This was his father’s place, but we were here more weekends than his father. This is where we came after the funeral. This was where our final goodbye took place. Memories of that day charge at me and I turn away from the house and start running, the way I used to run this beach. I don’t stop until I’m two miles away at the lighthouse, which I didn’t just come to with Grayson. He bought it because I loved it so much. The sun is dimming, soon to begin fading into the horizon, the way Grayson and I faded into the horizon.
I start climbing the winding steps until I’m at the very top where Grayson and I had set-up cozy reclining chairs, side by side. I claim the one that was mine, and I painfully wonder if any other woman has been here with Grayson when I have no right. We aren’t together. We haven’t been together in a long time. I pull my knees to my chest and I think of his father, who is now gone. I think of the funeral, as I have so many times since he left this world. The way I did the night I pissed off Ri. It was almost a new beginning until Grayson left his phone on the bed, and I saw the number on his phone.
***
Grayson
I’m not a man who builds his success on other people’s destruction, but I have limits, and Ri is going to find out that he’s pushed me too far. I walk out onto the patio and sit down with Eric and Davis. “Go,” I say, which is what I use as an invitation for them to hit me with their thoughts, of which I’m certain they have many after hearing Mia’s reasons for being here.
“She’s always had good instincts,” Eric says. “If she believes that conversation was about you, I’m betting on her.”
“Agreed,” Davis says. “I trust her, and I don’t trust anyone. I still think we need a criminal attorney in on this.”
“What we need,” I say, “is an attack plan. I want Ri to go down once and for all. Make that happen and I don’t care what resources, including money, it takes. Pay whoever, as much money as you have to pay them, to get the right dirt on him, to shut him down.”
“Mia’s already on the inside,” Davis says. “She—”
“No,” I say. “Mia will not go back to Ri. End of subject. What else do I need to know right here and now?”
“Reid and Carrie are headed back to Japan to take care of the challenges with the convention center takeover,” Eric says, of the brokers who brought the deal together. “The other ten things on my list can wait.” He eyes Davis. “We need a minute.”
Davis gives him a nod and stands up. Eric waits until Davis enters the house and then leans closer. “I don’t know what happened between you and Mia, but not only did it change you, it clearly hurt her. Despite that, she was there for you when your father died and she is here now. Considering the pain I still see in her eyes, I know two things: a) she still loves you, and b) she believes this threat is serious.”
“I’m not discounting the threat, Eric. I said ruin him.”
“You have thousands of employees, including me, counting on you. You don’t have the luxury of leaving her out of this.”
“Find another way,” I order.
“Protect her, but keep an open mind. She could be the only person who can tear him down.”
“Find another way,” I repeat, and this time I stand up. “I will not have her feel as if I’m using her for my own gain or that I’m putting my well-being over hers.”
He stands. “Not yours. Thousands of employees.”
“And I damn sure won’t risk hurting her again,” I add as if he hasn’t spoken. “I love you, man, and you’re the brother I never had, but don’t push me on this. Not on Mia.” I step away from the table and head for the walkway down to the beach, with one destination in mind. The lighthouse, where I know Mia will be right now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mia
The past, six months ago…
I pull up to the curb a few blocks from the Hamptons church and park the rental I picked up to get here from the city since I don’t own a car that I’d never drive anyway. No one owns a car in Manhattan who doesn’t have parking money to blow, and after growing up in a poor area of Brooklyn, I’m pretty sure I’ll never feel I have that kind of money to blow. It’s why I declined the car Grayson tried to buy me way back when. I didn’t need it and his money was never what we were about to me. I always wanted him to know that. I always felt he needed to know that.
I breathe a heavy breath and kill the engine, my hands gripping the steering wheel. I want to be here for Grayson, no matter what has transpired between Grayson and I, but I don’t know if I’m making this pain better or worse for him. I still love him. I don’t want to make it worse, but this was not expected. A heart attack is never expected. I need Grayson to know that I wanted to be here, even if he rejects me. Even if he has someone else by his side now.
I swallow against the dryness in my throat and step out of the car, slipping the slender black purse I’m wearing over my black dress, across my chest. I shove the door shut, and damn it, my knees are wobbling. I push forward and start walking, along with a good ten other people parked nearby. I can feel eyes on me, surprised eyes that know I was with Grayson and I’m not anymore, but I don’t care. I’m not here for them.
Once I reach the gorgeous white church, which ironically has three steeples just like Grayson’s father’s house just down the road does, I stand on the sidewalk and just stare at the door. It’s almost time for the service and there are no people lingering here or there, as I’m certain there would have been earlier. I make my way up the concrete path and then travel a good twenty steps. I enter the church, and as soon as I’m inside, Eric, dressed in a black suit, is standing in front of me, as if he’d seen me approach.
“Did he tell you to send me away?”
“No,” he says. “He doesn’t know you’re here, but he won’t send you away. He needs you.”
My eyes are already starting to burn. “Take me to him,” I whisper.
He motions to the left, and I follow him down a hallway to a doorway where we stop. “He’s alone.”
I nod and he opens the door. I inhale and shut my eyes, deep breathing for a few beats. I haven’t seen Grayson in six months which feel like a century. I have so many hurt feelings with him but now is not about those feelings. I open my eyes and enter a compact prayer room to find Grayson standing in front of a cross with his back to me.
“Grayson,” I say softly.
His shoulders flex, his entire body tensing before he slowly turns to face me and even today, in a black pinstriped suit, his face etched in grief for a father he loved dearly, he is beautiful. “Mia,” he breathes out as if he’s seeing an illusion.
“Yes. I—I wanted to be here for you and him. I hope it’s okay. If it’s not—”
He’s across the room in a matter of two blinks and pulling me to into his arms, his hand cupping my head, his mouth closing down on mine, and I’m consumed by his grief and need, by his hunger for something that is both physical and emotional. There is no part of me that holds back. No part of me that doesn’t want to give him what he needs.
“Don’t leave,” he whispers. “I need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I’m right here. I wanted to call sooner. I just didn’t know if I would make it worse.”
“I need you,” is all he says, his forehead resting against mine, and he doesn’t speak or move.
We just stand there holding each other, time ticking by—seconds, minutes, I’m not sure how long—until Grayson breaks the silence.
“I golfed with him that morning. I was there when it happened. I couldn’t save him.”
I pull back to look at him and there are tears in his eyes. I reach up and stroke away the dampness on his cheeks, more in love with this man in this moment than I ever have been. He is strong, powerful, and wealthy, and yet, he is human, he is vulnerable. “Did you get to tell him you love him?”
“Yes. Over and over. I’m not sure he heard, though.”
“He knew. He
knew.”
The door opens and Eric says, “It’s time.”
Grayson pulls back and looks at him. “We’ll be right there.”
Eric nods and exits. Grayson takes my hand. “I’m giving the eulogy.”
“As it should be,” I say.
He bends our elbows and pulls me close, his eyes meeting mine. “As it should be,” he says. He’s talking about me by his side.
“Yes,” I say, without hesitation. “As it should be.”
He brings our joined hands to his lips and kisses them before he guides me forward and we exit the room. Hand in hand, we enter the church, which is packed with hundreds of people and we walk down the center aisle with all eyes on us. We sit in the front row, and Leslie, his godmother, his second mother, who was his mother’s best friend, reaches around and squeezes my leg, her long dark hair pulled back at the nape, her blue eyes pained. I realize then that Grayson is alone but for her. His mother has been gone for five years. Now his father is gone as well.
Grayson doesn’t let go of me until it’s his turn to speak. He looks at me when it’s time and I cup his face. “As it should be,” I whisper, and he kisses me before he stands.
I listen to the heartfelt words about a man who inspired him, a man who was hard on him, but only because he wanted the best for him, and every word is true. “He was a hard man who expected honesty and ethics. He expected that I be the best and I do it with hard work and integrity.”
When Grayson is done there isn’t a dry eye in the church and the minute he’s seated again, he’s holding onto me, his grip so tight it hurts, but I don’t care. The rest of the ceremony is over quickly and it’s not long before I’m in the front seat of Grayson’s Porsche for the ride to the cemetery. He cranks the engine but doesn’t place us in gear. “It was perfect,” I whisper when we’re finally alone. “And true. He was a good man.”
“He asked me every time I saw him when you’d be back.” He looks at me, his green eyes bloodshot. “Every time, Mia. For six months.”
“I’m here now,” I whisper. “I’m not leaving.”
I mean it when I say it. I never wanted to leave in the first place.
He reaches for me, his fingers tangling in my hair. “We’re going to the house,” he says. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“On one condition,” I say, my hand covering his. “We don’t talk about why I left. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want us to be us right now.”
“We never stopped being us, Mia,” he says, pulling my mouth to his and kissing me. And in that kiss, I taste the truth. He’s right. We never stopped being us and while I’ve questioned if I knew what that meant over the past few months, I don’t now. Right now, us, is what it always was before: everything.
CHAPTER NINE
Mia
The present…
I come back to the present, back to the retired lighthouse Grayson bought to please me, back to my present location of the cozy chair we’d picked out together, but I’m not really here. I’m not fully outside the memory of the funeral, and I’m as confused as I was that weekend. When he’d seen me at the church, when he’d pulled me to him, I’d thought I’d been wrong to leave him. I’d thought I was wrong about so much and that I belonged with him.
And then there was the text message.
The message that made me leave again. The message that told me that he would always hurt me, but one look into his eyes, one touch of his hand, and I’d believed we were real and pure again. Like I do now. What am I thinking, being here? What am I trying to do to myself?
I stand up and rush toward the stairs as Grayson appears in front of me, so damn good looking, so damn perfect in so many ways. His hands settle on my waist, branding me. His touch, his presence, always claims me, even when I don’t want to want to be claimed. And yet I always do with him. Right now, I’m lost, that familiar, woodsy, delicious scent of him mixing with the ocean air and consuming me as easily as the man himself. “Looking for me?” he asks softly, backing me up until I’m pressed to the bright blue wall of the lighthouse, a color we chose together. We did so many things together, everything together. He was my life, my love, my best friend.
I thought.
I flatten my hands on his chest, hard muscle beneath my palms, and I intend to push him away, but instead, my palms settle there, they feel as if they belong there; the ease at which I touch him, defying our breakup and his betrayal. “Your meeting was short, too short. What are you doing about Ri?”
He studies me, those green eyes far too intelligent for my own good. “You were about to run again, weren’t you?”
“I never ran,” I correct him. “Leaving and running are two different things. I made a decision. If I leave now, it’s another decision.”
“A decision to leave me over a lie someone else set up.” He releases me and presses his hands to the wall, no longer touching me. “Obviously there’s a bigger picture here. If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t have believed the lie.”
“Lie? Regardless of the portions of this that you call a lie, there was more to me leaving, and you know it.” I curl my fingers on his chest. “I said I didn’t want to talk about this.”
“Just like you didn’t want to talk about it at the funeral?”
“Your father had just died, Grayson. I wasn’t selfish enough to make that about me. I cared about your father. I still loved you.”
“Loved?”
“If I didn’t still love you, do you think I’d really be here?”
He stares at me, his eyes suddenly hard. “Then why the fuck were you with Ri?” he demands, his voice low, hard, affected.
He pushes off the wall and turns away, walking to the half wall encasing the private sitting area, his shoulders bunched beneath his T-shirt. I inhale with the bitterness in his words and the pain beneath them. He hurt me, but I hurt him back and I don’t like that about me. It’s my turn to push off the wall. I close the space between us, and once again we’re side by side, facing the ocean, both of us gripping a railing when we could so easily be touching each other, too easily, and yet, not easy enough.
“I should never have gone to work for Ri’s company. I regret it. I’m sorry.”
We look at each other. “You were trying to hurt me. It worked.”
“No. No, I never wanted to hurt you.” I turn to face him, but he doesn’t face me. “I’ve thought a lot about this in the last twenty-four hours, especially on the drive up here. I asked myself if I went to Ri to hurt you, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you. I was trying to survive.”
Now he rotates to face me. “By going to him? By leaving my bed, not once but twice, and going to him?”
“I didn’t sleep with him. Ever. And I didn’t want to hurt you. I was desperate for a place to shelter that you didn’t own, and Ri’s world was the only place I knew you didn’t own.”
“You wanted away from me that damn badly?”
“No. I wanted to go back to you that badly and Ri’s world was the only world that made that unacceptable. It was the only place I was strong enough to just say no, but I see now that I made a mistake. I opened the door for him to go after you. Why are you here, and not talking to Eric and Davis about Ri? You need to deal with him. We need to deal with him.”
“We? That’s a loaded word.”
“I’m here for a reason,” I say. “I want to help.”
“You told me. I’m handling it.”
“What does that even mean?” I press.
“It means that I don’t go after many people, but he’s pushed my limits.” His jaw sets, hard. “You need to know that I plan to hurt him. I plan to make sure he can’t come for me, or you, again and that’s not on you any more than his actions are on you.”
“If you expect me to tell you not to hurt him, if this is a test of loyalty to you or him, I’m not failing that test. Because we both know it is. You need to hurt him because he will destroy you if h
e can. I’ve seen how he works. He’s not you.”
“Did you think he was? Did you think he could be?”
“Never, Grayson. I told you. I wasn’t with him.”
“But you went out with him.”
“Long after we broke up and yet, I still said your name when I was with him. I told you. I was alone. I was alone and—”
He shackles my waist and pulls me to him, the heat of his body enveloping mine. “You didn’t have to be alone. You were never supposed to be alone and neither was I.”
“You’re never alone.”
“I am always alone without you.” His forehead lowers to mine. “I stood in that church and willed you to appear.” He pulls back to look at me, his hand sliding under my hair. “I couldn’t breathe until you were there. That’s how much a part of me you are.” His lips brush mine, a feather-light touch I feel in every part of me before they part mine. We linger there a moment, breathing together, the way we haven’t in so very long. “You have to feel how much I need you,” he whispers, his hands sliding between my shoulder blades.
How much I need him, I think. “I’m still angry.”
“I’m angry with you, too,” he says, and his mouth comes down on mine, with his promise that the next time he kisses me he won’t stop in the air between us but it doesn’t matter.
Right now is just like after the funeral. We’re here. We’re alone. I have been so alone without him and I don’t want to think about the past. I want to think about the here and now and him. The muscles low in my belly clench. My nipples ache. My heart melts. He turns me and presses me against the wall of the lighthouse in a small alcove between the stairs and the cutout view.
He reaches for the zipper of my hoodie and the lick of his tongue consumes me. I moan into his mouth and somehow his hand has caressed up my sweater to cup my breast. I gasp and arch into the touch, but a rumble of thunder shocks me, pulling me back to reality. I grab Grayson’s hand. “Wait. Wait. Not here.” I press on his chest and when he pulls back just enough to look at me, I add, “This place is special and not for one reason. I don’t want to be here with you when we’re like we are now.”
Dirty Rich Betrayal Page 4
