His mother, he realized, had handled Aiden’s father’s adultery with much more grace, but that was the type of woman Felicia Stone was. Kind to a fault. Poised in the face of a scandal. And always an optimist even when she’d been dealing with the painful wreckage of her marriage and facing a battle with breast cancer—all while raising three kids. To him, his mother was a fucking rock star. And his dad was a complete piece of shit who Aiden no longer wanted to have anything to do with.
“When you confronted this guy, what did he say?” Aiden asked, his tone a bit more agitated than he’d intended, which always happened when he thought about how his father had destroyed their family and the idyllic childhood Aiden had believed he and his siblings had.
Daisy’s lips pursed with a hint of anger. “He said he was going to tell me, that he intended to divorce his wife and we’d work it out once I was living in Denver. As if he really thought I’d move closer to where he lived after finding out he was married with little kids.” She shook her head in disbelief, her eyes filled with self-recriminations. “How could I not know he was married? How could I have given up everything for him—my job, my apartment, my life in LA—when he wasn’t even available? Not to mention knowing I was responsible for breaking up his marriage and family. God, I was so naïve and stupid.”
“You had no idea,” he said, more gently now, because he hated that she was blaming herself for something she’d had no control over because she’d believed the guy was single and available.
She let out a dull laugh. “From the beginning, my mother said it was too good to be true. I should have listened to her.?
?
He frowned, not sure why her mother would be so pessimistic about the relationship before Daisy had even known that the guy had a wife. “Why should you have listened to your mother? Did she know he was married?”
“Well, no,” she replied as she hugged her knees a little tighter. “But she spent my entire life warning me about men who’d take advantage of me. Who’d make promises and I’d end up giving everything up for them and getting nothing in return. I never really believed that, yet she wasn’t wrong with Troy, because it almost happened to me. It would have happened had I moved to Denver, then found out Troy was married.” Her gaze met his, a troubled frown furrowing her brow. “What kind of asshole does that kind of thing to their wife and family?”
Now that was the million-dollar question for both of them, and one he’d asked himself a hundred different times. There was no explaining or justifying his father’s behavior, but as a result, he understood Daisy’s confusion and her pain.
“I wish I knew, because my dad was one of those assholes,” he said, the confession coming much too easily with her when he never talked about his past. Ever. It was something he’d always kept locked up tight, even knowing how much it affected his views on relationships and marriage.
She stared at him incredulously. “Your father . . . he had an affair?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I was eighteen at the time, and it completely rocked my world because when my mom found out, she was undergoing chemo for stage-two breast cancer, and while my brothers and I were scared shitless that we were going to lose our mother and doing everything we could to take care of her, our father, who is a lawyer, claimed he was working late on a case when he was actually out fucking a woman fifteen years younger than him.”
She sucked in a startled breath and placed a comforting hand on his arm. “Aiden . . . God, I’m so sorry. Is your mother okay?”
He managed a smile, because Daisy’s concern went straight to his mother, who he adored. “Yeah, she’s a fucking warrior,” he said proudly. “It was hard at the time, and there were a lot of uncertainties, but my brothers and I rallied around my mom to take care of her the best we could. My mom was determined to kick cancer’s ass, and I’m grateful to say she’s been in remission for almost ten years.”
She looked relieved. “I’m so happy to hear that. She sounds like an amazing woman.”
“She is,” he said, picking up the hand resting on his arm for the sole purpose of touching her and feeling a connection between them. Because right now, that’s what this conversation was . . . a bond that they shared since they’d both been burned by infidelity. “As for my father, when my mother confronted him after a long day of having that chemo shit pumped into her body, the selfish prick was very cold about the situation and asked her for a divorce because the woman he was screwing around with was pregnant.”
Daisy’s jaw dropped open. “Jesus!”
“And you know what I said to my father when I found out? Good fucking riddance, asshole.”
She giggled unexpectedly, the sound making him grin. “You did not.”
“It wasn’t my finest moment, but yeah, I really did. My siblings and I took care of my mother just fine without him. I did what had to be done and I’ll always take care of my mother and be there for my family . . . even if my brothers are a pain in my ass most of the time.”
“You’re a really good man, Aiden Stone,” she said with a soft sigh. “But just for the record, love sucks and I’ve learned it’s safer and easier to commit myself to my job than to get involved with another man when I clearly can’t trust my own judgment.”
Now he understood why she kept herself so buttoned up and why she worked as hard as she did, clearly to the exclusion of everything else. “From what I’ve seen, I’ll have to agree. I thought maybe my brother, Leo, would get it right with his college sweetheart, but she literally jilted him the morning of their wedding day. How’s that for love fucking someone over?”
“Poor guy,” she said sympathetically.
“Yeah, it was not a good day,” Aiden said with humor, remembering standing next to Leo in their tuxedos as his fiancée called his cell phone to break his heart. “After it happened, me and our other brother, Dylan, took Leo to the nearest bar and got him shit-faced so he could drink away the bitterness of love.”
She laughed as she lowered herself against his chest and propped her chin on her hand. “Okay, that’s a bit dramatic.”
His dick got instantly hard at the feel of her breasts against his naked body and the way her stiff nipples grazed his rib cage. “Well, getting him shit-faced was true,” he said, threading his fingers through her silky hair now that she was close enough. “Unfortunately, he’s still bitter about love.”
“With good reason. Who waits until the day of their wedding to decide that they’re no longer in love with the person they were hours away from marrying?”
“Amanda, obviously,” he said of Leo’s ex, and decided that the two of them had better things to do than discuss his brother’s love life or lack thereof. Instead, he brought his free hand to her face and caressed along her jaw. “I think we’ve talked enough, don’t you?” They had much more pleasurable ways to spend the next few hours.
Her eyes sparked with desire, giving him his answer as she idly traced a finger over his nipple before lightly scraping it with her nail, causing him to groan at the elicit sensation. “Did you have something else in mind?” she asked with feigned innocence. “Maybe a game of cards or watching a sappy romantic movie on demand or maybe a game of truth or dare?”
He grinned at her last suggestion and dragged his thumb across her lower lip before sliding it into her warm, wet mouth. She didn’t hesitate to lick at his finger, and he felt that stroke all the way down to his groin. “I dare you to put this dirty, naughty mouth on my cock.”