Hard to Trust (Hard to Love Book 2)
Page 23
Grayson walks toward me, taking my hand in his. “Let’s get out of here.” I nod in agreement.
“This isn’t over,” Elliott shouts.
“Yes, it is,” Grayson says as we walk out the door.
49
Grayson
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Grayson asks as we sit in his car, the large brick home less than fifty feet away.
The nervousness in the pit of my stomach is only increasing the longer we sit here.
“I think I might throw up,” I admit.
“I can come with you,” he offers.
As much as I would like to take him up on it, this is something I need to do myself.
The minute Gray and I walked out of Elliott’s house; our lives changed instantly. There was nothing or no one holding us back from being together. Gray made damn certain that I wasn’t going to either. He kissed me into submission, made me promise to give us a chance, and then professed his love to me as he was buried deep inside of me. He repeated the process for three days straight.
Now, here we sit, in front of my father’s house. A gift he’s given me that I never could have even imagined.
I kiss him, needing to take strength from him, then get out of the car and head up the walkway. The entire way I try to talk myself out of it, tell myself to turn back. I fight my instinct every step and as I approach the door, despite wanting to turn and run, I force myself to knock.
I fidget nervously awaiting a reply. Just when I think one isn’t going to come, just as I am ready to hightail it out of there, the door opens.
“Can I help you?” the man says.
I’m an adult, yet in this instant I feel like a child. The man before me: tall and handsome with kind eyes, is my father.
I’ve spent the better part of my life refusing to feel, not letting emotions get the best of me. But over the past few weeks they have been hitting me like a damn freight train. First with Gray, then my mother, and now this.
“I… I’m sorry to bother you. I… I shouldn’t have come here,” I say. I begin to stumble back, but he reaches for me and steadies me.
“Do… do we know each other?” he asks. I shake my head, unable to speak. “You look so… familiar.”
I find my voice. “You knew my mother…”
“Angie,” he says.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“My God. It can’t be. She said… she told me she had a miscarriage,” he says.
I nod. “She lied. She… she wanted to hurt you.” A woman approaches from inside the house, she stands behind Larry, my father. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.”
I turn to leave, but Larry grabs my arm and pulls me against him, his arms wrapping around him.
The woman, who I can only assume is his wife, stands there, no judgment in her eyes. She fully trusts her husband and knows that whatever this is…
“My baby girl,” Larry says as he hugs me for dear life. “Sandy, this is my baby girl.” He pulls back from me, a huge smile on his face. “And I don’t even know her name.”
“Ashlynn.”
Epilogue
Ashlynn
I watch him from the doorway. Still so much the man I met a year ago, just so much more at peace. He sits in the hot tub, the hot water covering everything below his toned pecs. His hands are resting out to the side of him.
I think about my life, the one that never included a man. Success, my career, it’s all that mattered. But now? I smile as I watch him, life has surely taken a turn. One that was unexpected, but most definitely for the better.
Gray’s head turns and he laughs as he catches me watching him. I crinkle my nose, giving him a silly look before I push the door open to join him.
“You know,” he tells me as he waves his hand down the length of his body and back up again. “This is all yours. You don’t just have to look; you can touch too.”
“Who says I want to?” I ask.
That sexy, knowing smirk of his graces his face. “Oh, I don’t know. The look in your eye. The smile on your face.” He pauses. “The drool on your chin.”
“You’re an idiot,” I laugh as I curl into his lap.
“Join me,” he says.
“I have to…” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“That wasn’t a request, Sweetheart.”
Heat pools between my thighs at the commanding tone he takes.
I lower the zipper on my dress and let it slide down to the ground and pool at my feet.
“How did I get so lucky?” The rhetorical question falls from his lips, and all I do is smile and make my way into the hot tub, sinking in the water next to him.
“This feels amazing,” I say.
His hand grazes the skin on my thigh. “It sure does.”
I swat at him.
“Listen, while I have you here,” he says. “I have a question for you.”
“Everything okay?” I ask concerned that the merger of his firm with Cahill is weighing on him heavier than he’s letting on.
“Everything is fine. Actually, it’s better than fine.”
“Okay, then what’s going on?” I shift in the hot tub; my legs straddle his.
His eyes immediately dip down and look at my chest that is barely covered by the water. I watch him lick his lips; I feel his dick hardening against my leg.
“Grayson, focus,” I say.
“What? Right. As I was saying, you know that I love you, right?”
My body tenses suddenly expecting the worst from this conversation.
“Grayson, where are you going with this?”
His hands rub up and down my arms. “I just…” He blows out a breath. “It’s been one hell of a year and there is no one that I would have rather had by my side through all of it.”
“Even considering how we started?”
I know we’re in a good place now, but where and how we started still haunts me. Everything that I put Grayson through trying to hide my past. The things I did with Elliott. Guilt still eats at me.
“Sweetheart, how we started is one of my favorite parts.”
The smug smile on his face tells me he’s referring to the night we met, the sex on the desk, the instant connection. I love that night too. It’s just the months after. The convoluted road that we took to get here that has a fear settled inside me that all of this is going to fall apart one day.
Grayson is trying to keep the mood light, but I can’t help the tear that slips and slides down my face.
“Sweetheart, what… why…”
“I’m so sorry. Everything with Elliott…”
“Stop. There is nothing to apologize for. Whatever we had to go through to get here, it was worth it. You’re worth it. I love our life and I wouldn’t trade a damn second of it. Okay, that’s a lie, sure there are some things I wish didn’t have to happen, but still, if that’s what it took to get you in my life and keep you here, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“I love you, Gray.”
“I love you, Sweetheart.” Grayson reaches next to the hot tub for something. “And I would go through it all again if it means that I get to do this thing called life with you.”
There is a small velvet box in his hands. I gasp at the sight of it. My heart pulses in my ears. This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening. He wouldn’t…
“Marry me, Sweetheart.”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I’m shocked speechless.
“Lucky for me that was a statement, not a question. Otherwise I would be a little worried.”
Self-assured Grayson never fails to turn me on and get me to do exactly what it is he wants. The banter puts me at ease, allows me to regain my thoughts and my voice.
“Oh? Is that so?”
He nods. He’s still holding the box open, but with his free hand he grabs his glass of whiskey and takes a sip.
“You know, West, your commands might be fun in the bedroom,” I take the glass from his hand and finish it. “B
ut outside of it? I don’t do what you say.”
“Take the ring, Sweetheart.”
I take the ring from the box and examine it. Grayson tosses the box. He pulls me to him, his cock sliding against my entrance, instilling a moan from me.
“Say yes.”
“Mmm…”
“Say yes.”
I slide the ring onto my finger. “Yes, Grayson.”
“Yes?” He asks the question to clarify, a clear disbelief in his voice.
“Yes.”
“You know that you drive me insane, right?”
“You’re the idiot who asked me to marry you – so who’s the crazy one?”
His lips meet mine. “Christ, I love you.”
My hands slide under the water, the hand with the ring reaching for what I need, what I want.
“Fuck, if I knew that a ring would add such an amazing new sensation, I would have asked months ago.”
I lift my hips, positioning him at my entrance.
“Tell me Gray.”
“I’ll tell you anything you want,” he replies.
“Tell me you love me.”
“I’ll tell you that every damn minute of every day. I love you, Sweetheart.” I slide onto him. “Oh, fuck.”
“I love you, Grayson.”