The Gate to Everything (Once Upon a Dare Book 1)

by Ava Miles

  She wanted her life back. The old life. She had walked through the world anonymously before Jordan had become famous and tethered her to his stardom.

  She took deep breaths, watching as Tony made a gesture to the staff to clear the kitchen. Even though she knew she was in the grip of a panic attack, she couldn’t stop it.

  Tony helped her over to the chairs one of the guys had brought over. He sat beside her as she put her head between her legs, but she could only focus on breathing.

  “I can’t do this again,” she said after the worst had passed.

  “You don’t seem to have a choice,” Tony said. “It is your life now, Grace. Maybe we can come up with some positives to focus on?”

  “Like what?” she asked. “Are we talking about all the money and the perks? Tony, I don’t care about any of those.”

  “I know you don’t. I was thinking about charities and helping people.” He shook his head. “Perhaps it’s time to accept things have changed and do your best to follow the new lines defining your road. I’m sorry.”

  He patted her back and left her alone.

  Chapter 17

  Jordan was pacing in front of the windows, bursting with news for Grace. Ella had done something pretty spectacular, and he couldn’t wait to tell her about. Where was she? Ella had rolled over. His daughter had rolled onto her back. She was a genius!

  He hated that Grace hadn’t been there. It was like walking for the first time, right? But he’d done his best to encourage Ella to do it again by dangling a toy within her reach, and darn it all if she was the smartest girl in the world. She’d done it again, and he’d gotten it on video for Grace that time. Being a dad totally rocked.

  But Grace hadn’t answered any of his texts. He hadn’t wanted to call. Maybe they had a late table, but Tony usually sent her home by midnight. Right now, it was just shy of thirty minutes past one. If he didn’t hear from her in another thirty minutes, he was going to call Tony.

  Fifteen minutes later, the security guard alerted him that Grace was at the gate. Except she was in Tony’s car, not hers.

  Something had happened.

  He opened the front door and was waiting in the driveway when Tony pulled to a halt. When Grace left the car moments later, the set of her shoulders was all the confirmation he needed.

  “Grace,” he said as she came forward.

  “Not now, Jordan,” she crisply replied, heading past him into the house.

  He strode over to the driver’s side and rapped on the glass. When it lowered, he noted the tension in Tony’s face.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “A customer asked Grace out after her shift, and from what she told me, the man knew who she was.”

  His stomach sunk. “Shit.”

  “The testa di cazzo gave himself away by saying he didn’t live too far from her, and then everything untangled. He was a huge fan. Grace freaked out.”

  Jordan pushed away from the car and let out a stream of cuss words, wanting to punch something. “How could this happen?” he asked Tony when he stalked back to the Porsche. “Dammit! You and I talked about everyone keeping an extra eye out for her.”

  “We are, and we did, Jordan,” Tony said in a curt tone. “The man complimented her about the meal, and Grace waved off Alfonso so she could talk to him. Everything seemed to be fine…and then it wasn’t. Trust me, that man is never going to return to my place.”

  He took some cleansing breaths. Taking his anger out on an already pissed off Tony wasn’t the way. “But the damage is done.”

  “Yes,” Tony said, tapping the steering wheel. “I insisted on driving her home because she had a panic attack and wasn’t steady enough to drive. I’ll have one of the guys bring her car back in the morning.”

  “I can arrange that,” Jordan said, already thinking of his next move.

  “I can fucking handle it,” Tony said with edge. “It’s late. I’m going home to sharpen my knives. Goodnight, Jordan.”

  Jordan empathized with the need to do something physical. Rather than head into the house, he walked down the drive.

  Of all the things Jordan had feared, he’d never thought about some Rebel fan asking Grace out to get to him. Maybe since he’d never considered the possibility of Grace dating someone else period. Had she wanted to go out with this guy before she’d found out the truth? Tony seemed to think so.

  That knowledge sliced him to the core. Maybe she didn’t want him, after all. Maybe Blake was right, and he had a dangerous habit of seeing what he wanted to see.

  Well, he’d broken this. It was his responsibility to fix it. He would save his hurt feelings for later.

  He let himself back into the house. Her bedroom door was open when he reached the upstairs, but when he looked inside, she wasn’t there. Jordan padded silently to the nursery. Soft light spilled out into the hallway. He peered into the room. Grace was in the rocking chair nursing Ella, her eyes pinched shut like she was fighting her own demons.

  He almost hated to alert her to his presence because she hadn’t thrown a blanket over Ella, which meant she hadn’t expected him to follow her. Even though he knew he should announce himself, he couldn’t look away.

  She’d kicked her shoes off carelessly, and they lay haphazardly on the rug. The rocker moved in a slow rhythm as she pushed off the floor. Ella’s little fist rested against her mouth as she nursed. He could tell his daughter was mostly asleep.

  He leaned against the doorjamb and fell into the moment. Seeing them like this… It was simply the most beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed.

  Grace was so still that Jordan thought she might be asleep too. But then she opened her eyes and saw him in the doorway. Jordan didn’t move. When she reached for the blanket hanging on the side of the rocker, he uncoiled from the door.

  Bending on one knee in front of her, he stopped her hand. “Don’t.”

  Ella stirred and opened her eyes, turning her head to look at him. She reached for him with her little hand, so he took that precious link. He breathed a sigh of relief when Grace let the blanket fall to the side.

  Jordan looked down at his daughter, her face so dear to him. Then he shifted his gaze to Grace.

  “She rolled over tonight,” he told her, watching her expression change from anger to shock.

  “She did?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly, hoping this would help reestablish the ground they’d made over the past weeks. “I coaxed her with a toy to do it again and caught it on video for you. I’m sorry you weren’t here for it, but maybe when she walks…”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” she replied, soothing Ella’s little curls. “It was a…horrible evening.”

  “Tony told me,” he said, feeling Ella’s hand go slack in his. “I’m sorry, Grace.”

  Her eyes clenched shut briefly again as she shook her head. “Me too.”

  “I think she’s asleep,” he said, gently placing Ella’s hand on her tummy.

  “Give it a couple of minutes,” Grace said. “She sometimes starts nursing out of the blue.”

  Sure enough, Grace was right. Her little mouth started sucking again, and Grace rolled her eyes. “It’s gotta be instinct. Usually I wait until her whole body gets heavy, but even then, it’s no guarantee.”

  “I fed her a bottle before bed,” he said. “I’m surprised she was hungry.”

  Grace looked down and fingered Ella’s nightgown. “I wanted to feed her.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he’d read how some women nursed to savor the connection with their child—even if they weren’t hungry.

  “She was clearly a little hungry,” he said, going along with her. If Grace had needed comfort or connection from their daughter, he was glad she’d sought it out.

  He stayed on the floor and watched them. The moment was simple—two parents sharing a private moment with their baby—but it felt like a revelation. Jordan hadn’t expected the intensity of it, but in this moment, the past fell away. Love swept
over him like an intense wind.

  He reached forward to touch Grace’s cheek. “I’ve never seen you more beautiful than you are in this moment. Thanks for letting me see both of you like this.”

  She lifted a shoulder, but didn’t respond. Pretty soon, even Jordan could see Ella was sound asleep. Her mouth finally fell away from Grace’s breast, and from the tension in Grace’s shoulders, he could see her embarrassment.

  “Here, let me take her,” he whispered and carefully scooped Ella up, stepping away to pat her on the back to bring up any burps.

  There weren’t any, and he rocked with her until he felt it was time to put her in the crib. When he turned around, Grace wasn’t in the room any longer. He tucked the blanket around Ella and then went off in search of her. Again, she wasn’t in her bedroom, but down in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea.

  “You didn’t send the video,” she said.

  She was waiting for him, which lit an ember in his chest, but she still had her work clothes on, which meant she hadn’t felt comfortable enough to change into her pajamas while he was burping Ella. Her guards were back up.

  “I thought it would be more fun if we could watch it together,” he said honestly. “I didn’t want you to feel bad for not being here, especially when you were working.”

  She took the steaming mug of tea over to the kitchen table. He grabbed his phone out of his jeans pocket and took a chair next to her. She grew very still, and he feared all of her earlier tension had returned.

  When he hit play, he watched her face—not the video, which he’d already seen tons of times. The stiff muscles in her shoulders dissolved, and a radiant smile flew across her face.

  “Oh, look at her! She did it!”

  “Yeah,” he said, taking in the quiet force of her beauty. “She’s a genius.”

  “And she knows it too,” Grace said, playing the video again. “Look at her smile at the end after she grabbed the toy from you.”

  “She knew what the game was,” Jordan said, puffing his chest out.

  “Oh, I wish I’d been here.”

  “Me too,” Jordan said. “Every time she does something, it’s like a miracle, you know?”

  She gave him a beaming smile. “I know. She’s the miracle.”

  “She is at that,” he said, and then watched Grace play the video three more times, giving a play by play with each viewing. “You’d make a great sports announcer.”

  And just like that, the smile disappeared from her face.

  “Tell me what happened tonight, Grace,” he said, seeing no reason to delay it.

  Her green eyes blazed like holy fire when she looked at him again. “Didn’t Tony tell you?”

  “I want to hear it from you,” he said, not reaching for his phone when she slid it his way.

  “One of our patrons flattered me, which then turned into a dinner invitation.” She gripped the handle of her mug. “I agreed, but then he gave himself away by saying he knew where I lived. I lost it, and while he tried to assure me that he liked me and that I was prettier in person even though he was a huge fan of yours, it made me pretty upset.”

  Prettier in person? He wanted to beat the man into a bloody pulp.

  “What can I say to make this better, Grace?” She was so tightly wound, a gentle touch might shatter her.

  “There’s nothing. Tony was right. It was my fault for talking to one of the customers.”

  He reached for her hand. “I know that breaks your heart because you like to talk to people.”

  “I don’t want to have to live my life always on guard, Jordan.”

  He stroked the back of her hand. “I don’t like it either, Grace. Sometimes, I hate having to look at the person in front of me and wonder if they’re being nice to me because they’re nice or because I’m Jordan Dean.”

  “I thought you stopped caring about that a long time ago,” she said, watching him with narrowed eyes.

  “I’m not sure that ever goes away,” he said with complete honesty. “When my dad left, and I found out all the bad things he’d done, I wondered if he’d been…”

  “What?” she asked softly. The tenderness in her voice gave him the strength to continue.

  “I wondered if he’d been pretending to like me the whole time. Otherwise, why would he have done those things and then up and left us? He lied about so many things, maybe he lied about caring about me.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Oh, Jordan. I’m so sorry. Whatever your dad did, I’m sure he loved you. You were his son.”

  And yet he’d left without a word. “I’ve always wanted people to like me—really like me—because…” Oh shit, if he was going to be honest, he might as well go all the way. “Because then they won’t leave.”

  Her eyes closed for a minute, and she looked down. “That’s gotta hurt—being worried about that.”

  It sucked. Big time. “Sometimes, it’s in the back of my head that even the people closest to me don’t really like me. That’s why I pretend not to care about the haters. It’s my way of protecting myself.”

  She was silent for a long time. “This helps me understand you. I’m glad you finally told me you feel that way.”

  His chest wasn’t as tight now. “I’m glad I did too.”

  “I wish I didn’t care so much what people said,” she said, putting her free hand to her forehead and rubbing it like she had a headache.

  “It’s one of the things that made me fall in love with you,” he said, feeling the jolt in her hand as the words shot through her body. “Even when you left Deadwood for the big city, you never stopped treating people like we were living in a small town.”

  “People deserve to be treated with respect and dignity,” she said simply, letting go of his hand and standing up.

  “Not the ones who use you to get to me,” he said, rising from his chair as well and gazing at her steadily. “Not the ones who say you’re prettier in person. Grace, how could any man look at you and not see how beautiful you are? How your smile lights up a room? How your very voice both calms and excites? How your hands are sheer perfection, whether they’re holding a butcher knife or your newborn daughter? But mostly, how could any man look at you and not see how sweet and kind you are?”

  Her chest rose with a deep breath.

  “A man like that isn’t worth an ounce of your energy,” he said, crossing to her. “Do you believe that, Grace?”

  He watched her eyes, making out the gold and browns around her irises. She, in turn, searched his gaze. “I want to, Jordan.”

  He took a step closer, and when she didn’t back away, he took it as a sign.

  “Then believe it,” he said, “if you’ve never believed anything else I’ve ever said to you.”

  Her gaze was steady, and he could see the pulse pound in her neck. But he remembered Blake’s advice and stayed where he was, waiting for another sign from her.

  “I’m afraid no one else is going to see it besides you,” she whispered.

  Part of him wanted to shout to the rafters at that admission, but he knew it could pitch them either way: into the past or into the future.

  “We couldn’t make it,” she said again, putting her hand tentatively on his chest.

  It was another sign, but she’d had a tough night, and he didn’t want to press his advantage. “We didn’t let go of each other because we stopped loving each other.”

  He heard her audible inhale and waited. One, two, three, he counted.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “We didn’t.”

  Then she leaned her head against his chest, and since he didn’t know how else to soothe the agony in her voice, he put his arms around her.

  Chapter 18

  Grace knew letting Jordan hold her was a bad idea.

  Being in his arms again reminded her of how long it had been since they’d touched each other except in relation to Ella. She’d missed it down to her bones.

  When he’d told her all of the things that had made h
im fall in love with her, she could hear what he wasn’t saying—they were all still true for him.

  Jordan wasn’t any less in love with her than she was with him.

  Tonight she didn’t want to fight that any longer—even if she had no solution for what had torn them apart the first time. She let her hand trail up his chest to rest on his heart. Then she pressed back and gazed into those amazing blue eyes of his. She’d seen desire in them thousands of times, but somehow it all felt new again.

  “Gracie,” he said in a deep voice. “Be sure.”

  She wasn’t sure beyond this moment, but she was okay with that. She was tired of fighting what she wanted. Over these last few months, she’d fallen in love with a new side of Jordan, the doting, big-hearted father.

  “Be with me,” she whispered, stroking his cheek with her other hand. “I want this. I want you.”

  Jordan lowered his mouth to hers, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. When he kissed her, there was a new gentleness tempering the passion, love, and intention that were so deliciously familiar.

  Grace opened her mouth to take the kiss deeper, but Jordan kept his pace slow. Grace felt the emotion boiling inside him. She could also feel his determination not to mess up, and somehow that soothed her tension. They were both in uncharted territory.

  The natural fragrance of his skin, as beloved as it was familiar, had her hands caressing the defined muscles of his back. What had been a gentle kiss changed into something deeper, more urgent. Grace ran her tongue over his bottom lip and teased the seam of his mouth.

  He gave a soft grunt of pleasure, and Grace pressed her tongue to his. He answered in timeless moves they’d perfected over years of kissing each other, and just like that, they fell back into the perfect ebb and flow of loving each other.

  As the kiss built, Jordan slowly sucked on her tongue. When she gave a soft moan, he nipped her bottom lip at the corner. It was something that had never failed to make Grace groan.