I wipe my tears because they are blurring the sight and turn to look at Aiden. He is watching me with a vivid smile, his eyes the stillest blue.
“Aiden, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Except you,” I breathe in awe, stumbling back to him.
“Hmm, I have to disagree.” He arches me to him. For a while, we are only kissing. A slow, potent kiss full of unsaid things. Then, he pulls away, his eyes blinking once or twice like shutters.
“Wherever did you find them?” I marvel, taking his hand and tiptoeing through the vases.
“They arrived from Nairobi late this afternoon.”
I stop, almost colliding with the table. “W-what?”
He chuckles. “Well, you were right. They really don’t grow anywhere else. I researched them after the Rose Garden.”
“B-b-but how did they get here?”
He laughs now. “In a private jet. Then in Benson’s Rover to here, with Cora’s help.”
“Bloody hell!” I shout.
He tenses, looking panicked. “What’s wrong?”
“Aiden, how much did this cost?” I’m still shouting.
“Ah, fuck,” he says but his shoulders relax. “You’re not going to do that now, are you?”
I look at the roses, the pillows, the Baci on the table. He is right. “No, not right now. I’ll yell at you later. And don’t say fuck around the roses.”
He laughs his rare waterfall laughter. I throw myself at him.
“Thank you,” I say, hating the words for their inadequacy. That tip-of-the-tongue feeling tickles my mouth again. “I love, love, love every part of this,” I mumble, looking up at him.
A deep V forms between his eyebrows. His Adam’s apple rolls once, as though he swallowed hard. The tectonic plates shift, then still again. For a moment, I’m terrified that this is the end. That this is his send-off gift to me.
But he reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a tiny silver remote. A song I know—one of my favorites—floods the tent. “Amado Mio”, by Pink Martini. It’s flowing from a wireless set of speakers in the corner that I had apparently missed in my astonishment.
“May I have this dance?” he asks, holding his hand out to me.
“You tango?” I squeal. Bloody hell, I’m melting. Inert gases have more substance than I do right now.
My favorite dimple puckers on his cheek. “Since this afternoon.”
“You learned tango…in one afternoon?” Where is my jaw? It was here somewhere, around the Aeternum.
He chuckles at my incredulous expression. “In the ninety-two minutes it took you to get ready, to be precise.”
When I open and close my mouth a few times, unable to produce sound, he smiles, tapping his temple. “There are some benefits to this beast and YouTube.”
I blink and close my mouth. “That’s just…just…” Brilliant? Stunning? No, I can only think of one word. “That’s just Aiden.”
His chuckle becomes a true laugh as he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me into a close embrace. He starts moving. At first a slow cadencia, then the caminada, his long legs parting mine. Aiden leads in his dominant, protective way, but the real change is in me. For the first time in my life, tango does for me what tango does for women. I am not a daughter. I am not a sister. I am not a friend. I am a woman. Aiden’s woman. My leg hooks and wraps around his with a new confidence, sultry, feminine and powerful. I watch our entwined shadows on the tent’s curtains, looking very much like Mum and Dad’s when they danced. Yet, in this moment, I’m discovering a new bliss that belongs to me alone. Not to ghosts, and not to memories.
I bury my face in his chest, inhaling the Aiden-and-Aeternum scent.
“Are you going to distill the fragrance?” he asks, his thigh pressing between mine.
“You already have it bottled,” I mumble, embarrassed to be caught sniffing.
He chuckles. “I meant the roses, but it’s good to know I don’t smell the way I did after training with my gunny.”
I blush enough to turn the roses red. “Oh! Umm, yes. They’re perfume grade—that’s why I like them. Only six varieties out of five hundred meet that threshold. Plus, they promote fair trade in Kenya and support the wildlife there.”
He slows down to cadencia. “Responsible even about the type of rose you like but not about the kind of man you give yourself to.”
My fingers clutch his arm and neck. “Not now, Aiden.” Not ever, in fact.
He kisses my hair. I shiver because I sense that he is simply waiting. Biding his time to end this.
“Why did you do all this?” I ask to distract myself and him. “I love it but I would have been happy here with just hot chocolate and you.”
I start the ochos but he stops. He watches me with that unnamed emotion again, the V between his eyebrows deepening. He lowers our intertwined hands.
“You asked me today to show you what it would be like to be with me,” he starts in an even voice.
Blood drains from my face as he confirms my worst fear: this lovely evening was simply a means to an end.
“Please, don’t!” The words whoosh from my mouth like a final breath. I try, really, really try to fight the tears brimming in my eyes. How can he take all this away? All this life teeming inside me, it will go dark if he is not around. And the calmness I give him, that will go away, too.
“Elisa, look around you,” he says. “What do you see?”
“The most beautiful night of my life,” I answer with no hesitation.
He nods as though that’s the answer he expected. “That’s what I hoped it would be. But, baby, this here—this is the best that it would ever get for us.”
I frown, trying to see where he is leading me. “If this is the best, you’re failing miserably at showing me why I shouldn’t be with you.”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I can do all this for you. Ship roses across the world, buy you dresses that no one but me will see, rent bookstores for you. But that’s all I can give.”
I open my mouth to protest but he clamps his hand on it gently. His fingers are cold.
“Listen, please. At the end of each night, no matter how beautiful I make it, you will sleep alone and it will hurt more because the evening was so perfect. And during the days, you will be torn in half, choosing between your family and me. It will be graduation parties and holidays and birthdays first. Then gradually, you will get sucked in my world, camping here on this hilltop with me. I cannot give you your own family. I won’t give you children just so that Daddy can break them by accident. One by one, you will lose everything. And this is the best scenario, if I don’t hurt you first. I cannot give up my structure, Elisa, and I refuse to buy you life just so that I can steal it.”
His eyes are focused, determined. His hand presses firmly on my mouth but for once, he does not need to silence me. I am stunned on my own. The world has gone strangely blank. No Pink Martini, no wind. Even the scent of Aeternum has faded. The ice from his hand spreads to the rest of me and I shudder.
It may seem odd that none of his warnings about physical danger have deterred me, yet this image of isolation finally breaks through. But when I think about it, it really is not odd for a girl like me. There is nothing injury or death can give me that I have not survived, and even craved before. But losing the only semblance of a family—losing my second chance—how can I go through that again?
Of its own volition, the silver heel of a Louboutin slides back a step. Away from him. He closes his eyes and removes his hand. Maybe he saw the change in me or maybe he is having a change of his own. Whatever it is, I need to think. I turn away from him and run out of the tent.