Drowning

Chapter Twelve

The rest of the week passed in a blur. Aiden and I kept having lunch everyday, sometimes he would come to my office, sometimes I would go to his and other times we would go out. I honestly didn't know why I was doing it, we weren't even talking about the case half of the time, but he still insisted on having lunch and I always gave him a hard time about it.

When the weekend came I kept trying to help Mark and distract Mariana. Mark has been trying to propose for a while now, and since today is their three year anniversary he is doing it tonight at the Plaza hotel where I introduced them in a work event. I went with him Saturday to the ring shop because he wanted me to see it before he actually got down on one knee, but honestly he didn't need me because it was gorgeous and just like Mariana, I knew she would love it. I spent my Sunday afternoon sorting out the final details with the hotels and my Sunday night finishing my book. But now today while Mark goes to the hotel and prepares everything it is my turn to distract Mariana, take her out for lunch, encourage her to get her nails done somehow and get her in a nice outfit without her getting suspicious. Meaning that I wont get lunch with Aiden. I hope his stubborn ass understands.

"You ready? You think maybe sushi from the place you brought me food last week?" He says hands in his pockets, coming inside after a knock, he didn't bother waiting for an answer.

"Did you listen to a, 'yes come in'?"

"Come on, let's go."

He sees me making no attempt to move and with a big sigh continues, "Valentina, we're not arguing about this again. Why don't we skip the ritual of the arguments today, and grab your bag so we can go." The truth is the first two days I put up a fight to eat with him, because there was certainly no reason to, until I surrendered to the food in front of me and gave in to eat with him, and I've strangely enjoyed his company? Nah, I think it's the food you never say no to food. Sometimes we are just silently eating and other times talking about work and deals, the company, his firm, all of that.

"I really can't today Aiden, I'm going out to a lunch meeting. I have things to handle."I can't risk him even thinking about coming with us and sidetracking Mariana, I need to get her to a salon and shopping for an outfit and with him there I doubt we'll do that. "You really need to go," I say standing up from behind my desk and leading him towards the door

"Meeting with who?" He asks, his brows starting to frown.

"No one, you just need to leave. If not, you'll regret it, trust me."

"Who are you having lunch with?" His face no longer carrying a frown but a serious demeanor. Why does he care this much? We've only had lunch for less than a week.

"Sorry I'm late, but we need to go or we're going to be late for the reservation and you know how I am with being late. So move your ass." Mariana says, walking into my office looking at her phone. Does anyone know how to knock?

"Yeah, just let me grab my purse." I respond, mouthing 'leave' to Aiden.

Mariana looks up, and notices Aiden in the office with us. "Ohh, I'm so sorry Mr. Black how are you?"

"Please Ms. Falco, call me Aiden. And I'm good, thank you for asking. How are you?" He asks Mariana, ignoring me telling him to leave. I swear this man is getting on my nerves, he may be bigger and stronger than me but I could still beat his ass.

"Come on, if I'm going to call you Aiden, please call me Mariana. And I'm well, we were just going for lunch to celebrate, would you like to join us?" This is exactly what I didn't want.

"Actually–" Aiden starts and looks at me giving him a death stare which makes him smirk and look back towards Mariana, "I would love to. And who would've guessed, I thought she was too much of a work-aholic to be capable of celebrating." He says his snarky remark towards me. Even Though we have been meeting for lunch the past couple of days, the snarky comments and off-hand remarks don't stop coming from either of us. Lunch doesnt mean I have to be nice.