by Cari Quinn
Until I clicked on the third from the last one and saw a thirteen-year-old Grace holding up a shard of glass refracting a prism of light. The students sat in front of her, many of them not paying attention since she wasn’t the real teacher, so she couldn’t get them in trouble. But one boy was riveted. Fourth row, fourth seat back. Shaggy dark hair hiding most of his face, and his oversized glasses obscuring some of the rest.
“Take a look.” I pushed away from the counter and paced across the kitchen. I didn’t want to see her expression as she realized I’d been in her purview back then and she’d never so much as given me a second glance.
On the other hand, I’d built an entire fantasy life around her. And when Annabelle had reminded me of my proper place—far away from her granddaughter—I’d stuffed her memory and my thoughts of her into a box.
“It’s my class at the Beacon school,” Grace began slowly, taking my seat. “I used to help the teacher with art classes in the summer.”
“I know, Grace. I was in that class. Just like I’m in that picture.”
Definitely not my best day, and I couldn’t deny the spurt of embarrassment at her seeing me that way. But of course, she already had back then. She simply hadn’t been aware of me.
At the time, I’d been bitter about that too. I’d figured she had rich boyfriends lined up around the block, so naturally she wouldn’t notice the awkward, angry, borderline nerd who clung to the corners.
After a while, I realized Grace wasn’t interested in boys. She cared about her art, and only her art. So I nurtured my obsession like a lover, waiting for the day that would change.
“What?” Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she grabbed the edges of the laptop screen and dragged it closer. “Where? I don’t see anyone who resembles—” Then she broke off, torturing that small bit of flesh even more. “No. That can’t be you.”
In the picture outside with her grandmother, I’d tamed my hair and I wore no glasses. I’d also managed a tight smile in spite of the fury that burned in my gaze. But in the classroom shot, I was in full geek mode—hair wild from my hands, huge, thick lenses, white shirt with the collar shot up as if that made me cool.
Yeah, not my finest moment for sure.
“Compare it to the other one you just saw with your grandmother. I’m afraid you’ll see it’s very much me.”
Her head came up, her eyes narrowing. She knew it was. I was fairly certain her shock came more from seeing me in the same room as herself rather than true surprise. The boy photographed with her grandmother just happened to be the edgier, street-wise version of the nerd who lived inside me still.
“How?” she whispered. “How could this be you? How long did you know who I was?”
My first instinct was to cover my tracks. I’d been doing it for so long that I scarcely knew how to be truthful anymore. But this woman deserved more than easy lies from me. She deserved everything.
“I was sixteen the first summer I took one of the glass classes you assisted with. I took my final one when I was eighteen and you were fifteen.”
“You took them for three years?”
Nodding was easier than replying when my throat had tightened to the point of pain. Even thinking of those days of lack and want brought forth a physical response.
“Three summers you sat in my classroom. Never spoke to me. Never identified yourself.” She returned her gaze to the screen. “How did you go from this to…” She gestured wildly at me and I had to laugh, because sometimes I still wondered that myself.
My transformation had been inner as much as outer. Over time, I’d hardened until no one could pry away the pieces that held me together or see inside past the slick veneer. The opacity went much farther than the surface.
Much like the glass I—we—loved.
“I had to. I was born dirt poor. The kind of poor you couldn’t imagine until your grandmother died and left you penniless. I didn’t know,” I continued, sensing she was winding up to blast me. “I had no idea the state of your grandmother’s finances.”
“Oh really? Then why were you at her house the day before she was found dead?”
“Because she invited me. She called me, quite out of the blue, and commanded I make room in my schedule to see her. Immediately. And I was to come to her, of course, since her time was more valuable than mine.” Despite the difficulty of the subject matter, thinking of Annabelle’s absolute imperviousness made me smile. She was a hell of a woman. Life had never knocked her down for long.
She was more apt to do the knocking. I should know. And I did, all too well.
“I did as she asked. She’d helped me at a time when no one was taking my calls. Hell, I might as well have been a ghost for all the recognition I got in architecture circles. Your grandmother’s connections and money helped pave the way for me.” I kept my voice level as if I didn’t notice Grace’s spine stiffening degree by degree. “If not for her early assistance, Carson Covenant would probably still be struggling. I would’ve gotten there eventually. But it would’ve taken a lot longer.”
“And since you’ve already denied being lovers, I’m to believe she helped you out of the goodness of her heart.” Suspicion threaded through Grace’s words, thick and hot. “Just her way of giving back to the community. Or perhaps she…saw something in you.”
From Grace’s tone, I could tell she was still tangled up in the notion Annabelle and I had been intimate—or had at least circled around some kind of flirtation. Which was wrong on a million levels.
“Not quite.” The corner of my mouth ticked up. “She knew my father. I believe I mentioned that to you before.”
“Knew or knew-knew?”
Again, I smiled. That was Grace, my Nancy Drew in-training. “She never clarified that for me, and I’ll admit to not wanting to think too hard on it. But I have my suspicions. She acted as my benefactor to send me to art camp at Beacon school because she knew Robert. She claimed to have known him for many years. That she was extremely fond of him.”
“But if you were sixteen, I was thirteen, and that means my grandfather had only died seven years before. She wouldn’t do that. Not to my grandpop. He was the love of her life, Blake.”
“Whatever that means,” I mused, and watched her eyes flash hot like a summer storm.
“I don’t know what her relationship with Robert entailed,” I continued, keeping my voice low and soothing. “I’m not sure it matters. Everyone who would’ve been involved is dead now.”
But God, it was so refreshing to see Grace’s cheeks stain pink with indignation over possible slings and arrows against her long-dead grandfather. We had nothing but supposition, nothing but the scantiest information, and she was ready to leap to his defense.
“It matters. Honor isn’t something to throw on and off like a pair of pants.”
“Oh, Ms. Copeland.”
“Don’t.” She wagged her finger at me and shoved off the stool to start walking around the counter again. “I know you think I’m a naïve fool.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then what else am I? I was in a class with you for years, and I never even knew. I walked into your office one day to try to get you to see reason about my house, and you knew who I was right away. You always knew, and I just blithely ignored every clue you gave.”
“Not knowing what to do with a piece of information isn’t the same as ignoring.” When she would’ve sputtered at me, I pressed on. “Your grandmother called me to her house, as I said. And she asked me to promise that if something happened to her, I would buy it. No, she begged me. Flat-out begged.”
“Why? Why would she do that?”
I had my theories, and maybe someday I’d share them with Grace. In the meantime, I went with my old standby—deflection.
“It’s late.” I moved forward and closed the files on the laptop. “This can all wait until the morning.”
“No, dammit, you’re not shutting me down like that. Not tonight.” She slammed down the
lid on the laptop, nearly slamming my fingers in the process. “She left behind a video saying I might be in danger, for fuck’s sake. You can’t put me in a glass box and keep me from the truth.”
“You’re not in danger.”
“How can you say that with such steel in your voice? How can you fucking know?” She started to whirl away, but I grabbed her arm, curling my fingers into her pale skin. Sometimes a little precisely applied force was necessary to make a point.
Like right now.
“No one is getting near you. No one. Do you understand me? Not while there’s breath in my body.” I dragged her against me, using my height advantage to remind her that I was a worthy foe. Not toward her. Never toward her.
But anyone else—I’d like to see them fucking try.
“You’re mine.” She tried to shove me back, but I didn’t move. “I protect what’s mine.” I bent to press my mouth to her ear, well aware of her quickened breaths pushing her chest against mine. Those full breasts straining, trying to pull my focus from where it needed to be. “Anyone who comes near you is taking a very large risk.”
“Oh yeah? Gonna chain me up somewhere?”
“I just might. But I guarantee you’d enjoy it.” Slowly, I let my gaze roam her face as I trailed my fingertip along her cheek. “It’s late,” I said again. “It’ll still be here tomorrow.”
“So what, we’ll just fuck it out and make it all better?” But she was already breathless, her lips already parted and wet. She wanted to do exactly that.
We might be reckless and insane, but it was a mutual affliction.
“You tell me.”
“No, dammit, it won’t be better. I want to know why you took my class for three years. Why you knew my grandmother—why she was your benefactor—” She said the word as if it were poison, “yet I never once met you. You never even said hello to me.”
“That’s not true. I asked you about a particular technique with copper and glass, and you explained it to me in detail.”
She brushed it off, shaking her head. “Three years, Blake. A man like you wouldn’t have bothered with a class like mine, even back then.”
“I learned from you. You were the one who introduced me to glass, who made me see it was so much more than a pretty object.”
She reeled back as if I’d slapped her. “Stop it. Was it just a lark for you? Just a free class you took because my grandmother footed the bill?”
“I told you.” I gripped her shoulders and shook her lightly until she finally met my gaze. “You’re the one who taught me how to fall in love. With glass,” I said as she went still, hating that I had to divert to safe territory once again.
Even in the truth, only lies could protect me. And protect Grace, because I’d be damned if anyone harmed her—or the memories she held dear of the grandmother she loved so much.
Three
Blake
I kissed her.
It wasn’t fair to deflect her questions or worse, to distract her from them. I’d done that far too often. But I hadn’t been lying about keeping her safe, and the idea that someone could be invading our privacy, watching too closely, when I’d finally made her mine…
Fuck, I had to have her. I needed to feel her pulse around me while she shattered in orgasm. My name on her lips and our memories no more important than the sweat cooling between us.
Her lips opened and her tongue came out to battle with mine. Slick and hot, her mouth tempted me like no other. Just like the rest of her. Before I’d ever touched her, before I’d fully understood what true want was, I’d understood this woman would be my decimation.
She fisted a hand in my shirt, pulling until I was sure the buttons would pop. Then she shoved me back, her eyes wild. “You think my grandmother might’ve had an affair with your father and you’re just—just going to maul me?”
“Ms. Copeland, I’d maul you if your grandmother and my father were having an affair in this very room.” I took advantage of the smile that twitched on her face and stepped forward to slip a hand under her slouchy top. We’d changed after Jack left, and she’d picked something that doubled as pajamas and lounge wear. Soft, soft shirt, fuzzy pants with dancing sheep. About the most unsexy things known to man, and yet.
“I can’t compartmentalize you can, obviously.”
“I’d say this is a very large compartment, wouldn’t you?” Not caring if it was crude, I grabbed her hand and brought it to the steel pole tenting my pants. My idea of clothes to wear around the house and hers differed, but since we would soon be naked, I didn’t care.
Her fingers curled in and held even as she continued to try to get me to see reason. “We’re caught up in something so much bigger than us,” she said, and that hint of uncertainty swayed me more than any demands to be logical.
Fuck logic. What had it ever gotten me? Yes, I’d made more money than I ever dreamed, but I’d also spent too many years alone. Grace had pushed me past my limits over and over, and all I wanted was more.
Nothing with her would ever be enough.
“You wanted to know why I kept coming back to your classes. Year after year. You refuse to believe it’s because of your skill at teaching, and the joy you share every time you immerse yourself in your art. It’s your gift. You make people want to experience that happiness too.” I reached back to undo her messy braid. Half of her hair had come out of it, and she didn’t seem to notice or care. “But there was more.”
She’d begun to relax under my hands, but then she stiffened. “I knew it.”
“I know it’s hard to imagine it looking at my photos back then, but I didn’t exactly have my pick of the girls.”
She made a sound in her throat and ducked her head.
“Weird thing was, I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. Maybe I was too angry, too used to fending for myself to even think that someone would be able to deal with me. Besides, I had two hands.”
Her head came up, her gaze sharpening. I knew she was thinking about that night in my bathroom, just as I was. The night she’d asked me to jerk off for her pleasure, using my tie.
“Then I saw you. There was absolutely no reason for you to grab me the way you did. You seemed to have even less interest in the opposite sex than I did. All you cared about was what you built with your hands and your heart.”
Her lips trembled. “I was practically a child.”
“So was I, all things considered. You also loved your grandmother. I didn’t trust her, and I definitely wasn’t sure I liked her. But watching you with her, hearing you laugh, it did something to me.” I clamped my fingers around the end of her mostly deconstructed braid, using it to tug back her head so that her sea-colored eyes were on mine. “You want one of my secrets, Ms. Copeland?”
“You know I do. I want all of them.”
I couldn’t give her all. But I could give her this.
“Sure about that? You’re not going to like me very much afterward.” I brushed my fingers through her hair, spreading it over her shoulders.
“Who says I like you now?”
“Touché. I followed you. I tracked you, and I learned everything about you. You fascinated me on levels I’d never experienced before. Imagining you with another boy, thinking of him touching you,” I parted her full, pink lips and slid my finger inside, “of him having this, it made me crazy. And then when I discovered you didn’t care about boys, I became obsessed with being the one. The one who would have you first.”
She took a shuddery breath. “You’re right. I’m not liking you a lot right now.”
“Told you.”
“Is that how it always is with you? You have to plant a flag and claim everything? Can’t anything be easy with you?”
“With my company, no. With you, absolutely not.” I bent to nip the indentation I’d made in her lip. “I never did get to have this pretty, perfect mouth first. But I’ll have it now.”
She bit my lip, and damn if I didn’t groan like a teenager in heat. She�
��d made me that from the first, and sometimes it felt like I hadn’t progressed much past that point.
Her small fist plowed into my gut, and the sound I made was far from sexual. Jesus, she had some power for such a little thing. “You stalked me. Did recon on me, searched into my past?”
Were those questions or statements? I nodded.
She hit me again, nudging me back. My spine hit the counter and she hooked her fingers in the loops of my pants. “Contrary to what some woman might do after hearing all that, I’m not dropping to my knees for you. I’m supposed to get all weak-kneed because you followed me around and pried into my personal life instead of, I don’t know, coming up to say hi? You know, what’s your phone number, want to get a burger?”
I must’ve made a face at that because she shook her head. “Oh no, God forbid the almighty Blake Carson go on an actual date. A meal, a movie, some getting-to-know-you conversation.”
“Is that what you want?” I grasped her wrist. “The banal and ordinary?”
It annoyed me I’d never considered it. Why would she want that when we could take helicopter rides and fuck in secret locations atop my building? Or hell, right in the front vestibule.
In the office washroom, in the gallery across from the clock I’d created for—
No. I wasn’t going there now. There was baring my soul and then there was ripping it open for sport.
“It’s not banal. You truly are clueless, aren’t you?”
When she lifted her hands, probably to push me one more time, I grabbed them and laced our fingers together. “The next time you touch me that roughly, your hand better be on my dick.”
Instead of dropping to her knees, she arched an eyebrow. “Maybe you should be the one on your knees, since you were the one with the stalkery crush, Mr. Carson.”
Oh, this woman.
I let her go and had a moment to enjoy the smile of satisfaction that slid across her face before I wiped it away by hauling her off her feet. I turned her toward the counter and swept things out of my way with my arm before I laid her down beside the laptop where our lives were being blown apart. My haste had pushed the computer to the very edge and her eyes widened before I yanked down her sheep pants and reminded her of who was in charge.
