Trapped by the Past

Chapter 20: The Date

I turn to look at Aiden who pulled me into his side and kissed my temple. 

I look up at him. 

"This... this is..." I tried to say but couldn't find the right words. 

"Do you like it?" His tone was casual and nonchalant like he didn't really care about what I would say, but I could say that he really wanted the answer. 

I looked around again. We were at the rooftop of a tall building and you could see the sun that was setting and gave a beautiful pinkish-yellow glow to the buildings around it which were just as tall. Fairy lights were hanging on poles which gave a beautiful view. I looked down, there was a red blanket that was laying on the floor with colorful pillows on the blanket, making a circle in the middle of the blanket. In the middle, there was a picnic basket that hid its belongings in it. 

"It's beautiful," I said when I found my voice and that Aiden was still waiting for my answer. 

"Are you sure?" The confidence he showed a couple of seconds ago wavered as he rubbed the back of his neck, which showed that he was nervous. I completely turn around and throw my hands around his neck, pulling him into a hug, which he returns almost immediately. 

When I pulled away, I look up at Aiden who looks back at me, searching for something in my face with those green eyes. 

"Yes," I answer his question. I look back at the blankets and the pillow and turn to him and with a playful tone, I add. "If I didn't know better, I would say someone told you that this was how I wanted my first date to be." He looks sheepishly back at me, causing me to throw my head back and laugh. 

"Liam and Ethan told me that this is how you wanted your first date to be." He says while rubbing his neck, avoiding eye contact with me, causing me to laugh again. 

"I know," I say when I finish laughing and pull completely away from him and head toward the blanket, and sit down on one of the pillows. I look at the beautiful scene in front of me and a warm welcoming breeze hits me, causing me to close my eyes and throw my head back to completely enjoy the breeze. 

I could feel Aiden's burning gaze on me and I try so hard to ignore him but finally give up and look at him to see he's still standing where he was which is a few feet from the blanket and looking at me with something in his eyes that I couldn't quite understand, something that took my breath away.  

"What?" I ask in a small voice that I doubt he heard me but by the way, the corner of his mouth tugged upward, he heard. 

"Nothing." He says, still staring at me intensely and that was making me feel a bit uncomfortable. 

"Was I not supposed to sit?" I ask in a light tone to change the tense silence that clung to the air. 

His smile turns into a grin, showing off his dimple as he rolls his eyes at me. 

"Of course you were." He comes toward me and sits down next to me. I follow his every movement with my eyes and after a few seconds of staring at each other intensely, I look at the sunset because I couldn't take it anymore. 

"It's beautiful," I whisper. 

"I'm happy you like it." He whispers back. "But just so you know, tonight just got started." 

Suddenly an image flashes in front of my eyes. Of Aiden and some other girl in here, instead of me. But I shake my head. 

The last thing I wanted was for tonight to get ruined. It was like we had stepped into a book, into another world that was completely different from our own. Aiden was different, he wasn't the player, the bad boy who had slept with a lot of girls, he was just Aiden who cared about me.

"Really?" I ask, looking at him. "What do you have planned?" He shook his head, looking at the sunset with his ever so familiar smirk. "Come on."

"Nope." He says, making the 'p' pop. 

"Whatever." I roll my eyes at him, not really annoyed because this one surprise was definitely worth the wait. I turn my attention to the sunset, staring at the beautiful glow. 

He laughs and pulls me into him. 

"You know," He says near my ear, I still am not looking at him. "Right now, or ever, as a matter of fact, you are not my Princess or the Heir to the throne. You're just my girlfriend." 

I can't help the shiver that runs down my spine. I don't know what to say to that. 

I can't help, thinking he tells other girls some cheesy pick-up line like he just said to me. 

"What are you thinking?" He asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. 

"Nothing," I say with a smile that didn't reach my eyes as I turn to look at him. 

"Aurora." He calls my name. 

"Nothing. It doesn't matter." I smile at him and look back at the beautiful scene in front of me.  

"Come on let's go." He stands up. He holds out his for me and I take it. 

"Where are you taking me?" I ask. 

"You'll see." He says as he drags me before him. 

I think we're about to go back down but e pulls me to the other side, revealing a busy city that was alive with all sorts of noises and lights from the tall, concrete buildings. It was very beautiful. 

"It's beautiful," I say to Aiden, looking next to me to find his place empty. 

I look over my shoulder to see him standing behind a chair and a table, waiting for me. 

I slowly make my way toward him and the table, not believing my eyes. 

This was the perfect date that I always wanted. Everything was perfect, just the way that I imagined it. It was so real that it was hard for me to believe that this was real. 

I sit down in the chair that he pulled out for me, looking at the table. Looking at the two plates which were full of mouthwatering food with two wine glasses on one side and the silverware on the other side of the plate. A candle was sitting in a glass vase with two beautiful pink roses that turned white neat the stem, sitting in a simple vase. A white table cloth on the table, making the table look elegant and the red rose petals look more pronounced. 

It was simply dreamy. 

I look at Aiden who sat down on the other side of me, studying my face with those jungles of eyes.  

"It's... dreamy." I voice my thoughts. 

He smiles, showing off his perfectly white and straight teeth and the smallest of dimples on his cheeks, his eyes sparkle in the light, and his face glows from the reflection of the candle. 

I couldn't help the smile that threatened to overtake my whole face. 

"Shall we?" He asks as he gestures to the dishes in front of us. I nod my head puck up the napkin and lay it out on my lap before picking up the spoon and dig in the creamy soup in front of me. As soon as I took the first spoonful into my mouth, the lemony taste filled my taste buds that was followed by the taste of carrots and other vegetables. 

It tasted really good and I couldn't help the moan that escaped my throat. I look up to see Aiden looking at me and I could the blush creeping up to my cheeks. 

To change the tension between us I ask. 

"Is this Greek lemon soup?" I ask, looking at him. He nods, still looking amused by my reaction to the soup. "I love this. How did you know about it?" It was my favorite soup and I wonder how he knew about it. 

"Mason." He stated, trying to look comfortable with shrugging his shoulders. 

"Did you ask for help from every one of my brothers?" I asked, amused. 

"Yeah." He says and takes a spoon of his soup, it had a layer of cheese that was melted and vegetable chopped on top of it. 

"What's that?" I ask, gesturing toward his bowl.

"French onion soup." He says as he looks at my scrunched-up face and lets out a laugh. "You don't even know what it tastes like." 

"Yeah but it has onion in it, so..." I say. I hated onions with a passion and anything that had the smallest amount of onion, I would not go anywhere near it. 

"Just try it. It might not be as bad as you think." He pushes the bowl towards me. I look at it with disgust. "Go on." He encourages. 

I hesitantly move my spoon toward the bowl, scrunching up my face in disgust. I take a small amount of the cheese and the gooey stuff under it. I pause with the spoon near my mouth, looking at it. I look at Aiden who nods his head in encouragement and I take a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of onion mixed with other vegetables. I close my eyes and put the spoon in my mouth, trying not to think about the onion inside it. 

At first, it's fine. It doesn't taste that bad, more like bay leaves and butter. But then the weird feeling of onions and their disgusting taste make my face scrunch up, making me nearly throw the food in my out. 

I put a hand in front of my mouth to prevent the disgusting stuff to get out of my mouth and look frantically around for something to throw it in. 

I can hear Aiden laugh at my reaction, but I'm too disgusted to pay any attention to him. I see him get up and come to my side, offering me a napkin. I take it immediately and empty my mouth in it. 

After wiping my mouth, I look at Aiden who was looking at me with a grin plastered on his face and I wanted so much to wipe it off. 

"That was disgusting," I mutter, remembering the taste and the texture of onions in my mouth, causing me to make a face. 

He laughs again, this time I shoot him a glare, telling him to shut up. 

"Ok, so you don't like onions." He says, trying not to laugh. "I'll remember that." 

He goes back to his seat, the amused look still on his face, making me glare at him. 

We go back to eating our food in silence. It was a comfortable silence, the sound of our breaths the only thing breaking the silence. 

I realized I didn't know anything about him. All I knew were the things he did when he was a kid and that was a long time ago and obviously has changed. So I tried to start a conversation. 

"Do you play any sports?" I asked, trying to piece him together. He looks at me, surprised, not expecting me to say anything but quickly recovers. 

"I used but not this year." He says, putting his spoon on the side, wiping his mouth with a napkin. I wait for him to continue but he doesn't elaborate.

"What did you play?" I ask, curiosity shown in tone. 

"Football and baseball." He says, his eyes glazed over, probably remembering something, which he didn't share. 

"Why don't you play anymore?" I ask, bringing him back from his memory trip. 

"Doesn't matter." He sighs, looking at me and shaking his head. 

"Why?" I ask, not giving up. 

"You don't know how to mind your own business, do you?" He snaps, causing me to flinch. 

Instantly, regret replaces the hard look in his eyes after seeing me flinch and he tries to say something but he's cut off, which I'm thankful for. 

At the same time, a couple of waiters come, rolling a cart that was covered with plates that are covered with silver covers. 

They don't look up at me or Aiden when they replace the nearly empty bowels with plates, taking off the silver covers. 

I study them, wondering if they know who I am or who Aiden is. 

Of course, they know, I scoff at myself. They were told that. 

They both seem young, maybe a couple of years older than us, with their black vest over their white shirts that were matched with white gloves. They were wearing a black apron over their black pants which looked brand new on both of them, giving the impression of how expensive this place was. 

One of them had blond hair that was neatly pushed back, a defined jawline, and a contoured nose. His side profile showed that he was very handsome with naturally pink lips and deep blue eyes but not as handsome and the green eye boy sitting right in front of me, keeping his eyes on me. I try to ignore him and continue studying the blond boy a bit longer. He was muscular but not as muscular as Aiden. 

The other one had black hair that was also neatly pushed back, making him appear handsome, showing his dark brown eyes and his pronoun features. 

I look back at Aiden, comparing the two boys with him. The blond's hair was blonder than Aiden and his eyes were blue, nowhere near the jade eyes that can capture you and hold you captive for hours or even days. The dark boy was the complete opposite of Aiden. 

Aiden is looking at me, his emerald eyes darker than usual despite the light of the candle and the city light with something. Is that rage? 

I study him for a few seconds, trying to find out what is wrong with him, but the dark boy that was picking up my bowl dropped the spoon, making me look at him. 

"I... I'm... sorry." He stutters, nervously. He finally looks at me, his eyes wide with fear. 

"It's ok." I smile at him, trying to let him know that it wasn't a big deal. 

He stars at me for a few more seconds, then looks at the spoon that he nearly dropped on me and picks it up with trembling fingers. 

"Pay attention," Aiden growls, making the poor boy more afraid. 

I glare at Aiden who equally glared back at me, making me roll my eyes at him. 

"It was just an accident," I say in a composed voice, trying not to let my annoyance obvious to the boys but I could tell that Aiden heard it. 

We continue our stare down while they put the main dish in front of us. 

"Is there anything else, we can get for you?" The blonde boy asks in a confident voice, not looking up, betraying his confident voice. 

"No," I say in a sweet voice. "You can go, thanks." 

They both bow their heads and leave. 

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I ask Aiden as soon as they leave and get out of earshot. He just glares at me. "Aiden," I warn him and he sighs, shaking his head. 

"You're supposed to be a Queen." He says, looking directly at me.

I can feel myself tense up. What's that supposed to mean? 

"What?" I ask cautiously. 

"Nothing." He dismisses it and points to the food in front of me. "Eat." He orders. 

"What was that supposed to mean Aiden?" I ask. 

"You don't know when to drop something, do you?" He sighs. 

"Aiden." I warn him again. 

"Fine." He growls. "You want to know what I mean? I meant that you're supposed to be ruthless, rational, thinking with your mind. Not some soft, sweet girl who has a soft spot for boys." 

I freeze. Who does he think he is? He doesn't know the first thing about being a queen, then he thinks he can tell me how to be something that I was trained to be my whole life? Just because he's supposed to be my husband he thinks he has the right to tell me what to do? That he has power over me? Oh, no. No way in hell. 

"What did you just say?" I ask in an ice-cold tone. He wants me to be ice-cold, then he gets ice cold. 

"You heard me." He has the nerve to look smug while saying this. 

"You don't know the first thing about being the Queen," I say in an ice-cold voice. "You don't how to act and how to behave, how to talk. I was trained my whole life to be the Queen. A Queen that the whole world loves but dares not to mess with. I know when how to act that would let others know who I am. I don't need you to tell me how to act. Just because you were chosen by my dad and the boys to be the King because of some stupid reason that no one tells me, I'm not going to let you rule me and boss me around. Just because they chose you doesn't mean that they gave you the power to order me around. You're still nowhere near my place." 

Aiden doesn't talk, doesn't move, he just stares at me with wide eyes, not even blinking. I could see the shock and regret and other emotions swirl in his eyes. 

He slowly blinks, snapping out of his daze. I can see his law lock and his hands clench. 

A slow smile creeps upon his lips, though his face is still contoured with anger. I look at him confused. 

"Smile." He orders. When I give him a confused look he adds. "Smile. There's a paparazzi, taking photos." I'm about to look around but he stops me. "Don't look. Just pretend that you're having a good time." 

I nod and put on a fake smile, trying to appear relaxed and like I'm enjoying the dinner. I pick up my fork and knife and cut a piece of the stake in front of me and eat it. 

For the rest of the dinner, the atmosphere between us is tense but we pretend like we're enjoying it, smile and talking, and pretend like we're laughing but on the inside, we were both mad at the other. 

As soon as we finish the desert, we get up and head towards the elevator. As soon as we enter it, I let my smile fall with a sigh. I try to put as much distance as I can between us in the tiny elevator, not wanting to be near him. 

The voice in the elvator lets us know that we're at the lobby, our destination. 

I take deep breath and could already hear the noises from the paparazzies. I silently thank God because the elevators are out of their sight so they didn't see us. I was about to step out of the elevator when Aiden stops me, by holding my hand. 

I turn around and give him a questioning look, trying to ignore the butterflies that erupted in the stomach due to his touch and the electrics that shot through my whole body, starting from where his hand held mine. 

"We have to go together."He says and nods toward where the noise of papparazzies are coming from. "To make it look real." He adds. 

I nod and take a deep breath when he pulls me beside him, his hand around my waist and my hands on his chest. 

With every step, I tense up more, my heart hammering faster in my chest, threatening to break free. These are the feeling that I usually get in a situation like this. But this time, they are doubled because of Aiden who's standing very close to me that I can smell his woody scent and feel his warm breath on my face. 

"Calm down." He whispers in a gentle tone, pulling me even closer and planting a sweet kiss on my head. "I'm right here and I won't let anything happen. I promise." 

For some reason, I relax slightly and a great portion of the anger I had toward him evaporated with his promise. 

Before we reach the door, he slows down and asks. 

"Are you ready?" He asks. I nod my head on instincts. He gently squeezes my waist, reassuring me that he's there with me. 

The door opens and we are swamped with papparazzies who are flashing their cameras and trying to break free from the guards that are holding the back. 

Aiden pulls me closer and we slowly make our way to the car due to the amount of papparazzies trying to ask us questions and take a picture of us. 

Suddenly someone pulls my hand, making me jolt back from Aiden. I look back to see that someone is pulling my hand and I can't pin who it is from. I panic, memories come flooding back. 

The one time that I was left without any protection, without my family or any guards because my mom was being swamped by the journalists, trying to ask her questions, so everyone left and helped her. 

I remember the feeling off sufocation that I felt as they stomped over me, crashing me with their bodies. 

I could hardly breath, trying desperately to pull my hand out of the firm grasp, but desperately failing. 

Aiden rushes to my side, freeing my hand from the grasp, pulling me safely into his arm and holds me there.

"Are you ok?" Aiden asks as a guard rushes to our side and pushes the crows away. I shake my head in response, not trusting my voice.  

In a flash, Zach appears beside me and the guards make a tight circle around us, making sure no one can reach us. 

I hear Aiden and Zach talk, but can't hear what they are saying. 

"Come on let's go," I hear Aiden murmurs in my hair and gentlyguiding me toward the car with his hands protectively around me. We reach the car and Zach opens the door for us and slowly guids me inside with Aiden following. After he shuts the door, he hurries to the front and sits in. 

Aiden pulls me toward him again. 

"Are you ok?" He asks, looking me up and down, trying to find a place where I'm hurt, concern evident in his eyes.  

When his eyes land on my face, his eyes soften and he gently wipes away something on my face. 

I haven't even realized that I was crying. 

He pulls me into his arms, gently caressing me, and all the while I try to push away the images that are appearing behind my eyes. I close my eyes and let the tears silently fall, feeling safe in Aiden's arms.

After a while the tears stop and are replaced by occasional sniffs, but neither Aiden nor I try to pull away. The flash backs have stopped making it easier for me to breath. 

"Sir." I hear Zach call. "We've arrived." He informs us as I feel the car pull to a stop. 

Aiden nods and relucantly pulls away, holding my tear stained face between his warm and big hands, silently searching my eyes to see if I can go in. 

I nod my head, letting him know that I can do it. 

The door open and Aiden drops his hands and looks at me for a few seconds before getting out of the car, waiting for me to get out and offering his hand to me which I happily take. 

I look around and see Noah talking to one of the guards, with his face to us and as soon as he sees us, he stops the conversation and comes towards us. I wait for him by the car, with Aiden by my side and my hand in his.

He was too far at first to notice my tear stained face but as he gets closer and closer, I can see the worry in his face as he takes in whatever expression it is that I am wearing. 

"What happened?" He asks, worry evident in his voice. At that, I couldn't control myself and throw myself into his arms, which were stretched toward me. He looks at me the at Aiden. 

"Later." I murmur into his chest, feeling safe. He doesn't say anything and just guids me upstair, to m room with Aiden following us.