One Unforgettable Weekend

It was special. Perfect.

And then Knox puked applesauce down the front of Aidan’s polo shirt.

Three

If you’d told Aidan six months ago that he’d be half-naked in Violet’s apartment today, he would’ve laughed. Then again, back then he hadn’t known about his new son or factored in how far the boy could projectile vomit applesauce.

“I just put your shirt in the dryer, so you should be able to wear it home,” Violet said as she came back into the room with Knox on her hip.

After the applesauce incident, Aidan and Knox had played while Violet cleaned up and threw their clothes in the washer. She’d quickly changed the baby into a little outfit with a train embroidered on the chest.

“I don’t really have anything in the house that would fit you.” Violet’s gaze ran over his bare chest, then shifted quickly to the art on the wall over his shoulder. “I’m sorry about the mess. Having an infant has been hard on my drive for perfection.”

“It’s my fault,” Aidan admitted. “I should know better than to bounce a baby if I’m not sure how long it’s been since he’s eaten last.”

“I suppose you’ll always remember the first time you held your son, now,” she said with a chuckle.

“How could I forget? Even without the spit up it’s a pretty momentous event.”

Aidan noted that his words brought a shadow across Violet’s face, stealing the light humor from her words. Her gaze dropped to the floor in contemplation. Suddenly she seemed sad, although he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d missed out on the first few months of his son’s life, or because he’d finally caught up with her. His unexpected arrival had to be a complication to her life.

Aidan took the moment to study Violet. He hadn’t really had the chance to do that in a long time. When she’d shared his bed, he’d lain beside her and tried to memorize every line and curve of her face. The delicate arch of her dark eyebrows, the thick fringe of her lashes against her cheeks as she slept...

Today she looked different than before. Like that night at Murphy’s, she was still dressed flawlessly from head to toe with styled hair and a full face of makeup. This time, she had on impeccably tailored plum slacks and a silk blouse with a collar embroidered with tiny flowers. But something wasn’t quite right. She looked less peaceful than she’d been sleeping in his arms all those months ago. More at the mercy of life’s stresses, with lines around the edges of her eyes and etched into her forehead. Despite having been pregnant, she seemed thinner than before the baby. Almost hollow. Drained. The last year and a half had clearly been hard on Violet.

Although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, it had been hard on Aidan, too. Losing his father three years ago had turned his life upside down, but it hadn’t been unexpected. He’d bounced back. Murphy’s was doing good business again and although he wasn’t a hotshot advertising executive anymore, he’d been happy with where he was in life.

Then his mother got sick.

Owning their own business, they’d never had medical insurance growing up and health care reform had done little to help where she was concerned. She’d had the cheapest catastrophic plan, all she could afford, but it hadn’t been enough once she got sick. The best treatments, the latest and greatest advancements in Europe, were well out of their reach. The big pharmaceutical industries were charging thousands of dollars for a single dose of medication that could’ve worked wonders for his mother. They had to recoup what they spent on research and development, they argued. But that argument couldn’t keep his mother from succumbing to her illness.

Aidan had never felt more helpless in his life as he had watching her waste away in a state-run hospital. His father had killed himself with alcohol, but his mother hadn’t done anything but be too poor to afford the treatment that could have saved her.

Before she passed, his mother did leave him with one task he could control—the halfway house. It had been her idea, one she couldn’t see through to the end. But Aidan could, and he would do it with the help of Violet’s foundation. Life had come full circle in a strange way.

Violet turned to look at Knox as he yawned. “I think it’s naptime for this little guy. Would you like to help me put him down?”

He looked up at Violet and Knox and smiled. “Sure,” he said and accepted the baby into his arms.

The clean, babbling ginger baby went contentedly to Aidan. He hadn’t been around many babies but those he had tried to hold had never been too happy about it. He was thankful his son felt differently. He liked holding his son just as much as Knox liked being held. He smelled like baby shampoo and talc, a combination Aidan wasn’t used to but found soothing somehow. Knox curled contentedly against Aidan’s bare chest and shoved his fist into his mouth.

“Be careful he doesn’t get ahold of that chest hair,” Violet warned. “Come this way and I’ll show you his nursery.”

Looking anxiously at the chest hair he wanted to keep, Aidan fell in step behind Violet. He followed her upstairs and down a hallway to a door that opened up to a spacious and beautiful room for a baby. It was decorated in a gray-and-white chevron pattern with pops of bright yellow and dark blue. There were elephants on the curtains and a large stuffed elephant in the corner of the room. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect nursery.

Violet stopped in front of the large white crib with elephants on the bedding. Aidan watched as she turned the switch on the mobile overhead, making the matching menagerie of elephants in different colors and sizes dance around in a circle to soft music.

“You can just lay him down there,” she said. “He’ll be out cold in minutes.”

Aidan eased his son into the crib, knowing he needed his nap and yet not ready to let go just yet. He had to remind himself that he would see Knox again.

The baby squirmed for a moment, then reached out to snatch a pacifier from Violet. He sucked contentedly as his eyes fluttered closed.

“Told you,” she said. “He loves his naps.”

“Like father, like son,” Aidan replied with a smile.

Violet grinned. “Let’s go.”

They crept quietly out of the nursery, and Violet shut the door behind him. Instead of heading into the living room again, however, Violet crossed the hall to the door opposite Knox’s. When she opened it, Aidan was taken aback to find it was her bedroom.

Why were they going into her bedroom?

She went inside without hesitation or so much as giving him a second glance. He stayed in the hallway, not quite sure what the right course of action was. When they were at her office, before he’d known about Knox, he’d pressed Violet about her attraction to him. He didn’t really need to ask. Aidan could tell by the flush of her cheeks and the way she nervously chewed at her bottom lip that she still wanted him. He just needed her to say it out loud so she would admit it to herself.

Violet had finally broken down and confessed that she still wanted him, but that conversation had gotten sidetracked not long after and they’d never returned to the topic. Was this her way of circling back to where they’d left off?

He didn’t know Violet well. At all, really. But he couldn’t believe for a second that the beautiful, rich perfectionist he’d come to know was leading him into her room to seduce him while their son napped across the hall. He’d like it if she did, of course, but he doubted it would happen.

“Aidan, you can come in,” she said from the far side of her bedroom. She was standing in front of a large oak dresser with a mirror. Between them was a queen-size bed with a plush floral comforter, an upholstered headboard and about a dozen different fancy pillows. Apparently rich people liked to spend their money on pillows.

He gripped the door frame and held his ground. He wasn’t entirely sure that he could refrain from touching her once he set foot into her bedroom. It was too personal somehow, like she was opening up to him. He could already smell her familiar and enticing scent as it lingered there. It called to him. Another touch, another taste, another aspect of his missing fantasy woman was all he’d craved these past lonely months.

“I don’t know if that’s a very good idea.”

Violet frowned at him, her gaze traveling to his bare chest again and staying there a moment too long. When her eyes met his, he could tell she’d been admiring his physique and thinking the kind of thoughts that could get them both into trouble. The blush had returned to her cheeks as she licked her dry lips. He understood how she felt. He’d been having enough of those thoughts about her since he’d arrived and she’d been fully dressed the whole time.

“I’m grabbing something out of my dresser. I’m not trying to seduce you, Aidan.”

He crossed his arms over his chest in a thoughtful posture. He wasn’t so certain of that. “Are you sure? You were just looking at me like I was a tall, cool glass of water you were dying to drink. And to be honest, I’m pretty thirsty myself.”

“I may have been looking, but that’s all I was doing.” She turned back to the dresser and pulled out something folded. “I can’t help but look when you’re half-naked like that. Here. It’s the largest, manliest shirt I own and I need you to put it on, please.”

Violet tossed the shirt to Aidan. He caught the wad of fabric and shook it out to investigate what she’d offered him. If this was the largest, manliest thing she had, he couldn’t imagine what the rest was like—lace and bows and glitter? For one thing, the shirt was too small. He had broad shoulders and a wide chest that demanded an XL top even when his waistline was on the narrow side. The top was a medium, and a woman’s medium at that. It was also a purply sort of color. Its only redeeming attribute was the black logo on the front for a local rock band that he’d heard play a time or two.

“This is too small.”

“Please put it on.”

“I’m going to tear it.”

“It doesn’t matter. I just need you to wear it until your shirt dries. It’s that or a pink silk robe. Your choice, but you’ve got to wear something.”

There was a pleading in her eyes that he couldn’t ignore. She was desperate not to want him. There were lots of reasons she could feel that way. Perhaps she didn’t want to complicate the issue with sharing custody of their son. Maybe she was in a relationship with someone else. Or she could be embarrassed that she had little self-control when it came to her attraction to a lowly barkeep. That was one reason to fight your feelings. Not a good one, but still a reason.

With a shrug, he attempted to pull the T-shirt over his head. It wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done, but after some tugging and grunting, he was able to pull it down to cover most of his stomach. “Okay, it’s on.”

She didn’t respond right away. He looked up at Violet and found the stunned expression on her face unexpected. Despite the fact that he was wearing a ridiculously small purple shirt that belonged on a woman, she looked at him as though she could eat him with a spoon. She was actually gripping the footboard of her bed with white-knuckled intensity.

“What?” he said, looking down at himself. It was easy to see the issue. The shirt was tight. Painted-on tight. Every twitch of his muscles, every line of his six-pack abs, was magnified by the clingy top she’d forced him to put on. Her plan had backfired spectacularly.

“Oh, dear. We should’ve gone with the robe.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Just take it off. It didn’t help.”

“The pants, too?” Aidan asked with a sly grin.

Violet swallowed hard before shaking her head. “Uh, no. Just the shirt.”

For now at least, he thought with a wry smile as he tugged the purple fabric over his shoulders.

* * *

“You’ve been quiet this week, Violet,” Harper noted over her traditional girls’ night glass of dry merlot.

“Is Knox teething yet?” Emma asked. “When Georgie started teething, she hardly slept a wink at night, so neither did I. I was a zombie for weeks and that was with a nanny helping during the day.”

“Is that what I have to look forward to?” Lucy asked with concern lining her brow.

“Times two,” Harper pointed out with a smug grin. She was the only single one in the group without a baby on the way, so she was well-rested, thin and living a fabulous life from all outward appearances. “So expect it to be exponentially worse than Emma and Violet have had it.”

“I appreciate you pointing that out, dear sister-in-law,” Lucy grumbled into her glass of Perrier and lemon instead of her usual sweet rosé. She was thirty-five weeks pregnant with Harper’s niece and nephew. She and Harper’s brother, Oliver, had gotten married a few months ago and had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the twins.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Harper quipped. “So seriously, what’s going on with you, Vi?”

Violet had much preferred her friends continue with the banter so she didn’t have to answer Harper’s pointed question. Unfortunately, she could tell her friend wasn’t going to let it go. She knew that girls’ night would be the night she’d have to come clean to them. They could sniff out a secret like a bloodhound.

Knowing it was time to spill the truth to her best friends, she took a deep breath and began. “Knox is starting to teethe, but that isn’t it. Something else has happened.”

“Oh, really?” Emma said, leaning in curiously to hear the latest news. “Do tell.”

“Beau hasn’t started sniffing around again, has he?” Lucy asked in a worried tone.

It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that, and for good reason. Violet’s ex-boyfriend had tried to reconcile with her a few times in the six months since Knox was born. He’d actually been all too happy to continue their engagement and marry knowing Knox wasn’t his son. He insisted that he loved her and he didn’t care about Knox’s parentage. It had been Violet who’d demanded the paternity test, and Violet who had returned the ring and ended things when the results came back the way her gut had anticipated them to. Beau hadn’t been any happier about the breakup than her parents had been, but she knew she had to do it.

“No, thankfully I haven’t heard from Beau in several weeks. This is actually good news. I had a major breakthrough with my amnesia.”

“You remembered something?” Lucy asked with wide brown eyes.

Violet nodded. “Not everything,” she admitted. “But the most important parts, I think.”

“Knox’s father?” Emma asked with a breathy voice.

“Yes.”

Violet’s three best friends in the world whooped with excitement, drawing stares from others around the restaurant. They quickly started a rapid fire of questions, hardly leaving Violet time to answer.

“Just relax for a minute and I’ll tell you everything,” Violet said, holding up her hand to slow their words. She shook her head and steeled her own nerves with a large sip of her chardonnay. “Last Monday, a man came into the foundation.”

“Did he have red hair?” Lucy asked.

“Let her tell it,” Harper complained.

“I am letting her tell it,” Lucy snapped.

“Yes, he had red hair,” Violet interjected into their argument. “And blue eyes just like Knox, but even then I didn’t recognize him at first. He knew me, though. Apparently he thought I had run out on him the morning of my accident and he didn’t know how to find me.”

“When did you get your memories back?” Emma prompted.

“When he said his name. I didn’t have the slightest idea who he was and then all of a sudden, it was like a bucket of memories was dumped on my head. I remembered nearly every second of the two amazing days we spent together. And at that point, there was no doubt in my mind that Aidan was Knox’s father.”

“Ohmigosh,” Lucy gasped and clutched her huge belly. “This is so exciting I just might go into labor.”

“Please don’t!” Harper said with panicked eyes. “The twins need to stay in there as long as they can. If you go into labor on girls’ night, my brother will blame me. I don’t want to have to hear him complain.”

“That has to be a relief for you,” Emma said, ignoring the others and reaching out to clasp Violet’s hand. “Now you finally know who your baby’s father is. I only went a couple months when I first got pregnant before I tracked down Jonah. I can’t imagine how you’ve dealt with the uncertainty for all these months.”

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