Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1) (30 page)

Chapter Forty-Eight

Allies

A change wakes me. Aiden’s breathing is faster against my cheek. It’s time. In minutes, his lashes flutter. Corbin and Benson wait out of Aiden’s line of sight. I take the chair Benson must have put at the foot of the bed. The sapphire eyes open.

He comes to slowly. He opens and shuts his eyes with heavy lids. The deep V folds between his eyebrows. He tries to lift his head but it lolls back. He looks around like he doesn’t recognize how he got here. His breathing speeds up and his eyes widen. He moans. Then he sees me. Fear disappears instantly, and his eyes become vernal. The clearest turquoise. He looks like he is having a pleasant dream.

“My love.” His first words are soft and slow. I scoot closer. He tries to lift his hand to touch me but it won’t obey. He panics and tests his body for control but it doesn’t respond so he searches for my eyes. Instantly, peace floods his face.

“I know you.” He smiles. “You are my life.”

“You’re mine too.”

“Why are you crying, love?”

“Because I love you.”

“You’re my life.”

I remember Corbin’s words about how some wake up from Versed. Here is Aiden’s essence, uninhibited.

“No tears, love. I live for your smile.” His words are garbled. He reaches for me, too weak against his inert body mass. Before fear assaults him again, I place my hand in his. He sighs like he does when we make love.

“I love you,” he slurs. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He fades in and out several times, going from confusion and panic to peace when he sees me. The more he wakes, the more loopy his grin. I lean in slowly and kiss his lips. He watches me in bliss.

But slowly, his eyes start to change and recede. And then I see them: the tectonic plates start shifting. Something is trying to break through.

“Aiden, stay with me. Please.”

The moment I say
please
, anguish twists his face. His body contorts in the fetal position, as if in physical pain. He shuts his eyes and starts shuddering. A guttural groan builds in his chest until it changes into broken words.

“No! No! Elisa! No!” Over and over and over…

Benson and Corbin enter the fray but he won’t let them touch him. He’s not violent. He’s breaking. He grips his forehead with both hands, his fingers vising his skull like he wants to rip it off.

“He’s just remembering the last thing before the sedative. Damn, that’s quick,” Corbin explains, but I barely hear him because in Aiden’s beloved face, for the first time, I see tears. They stream from his scrunched eyes.

I leap to my feet and step closer but Benson and Corbin swarm around me. I push them away and take Aiden in my arms. He says I calm him. He needs that now.

“Aiden? Love? I’m okay. Look at me, baby.” I repeat the words many times, trying not to say
please
. The sobs ease at the sound of my voice until they become just tremors. When he opens his eyes, they’re ravaged. He tries to get out of my hold but I tuck his head into my neck and cover him with my body. My smell, my voice—all of me. The tremors become twitches and slow down.

“Extraordinary!” Corbin’s voice breathes somewhere behind me.

I ignore science and hold Aiden tighter. From the corner of my eye, I see Corbin and Benson slip out.

I whisper to Aiden words that mean something to us alone. He starts talking too. At first, it’s only two words, over and over again.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Then the words turn venomous as he eviscerates himself in my ear.

“Elisa, go. Leave. Be happy. Even if illegal, you’ll lack for nothing. Just go. Go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”

“You have to. Leave me because I can’t leave you. I can’t, Elisa. I can’t do it. End this. End me—”

I cover his mouth with my hand. “Don’t ever say that. You’re the best—the reason I’m me again.”

But the more I speak, the more I’m losing him. He jerks out of my hand.

“Elisa, what if Benson hadn’t been there? You’re hurt. You’ll see the bruises and you’ll hate me.
I
will hate me even more than I already do.”

“It was an accident, love.”

“It was almost your death.”

I can’t hear any more. I stand up and take his phone from the nightstand, scrolling for the name.

“Aiden Hale, you listen to me right now. If you insist on this self-sacrifice, I’ll call your mum. Then I’ll call Jazz and the others—I know they’re at the cabin.”

He looks at my finger on Stella’s name and closes his eyes. “How can I keep you after this? Why would you stay?”

I want to say “because I have hope” and “because I love you” but he won’t accept that. There’s only one thing he will accept right now.

“Because you owe me.”

His eyes fling open—specks of turquoise against midnight. It’s wrenching my insides to feed his guilt but it’s the only way.

“I’d do anything for you.”

“I only want one thing.” Well, that’s not technically true. “One thing you’ve already promised. You’ll start seeing Doctor Corbin every day. I don’t care if you have to stop working and we have to live in a hut or if we have to move to the Middle East for you to face this. You will be in his office for as many hours as it takes, and you will do what he says. So this doesn’t happen ever again.”

He nods before I finish. “I will. Now please, go. You’ll be safe. I’ll find the witnesses. I’ll build you your own lab. Just go.” His voice is gaining its natural hard cadence.

“No!”

Somehow—defying drugs and biology—he sits up straight. His movements are jerky but swift. Right leg off the bed, then left, then straighten spine. By the time Benson and Corbin storm into the room, Aiden stands ramrod straight as though he’s never fallen.

I, on the other hand, am frozen to the bed.

“Elisa.” He swallows like my name is a shard of glass. “Please go home!”

“This is my home.”

“I need you to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have to drag me out by my hair.”

He flinches, scrunching his eyes shut as though the image blinded him. When he opens them, he’s not looking at me. He is looking at his iPhone still in my hands. I clutch it to my chest—there’s no way he will wrestle it out of my death grip.

His lips press together. “Benson,” his voice cuts across the room. “Your phone.”

“Aiden—” Corbin interjects but Aiden puts up his hand, eyes on Benson.

“Please call Javier Solis. Tell him everything I did to her and have him come pick her up. Now.”

“No!” I cry out. Javier will go mental. He will fight Aiden. And Aiden will let him win.

Benson’s eyes dart to me once, then back at Aiden. He squares his mammoth shoulders. “I cannot do that, sir,” he says very quietly.

For a millisecond, Aiden’s eyes widen as though he has never heard these words from Benson—or anyone else—before. Then his forehead locks and his jaw flexes.

“I beg your pardon?” he says between his teeth, his voice so cold that
my
teeth start chattering.

No one breathes. Except Corbin.

“Aiden, Elisa is right.” His voice is very calm. “She has a stake in this too.” He takes a step closer to Aiden—within his radius now. “Sending her away won’t separate you, and you know that,” he coaxes gently. “Remember what you said in your email to me?”

Aiden’s eyes release Benson and fix on Corbin. Barely a blink passes between patient and doctor but I know in that blink that I’ve won. That he won’t kick me out—at least not today. I’d gladly give a limb or all four to know what the email said.

“You shouldn’t make any big decisions within seventy-two hours of Versed anyway,” Corbin tacks on casually. “We’ll reevaluate then. Now, I’d like to examine you, though from the way you’re firing, your brain is giving Versed a run for its money.”

Aiden’s eyes sweep over us. He knows there’s a coup d’état—no matter how unspoken—and he knows there is nothing he can do about it. Not for another seventy-two hours. I shiver. What will he do then? Will Corbin talk him into reason? Or will he revert back to this Aiden, seventy-two times stronger?

“Benson.” His voice whips out. “We have witnesses to find.”

Benson’s shoulders relax. “Yes, sir. I’ve added Rockwell to the search party.”

With one nod from Aiden, Benson strides to the door. He looks at me before he turns the corner.
Thank you
, I mouth. He winks and marches down the hall, Corbin behind him.

A deep silence falls over the bedroom. Aiden gazes at me, as though this is the look he had saved for last. There is something so final about that look that I run to him, almost crashing into his chest.

He steps back and his right hand—the one that attacked me—flies behind his back. I freeze in terror. Is he never going to touch me again? Best not to start on that right now.

“Please, don’t call Javier,” I say. “Or Reagan. This is just between you and me. No one else.”

He nods. “Call Bob. Tell him we’ll look for other witnesses first.”

Despite my terror, the words gush out of my mouth, ardent and breathy. “Thank you!”

His eyes soften, roaming over my jawline and throat as is their habit when he needs peace the most. But then he notices his dog tag and frowns.

“I snooped,” I mumble, looking down at my bare feet. “And, umm,
I also read your letter. I’m sorry. I have a serious problem, I think.”

I can’t help but peek at his face. His lips, his cheeks, his beautiful brow twist as though they want to lift into a smile but cannot. Instead, his eyes deepen—become bottomless—like they’re extracting every particle from this moment.

“You can’t snoop what’s already yours,” he whispers.

I smile, swallowing back tears. “I finally know the truth about Byron now. I didn’t think I could love you more, but I do.” I rise on my tiptoes to kiss him but he leans away.

“Lack of love was never our problem, Elisa.”

He nods once and sweeps out of the room. I watch the spot where he stood. The tears I was fighting spill through so violently that I can’t make a sound.

You hear that love is strong, love is kind. But love does not fight wars, does not write laws, does not change them. As to these earthly needs, love is impotent.

Chapter Forty-Nine

American Beauty

I know where I am before I open my eyes. Bed, the glass door open, a cool breeze wafting in with the scent of freshly dug earth. And the cinnamon-sandalwood-and-Aiden fragrance around me. I equate it with being awake in every sense of the word. Even if terrified.

Today is his first day Versed-free.

I lie very still on my side, preparing for anything—from “Elisa, Cora has packed your clothes”, to “Elisa, police are outside to take you to prison”.

Aiden blows along my neck, and my muscles relax fractionally. This is normal for the last three days. Then I tense again. But utterly abnormal for him. His touch has vanished completely. In its place are only these soft gusts of breath that leave me bereft.

“You’re up,” I say a little late.

“As are you.”

I roll over to look at him. He is on top of the covers, curled around me without contact, already dressed in frayed jeans and a black T-shirt. The purple circles under his bottomless eyes are deeper. The stubble is thicker, longer, and the dimple is gone.

“Morning kiss, evening bliss, my mum used to say,” I whisper and kiss him. My lips barely brush against his before he pulls away. But for that one nanosecond of touching, we both shiver.

“They’re delivering Marshall’s tree soon, and your roses. I’ll start the sprinklers,” he says and blows out of bed and onto the patio before I can blink.

I stumble up, ignoring the sharp aches in my arm and back. Who cares about bruises when your insides burn this way?

I flit out of bed and into his closet to find something to camouflage the livid purple-and-blue patches on my skin. It’s easier at night—I can just wear long-sleeve T-shirts and flannel pajamas. But in seventy-five degree weather? Ah, yes, leggings and Aiden’s shirt from the painting. Then I can still feel like he is touching me. I slide them on and run out on the patio, lest he disappear.

He is sitting at the wrought-iron table, fingers pressed into his temples, shoulders hunched, empty eyes trained unblinking on the horizon. Like someone is siphoning his soul. The sight makes me shiver.

When he hears me, he stands and arranges his face into a semblance of human features.

“Cora bought you some more clotted cream.” He pushes a beautiful breakfast tray toward me. “Eat something. I’ll start digging the hole for the tree.” He leaps casually over the patio stairs and charges across the lawn without another glance.

“Have
you
eaten?” I call after him. He doesn’t answer.

The sun fades and a chill seeps through my skin.

“Aiden!” His name bursts from my lips.

He turns, and I notice that even for that fleeting instant he looked away from me, his face aged again. “Yes?”

I try to remember how to smile. “I love you.”

His empty eyes become—impossibly—more still. “I love you too,” he says without any intonation and stalks to the farthest edge of the yard.

I shiver again. Isaac Newton was wrong. Not all bodies at rest, stay at rest. There are bodies—torn, ravaged-from-within bodies—that shudder in stillness, perhaps even in death.

I wobble to the table where my tray is waiting. The same as our first morning. Cream, scones, orange marmalade, eggs, bacon, Baci… I pick at a scone, tossing most of it for the bluebirds, unable to look away from Aiden.

He rips weeds along the perimeter almost violently. Fast, like a hurricane. His shoulders ripple with movement and tension. He picks up a shovel and starts digging. I listen to the chirps, scurries and flutters he leaves in his wake. The sound of life that goes on without visas, wars or accidents.

I jump when his iPhone buzzes next to my tray. I peek at the screen, dreading words like “Prison”, “ICE”, or “Isaac Newton”. But no. Just a reminder for Aiden’s meeting with Corbin later this afternoon. They have been locked up in one of the guest rooms every day for hours. Shutters closed.

The phone vibrates again—Hendrix.

“Aiden,” I call out. “Hendrix is calling you.”

He nods and digs faster.

The phone stops buzzing but before I can force down another scone crumb, it vibrates again. This one freezes the air solid. Casa
Solis.

I watch the number on the screen, unable to move a finger. How can I possibly answer this call? What could I say that wouldn’t be a lie or horror? They’ll know immediately from my voice that something is wrong. I can’t tell them. It would be a huge betrayal of Aiden. And another worry for the Solises.

My stomach twists so sharply that I almost deposit my breakfast in the blackberry bushes. I sense Aiden’s gaze on my face so I compose a smile and wave. He turns to his hole, digging his way to Australia.

The iPhone buzzes again. A text this time.

Hendrix:
Storm! Answer!

I leap to my feet—suddenly unable to tolerate anything. Our silence, their insistence and above all, the distance from Aiden. I march across the yard, careful not to trample the wildflowers.

“The whole world wants you,” I say when I reach him. “Not that I blame them.”

His cheeks are slightly flushed—the only sign of life in the otherwise hollowed face. He drops the shovel, takes the phone without a word and reads the text. The bottomless eyes deepen. But instead of answering, he tosses the phone on the grass and starts ripping some thistles.

I put my hand gently on his arm. “Aiden, love, they’re worried about you. Maybe just a line to say you’re…busy?”

He tears a dock weed off its roots.

“Why don’t you go see them for a few days? Corbin said it might help. I’ll be okay back here.” I keep my voice calm even though the idea of not seeing him now—even for an hour—rips me apart more than any attack he could deliver on man or weed.

He takes a deep breath and finally looks at me. “I want to comb through the list of potential witnesses first.”

“Any leads?” My voice trembles.

His muscles flex—the way they would if his arms were around me. “We’ll find one.”

That burns through my composure. I launch myself into his chest, craving his…everything. Maybe he can’t resist comforting me or maybe he craves this too; whatever it is—for the first time in three days—he doesn’t push me away. He cradles me gently in his arms.

My body responds with violence. Blood rushes to my skin, heart crashes against my ribs and the shivers become vibrations. I lock all muscles in place—afraid my desperation will drive him away—and rest my head on his chest. There’s more Aiden than sandalwood. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. He shudders and his breathing picks up. Like mine.

From somewhere outside our bubble, I hear another bloody buzz. I tighten my hold on Aiden but it’s too late. The spell is broken.

He drops his arms—my skin throbs at his absence—and picks up the phone from the grass. I’m about to rip it off his hand and toss it in the blackberry bushes but Aiden’s face derails me. The V appears between his eyebrows. Aiden doesn’t frown when he sees numbers—he always remembers them. I glare at the screen. A 253 area code.

“Who’s that?” I hiss.

“Not sure.” He picks up with his usual “Aiden Hale” and darts across the yard toward the house. Without a word. Without a touch.

The chills return, and tears I didn’t know I was holding spill over. Every cell misses substance. With every hour his hands are not on me, I turn ghostly. After all, isn’t this what makes ghosts, ghosts? Inability to touch them?

* * * * *

By the time Rose City Nursery has delivered Marshall’s Douglas-fir seedling and fourteen rose bushes, the tears have stopped, even if the chills haven’t. Aiden has not resurfaced from Benson’s office—he no longer uses the library, it has been sealed shut—so I stalk him there. Gardening has worked for us before. Maybe it will help now too?

I come to a skidding stop outside the closed door, ready to pound it off its hinges, but Aiden’s voice halts my fist in the air. It’s no longer even and detached. His timbre is energized, firing commands in its usual efficient hardness. Did I really find this cadence intimidating? Now, it sounds like music.

“Yes, we know about it… I’m sorry, I have another call waiting. Goodbye… Glenda, send copies to the lawyers and Congressman Kirschner. Transfer me to Sartain now. Yes, General, Aiden Hale…will this be enough?… Well, I’m calling in that favor now… That’s all I can ask. Goodbye… Benson, finish the rest as discussed… No outs.”

A slam on a desk. Then silence.

Bloody hell!
I pound on the door with both my fists. “Aiden! It’s m—”

The door wrenches open. “Elisa? Are you okay?”

I open my mouth but his face mutes my words. It’s still hollowed, but for a faint flicker of light in his eyes. Like someone has lit a candle upstairs.

“Is everything okay?” I gasp. “I heard you talking to Sartain.”

He steps aside to let me in. I don’t have enough presence of mind to look around Benson’s office. I just register a dizzying number of screens, computers and furniture. Their blurry contours disappear when Aiden closes the door and takes my hand.

“Elisa, baby, take a seat.” His voice is urgent, and beautiful. He guides me to a swivel chair but I can’t breathe. He called me
baby
again. And he touched me. Is that a good sign? Or bad?

He takes the other swivel chair in front me. “Breathe, Elisa. It’s good news, I hope.” He blows on my face. “I think we have a witness. Someone who knows about Feign’s fraud and is willing to testify.”

His words are slow but every cell starts vibrating with life. I’m afraid to feel it. It will finish me this time if I lose it again.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“A client Feign defrauded a while ago.”

“What about Javier? The witness doesn’t know about him, does he?”

Aiden shakes his head. “He won’t implicate Javier. If anything, he’ll help him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Will this satisfy the DOJ? Will it make them stop before they get to me?”

Aiden’s hand squeezes mine—my skin bursts into flames. “I’ve sent the info to Bob. We’ll know more in a couple of days, love.”

His sentences are muffled by that one big word. “You called me
love
again.”

“You’ll always be my love.” His voice is so finite that my chest starts convulsing. This witness doesn’t change anything between us, does it?

“What about the last few days?” I breathe.

His right hand flies behind his back and his jaw flexes. “Love doesn’t change the last few days.”

I turn the words in my head. They sound backward. “You won’t kick me out?” I verify in unambiguous English.

The light dims in his eyes. “Not until you want to leave.”

“That will
never
happen.”

The flicker of light goes out. Abruptly, almost with an audible
click
. The void it leaves behind in his face is staggering. His features fold into a veil of desolation—utterly empty and barren. The change is so drastic that I gasp and cup his face like my fingers will shoot life into it.

“I will
never
leave you. I love you.
Always
,” I say with force.

He nods as, inch by inch, he brings his face back under control and tries to lighten his voice. “Did I hear a truck and some marching orders about where the roses should be delivered?”

I keep my hands on his face. “Kiss me.”

But I don’t wait. I lunge at him—fingers pulling his hair like hooks, arms vising his face, legs gripping his hips. So forceful is my attack that the chair tilts and he gasps, giving my tongue an in. Ah, his taste!

It takes a few strokes of tongue before I realize that the gentle hold on my shoulders is actually a push. I press myself into him further but he leans away, tipping up my face.

“No, love.” His voice is low.

“Please?” I whisper, trying to hold my body together. I don’t know if it’s trembles or dry sobs.

His jaw flexes in inner battle. When he speaks, his voice is back to even. “I miss it too. More than you know. But it’s no longer right.”

“It’s always right between us, Aiden.”

He blows on my lips once and—before I can blink, breathe or mount another attack—holds out his hand for me.

“We have a tree to plant,” he says.

* * * * *

Aiden surveys the crimson rose bushes scattered along the tilled perimeter in a perfect half circle. They’re already in bloom. Marshall’s fir stands sentinel across from us, the first tree before the forest starts.

“Douglas-fir?” Aiden asks as we traipse across the lawn.

“Yes. I thought it was a good choice for him. Tall, strong and always green.”

I ruffle the needles as we reach the young sapling. It’s only as tall as me now but, with time, it may reach up to three hundred feet.

Aiden reaches out a steady hand, grips the slender trunk and shakes it gently.

“Thank you,” he says with a strong, leashed emotion. “It suits him.”

I lean my head on his shoulder. “He’ll be around for a long time.” Like Lady Clare, I can’t call Marshall’s fir an “it”.

He nods and his eyes roam over the rose bushes. “Why fourteen?” he asks.

“One for each of our family members.”

Aiden swallows and a crease deepens where his dimple used to be. “Not English roses?”

“No. American Beauty.”

He turns to face me, his body close. So very close. The flicker of light I saw earlier gleams again in his eyes. I rest my head on his chest.

“I thought it made sense to start our garden this way. Then we can add later…” For a little Peter. Or a little Clare.

If he hears the unspoken future, he doesn’t comment. But he does wrap his arms gently around me. I stand still not to ruin it.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmurs.

“Like you.”

And I’ve ruined it.

He drops his arms, muscles tensing, and picks up Marshall. “Come on, put on your gloves. Are you wearing sunscreen?”

“Yes,” I grumble. Who cares about sunburn when the rest of me is blazing already?

He marches to the hole he dug earlier and bends to lower Marshall in.

“Wait! Wait!” I call, chasing after him. “Just a second, give me your phone!”