Only His Touch: Part Two (The Untouched Series Book 5) Read online

  Sienna glanced toward me, an apology in her eyes. She took a sip of the brandy and then looked back at Aiden.

  “I was doing what I thought was best at the time. I was wrong to have sought her out and imposed my views on her. And while my apology can’t undo the harm I caused, I will offer one all the same.” Sienna’s ashamed eyes met mine. “Aria, I’m truly sorry. I should have kept my big mouth shut. I know my words hurt you, and to be honest, at the time I wasn’t concerned about that. I sit here now and see how happy you make my son, how much he loves you…well, I was a bit of a shrew, and I had no right to come to you as I did. Aiden is happier than I’ve ever seen him. He was miserable when you left, but I was hoping he’d get over it, and find the person we thought he needed, but I was wrong. You’re the person he needs, and I couldn’t be happier that you’ve found your way back to each other.”

  Before I could respond, Aiden interjected. “You’ll understand if I’m skeptical about your sudden change of heart.”

  “This may come as a shock to you Aiden, but I’m quite fond of Aria. I think she’s a remarkable woman. Would I have chosen her for you? Quite honestly, no. But that’s not because I dislike her or because I have ill will toward her. It’s because—”

  “Because she’s not like you. She’s not one of us.” He grabbed my hand and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “That’s one of the things I love most—that she’s not like us. I love seeing life through her eyes. It’s not filtered or tainted with the elitist residue that coats who we really are.”

  “We’re not that bad, Aiden,” Sienna defended.

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  “I have every hope of mending my relationship with Aria,” Sienna said. “If you’re agreeable,” she added, looking at me with a buoyant expression.

  “I would like that,” I said.

  “One more thing,” Aiden said. “If you ever approach her under the guise of giving advice that ultimately pushes her away from me, don’t bother with an apology.”

  Sienna nodded. “Understood.”

  “Is there anything else?” Aiden asked.

  “Yes, one last thing,” she said, and looked at me. “I’d like to plan and host the wedding.”

  Aiden and I exchanged questioning glances, and then I looked toward his mother. “Sienna, to be honest, Aiden and I haven’t really discussed any of this. I’m still reeling over the fact that I’m engaged. Who knows…we may opt for a long engagement.”

  Aiden was not pleased with that. “No. I want to marry you, and I’ve already made it clear I don’t plan on waiting.”

  Sienna glanced at Aiden and then directed her next statement to me. “I suppose you two should talk it over.”

  “We will and we’ll let you know,” I said.

  “That’s acceptable. But we can’t delay very much. We’ll need to have plenty of time to make sure this event is one worthy of the Raine name.”

  And there she was. The Sienna I remembered. It was going to be difficult for her to shake off years of personas, but to be honest, if she could just be a decent mother to her kids and stand up to that husband of hers, I could deal with the rest of her.

  Once Sienna had left, I turned to Aiden. “I’ve always noticed how kind you were to your mother, even when she didn’t deserve it. And I understand why you’ve been angry with her lately, but even after her apology, which I really do feel was sincere, you didn’t soften toward her very much. What’s changed?”

  “The more time I spend with Lyric, the more I appreciate the role of a parent. It’s a privilege, and I get to experience this with him. I’m already planning his first soccer game and his first camping trip. I want to teach him how to play the piano, how to ride. And then I think back to my childhood, and it’s beyond my understanding that someone could fail to grasp every bit of time they had with their kid. Lyric is still a baby, but I see changes in him every day. It all goes by so quickly, and I don’t want to miss any of it. And my parents, well they missed most of it voluntarily. I don’t get it.”

  My heart both grew and broke at the same time. “I’m glad Lyric has you,” I said.

  “And I’m glad he has you.”

  Chapter Two

  “Leave Aria out of this,” Aiden said, speaking into the phone. His low, menacing tone halted my steps. There was a pause and then he said, “I’ll save you the trouble. I’ll tell her myself.”

  “Who was that?” I asked, stepping into his office.

  Aiden tossed his phone on the desk and then turned toward me. His handsome face was hard, but then it softened, shifting almost instantly when he looked at me.

  “No one I care to discuss,” he said.

  “Someone who knows me, obviously. And someone who knows how to push your buttons. So I would guess that you were speaking with Connor. What’s going on?”

  I stepped farther into the room as Aiden sat at his desk. He opened a file and started shuffling through some papers.

  “Talk to me, or I’ll call Connor and find out myself,” I said.

  Aiden closed the file and reclined in his chair. He lifted his gaze to mine, his jaw firm, his eyes tight.

  Did this have anything to do with the secrets Connor had mentioned Aiden was keeping from me? “I won’t ask again,” I said, holding his stubborn gaze.

  Aiden ran his hand through his hair and cursed. He pushed back from the desk, came over to me and grasped my hand. “There’s something I need to share with you, Aria.” He tugged me behind him, leading me to the sofa. “Have a seat,” he said, motioning toward the couch.

  Once I was beside him, he waited a few seconds, and then, with my hand still in his, he said, “It’s about your father.”

  My body tensed at the mention of my dad, a topic I hadn’t expected. How could Aiden possibly know something about my father that I didn’t?

  “When you told me about your father, your family and your past,” he began, “the pain in your face, in your voice, was palpable. I wanted to do something to fix it—to take your hurt away.”

  He waited and studied me, his eyes taking in every detail of my face. This was a forbidden subject—he knew that, so why was he bringing it up?

  “Aiden, you know I’ve never wanted to talk about this in the past, and I don’t want to do it now. Whatever it is, I don’t care.”

  “Just listen,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand.

  If I don’t want to talk about it, what makes him think I want to hear about it? Those thoughts and feelings were buried for a reason.

  “You had such fond memories of some parts of your childhood, but those recollections were tainted by your father’s unexplained disappearance and your mother’s subsequent depression. Those two occurrences had a profound effect on you—they altered your view of life, and ultimately, your view of love. I wanted to somehow give back to you part of what you’d lost. So I did some digging into your past.”

  “I think you may have wasted your time and effort. I know all I need to know—all I want to know.” I didn’t see the point in bringing up things that would only serve to demolish what I’d been struggling to build.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” he replied.

  “I don’t like talking about this,” I said. “You know how much it hurts.”

  He pulled me into a hug and guided my head to his shoulder. He kissed my hair and started again. “Aria, I would never force you to dredge up such painful memories if I didn’t think you’d be better for it. Please trust me.”

  I lifted my head from his shoulders and searched his eyes. I wanted to believe this conversation would have the result he anticipated, but how could it? “What did you find out that I didn’t already tell you?”

  He took a deep breath and then held my gaze. “What I learned was more about your father’s past than yours.”

  “Dad’s?”

  “I know this hurts, but think back to your mother’s burial. Remember when I showed up?”


  “Yes.” That was one of the worst days of my life. I was standing alone at Mom’s grave. Up until that point, my feelings of loss and sadness had never been greater than they were on that day—when I said good-bye to the only parent I had left. And Aiden was somehow there—he’d saved me from myself. I don’t know how I would have managed to pull myself together had it not been for him.

  “Before I approached you, I’d stood there for quite a while watching you. I knew you needed time alone with your mother.”

  “I did. I remember asking everyone to leave.”

  “Well, as I watched you, I thought back to what you had told me about your father. I wondered how to best help you grieve and how to help you heal. I figured the only person who could give you the comfort you needed was your father—if he could be there for you, to help you through the loss of Melena. That’s when I decided I’d find out what happened to him.”

  I’d always wondered, but I never wanted to accept either of the two possibilities I’d come up with—that he’d abandoned us or he’d died.

  “I had my people discreetly look into your father’s disappearance,” Aiden said, “And while I can’t tell you what I would love to, I can tell you that your father didn’t abandon you. At least not in the way you’ve thought.”

  “What do you mean? Is he alive? Is he…dead?”

  “This has to remain between the two of us. Okay?”

  “Okay. Okay. Just tell me.”

  “You never told me what your father did for a living,” Aiden said.

  I thought back to the days I’d watched Dad give Mom a kiss and then head off to work. He was usually dressed in a suit or slacks and a shirt. “As crazy as it sounds, I don’t think I ever knew. He had some kind of office job,” I said, thinking back to my life in Dayton. “And he went on business trips—he would be gone for a week or so here and there. That’s all I remember.”

  “From the way you described him to me, I figured there was no way he would have just left and never looked back without some compelling reason. And Aria, there was. Your father left because he had no choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your father was born Matteo Costanzo, but he now goes by the name Anthony Delgado.”

  “Now? What do you mean now? So he is alive?”

  Aiden ran his hands down my arms, soothing me and preparing me for his answer. “Yes. Your father is alive.”

  It took everything in me to keep focus…to avoid collapsing. Aiden was quiet, allowing me the chance to recover from the blow. I sat back and brushed my fingers through my hair—too numb to feel anything. After several minutes, I looked to Aiden to continue.

  “What else do you know?” I asked.

  “Your father was with the CIA. He was some sort of special agent, and he was involved in a sting operation that went bad. He was almost killed. The CIA pulled him from the detail and placed him in witness protection. It was the only way to keep him alive and his family safe.”

  After all this time, I had answers. I knew. I finally knew. I wanted to cry. I wanted to feel anything, but there was nothing.

  “That’s all I know,” Aiden said. “When I was alerted to his tie to the government, I told my investigators to stop looking for anything further and to lose all traces of the investigation. I didn’t want to do anything to place him, or you and your sisters, in danger.”

  I took in what he’d just told me and his last statement rang in my head. “The same way you found him, the people who were trying to kill him could find him.”

  “Not hardly,” Aiden said. “Not everyone has access to the people and resources that I have. I had to bend a lot of rules and call in some favors from some very powerful people to gain this information.”

  I thought back to Mom and the mailbox—her hopeful watching for letters. “Did Mom know?” I asked.

  “CIA Agents take an oath—no one can know of their involvement with the government. But there is an exception—if the agent is married, he’s permitted to inform his spouse. So your mother would have known.”

  “But why didn’t they tell Mom he was missing, or as harsh as it may sound, that he was dead so she could have at least had some type of closure?”

  “With people who work in organizations like your father did, there are a lot of details that are never revealed to the public or to the families. There can be no records, no overt paper trails for anyone to follow. Those safeguards are in place to protect the operative as well as their families.”

  “So they just let Mom think he’d abandoned us?”

  “That’s not exactly how it works. Your parents knew the risks and they knew the rules associated with his job.”

  “So, he was like some James Bond type?” I asked, trying to picture my Dad in some of the dangerous situations I’d seen in movies.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say it like that, but that’s as good as a comparison as any.”

  “Wait. Could this mean that Mom is still alive, too? I mean, if they placed Dad in witness protection, who’s to say they didn’t do the same with Mom?”

  Aiden watched me with careful eyes as the implications of my suspicions dawned on me. “That would mean that Mom is…that we grieved for her…that she let us grieve for her. She wouldn’t have done that…right?”

  “Aria, you’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to place much weight on these guesses.”

  “But it’s possible. It is. I mean, if the FBI and CIA are involved in situations that are precarious enough to pull a father from his family, then it stands to reason, they could pull the mother away, too.”

  Aiden looked at me as if I were losing my grasp with reality.

  “Maybe she stumbled across something she shouldn’t have and it placed her in danger and maybe she agreed to go into witness protection to save us. To keep her children safe. Was there a chance that her accident wasn’t really an accident?”

  Aiden didn’t say anything. He watched me as I continued with my implausible scenarios.

  “So what does all this mean? Am I able to see my father? Can I go to him?”

  “Okay. So, I’ve told you the part I knew you’d be happy about, but due to the situation, there are certain precautions that we must adhere to. Even my telling you this is something I questioned, because I didn’t want to do anything to put you at risk. But I think knowing will help you heal…will help you push some of those demons away and enable you to move forward with your life without the hidden sadness. I know you say you’ve dealt with it, but I don’t think you really have. Perhaps this information will allow you to do that.”

  So, my father, and possibly my mother, are alive, but I can’t see them, and they can’t see me. I don’t know how I feel about that. Over the years, when I allowed myself to think of my father, I typically experienced the same blend of dark emotions. Sitting here now, it was as though something foreign had invaded my mind to push that darkness out.

  I was riddled with conflicting feelings. There was a huge sense of joy. Yet there was a sadness, especially knowing that my mother lost all that time with my father. I also felt a sense of pride and respect that Dad sacrificed his life for his country and for us, so that we could be happy…but had it all been for naught? In the end, we didn’t really have that happiness anyway.

  I sat for several quiet minutes as my mind played what-ifs and then all of a sudden, a different train of thought came screeching toward me. “Wait. You’ve known about this for over a year. Why are you just now telling me?”

  Aiden exhaled and shook his head.

  “You weren’t going to tell me. Were you?”

  “Didn’t I start this conversation off by saying I wanted to help you heal? The only way to do that was to tell you.”

  “But if you really meant that, you would have told me long before now. Which leads me to ask…why today?”

  “I was always planning to tell you.”


  “No. You weren’t. This was going to be another one of your secrets. You know—the ones you say are to protect me. And the only time you’ve ever come clean is when you’ve had to. So that means someone else knew. Am I right?”

  “Aria, listen.”

  I raised my voice and asked again. “Am I right?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Connor?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going on with you two, Aiden? And why would you use information about my father, very personal and painful information, in this game you and he play? What the fuck is wrong with this family?”

  “Please, let me explain—”

  I jumped from my seat. “Get out. Just get out!”

  “Aria, please calm down and hear me out.”

  “No. I don’t want to calm down and I certainly don’t want to hear anything you have to say. What I want is some time to think, and I can’t do that with you here.”

  “I’ve just given you details that will undoubtedly change the outlook of your entire life. Being alone is not what’s best for you right now.”

  “Aiden, I don’t need you to tell me what’s best for me. I need you to go. I need time alone to reconcile what I thought to be true and what I now know is true, and I can’t do that with you hovering over me. I can’t believe you knew all this time…that your father knew. He was using this against you. Wasn’t he?”

  Aiden’s silence was the only answer I needed.

  “And you only told me today to beat him to the punch, to stay one foot ahead of him. Unbelievable! This family—you all just play with people’s lives like it’s some type of game. I thought the sickness stopped with Sienna and Connor, but you’re just as fucked up as they are. Please, just go.”

  “Aria, that’s not why I told you,” he said.

  I saw the hurt in his eyes. I knew my words cut him, but it was the truth. And I needed him to be away from me right now. I couldn’t worry about his feelings. I needed to concentrate on my own. Just an hour ago, I thought I had it all figured out. I’d finally come to a place that made me happy…that I could accept, but now I felt like my life was spinning out of control again.