’d even removed his condom. Taylor had been left feeling empty and restless as she lay beside him, contemplating the darkness and trying her hardest not to think about Manning.

Of course the harder she’d tried, the worse she’d failed.

She frowned, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling.

Aidan had departed early that morning to catch his flight to Washington, D.C. As he kissed her goodbye, he’d promised to see her next weekend when he came back. If Taylor had been more lucid, she would have tried to talk him out of returning to Atlanta. She resented that he felt the need to keep tabs on her when she’d never given him any reason not to trust her.

Of course, circumstances had changed.

Her old flame was no longer halfway around the world from her.

She was here with him.

Closer than ever.

The thought made goose bumps shimmy across Taylor’s skin.

At that moment her cell phone rang on the nightstand. She reached over and picked it up, smiling when she saw that her best friend, Gabrielle Henri, was calling from Paris.

“
Bonjour,”
Taylor greeted her.

“
Bonjour.
” Gabby’s warm, lilting voice floated into her ear. “I thought I’d give you a day or two to get settled before I checked up on you. How’s everything going so far? Did the university put you up in a nice hotel?”

“They did,” Taylor continued in French. Since Gabby had been raised bilingual, they often alternated between conversing in English and French.

“Even Aidan approved,” Taylor added, glancing around the elegantly appointed suite, “and you know how picky
he
can be.”

Gabby snickered. “Tell me about it. To this day he’s one of the pickiest customers I’ve ever had. Convincing him to try something new is always like pulling teeth.”

Taylor chuckled.

Gabby was a pastry chef who worked at her family’s
pâtisserie
, a popular bakery located two blocks from Taylor’s apartment building in Paris’s sixth arrondissement. The first time Taylor wandered into the corner bakery and beheld the decadent array of confections, she thought she’d died and gone to sweet tooth heaven. Watching Taylor from behind the counter, Gabby had been amused by her awestruck expression. She’d smiled and beckoned her forward, luring her into what would become a serious addiction to French pastries. Whenever Taylor was feeling stressed or just PMSing, nothing cured her faster than biting into the buttery warmth of a
pain au chocolat
. 

“Speaking of Aidan,” Gabby said, breaking into Taylor’s reverie, “is he still there?”

“No, he left this morning.”

“Yeah? So what’re you going to do with yourself today?”

“I don’t know. I’ll probably fine tune the piece I composed for my summer students, then head out and do some sightseeing. I might even rent a car and drive to Callaway Gardens, which I’ve been dying to visit.” Taylor yawned, stretching beneath the covers. “What about you? Got any plans tonight?”

“Nothing exciting,” Gabby replied. “After I close the shop, Luc and I will probably go to dinner and a movie.”

Luc was Gabby’s boyfriend, the latest in a string of guys she’d dated in her quest to find Mr. Right. She was a hopeless romantic who believed in kismet and fairy tales, which was understandable considering how her parents had met. After graduating from Howard University in Washington, D.C., Gabby’s mother had taken a trip to Paris, where she’d crossed paths with a handsome Frenchman who stole her heart and convinced her to stay with him in Paris. Forty years and three kids later, they were as blissfully in love as ever.

At the other end of the phone line, Gabby sighed. “I’ve been thinking...”

When she trailed off, Taylor prompted, “What?”

“Well, Luc’s great and all, but I don’t think he’s the one.”

“Already? You’ve only been dating him three months.”

“Isn’t that long enough to know if he’s right for me or not?”

“I suppose.” Taylor frowned. “But I don’t understand, Gabby. I thought things were going so well between you and Luc. You said you really like him.”