Playing It Safe(65)

As I hang up, I take another look at the calendar on the computer and note the name of the appointment: A. Locke.

It can’t be him. He wouldn’t come here to see me in the guise of an appointment after I told him not to ever contact me again. He couldn’t possibly be that dense. My head pops up at the sound of the door to my office opening to find Aiden walking in. Yes, apparently he can be that dense.

“Are you serious?” I ask. “You made an appointment to see me?”

He confidently strides to the chair in front of my desk and then unbuttons his suit jacket before sitting down. “Completely serious,” he says, grinning from ear to ear.

“Aiden, you have two seconds to get up and get out.”

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “All I’m asking for is a few minutes of your time, Julia. You owe me that much.”

I give him an incredulous look because he must be insane for even saying that. “I owe you that much,” I repeat and then point to myself. “You’re saying I, as in me, the person who got screwed royally by you, owe you? Did I get that right?”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “You don’t owe me, but ever since I saw you at the engagement party—”

“Your engagement party.”

“Yes, my engagement party,” he concedes with a chuckle. “It made me really stop and think about you, about what happened, and how I should have made things right between us a long time ago.”

Gone is the air of confidence that had accompanied him when he walked in my office. In its place is a sincere and soft expression that helps to placate some of the tension between us. Not completely. I’m still wary of him, but I’d be a liar if I say that there isn’t a small part of me that isn’t curious to hear what he has to say.

“Fine,” I say after a long pause. “You’ve got five minutes.”

He flashes a crooked smile before running a hand through his hair in relief. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” I glance at my watch. “And you’re down to four minutes and thirty seconds.”

“I don’t even know where to start. I didn’t think you’d ever let me explain. I thought I’d have to keep annoying you like a bad cold or—”

“Genital warts,” I finish for him, and after a long sigh, I go on. “Why don’t you start by explaining why you left?”

“It’s not that easy. There were so many things going through my mind back then.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“For one thing, I kept worrying that I wasn’t successful enough for you,” he says. “You had your career all mapped out, and you hit the ground running right after college, while I was stuck trying to figure out what the hell to even do with my degree.”

“So you’re saying that because I had a career, that’s how your dick ended up in another woman’s vagina?” I ask. “Aiden, if that’s your excuse, I don’t want to hear any more.”

“No, there’s more to it than that.” He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and steeples his fingers together underneath his chin. “I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that you were more successful than me. I couldn’t stand knowing that there was no way in hell that I could provide for you, even on my best day. Every day I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a trench that I had no idea how to get out of.

“Julia, I was stupid. So f*cking stupid. In my stupidity, I started chatting online in a group for people who felt the same way about their lives. And in yet more of my stupidity, I started chatting privately with a woman from that group. I had never met her in person, but somehow I could relate to her on so many levels because she was going through the same thing as me.”

He smiles sadly as if he’s remembering something and then continues. “The great thing about the Internet is that you can let your guard down and be yourself. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I didn’t have a connection with her. I did. Obviously, since I went all the way to California to be with her. But I also can’t lie and tell you that I didn’t know it was a mistake the moment I did it, and I’ve regretted it every day since.”

I don’t know what I expected to hear. If it would come close to providing me with some sort of closure that I never thought I would have. Maybe I was hoping that he would say something that would validate all my years of hatred toward him. But his words don’t do that at all. He’s just made me more confused and hurt. Because all he’s really saying is that he was weak. There was no big bad reason or clandestine planning that was done behind my back. He knew what he was doing as he was doing it. So should I forgive him? Is that what his repeated attempts to contact me come down to? His absolution? Because I have to be honest, I’m not very good at forgiving. If that makes me a bitch, so be it. It’s the truth. After somebody does me wrong, I tend to write them right out of my life for good. The way I see it, that’s one less Christmas card I have to send out.

As if he were reading my mind, Aiden says, “I’m not looking for your forgiveness, Julia. I know that I don’t deserve it after what I did to you.”

“Then what do you want? Why bother coming to see me after all this time?”

He smiles again and sits back in the chair. “When I came back home to Miami, I wanted to seek you out. I really did. But every time I thought I had worked up the courage, I would find an excuse not to come see you. Before I knew it, too much time had gone by, and I tried to move on with my life. And then I met Sophia. I knew she had hired you to plan the engagement party. That’s why I never came to one meeting with her since it would have been awkward, to say the least. I couldn’t very well tell her how I knew you either. But I knew that I would have to see you eventually.”