Futile Resistance Ch. 11

"Were you jealous?"

"Hell, yeah. I was furious the second I saw you sitting on his lap and when he kissed you and touched you like he had every right to, I wanted to kill him. And you, too!"

"Oh," French was pleased that he would be jealous of her. "Nicolàs has sort of a twisted way of solving problems. We are very close, but he's never done that whole kissing bit before... I'm sure he was trying to 'help', hoping that you'd get jealous and that your jealousy would force a final outcome to our problem."

"He succeeded. Almost too well; he's lucky I didn't knock those pearly white teeth down his throat..."

"He probably would have liked that, too. He was pretty pissed when I told him what had happened between us."

"Would you care to enlightenme about that?I'd sure love to know what drove you out of Boston so suddenly..." he asked sarcastically, pissed off that she had discussed him with her cousin and Nicolàs.

"I guess it is time we talked. I wanted to do it earlier, but..." she blushed again, her eyes darting to the bedroom as she thought of what they'd done instead of talking that afternoon.

Aidan's expression softened slightly as he said, "I love it that you blush when you think of what we did in there," he said, tilting his head toward the bedroom, "it's cute."

"It's embarrassing," she demurred. "I feel like a schoolgirl who's been caught looking at naughty pictures!"

"Hmmm. You like naughty pictures?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her in that ridiculous way he had, "I can show you naughty pictures and we can see how far down your body that blush actually goes..."

"No, thank you," she said, blushing still further.

"Where did you go when you left, by the way?"

"Back to my cousin's. To get my things and bring them back here. I should have left you a note, I guess... Actually, I probably should have asked before moving myself in here. Pretty presumptuous of me, huh?"

"I wanted you to stay."

"Oh. Me, too."He used the past tense, came her panicked thought.What does that mean? "My suitcase is still in the hallway outside the door."

She moved as though to get up and get it, but Aidan gestured for her to stay put. He got up to retrieve her bag from the hallway. While he did, she wriggled into her jeans, thinking that it was a bit beneath her dignity to sit around in her panties while they hashed through their issues. She watched as he moved her bag to a position just inside the door, trying, unsuccessfully, not to read anything into his placement of the bag.Had he put it there so I can access it quickly when he kicks me out?

"Do you want to come sit, so we can talk?" she asked, gesturing him to one the chairs in front of the fireplace. "There's something I want to tell you."

"I don't know if I can handle any more of your revelations, French," he half-joked, getting comfortable in the chair.

Her stomach did a funny little dip.I knew it, she fretted,everything is ruined! He's fed up with me.

"I know. I'm sorry for being such a mess. It's more than you bargained for, huh?" she asked. She paused, then decided to press on without allowing him the chance to tell her just how right she was about that.

"I've figured out how to do this, Aidan. We can keep seeing each other. I'll keep myself in the background of your life. I mean, I know how important your family is to you, so I'll just stay away from them and that way there's no risk of me running into Patrick Hurst and everything would be OK... We could go back to the way things were before I met your parents and before you found out Hurst was my father. It was good then."

She was pacing around the room, her hands flapping around nervously as she talked and so missed the mystified expression that crossed his face.

"What are you talking about?"

"Us. Aidan, I've missed you so much these past two days. I miss our talks. I miss our quiet time. I miss kissing you and making love with you. I just haven't felt like myself without you. I know it'd be hard for you to choose between your family and me. And I know that Patrick Hurst is as much your family as your mom and dad or your brother. There's no escaping that. What I'm saying is that if we were really careful, you'd never have to choose. You could have all of them and me without being disloyal to any of us." As she talked, her panic receded.This isn't as hard as I thought it would be, she thought with amazement,and this plan of mine isn't half bad!

"I'm not sure I understand what you're saying."

"Please. Just hear me out. I want to be with you, Aidan. I won't run away anymore. I'm so sorry for all of the nonsense that's gone on up until now. But, compared to the 'Patrick-Hurst-is-my-father' bombshell, the rest of it seems pretty inconsequential, doesn't it?"

"Um. I guess it does?" he asked, completely bemused. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. She couldn't possibly be saying what he thought she was saying. Outrage rose in him, but he decided to wait for her to clarify what she was saying before he gave vent to his increasing ire.

"You can have all the space you need to be with your family. We could even trade off holidays, birthdays and things like that. Sort of like divorced parents do," satisfaction with her plan colored her voice as she thought through it and developed methods of dealing with some of the difficult situations that would invariably arise.

"You could spend one birthday with me, and the next one with them. Or maybe we could even have two celebrations for special events. One on the day of, when you could celebrate with them, then on the day after you and me could celebrate. Or vice versa..."

"No."

"No? Aidan, please just hear me out! This could work for us," came her desperate reply to his disagreement with her plan.

"No. You must be out of your mind to think I'd go along with something like that!"

"Oh," she said flatly, her face and tone devoid of expression. She immediately began the familiar ritual of berating herself for expressing her feelings, her needs, her desires.He doesn't want me under any circumstances. I guess I'm not as smart as I think I am, she thought,I can't seem to learn my lesson where Aidan is concerned and there have been ample opportunities for me to have done just that.

"I understand."

French retrieved her coat from the closet and, with hands that had gone suddenly icy and wooden, struggled to put her arms into the sleeves. She jerked in surprise when Aidan ripped the coat from her hands and threw it to the floor. Her eyes widened in alarm when she saw the look on his face.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going to finish this here and now. I'm not going to let you just run away again. I'm sick todeath of you acting like a child! You need to learn how to cope, French! No more retreating from the playing field when the game gets a little rough for you!"

French was completely taken aback and didn't think to temper her response.

"What the hell do you mean I need to learn how to cope? Wasn't that what I was trying to do? Coping with a bad situation by coming up with a solution? A solution that you immediately shot down without giving me a chance to finish telling you the whole plan!" she glared at him accusingly.

"Grabbing your coat and leaving isn't coping, French. Packing your bags and leaving the fuckingcountry isn't coping! Deciding to avoid my parents for the rest of your life isn't coping!" His tone was contemptuous.

"You're a fine one to talk, 'Mr-I'm-going-jogging-so-I-can escape-my-bastard-lover'!Please," she said with disgust. "You run away just as much as I do, despite your hypocritical claims to the contrary."

"Is that what you think?" he asked, shocked by the off-the-wall conclusion she had apparently drawn. "You think that I left the other day because I didn't want to be around you because of who your father is?"

"I don't think it: I know it! I've played that conversation over and over in my head:'No, Paddy wouldn't do that, French. What about Paddy Jr, Pierce and Paige? I don't understand how he could do that!'" she used a high-pitched whine as she relayed that portion of their previous conversation. "Believe me, I caught your meaning loud and clear," she finished in her normal tone.

Aidan looked at her, stunned. Then a rough, humorless laugh erupted from his throat. He ran his hands through his hair, then said feelingly, "You idiot."

French opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her off with a slash of his hand before any sound came out, "God damn it, French! I could fucking kill you for causing all of this trouble. If you had waited for me, we wouldn't be here right now."

"Don't blame this on me! You said what you said and you can't take it back just because you feel bad about it now. You can't jerk me around like this, Aidan."

"Listen to me," he enunciated slowly, as if she were mentally challenged. "I was upset with Paddy – with this whole fucked up situation - not you. It came as a total shock to me that he could do what he did to you when he always acted like the perfect citizen, the perfect father and husband."

French stood perfectly still, her expression closed, her arms crossed in front of her as she listened to him. Then she said, "But you kept saying, 'Patrick wouldn't do that'. It sounded to me like you were defending him and that you didn't believe me, though for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what you thought I had to gain by claiming that asshole as my biological father."

"Try to understand where I was coming from. Thirty odd years of knowing someone as well as you know your own parents and he turns out to be a total dirt bag? Not to mention how bizarre it is that I just happened to be in love with the dirt bag's illegitimate daughter," he finished. "Nobody – not even a Pulitzer Prize winning author – could make something like this up; this 'coincidence' of events is too bizarre to be real!"

He paced away from her, then turned back around.

"I will admit that I shouldn't have walked out on you right then, French, but I just couldn't think with you screaming at me like you were. I needed a few minutes to think about it, to decide what to do. I wasn't gone very long before I figured all that out and then I came home and found you gone."

French waited to hear what he had decided. Her heart had leapt when he said he was in love with 'the dirt bag's daughter'. She hoped he still was and would give her a second – no, it would be the third time for them – chance.

"I looked everywhere for you, called you a million times and couldn't reach you. I sat in front of your apartment thinking that you had to go out sometime and when you did, I'd be there to catch you. I even called that prick Peter to see if he had seen you," he became even more frustrated just telling her what he had done to try to find her.

She laughed a little at his last statement. Aidan and Peter had never gotten along. He must have been pretty desperate to reach her if he had called his archenemy.

"I was upset by the whole turn of events, too," she entreated, willing him to understand and forgive her, "Frankly, I expected you to be disgusted by me and I expected you to remain loyal to your family. I just had to get away – I couldn't just sit there and wait for you to come home and dump me."

"I see. So you assumed the very worst about me. That's just great. I'm glad we've established such a high level of trust in this relationship," he said acerbically. "Especially when I havenever given you a reason not to trust me!"

"I know, Aidan. I should have known better. But I was upset, too, and you wouldn't be the first person I've known to judge me for who my father is or for being a bastard. My own mother treated my like shit every day of my life because of Patrick Hurst!"

"ButI didn't treat you like shit – I didn't judge you, French, and I never have! You are the one who leapt to judgment aboutme when you assumed you knew what I was thinking or what I would do! I'm offended that you would think that I would ever be disgusted by you and that I would ever break up with you for something you had nothing to do with!"

He paced the length of the room, needing an outlet for his anger and frustration. He had never laid a hand on a woman and never would, but he thought he understood what drove weaker men to do it. He wanted to grab French and shake some sense into her. Instead, he stopped pacing and faced her. There wasn't a modicum of calm left in him, so when he spoke, his voice betrayed the frustration he was feeling.

"I did everything I knew how to show you who I am and that I'm not like the other people who've hurt you, but you refused to see it. You're always so caught up with protecting yourself from so-called threats that you can't see what's right in front of you. I was offering youme, French, but you obviously didn't want me!"

Past tense again, she thought. A lump grew in her throat. It was looking more and more like he had come to Paris to decide whether or not to end things with her. She had thought that the decision had been made in her favor after they had made love earlier in the day. But perhaps not. She gazed unseeingly into the middle distance. Her mind was curiously blank, as though her senses had been utterly overwhelmed by what Aidan was telling her and simply shut down.

When she didn't reply he continued in an impassioned tone, "We keep having this same argument and I'm sick of it. It's not normal for me to have to constantly prove myself to you when there has never been a breach of trust between us! I've never given you a single reason to doubt me, but you've never trusted me. And I don't think that's something I can deal with."

"I do trust you, Aidan," she said. "I always have."

"You show your trust for me by running away to protect yourself from me? By shutting yourself off from me? God, you're more tightly guarded than the Pentagon!"

French lost her temper, "Aidan what do you want from me? Can't you see I'm trying? I'm doing the best I can!"

"No. I don't think you are. Your first instinct is to runaway from me instead of runningto me. I've tried and tried to get you to see that you can trust me and that I would never hurt you! You just can't see it, though, can you? You refuse to believe in me."

"Aidan, I do believe in you, but just try to understand!" she pleaded. "Imagine how I felt, finding out that Patrick Hurst has been involved in your life since you were a baby, was more of a father to you than he was to me. I saw how close your family is and how that closeness and affection extended to Hurst," she turned away from him. "I didn't think I stood a chance if you had to choose between me and your family..."

He walked over to her and took her by the shoulders, "French, you need to learn to trust. You'll drive everyone who cares about you away if you don't overcome this insane need to protect yourself."

He let her go, but stood in front of her, waiting for her response. It was a long time coming. She refused to meet his eyes, stared into the fireplace.

"But this is different, Aidan. This situation with Hurst isn't the same as keeping people at arms length. Hurst is my biological father! He abandoned me, threw money at my mother to see that we stayed away from him. Yet, he loved you and you're not even his son. He loved his other children. But not me. All these years, I consoled myself with the thought that he was incapable of loving anyone. But then you kept telling me what a great guy he is and how great of a father he is to his kids and how great he is with you and your brother. It put a lie to the story I had made myself believe all my life. You need to understand that the stakes were a lot higher for me with this, Aidan. I felt like I had to run for my life, to preserve and protect what I had managed to build for myself and to put some distance between you and me."

"You were running for your life and that meant away from me..." Aidan said with bitter incredulity.

"Please try and see it from my point of view!"

"You are so stubborn. Can't you just say, 'I was wrong and I'm sorry'?"

His question took her aback. She knew she was wrong and she was definitely sorry for doubting him, because when she really thought about how well she knew Aidan, she knew in her heart of hearts that he wouldn't have dumped her. She was sorry she had left town so suddenly, without giving them a chance to work through the problem. She was sorry that her actions had seemingly put an end to their relationship because it was obvious that he didn't think of her in a positive light anymore. And, in her mind, she deserved to lose him. She had shown herself to be an extremely poor judge of his character. They had talked again and again about her needing to trust in him, but in the end, she had been the one to betray his trust.

"You're right. I was wrong and I'm very sorry for what I did," she quelled the urge to try to excuse or rationalize her behavior again. To do so would lessen the impact of her apology, which was truly from her heart. "Please forgive me, Aidan."

"I do forgive you," there was a 'but' hanging in the air, but he left it unspoken.

"Thank you. I probably don't deserve your forgiveness," she said formally and with a careful detachment as she reached down to pick up her coat and began to put it on. "Thank you for giving me a chance to apologize and for being gracious enough to accept my apology. Maybe I'll see you back in Boston? It's probably too soon for me to be 'just friends' with you, but... maybe we can try that later?"

Aidan flopped down in a chair and heaved an exasperated sigh. This woman would be the death of him.

"I don't want to be friends with you! Do you think I came all the way over here because I want to be friends? You're out of your mind!"

"Aidan, I honestly don't know why you came here. I thought maybe you wanted closure. Or maybe a 'hot fuck' – isn't that what you called it before? – or whatever," she sounded tired, run down. She rubbed her temples as though she had a headache.

"You idiot," he said, walking over to her. He removed her coat and tossed it on the floor again.

"I'm sick of taking that coat off of you. Leave it off, wouldja?" he said, once again only half-jokingly. "You're doing it again. You can't just leave, French."

She looked into his eyes and saw frustration mixed with the heat and possessiveness that darkened them to deepest blue. The same dark heat that appeared in his eyes when they made love. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, feeling the easy slide of arousal that so typically occurred when he was near. She backed away from him a little so she could better see his face.

"What's going on?"

"What's going on is that I'm not letting you leave. We have a problem that needs to be dealt with, not run away from. So let's deal with it. Together."

"OK..." she said, not sure how they would resolve their problem in a way that they could both live with.

"But here's a new rule for future reference: don't go running off when we have an argument; stay and let's talk it out before you do anything rash."

"We have a future?" she asked hopefully. "You mean you liked my plan to deal with your family?"

"Hell, no."

French's expression went totally blank with confusion.

"That plan sucks, baby. We're not even going down that road. When has avoidance and compartmentalizing ever solved any problem?"

She frowned, "Well, I don't see any other way. I can't be around Hurst. You didn't see how he treated me. Like I was a piece of property or something. He offered memoney, Aidan," she shivered at the memory, "like I was some gold-digging whore! I can't just forget that or that he threw me away when I was born!"