“But as soon as I came back to my senses I told Jackson to tell you I had to leave.”
“He tried,” I said. “But I jumped to conclusions and didn’t listen. I assumed he was lying… you know, trying to cover for you.”
And just like that, my world changed. The man I’d pegged the enemy for years was actually a good, decent guy. I sighed. So now instead of anger, I had to deal with guilt.
Thankfully, soon after, we pulled up to the restaurant and I climbed out of the car before he could come around and open the door.
“I guess I need to get faster,” he commented wryly. He reached for my hand and I hesitated before letting him take it. He smiled and I looked away, too overwhelmed by what I’d learned to look at him. And the sad part was that the night was still early. What other secrets was Griffin keeping and when would I have to share my own?
We walked into the restaurant and were seated immediately. It was a cozy Italian place and I desperately wanted something rich and decadent to eat. My stomach growled as I smelled all the mesmerizing aromas in the air.
“You’ll like this place, it’s delicious.”
“It sure smells delicious.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“Cheese, pasta, cream, bread… all of it. And maybe cheesecake at the end?”
He laughed. “I think we can make that happen.”
He ordered for the both of us and when the waiter left, I felt vulnerable and unsure of myself. It was like being 22 all over again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing, I just haven’t done this in a long time.”
“What exactly haven’t you done in a long time?” he asked not understanding.
“This… the whole dating scene.”
“I get it…neither have I. Life’s been busy, to say the least. What’s your excuse?” he asked turning the tables.
I gulped. Should I tell him now? Was now the right time? Thankfully, the waiter appeared with a bottle of wine. It gave me time to think, which I was having trouble doing when Griffin was around.
“As you were saying,” Griffin prompted me, not letting me forget that I had yet to answer his question.
“I’ve been busy with life, too busy to date.”
“Care to elaborate?” he asked perceptively, knowing there was more.
I stared into his eyes, trying to read him. Trying to see if somehow he already knew or had guessed. But his eyes revealed nothing and I figured I was just being paranoid.
“These past years have been busy. I’ve been busy dealing with everything that life has thrown at me so I haven’t had much time for anything else,” I answered cryptically.
He nodded. “I understand that. I found myself in a similar situation.”
I inwardly sighed in relief, grateful that he was going to leave the subject alone and not pry. But nope, I was wrong.
“Tell me about your life there. What do you do? I can’t imagine there are a lot of opportunities for actresses in small town Georgia.”
“There aren’t but I keep myself busy. I’m a front-end developer.”
“You’re a computer geek?” he said, smiling proudly at me.
“Sure am. The entry level salary was exactly what I needed at the time and the economic outlook for the career is great.”
He laughed at me then. “You sound like a career counselor.”
“I had to make money. I have mouths to feed.”
“Mouths?” He looked at me curiously.
God, I wanted to kick myself. This is not how I planned to tell him about Sadie. Actually, I don’t know how I planned to tell him about Sadie and it was clear that I needed to.
“It’s just a Southern figure of speech.” I promptly changed the subject. “So, did your mom tell you everything that happened in your office that day?”
He sat back and sighed. He folded his hands in front of him. “She only admitted to having you escorted out. She said she thought you were a stalker, but she emphasized to me that she just felt sorry for you.”
“Stalker! Sorry for me! I was scared spitless! I thought she was going to have me arrested and she’s making the whole incident sound as if I were some sort of crazed gold digger.”
“My mother does have a way of spinning the truth.”
“Ha!” I laughed bitterly. “Tell me about it.”
“Let’s not talk about my mom. I didn’t bring you here for that. Let’s keep talking about you. I want to know more about your new career.”
“Not much to tell. I’m good at it. It pays well like I mentioned and I can work from home.” I stopped myself from continuing about how as a mom I needed that flexibility. “Anyway, it allows me flexibility which is what most millennials want, well according to all the stuff I read on career websites.”
“I guess your teacher was wrong, after all,” he said as he poured me a glass of wine.
I tilted my head in confusion.
He laughed. “I have a great memory,” he said with a shrug. “You said on the island that your programming teacher commented that you couldn’t apply yourself. Apparently, he or she was wrong.”
Knowing that he remembered that piece of information from a conversation we had years ago, made my heart soften towards him even more.
“Yeah, she was wrong. I guess I just needed the right motivation,” I said furtively and then immediately regretted my words. Sadie had been that motivation, but my emotions were too raw and the information I’d uncovered was too new for me to want to add a conversation about Sadie to an already emotionally charged evening.
“You didn’t give up on your dream to become an actress, did you?”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t ever really my dream, I realized that over the years. It was just something to do while I figured out what I wanted in life.”
“And did you figure out what that something was?” I didn’t like his tone. Something about it was unnerving. And I realized suddenly that all the anger I felt towards him had dissipated. And I started to feel things towards him that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in years. I still had a thing for my baby’s father.
I shrugged. “Not yet. Maybe one day I will,” I replied softly. I yawned and looked at the time. It was growing late and I suggested we head back.
“Already tired of me?”
I smiled at him. “I had a great evening… it’s just late.”
“Maybe we can do this again some time?” he asked hopefully. When I hesitated, he jumped in, saying, “Just think about it. No pressure. Maybe we can start again? Make up for lost time and pick up where we left off.”
“I… well… a lot has happened since we met. I’ve changed. My priorities have changed. Plus, I’m not going to be here for long.”
He shrugged. “I can tell Richard to pull a few strings… maybe he can get you another gig.”
“I have a life back in Georgia.”
“Let’s talk about something else.” He leaned forward and reached for my hands, taking them in his. His touch sent a chill up my arms and I couldn’t think or breathe for a moment.
“Everything you think you know about me is wrong. I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions and thinking I led you on. That’s not what happened. I just reacted badly and could only think about my sister and my niece when I heard the news. I asked Jack not to tell you the whole story, just that I had a family emergency.”
“He tried—but I didn’t believe him,” I said, remembering how badly I had reacted. “I thought it was a one night-stand to you.”
He squeezed my hands. “It was never meant to be that. That’s why when I came to my senses I told him to give you my contact information.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I ripped it up to shreds and then tossed his phone.”
“Yeah, he made me pay for that. Literally. He made me buy him a new cellphone.”
“Is it too late to tell him I’m sorry about that?”
He laughed. “I don’t know, I don’t think it’s ever too late to tell so
meone you’re sorry.”
I knew he was talking about himself.
“I messed up, Nina. But I never stopped thinking about you. When you came to the office, I was speaking with a family lawyer trying to arrange custody of Rory. We were trying to track down my niece’s father. It turns out that he didn’t even know he had a daughter.”
My heart dropped. “Oh really?”
“Yeah. Just further evidence of how selfish my sister is. The guy is actually a really decent person. He’s from a nice hard-working family in Bakersfield. Good people. I met them, his parents and his brothers and sisters. They were so excited to meet Rory. They treat her like she’s gold.”
“So that’s where your niece is now?”
“Yeah. She’s with her dad. He has full custody. I see her on the weekends occasionally. She’s having the time of her life. She has cousins and more grandparents now. She’s so happy.”
The very thing I was denying Sadie. The guilt I felt made me sick.
“Maybe your sister wasn’t selfish. Maybe she had a reason for keeping her daughter a secret.”
“I know my sister,” he said letting go of my hand. “She probably did it out of spite.”
“I think you’re making light of the subject. Most women don’t want to be a single mom…”
“I’m sure my sister didn’t give it much thought, at all.”
I found myself getting upset with him. “Cut her some slack, Griffin. And stop being so judgmental…. being a single mom is hard.”
“Hey,” he said. “I’m not arguing with you about that. But being a single mom was her choice. She could have told Vic, my niece’s father.”
“Maybe… maybe she was scared.”
“Maybe, but I know my sister better than you do and don’t forget she abandoned my niece to get high, so she’s not exactly mother of the year.”
“You’re right, I don’t know why I’m defending her.”
“It’s ok. I just don’t know how someone could deliberately deny someone the right to be a father. I guess it’s just upsetting because I loved my dad. I wouldn’t have been the man I was without him.”
I was glad for the change of subject. “Tell me about him.”
Griffin took a sip of his wine and savored the taste as he thought of the past. “He was just your average Joe. He was actually my stepdad. I never had a relationship with my biological father. My parents divorced early and the visits from my biological dad became less and less frequent until one day he just stopped showing up altogether. I was angry a lot because of that. I was a very difficult child, if you let my mom tell it.”
“I can believe that,” I said lightly, enjoying the moment.
“Thanks,” he said. “Anyway, so my mom remarried.”
“Oh, so Jackson and your sister—”
“Nora.”
“Yes, Nora. They’re from your mom’s second marriage?”
“Yep,” he said. “So yeah, my stepdad was just this average guy, an adjunct professor at a small-time community college. I think my mom met him while on vacation. He had a normal job, nothing fancy. And so she married him and pretty much caused a scandal because he wasn’t rich. He was just a nobody according to my mom’s peers. But he was great—so great to me, to us. Just a kind, wonderful man with broad shoulders. I always felt he could take the world on those shoulders. He taught me what it was to be a man.”
He grew silent and I didn’t want to push, but I just had to know.
“What happened to him?”
“A car accident when I was about 13 or 14.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“A drunk driver killed him instantly. We were all devastated. It changed us, you know? Dad had been the glue that held us all together. And in that one instant, a stranger tore our family apart. Mom bore the worst of it. She retreated into herself and then when she got better, I don’t think you could actually call it that, she became, what do they call it? A helicopter parent. She barely let us out of her sight. And my sister, she was a daddy’s girl. After he died she was constantly butting heads with Mom. So stubborn, just like Mom. They couldn’t see eye to eye and she left home at 16, running off with some friends. It took Mom a month to track her down and oh boy when she did, she rained down hell on my sister.”
He shook his head.
“And Jackson?”
“He was the youngest, so he didn’t know Dad as well as the rest of us. He just tried to be the funny one, always making us laugh. Trying to get Mom to smile. He’s the same way now, always trying to get the family together, always trying to make peace and get us to relax… come to think of it, he’s a lot like Dad.”
“I’m so sorry. I never knew my real father, but my stepdad is an amazing man. I can’t imagine ever losing him.”
“I wouldn’t wish that pain on my worst enemy.”
We sat in silence for a moment, each of us lost in thought.
“Did I ruin the evening by telling you all my family drama and secrets?” he asked as the waiter cleared our plates.
“No, not at all. I think we all have our share of secrets… things that we don’t want others to know or just things that we don’t want to talk about.”
“What are your secrets, Nina?”
Now was the time. Just tell him, Nina. What happened to confident Nina? I hesitated. Tell him, Nina. But how to even begin?
“Griffin, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, forcing the words out before I could change my mind.
“Uh oh, sounds serious,” he joked.
The waiter took that moment to arrive with the check.
“Now, what were you saying?”
I lost my nerve. What if he saw me as selfish like his sister? I didn’t want him to resent me. I needed time. I couldn’t just spit it out. It just wasn’t the right time.
“Nothing. I’m tired.”
“Me too. I hate to sound like a stick in the mud, but I have an early meeting tomorrow.”
“Aww… so you’re done stalking me on set.”
“My stalker days are over. After all, you agreed to have dinner with me so I think you’re coming around.”
He held out his hand to me and I took it. We walked out of the restaurant still holding hands. His nearness and the full moon reminded me of our moonlight tryst so long ago. It had been a balmy evening just like this one when I had crept into his room.
I looked at him and he looked at me, clearly we were thinking the same thing.
“Would it be too forward to invite you to my place?”
“Would it be too forward to accept?”
He smiled wickedly at me and opened the car door. I slid in, taking my time to rub against his body as I did.
“You’re trouble, Nina.”
“And you like it, Griffin.”
I heard him chuckle as he closed the door. Nina Charles, what are you getting yourself into? I thought.
Chapter 9
He pulled up to a high-rise in the middle of the city. It had a private parking garage and that was probably for the best, as I couldn’t wait until we were out of the car.
I pulled myself into his lap and started kissing him as soon as he removed the key from the ignition. I couldn’t get enough of him and apparently he couldn’t get enough of me.
His hands went straight up my skirt and he started to massage me through my panties. I wriggled, shoving my hips forward, riding his hand that was doing delicious, dirty things.
I heard a tearing sound and realized he’d ripped my panties off and then abruptly he stopped.
“This garage has cameras,” he said as in warning.
“Well, let them watch,” was my reply before I kissed him again, long and hard. He began fondling my breasts and I busied myself by unzipping his pants. There was a sense of urgency for both of us. I needed him in me, now. I wanted him so bad, and I’d been waiting years to have him if I were truthful with myself. This was the reason I hadn’t even so much as had a date since Griffin… because my bod
y craved him and only him.
I freed his length and stroked it boldly. He groaned.
“Are you ready for me Griffin?”
“I should be asking you that,” he said, raising his hips up. I straddled him, spreading my legs as wide as they could go in the confined space of his SUV and slid myself down onto his dick.
He felt amazing. I moaned as he filled me, stretching me inch my inch. It had been a long time, and my body initially protested his entrance.
“You’re so tight,” he said, holding on to my upper waist, looking at me.
“It’s been awhile,” I said softly, cupping his face and kissing it as my inner muscles contracted and released around his dick. He groaned and I could feel him trying to control himself.
“God, you feel good.”
“So, do you,” I said as I began to ride him. I leaned back against the steering wheel and began to maneuver myself up and down, taking in a little at a time, until he was fully inside of me.
He grunted and grabbed my hips, slamming me down on his dick over and over while I played with my nipples, squeezing them and rubbing them against his face.
We were breathing heavily and I could feel myself about to come. He brought his hands up to squeeze my breasts and it was enough to send me quickly over the edge, and I came hard and fast.
So, fast that I was a little embarrassed. I collapsed against him and waited until my breathing slowed down before saying, “Sorry.”
He laughed. “Isn’t it the guy who normally apologizes for coming early?”
“It’s 2017. New gender rules….”
“Oh, that explains a lot.”
“You didn’t come,” I said, although I already knew the answer.
“There’s still plenty of time for that.”
When he pulled me off, my sex seemed to protest, but finally released him. I righted my dress and instantly felt exposed and vulnerable. What the hell did I just do?
“Umm… I suppose you’ll want to head to bed now.”
“Yep,” he said. “With you. You said you would come over to my place, right? Well, we only made it to the parking garage. There’s still plenty of time for other stuff.”
I smiled at him and reached for my panties.
He stopped me. “You won’t be needing those.”
Billionaire Retreat Page 10
