Page 54 of One Moment in Time
He nodded slowly, as if he was giving that serious thought. ‘Okay, I’m starting to feel slightly better. Need more than that though.’
‘He hasn’t called me once since I got here. I’ve called him a solid five times and he keeps telling me he’s busy. We both know he just can’t be bothered talking to me.’
‘Ouch,’ Aiden flinched. ‘I felt that one right in the gut. Okay, definitely feeling a bit better about my crap existence. I appreciate the effort. I mean, it’s not quite jilted on the wedding day but it’s—’
‘And we only have sex about twice a month and even then, only if there’s nothing good on TV.’
Zara gasped, clamped her mouth shut and stared at him. He stared at her, nothing else on the face of the earth moved and she wondered if she could deploy some magical force to rewind the last ten seconds to when she hadn’t blurted out the most intimate details of her life, stuff that she’d said to no one on earth, to a man who was a complete stranger three weeks ago.
Ten seconds passed. Thirty seconds. An hour. A fortnight. She had no idea. Time had stopped, their gaze was still locked, and her brain was on total shutdown, paralysed by days of over-emotion, stress, Budweiser, and… yep… attraction to this beautiful man who was still staring right back at her, his face so close she could see the muscle throb on the side of his jaw. What was this? It was like they were lost, frozen, cast in stone, or some other weird occurrence that had them sitting there, just staring at each other, while the whole world spun around them. Eventually, Aiden broke the silence.
‘Zara…’
It was only one word, but it jump started her back to life, unleashed a full-scale panic. ‘I know, I totally overshared. I’m sorry. I’m a complete liability. See, you were lucky you only got jilted. You could have a mouth like mine and be a daily source of embarrassment to yourself.’
‘Zara—’
‘Of course I don’t mind if you bolt. Run like the wind. Like you’re being chased by dragons.’
Dragons? What the actual f…?
‘Zara, is it wrong that I want to kiss you?’
‘Just go and… What?’ She yelped, startled.
‘Kiss you. I want to kiss you.’ He was still staring. Still staring. She was still staring back.
‘You want to…’ She couldn’t say it, because that would make it real and then her whole body would go into shock and there was the potential for a dislocated hip if she fell off this bar stool. ‘Why?’
He was still staring. ‘Because you’re beautiful. And funny. And you might just be the nicest person I’ve ever met. Did I mention sexy? You’re that too. Definitely that. And I don’t usually do this – in fact I swear I’ve never done something so spontaneous in my life. I’ve no idea what’s happening. But I’d really like, if it’s okay with you, to lean over and—’
‘No.’ She shook her head, as if trying to exorcise some spirit – one that made her want to kiss him right back. ‘You can’t. Because I have a boyfriend and even if he can’t be arsed speaking to me, that’s not what I do. I couldn’t live with myself and…’ She was running out of words, but she was desperately trying to keep talking in the hope that a hole would suddenly open below her, allowing her to tumble to the earth’s core.
That didn’t happen. But the Gods of Oh Thank Fuck did interfere when Aiden’s phone, sitting on the bar, sprang to life and began to ring. He didn’t look away, completely ignored it, so she intervened.
‘That might be your mum. You’d better answer it.’
That seemed to snap him back to the present and he picked it up, checked the screen, and suddenly the little muscle on the side of his jaw was pulsing again.
‘It’s not my mom. It’s…’ He turned the phone so that she could see it.
LAYLA. She tried to process. Layla. His ex. The one who’d left him at the altar. Wow, that was way too close. Did Layla have some psychic paranormal thing going on that alerted her to the fact that Aiden was talking to another woman? Had she hacked into the Planet Hollywood security system? Oceans 24 – the one where no-one steals anything but all the ex’s track down their former loves using the Vegas camera networks. And why was she thinking nonsense like this when he was still staring at her, with a ringing phone in his hand?
‘You have to go take that,’ she told him.
‘Do I?’ he asked, and she felt like they both knew they were talking about something else. He had to go. Before they did something that she would definitely, absolutely regret.
‘You do. I’m going to go back up and check on my mum anyway.’
His stare went from the phone, to her, back to the phone… ‘Zara, I…’
‘Go,’ she cut him off, urgently this time. ‘You’re holding me back.’
This time, he did. He got up from the bar and answered the call as he walked away.
‘Layla?’
Zara watched him leave, completely and utterly stunned, confused and generally gobsmacked about what had just happened.
