by Emily Bishop
I look at myself in the mirror and feel strange. My hair’s piled up on the top of my head, a messy but somewhat pretty nest of dark curls. My skin’s pink from the bath. My eyes look soft. I look softer than I ever remember seeing myself. It’s like… I try to figure it out. I’ve been so strong and independent for such a long time. My energy’s been my own. I’ve been walking around in my own little bubble. I’m a soldier, the only one in my regiment.
But somehow my energy’s gotten all mixed up with Gray’s. That’s what’s been getting to me. When I look in the mirror, I see how he’s changed me. I look different than I did before we reconnected. On the plane, I was sure the change was a bad one. But as I watch my soft self in the mirror, I’m not so sure. I turn away from the mirror with sadness. Even if some things about Gray make me feel safe and beautiful and not so alone in this world, it’s just not sustainable. And it’s too confusing to pretend. The lines between make-believe and reality get too fuzzy. I have to go. I have to.
I put on my lone soldier face and try to feel it in my heart, like I’m erecting a wall around it. Then I go out into the room, ready to rummage through my suitcase for a fresh outfit and not meet his eyes.
But he’s standing in the middle of the room, grinning. There’s a table to his left. A table to his right. Both are covered with plates with silver covers. “What the…?” I say. “Are you holding a conference?”
“Nope,” he says with a wider grin. “I’ve ordered all your favorite foods. Look.” He takes one of the covers off. “Spaghetti Bolognese.” Then another. “With garlic bread, of course. A double helping, because I know that’s one of your absolute favorites.” Then another. “A Caesar salad, with extra cheese.” He looks up with a knowing smile. How the hell does he even know that’s what I always order? “Chocolate pudding. And vanilla ice cream.”
Stunned, I sit down on the bed. “Have you been stalking me, Gray?”
“Forget about a little thing called St. Ernest’s Academy?”
That shocks me even more. “You remember all of this…from high school? But you despised my guts. How on earth did you notice all my favorites? And remember them?”
“Only the dickish part of me despised you. Because you weren’t like the other girls falling all over me and doing everything I said. You were kind of fascinating for that, actually. My big ego… what was it you called it on the plane? ‘Sick and twisted?’”
I duck my head, embarrassed. “Something like that.”
He laughs. “Well, my big, sick, and twisted ego wouldn’t let me show you any respect. But I had plenty of it for you. Still do.”
A nice, soft little feeling presses in my heart. But I have to leave. I have to. “You did a great job of pretending not to,” I say, trying to turn my words into glaciers.
“Well…” He sits down on the other twin bed. “Sometimes things I want to say get… well, stuck somewhere. Like a piece of food in my throat. Except the other way. That sounds gross. You know what I mean. It doesn’t come out properly. Or at all.”
I nod. “I get it.” Sometimes I feel the same, really. I haven’t told anyone how much stress it has been to try and salvage my father’s company, so I know all about holding things back. My closest friend is Natalie, and I can’t tell her. I’m her boss, technically. I have to inspire confidence.
“But… the last couple of days with you… I’m starting to say new things. Think new things. Even, god forbid, feel new things.” He laughs.
Oh, fuck. “Just a sec. This food smells so good, and I really want to keep talking. Let me just get changed.” I grab a bra and dress, hold the panties, and hurry into the bathroom. I’m back in a flash and pick up some garlic bread. He’s right—it really is my favorite. I’m ready to change the subject. I don’t want to know what new things he’s feeling. Not when I have to go. “So, who will you get to pretend to be your fiancée now? Do you think Lilly will do it? The solicitor will probably go for it, since you were together before.”
He looks at me like I’ve slapped him in the face. A jolt of shock, then his face clouds with confusion. Eventually, he rips off a piece of garlic bread with a little too much force. “How can you be so casual about this?”
“Casual about what?” Like my heart isn’t beating a little faster.
“About going. About breaking a contract, for one. I thought you were the kind of person who finishes everything they start.”
“I am.” I feel like I’m being tugged in two different directions inside. It hurts. “But this is a different situation. This is different.”
“How?” he presses, his voice full of weight.
“I don’t think you’re the best person to grill people on their integrity or determination or seeing things through.”
I expect him to shoot something back and shut this connection down. That would be ideal. But instead he looks down, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his hands hang down. “You’re right. But I’m willing to see this through. There’s a first time for everything. You’re giving up on me before I’ve even started. We can do this, together. I won’t let you down.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about me. I don’t feel right doing this. I don’t think I should have accepted in the first place.” I lean forward and pick up a fork to dig into the lasagna, but I just pick at it with the fork. The food smells so good, but my appetite’s not cooperating. “It’s not exactly honorable, is it? But I don’t know what I expected, after the way you treated me on the plane. What you said was… the farthest from honorable there can be. Grayson, I’m so done.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “This is my chance. It’s yours, too. We’d be crazy to go back now. There’s too much to lose.” When I look at him, he looks up. His dark eyes have this intensity, like he’s not just talking about losing the money.
I’ve made up my mind. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve made up my mind. I can’t change my mind. I can’t. I sigh. “Gray, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. You’re actually a lot nicer than I thought if I go on everything before the plane. I don’t think I really understood you before. But I do now. It’s nothing against you why I’m going. It’s just not for me.”
“But that’s just it!” He gets up and throws his hands in the air, then walks over to the window. “You get to understand me a little bit, then you decide to leave. So, it’s not just the arrogant Gray you can’t stand. It’s the real Gray, too.”
“That’s not true.”
He turns, his eyes like the depths of a dark ocean. “It is. And you know it. Why don’t you just admit that you can’t stand me? The real me, as well as the arrogant version of me.”
My heart hurts. I block it out. “Why does it matter so much to you what I think? Aren’t you the man who does what he wants, everyone else’s thoughts be damned?”
“No!” It explodes out of him. He strides around. “It’s true, I don’t care what most of the world thinks. What do they care about me and my life? What do they know? Nothing. But you. You know. You’ve seen me at my worst. And in all these new things. You’ve seen me in ways no one else has. And now you’re just leaving?”
Oh, fuck, what’s happening? Why does my chest feel like it’s going to cave in any second now? Why is my voice cracking? “I don’t want to leave, but I have—”
“You have to? Says who?” he demands. “Seriously, says who?”
I have no answer. Something begins to spread through me. It bursts out from my heart and radiates to the tips of my fingers and toes and the top of my head. Something warm. Like some floodgate’s burst open. My mouth says, “Come here,” before my brain can engage itself.
“Huh?”
“Come, darling.” Darling? What the fuck?
But he doesn’t blink twice. The room is full of something I can’t name. Heavy with it. Like all the air’s been sucked out of the room and now we’re drowning in it. I love it. And he does, too. I can see it in his eyes.
He sits next to me. “Don’t go. Stay.”
I still can’t answer that. But my heart feels fierce, ready to guard his heart like a tiger. He has to know he’s a good guy. Sure, he has arrogant tendencies. Irresponsible tendencies. But we’ve gone deeper than that. I feel like I can see the core of him. I never knew it was so tender. A little broken, even. Just like me.
I grip him in a hug. “Gray, you’re a good man. A wonderful man. You’ll make it good in life. You will. Things will get better.”
He grips me back. “We have to do this together.”
Telling myself I’m going to leave is like trying to pry myself away from the strongest magnet in the universe. “But, Gray…” I don’t even know how to finish my sentence. The more I try to pull my heart away, the more it slips out of my grasp and runs back to him. “This… it can’t work.” I don’t even know what I’m talking about. It’s not only this fake engagement.
“It will,” he says. “I’ll make it work.”
Why is my whole body pulsing with heat? Why do I need him inside me? I crave him. Deep up inside my pussy. Deep up inside my heart. I wish I could believe him. My mind doesn’t, and it yells at the rest of me, trying desperately to be convincing. But my heart isn’t listening. My body isn’t listening. They both believe him. Through and through. Not a trace of doubt.
He pushes his lips against mine. Hard. Strong. This isn’t an artful, masterful, get-in-your-panties kiss. This is not a Grayson Fairfax the Second kiss either. Or maybe I’ll have to come up with a new definition for that name. He’s been taken over. He’s out of control. He pushes himself onto me, and I love it. Oh god, his cock. It’s pressing up against my leg, harder than I’ve felt it. My clit pulses and a little moan escapes my lips.
“Isabella, stay.” He presses his lips against my neck like he’s going to devour me. “Stay.” It’s a command. But it’s not a command coming from arrogance. It’s coming from passion. From the deepest place within him. He’s not trying to control me. He’s trying to keep me. Oh, god, he wants to make me stay. So badly. So, so badly.
It makes me want his cock, too. His hands have remained respectfully on the bed as he nestles his lips against my neck. But I’m ready. I pull my dress up to reveal my bare pussy and my thighs, which have gotten wet because I skipped over the panties. “Gray,” I whisper. “Go in me. Go in me.”
He needs no more telling. He growls as he rushes to take off his belt. But he’s not watching me with those all-knowing eyes, those dominating eyes. When he gazes at me, it’s pure animal desire. He wants me. He needs me. This is no game to make me lose control while he can enjoy a power trip as I come all over his cock. He’s as out of control as I am.
It’s huge. Bigger than last time. He thrusts it inside me, and I come instantly, a lovely sweet climax all over his huge dick. The way he stares down at me makes me smile and moan and smile and moan and scream. I’ve pulled up my dress and pulled my bra down but he’s not looking at my hard nipples. He’s not looking at his hard cock thrusting in and out of my wet cunt. He’s not watching my swollen clit. His eyes bore into my soul. His eyes search for my pleasure. Every time a moan seeps out of me, genuine joy lights up his face. Every time another orgasm squeezes my cunt tight around his dick and, “Yes! Oh god!” pours out of me, his eyes are aflame. Not with his own pleasure. But with mine.
Chapter 13
Grayson
DAY 9
The first thing I see when I wake up is this beautiful flower, her gorgeous dark curls splayed all over the white pillow. She’s naked, her shapely body entangled with the white sheets in a way that looks like one of the tasteful nude paintings in the bedrooms at my family mansion. Her eyes are closed, her dark eyelashes curling up, a small smile on her face. The best way to wake up in the world. There’s no doubt about that. Peace emanates through the place. The traffic outside is distant, irrelevant. We’re in another realm.
But then I remember, and it’s like someone took a scalpel to my chest and scooped everything out. In a second, everything under my ribcage is hollowed. Nothing left. She’s leaving. This chapter of my life will feel like a dream. A glimpse of what life could be. But I can close myself up again. I can wake myself up and go back to my normal, empty life. I can.
I shake her awake a little more roughly than I mean to. “Your flight leaves soon. Get up.” My voice comes out horribly, too. Like I hate her.
She wakes up and does the most unexpected and horrifying thing. She bursts into tears.
Oh shit. What the fuck to do now? Should I comfort her? Does she want me to? Is she going to shove me away? Does she want me to come closer? Leave her to cry? Oh, hell.
It’s only a couple seconds until she swallows down her tears and says, “Sorry, sorry,” but it feels like a damn eternity.
“Are you… all right?”
She thumps me on the arm, then snuggles into it. I don’t think she’s quite awake yet. “I don’t want to go.”
My whole body lights up with joy. “Then don’t!”
She jerks away from my arm like she’s realized what she’s doing. Then she fluffs her hair back and shakes her head to wake herself up. “I’m going to try sell that ticket.” Then she grins. “Though soon enough we won’t have to worry about money, will we, Duke?” The joke’s at my expense, but I like it. She swings herself out of the bed and stands there, naked. “Plus, I’d be crazy to come all the way to England and not see the fabled Fairfax mansion.”
I’m floating on air. “You’re in a good mood.”
She takes a towel and wraps it around herself. Her attitude had been playful for a moment, but now it flattens out into seriousness. “Well, I might as well make the best of it. I need this money for my father’s business. We both know it.”
Of course, we do. But what about the other part? The real part? “And?”
“And so I’m going to have to grin and bear it.”
“Grin and bear it? Is it that painful?”
She flashes me a huge, elated smile. “Well, if last night was anything to go by, it shouldn’t be too horrific.”
Not too horrific. Not the most dazzling compliment in the world, but I’m taking it as a good sign. “All right. We’re going back to the airport to try get rid of the ticket and get some of your money back. Then we’ll get a cab to Devonshire. It’s a long way, you know.”
She turns to go in the bathroom. “That’s what my trusty Kindle is for, Gray.”
***
“It’s so pretty,” she keeps saying. The rolling hills and stone-wall-lined patchwork fields dredge up a love-hate thing in me. I mean, they’re my home, and they always make me think about my late mother. Her sweet perfume smell. The hugs. Her gentle nature. It all feels homey and cozy for a moment.
But then images I try to forget flash through my mind in nightmarish sequence. Father bullying her into submission. Father’s cutting insults making her face fall into misery. Powerlessness. He didn’t ever hit her. That would have been too base, too obvious. Rather, he used his words, which packed a punch more deadly than a balled fist ever could.
When I was eight, I picked a bedroom as far away from theirs as possible so I wouldn’t have to hear another of his tirades. But then I felt guilty on Mother’s behalf, as well as lonely, and I moved back onto their floor. The arguments would keep me up all night. Father’s booming voice echoed around the wood-paneled rooms until the whole house seemed to hold his poisonous words in the walls.
The taxi driver turns into the village our manor overlooks. Back in the day, my ancestors owned the whole village and employed mostly everyone in it. Now, it’s a thriving little place with kooky coffee shops, a murder-mystery bookstore, and a somewhat dusty and disorganized antiques place that pulls people in from all over the country. The manor’s the saddest part about the town, now. We have five staff, but the place is so huge it’s always covered with a sheen of dust. Cobwebs cluster in its thousand corners. My father had had thirty staff still there, suffering under his reign of tyranny. I let nearly all of them go.
“We’re nearly here.” I give Isabella a smile. She smiles back with a real excitement, and I feel a bit locked out. Looking in on the beauty and grandeur and status with new eyes, she won’t see what I see. “Just turn in there,” I say to the driver.
The enormous entrance gates are open, as they always are, and the driver starts to crunch over the gravel of the long, winding drive. Isabella’s jaw drops, watching the land that stretches out as far as the eye can see. “Is this… all yours?”
“Yeah,” I say, without enthusiasm.
She sits back in her seat, stunned. “Wow. Just wow.”
Then we turn the corner. Her jaw drops again in surprise. People say that as a means of expression, but her jaw literally drops.
I try to look at the mansion through her perspective. A grand old English country house through the eyes of a Seattleite. It is kind of impressive, I guess, in a foreboding, imposing kind of way. Rows upon rows of windows line up in the gray, cut-stone construction. There’s a huge turret on the east wing where Father used to have his second office, the one where he did all his reading. But it wasn’t the library, mind. That’s on the ground floor of the west wing. The gardens out front were perfectly manicured when Father died. They’re straggling a bit now.
“Gray, this is where you grew up?” She can’t believe it.
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“How many rooms are there? How many bedrooms?”
I know because Father used to trot the figures out when we went abroad. The first thing he did in any conversation was to leave rich foreigners in no doubt about how much richer the Fairfaxes were than they. And more titled, obviously. “Forty-three bedrooms. Seventy rooms in total.”
“My god.”
I played alone in most of them as a child. Sometimes with Eddie. Those were the best days. As soon as Father died, I brought in a bunch of my cousins on my mother’s side. They pretty much took over the fourth floor, which is cool with me. Lilly’s gotten friendly with them and stays over sometimes. As long as she comes nowhere near me, I don’t care. I don’t feel a sense of ownership over the place.
