by Jill Shalvis
“And then,” he went on, “you pulled the passive-aggressive card by going behind my back about Anna—”
“Now wait a minute.” She realized he’d been spoiling for a fight since he’d walked in the door, and ding-ding, he’d just gotten one. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “And I’m not passive aggressive. I just…”
He cocked a brow and waited with a mock patience that had her temper hitting the boiling point. She no longer had things to prove, not to anyone, and certainly not to herself. “You know what?” she said. “Never mind. I’m done talking to you when you’re like this.”
“This?” he repeated.
“You. When you’re being all mule-headed and obstinate and—”
“Those are the same things, Grace.”
“Smug,” she added. “An overeducated, arrogant…doctor.” After this final insult, she inhaled a deep breath and then let it out again. “Okay, never mind the doctor part. That’s my own hang-up showing. I didn’t mean that part.”
“I thought you were done talking to me.”
“Argh!” She grabbed her purse and whirled to the door. She got all the way to it before she remembered she was still on the clock. She executed an about-face. “Are you going back to the hospital?”
“Have to.”
“Fine. And you should know, I interviewed Sarah. Assuming you trust my passive-aggressive judgment, she’s perfect for you and could start immediately.”
“Handy, since you got the job you wanted.”
“Actually,” she said, “you have no idea what I want.”
“Then tell me.”
Yeah, Grace, tell him. But he was standing there, so big and sure of himself, shoulders stretched impossibly broad, strong enough to take on the weight of his entire world.
Which he’d done.
And what had she done? Exactly as he’d accused her—she’d blindly followed a path set out for her, not spending time second-guessing that path or even standing up for what her own hopes and dreams might be.
That shamed her. Embarrassed her to the bone. She had no idea how to tell him that what she wanted was to throw away the only thing she’d ever been good at and start over. That what she really wanted was to keep this little make-believe world she’d created for herself. So she said nothing at all and went into the kitchen. “How about making more cupcakes?” she asked Toby.
“Oh boy!”
The front door shut, and Grace felt twinges of unidentifiable emotions.
Regret.
Anxiety.
Loss.
And something else, something that left her stomach uneasy, because it felt like heartbreak.
Are you having fun now?
Chapter 24
Chocolate is cheaper than therapy, and you don’t even need an appointment.
Fifteen minutes later, Josh was back in the ER, trying to keep his mind on his patients, which wasn’t easy. Why had he picked a fight with Grace? Because she’d integrated herself into his life so that he could no longer imagine it without her? Because she’d gotten a job he wasn’t even convinced she wanted and would be leaving? It made no sense. He’d always known she’d be leaving. And if she took the Seattle job, she wouldn’t be far.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that it wouldn’t be the same.
His fault.
All his own fucking fault. He called Riley and asked if she was free to watch Toby so that Grace could leave if she wanted to. Riley promised to head over to his house, no worries.
Josh spent the next five hours working, and at the end of his shift, all he wanted was to crash. Mallory caught up to him in the hallway. She was in pink scrubs, hair up, looking a little frazzled. “Got a minute?” she asked.
The ER had been a mess all day. There’d been a five-car pileup on the highway, the usual heart attacks and hangovers, and a mob of strep throat infections. She’d kept up with him every step of the way. “For you, always.”
She smiled. “Aw. Don’t make me tell Ty I’m marrying his good friend instead of him.”
“Tell him you realized you needed a real man.”
She laughed, but he couldn’t manage the same. She looked at him for a long beat; then her smile faded. “Oh, Josh. You didn’t.”
“What?”
“You screwed it up?”
He shook his head. “What makes you think that I screwed it up?”
“Because you have a penis.”
Josh let out a breath. “Maybe there was nothing to screw up.”
“Oh my God. And how does a guy as smart as you get so dumb?”
“Dumb?”
“Yes, dumb! You fell for her, Josh, I know it. We all know it. It’s all over your face. It’s all over the way you act with her.”
“I don’t act any different with her than I do with everyone else,” he said.
“Really? So you pay all your babysitters a thousand dollars a day?”
“A week,” he muttered.
But she wasn’t listening. She was ranting on him some more. “I mean, I can’t understand how you can’t see it. Have you looked at yourself in that pic on Facebook? Or noticed how much more relaxed you are these past weeks?” She smacked him on the chest. “Relaxed, Josh. You! Hell, you even sold your practice so that you could have a private life. So wake up and smell the damn cupcakes—you’re crazy about her. You even let yourself depend on her. You, the King-of-Depending-on-No-One!”
“I pay her to be dependable.”
“Yes, well, you’ve paid me on occasion to work in your practice when you were short an RN,” she reminded him. “Does that mean we’re doing it by your pool like a pair of teenagers?”
“She told you?” he asked in disbelief.
“No, actually. Anna did,” she admitted. “And then both Amy and I pounced all over Grace for details—which she wouldn’t give, by the way. You know why that is, Josh?”
He wasn’t afraid of much, but even he knew to be afraid of Mallory when her eyes were crazy like they were now, so he said nothing.
“It’s because you don’t give details when you’re falling.” She drew a deep breath and studied him, hands on hips.
He held his ground in case she decided to hit him again, because for a little thing, she hit hard.
“Let me just say this. I love you, but if you hurt Grace in any way, I’m going to—” She huffed a minute. “Well, I don’t know what. Depends on what you did.”
Again with the assumption it was him.
Because it was, you dumbass…He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, it’s late. I’m tired. You’re tired. Did you need a minute to tell me something important or just to yell at me?”
She sighed. “I almost forgot. I wanted to know if you could pick up a shift at HSC this week.”
“Depends on when Grace leaves and if I have someone to cover Toby.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Mallory sighed and got quiet, very quiet. “I keep telling myself she’s not going to really go, you know?”
He did know. He knew because he’d been doing the same thing. The thought of Grace heading off to Seattle gave him a gut ache.
And a heartache.
Which proved Mallory’s point, of course. He was crazy about Grace, and he really had absolutely no idea how she felt. In the beginning, he’d mistakenly believed she needed him. That he was the one doing her the favor.
He’d been wrong. Very wrong.
Grace didn’t need a man to be the center of her universe. She wasn’t dependent on anyone. She would never be one more thing on any man’s plate to take care of. What had he been thinking to assume that? Especially since the truth was that she’d been taking care of him since day one. “I’m going home now,” he said. “Unless you want to hit me again.”
“Do I need to?” she asked.
“No.”
She studied him for a long beat, then surprised him by sighing and stepping in to hug him tight. “It’s okay to be stupid in love,”
she assured him, patting him like he was a little boy instead of a full-grown man who was a head and a half taller than her. “Once,” she said, this last word spoken in a definite warning tone. Then she stepped back and out the door before he could tell her that he’d already used his allotment of stupid in love.
Just over five years ago.
Except hindsight was always twenty-twenty. And he knew now that what he’d had with Ally hadn’t been so much love as lust. As for what he had with Grace, he wasn’t sure. It felt more like heartburn than anything else.
On the way home, he called Anna. She still didn’t pick up, but two minutes later he got a text from her that said he should leave her the hell alone, that she was with friends, that she was fine, and she’d come talk to him when she was “grown up” enough not to want to kill him.
He figured that might be a while. He drove by Devon’s place to make sure she wasn’t with him, but it was dark and no one answered the door. Relieved, he headed home.
His house was dark, too, just one small lamp in the living room. When he walked in, Grace stood up from the couch. “Toby’s asleep,” she said, and handed him his mail. Actually, she slapped it to his chest. “We had spaghetti. There’s leftovers, if you’re able to stomach canned sauce.” She headed to the door.
“You stayed,” he said.
She whipped around to glare at him.
Yeah. Admittedly, it wasn’t his finest opening. But he was dizzy with exhaustion and worry, and completely out of his element. Never a good combo. “I meant that I expected Riley—”
“I told her I had Toby,” she said. “Because I did. Did you really think I wouldn’t? That I’d just walk away?”
Whatever she saw in his face made her come close and stab him in the chest with her finger.
Ouch. Jesus, the women in his life were scary.
“You did,” she said in disbelief. “You thought the going had gotten tough, so I’d get going. Well, bite me, Dr. Scott. This job might have started out as a favor—for you I might add—but it’s not just a simple floral delivery or bookkeeping job.” She stabbed at him again. “This isn’t about the bottom line, or what balances and what doesn’t. It’s about a dog, and a kid, and a girl, and a man, all of whom needed me—or so I thought.”
“Grace—”
“No, I believe I just told you what you can do. Bite. Me.” She headed for the door again, but Josh was done with people yelling at him and/or walking away from him today. Done and over it, and pissed off to boot. He snagged her by the back of her sweater and reeled her in.
She sent daggers at him but he was also done talking. He scooped her up and took her caveman style down the hall to his bedroom. There he set her down, shut and locked the door, and backed her to the wall, caging her in.
She opened her mouth—no doubt to blast him—so he covered that sexy mouth with his own. His hand slid to the nape of her neck to hold her still while he kissed her like he was drowning and she was his only hope.
Because she was his only hope.
Grace knew she should push free and walk out of Josh’s room, but there was a problem with that. A big one.
He had her up against the wall, held there by well over six feet of worked-up testosterone. It should have infuriated her. Instead, her brain must have mixed up the signals because she was suddenly hot as hell. She shifted against his body and made herself hotter. “Move,” she said, the token protest, made out of a need to not set back feminism by caving to the sheer dominating force of his personality.
He held still, forearms on either side of her head, face close.
“Move,” she repeated.
He did. He moved backward to his bed, taking her with him. He sat, pulling her into the vee of his spread legs as he did, removing her clothes with shocking speed and letting out a low, rough groan at the sight of her body bared to him.
It did something to her, the sound of his arousal, seeing it in his intense expression, like he was completely lost in her. Screw feminism, she decided weakly, trying to get his clothes off, too, but then he threaded his fingers into her hair and kissed her harder, pulling her onto his lap.
Naked, she straddled him, rocking onto his hard length, feeling him through his scrubs. She’d been mad at him, so very mad, but now that emotion morphed into something else—a desperate need for a Josh-induced orgasm.
“Grace. Christ.” He ground his hips upward as he pressed her down onto him, sliding her along with his motions, making her moan in pleasure as the hunger began to build within her. Hell, who was she kidding, the hunger for him was always there.
“I need you.” He nipped at her ear. “I’ve always needed you, Grace.”
Her heart swelled against her rib cage. “Then take me.”
In the next beat, he had a condom and she’d untied his scrubs, freeing the essentials. And oh God, the essentials were ready, willing, and able. He slid home, and they both gasped at the shocking pleasure. Then Josh claimed her mouth with his, and as he began to move inside her, he claimed her body as well. She cried out his name as he thrust up into her, drawing her tighter with every smooth stroke.
It was exactly what she needed, and exactly not enough. “More,” she pleaded, digging her fingers into him.
He ran hot kisses along her jaw to her ear as he changed the pace, driving into her hard and fast, hoarsely whispering how good she felt wrapped around him, how he’d thought about doing this all day, wanting to be inside her like this, just like this, all the time.
It made her come, and as she clenched around him, he threw his head back, eyes shut tight, jaw clenched as he slowed for her to ride out the waves of pleasure. When she had, he took over, tucking her beneath him. Pressing her into the bed, he roughly grasped her ass with both hands, squeezing as he plunged deep and hard, his expression fierce. He’d held back for her, she knew, and now he couldn’t appear to hold back at all. Her heart, already taxed, turned over in her chest. It undid her, he undid her, and the words tumbled out of her unbidden. “I love you, Josh.”
His eyes flew open as he went over the edge, pulsing inside her, shuddering in her arms, breathing heavy. She was breathing heavy, too, but hers was sheer panic. I love you?
Josh rolled over to his back, taking her with him. “Grace.”
Heart pounding, she pressed her face into his throat. Be the bed, be the bed…
He stroked her damp hair and pressed his mouth to her temple.
She didn’t move.
She didn’t breathe.
“Grace.”
She tightened her eyes. She was asleep. She had left the planet.
She was on a different time continuum. She—
Someone knocked on the door. Then came the little voice. “Daddy?” This was immediately followed by the knob turning, and right then and there, Grace had heart failure.
Thankfully, the door was locked.
“Hold on, Tobes,” Josh called out, eyes on Grace. “We’re not done,” he said to her softly, then pushed up and off the bed. “I’m coming.”
And she was going. Rolling off the bed, she grabbed up her clothes and dashed into Josh’s bathroom.
On the other side of the door, she heard Josh greet Toby.
“I want popcorn.”
“Little late for that, Little Man.”
“I need water.”
“That we can do,” Josh assured him.
As their voices faded, Grace realized they’d moved down the hall. She shoved herself into her clothes and made her escape, not immune to the irony that she was absolutely proving Josh’s “queen of running away” and “passive aggressive” statements.
And he was right, of course. Oh how she hated to admit that, but it was true. She was running away. She was being passive aggressive, both of which really chapped her ass.
But she was thoroughly unequipped to deal with this situation.
In fact, this situation required the Chocoholics. She texted both Mallory and Amy, and like the BFFs they were, they met
her at the diner despite the midnight hour.
Mallory was wearing a pair of sweats that were clearly Ty’s, looking like she’d just crawled out of bed. “I hope this is good,” she said with a yawn. “I just left the sexiest man on the planet, and I have to be at work at six.”
“I told Josh I love him,” Grace said.
Mallory immediately softened into a goofy smile. “Awwww!”
“No.” Grace pointed at her. “No awwww. You want to know why? Because I said it first! Do you know what that means? It means I said it first!”
“Well, hell,” Amy said with a wince. “That’s never a good idea.”
“Ya think?” Grace asked, her voice resembling Minnie Mouse. God. It was a nightmare. And it wasn’t as if he’d called or texted or come after her to try to discuss.
He’d let her go.
Okay, she knew he couldn’t have come after her. He had Toby. But he might have called…
“What did he do when you said it?” Mallory asked.
“Nothing, because Toby woke up and wanted popcorn.” Grace leaned over and thunked her head on the table a few times.
“Don’t do that—you’ll knock something loose,” Amy said. “Here, have another cupcake.”
“A cupcake isn’t going to fix this,” Grace said. “I need at least two.”
Mallory handed her another. “What were you doing when you said it?”
Grace sighed. “We were…in the moment.”
Amy winced again.
“Will you stop doing that?” Grace demanded. “Just tell me how to fix this.”
“That’s easy,” Mallory said calmly. “Tell him when you’re not in the moment so he knows it’s real.”
Grace’s heart clutched. “You think it’s real?”
Mallory took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah, I do. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what you think.”
“Have you seen him frustrated and pissed off?” Amy asked.
Grace thought of how Josh had looked when Anna had fought with him over Devon. And his expression when Grace had told him to “bite me.” Yeah, it was safe to say she’d seen him frustrated and pissed off. “Yes.”
