Modern Arrangements: Complete Trilogy (Modern Arrangements #1-3) (11 page)

"A-Aidan…" then she broke
down, "it wasn’t my plan. I didn’t intend—"

"So you are, indeed, not pregnant
then?" I raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. I snorted.

"Well that’s too bad. That's the
only way I would’ve stuck around. However, that’s good for me because now I can
walk away from this without any regret." I turned for the door.

"Aidan, please—"

"Thanks for the pussy, Nat."
Keeping my anger in check, I gently shut the door behind me.

Once in my car, the anger seeped back
in. I sped off toward my apartment ignoring the calls from Natalia as I broke
every speed limit along the way. Once in my apartment, I left Devlin a
voicemail to cancel and destroy all documents involving Natalia. I grabbed the
full bottle of bourbon, a glass and threw myself onto a lounge chair on my
balcony. I let the cold October air whip against my face as the bourbon warmed my
throat.

What the fuck am I going to do? I am
completely fucked! I could always go back to that fucking traitorous bitch but,
if Gideon was involved, I couldn’t risk it. I was basically ready to just pick
up any woman and marry her. It was the only choice I had left.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Two days passed and I hadn’t left my
apartment. I was racking my brain, trying to figure out what I was going to do.
When James showed up, I shouldn’t have been surprised; I had been ignoring all
phone calls.

"You look like shit," he
laughed out. I grimaced. "What the hell happened to you?"

I told James about Natalia. He was just
as pissed off.

"Those evil bastards, do they think
this is a game?"

"Well apparently Grandfather liked
to play with people’s lives too," I snapped.

"What?" James looked
astonished by my outburst.

"You heard me. If he would never
have done this to me then I wouldn’t be stuck dealing with this shit!"

He didn’t have a response, he knew I was
right. Instead, he proposed something else.

"Get cleaned up, we’re going
out," he smiled large.

"I don’t want to—"

"Get in the shower before I call
Dixon and have him sponge bath your ass!"

I shuddered at the threat, earning a
chuckle from James. He pulled out his cell and made some calls. I drudged off
to the bathroom hoping that the hot water would make me feel a little more like
myself.

Once I was showered and dressed in a
pair of black slacks and a white button down, I met James in the living room.
He gave me a once over and shrugged while slightly moving his head side to
side.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he chuckled.
"You look alright but I don’t know if you look like husband and father
material." He laughed and headed toward the door.

"Shut the hell up." I yelled
as I followed him.

Once James parked his sleek red car, I finally
noticed our destination for the night.

"Are you serious?"

He smiled and shrugged.

"I thought we would hang out at a
bar or something." I groaned.

"Hey, there's a bar in here,"
he smirked.

I rolled my eyes as I climbed out of the
car.

We entered the club and weaved through
the bodies to reach the bar. Celia moved behind the bar, she was working with
some red head tonight.

"What can I get you guys?" The
red head asked, trying to be seductive. She wasn’t successful. She was
irritating. James ordered our drinks and she went about the task.

"Dude, she was totally eye-fucking
you." He smacked my back and laughed loudly in my ear.

"I can’t believe Elora lets you out
of the house." I glared at him.

"She has nothing to worry about."
He grinned.

"What? Did the playa just put his
balls on a shelf?" I chuckled.

He smirked.

"Oh, they aren’t on a shelf. They're
in Elora’s mouth." He laughed back. I shook my head laughing.

"Hey stranger." Celia stood smiling
before us.

"Hey," I smiled back.

"Haven’t seen you for awhile, how
are you doing?"

"Good," I lied.

"Liar," James snorted.

I smacked him. Celia eyed us curiously.

"So, I heard you finally got a
woman," she smiled.  

I felt the frown form on my face.
Celia’s smile morphed to regretful. Before she could say anything, I simply
blurted out a quick response.

"Nah, let’s just say that we didn’t
see things the same way," I forced a smile and tossed my bourbon down
slamming the glass onto the bar.

"Let me get you another."
Celia quickly returned with a full glass and I thanked her.

"So, don’t you and Lilli usually
work together?" I asked between gulps.

"Uh…yeah," she answered. Her
forehead creased with worry.

"What’s wrong? Everything
okay?" I asked, with a small amount of true concern.

"Yeah, well…Lilli had to go back to
Maine. She’s been gone for like a month." She sighed unhappily.

"She’s been gone for a month?"
I furrowed my brow.

"Yeah, her father got sick again
and she was in the hospital with him for two weeks before he was allowed to
come home with a nurse." I could see the tears start to form in her eyes.
"Sorry," she said when she realized that I was watching her get
upset. "I just feel bad for her and I miss her," she shrugged.

I was about to ask her more but she gave
me the just a minute motion and went to help some people who had just sat down at
the bar.

My mind started to digest what she had
just said. The wheels turning so wildly in my head, I didn’t hear Dixon or
Oscar arrive.

"Hello!" Dixon’s boisterous
voice brought me out of my head.

"Oh, hey, Dixon!" I replied,
seeing Oscar over Dixon’s shoulder. "Oz," I raised my glass to him
and he nodded.

"What’s this we hear about that
Natalia bitch?" Dixon blurted out and Oscar shook his head.

I turned to look at James and scowled.

"What? They are like your brothers
so quit with the damn glares." He tossed back his drink and set it on the
bar for a refill.

Celia appeared and took his glass. When
she brought it back she leaned over the bar to kiss Dixon.

"Hey baby," she winked.

"Hey," he smiled goofily.

He had it so bad. I quietly chuckled.

"You heard from Lilli?" Celia
asked him.

He nodded.

"Yeah, she doesn’t know when she is
going to leave or if she can even come back." He looked upset. "She’s
already cancelled her classes for the current semester. It sucks."

"What happened?" I asked. He
eyed me warily before he told me what happened to her father.

It wasn't until that moment I knew three
things. One, I was definitely going to work tomorrow. Two, I was a total douche
bag for what I was about to do.  Three, the plan would be placed into action as
soon as possible.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After making what felt like hundreds of
calls, all before noon, I began implementing the return to Plan B. My next move
was a text message. I pulled up her number and typed out a message.

The offer still stands. Please consider.

I hit send. Now, all I could do was to
wait. When there was no response by the end of the day I calculated my next
move. I knew I was being just a little manipulative. Okay, it was a lot. But I
was beyond desperate and this opportunity continued to fall in my lap.

The next day I got some answers from the
research I’d requested. My next step was put into place and all I could do was wait.

It was three days after the transaction before
I got the call I'd been waiting for.

"Hello?"

"What do you think you are
doing?" She was as pissed as I had expected.

"What do you—?"

"Don’t play dumb with me, Iverson! I
want you to take it back, all of it!" She shouted.

"I’m afraid I can’t do that." I
sat back in my office chair hoping this played out in my favor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Lilli

I had been gone for over a month tending
to Donald. I cancelled my classes, knowing full well that I would not be able
to go to school. Hell, I didn’t know if I would be able to return to New York
at this point.

Once I got Donald out of the hospital, I
had to work with him and the nurse to get them familiar. The live in nurse was
expensive but, believe it or not, it was cheaper than the hospital stay. I had
stacks of hospital bills in my old bedroom that I was adding to the other bills
we had.

Going over the budget, I had to make a
few calls to get the current balance owed on the house. What I didn’t expect
was the balance being at zero. Thinking there was a mistake, I called the bank in
an attempt to correct it. No one at the bank would listen when I told them it
was a mistake.  There was no way in hell our mortgage was paid off.  Christ, we
were lucky to pay the interest on the late months. When the phone call proved
futile, I grabbed up the thick mortgage folder and left for what used to be a small
town bank.

Arriving at the, newly renovated and
acquired by a large chain, bank, I marched up to a teller.  Trying not to
unleash my frustration on the bank employee, I requested to speak with someone
about my mortgage. Once seated with Mr. Barmire, we discussed the situation. I
pulled out all of my prior statements, including the most recent one. Mr.
Barmire pulled up the account on his computer and showed me the zero balance.

Still, I insisted there was a mistake.
He did more research and discovered the total payoff amount had been wired to
the account three days ago. Dumbfounded, I didn’t know what the hell was going
on. Dazed and confused, I climbed into my father’s old beaten up truck. Then, as
I pulled out of the bank parking lot, I remembered the text message from
him
.

"That son of a bitch," I
yelled. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and called him.

"Hello?" The fucker had the
nerve to sound smug.

"What do you think you are
doing?"

"What do you—?"

Oh no he wasn’t!

"Don’t play dumb with me, Iverson! I
want you to take it back, all of it!"

"I’m afraid I can’t do that." 
The self-satisfied sound to his voice grated my already raw nerves.

"Aidan, take the money back. You
had no right!" My frustration had reached its boiling point.

"What’s done is done, Lilli."
He was so calm and collected. My fist clenched, I wanted to punch him in the
face.

"I can’t let you pay off the house.
I’m assuming you
expect
something in return but I already answered
you."

He sighed but said nothing.

"Why didn’t you just go find
someone else?"

"Honestly, I did try. I almost had
but that didn’t work out. It seems to me, fate keeps bringing me back to
you."

"It’s not fate, Aidan!" Rubbing
at my forehead, stress crept up my neck, tightening the muscles.

"Lilli just accept my help."
He pleaded.

"You mean a favor. A favor you
expect to be returned," I spat.

"Only, if you want to return the
favor." His response sounded resigned.

"There is no way in hell I am going
to let you just pay off my father’s house! I’ll pay you back the same way I was
paying the bank." Proud of myself for standing firm, I straightened my
spine and held my head higher.

"I’m afraid I won’t accept your
money, Lilli."

My head fell a bit, as my heart sank. He
was refusing repayment.

"The only thing I will accept is
you saying yes."

I paused, waiting and, before I could
argue with him, he spoke again.

"It’s the
only
payback I
will accept. However, you can just accept my kindness and not worry about owing
me—"

"You’re an insufferable asshole,
you know that?" I seemed to suddenly develop Tourette Syndrome.

"And you, my dear, are a stubborn
pain in the ass," he chuckled.

"Unbelievable," I groaned.

"Well, then, just accept my
kindness and charity—"

His charity?!

"Whoa, now we're your charity
case?"

"No, I apologize, that’s not how I
meant it. I simply mean that you should just accept it as a gift of friendship
because I don’t want your money," he rushed to explain.

"No, you just want my uterus!"
I countered with a huff.

"Listen. I know that the kid thing
really freaks you out. Trust me, it scares the hell out of me but, right now, I
just need to meet the first requirement before I worry about the other. How
about we agree to the first term and discuss the other as we go? Maybe we’ll be
able to figure out a way around it." He pleaded, again.