He inhales and pushes off the railing, turning to look at me, his hands on his hips. “I am angry, Mia. Because being with you, feeling how good it is, makes me wonder if you ever felt what I feel.”
“It wouldn’t feel this good if I didn’t. You know I did.”
“Then how can you believe that Ri could set me up with the DA and not set me up that night?” He doesn’t give me time to answer. “Eric called. He has a source he’s been working for a while now. He’s been nickel and diming us with information about Ri, who we knew was up to something. Eric offered him an excessively large sum of cash and he delivered in a big way and fast.”
“What does that mean?”
“He says that this plan to take me down has been two years in the making, before my father died, and right after we got together. The reason I believe him is that he named names, people working inside my operation and working for Ri. Two of those people were identified as problems and are already gone.”
My stomach knots. “She was one of them, right?”
“Yes, Mia. She was one of them.”
It’s then that I know that Grayson didn’t betray me, but instead, I’ve betrayed him and us.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Grayson
The past, a year ago…
“She won’t answer her phone,” I say, standing at the window of Eric’s office, the sun dipping beneath the skyline.
He steps to my side. “You yanked her off her case, Grayson,” he says. “You didn’t warn her. You didn’t even talk to her first.”
“I’m quite aware of what I did, and you know why. The lead counsel on the case was fired because the feds are breathing down our throats over this case and apparently for good reason.”
“I get it. We had a lead counsel playing dirty with a dirty client. You didn’t want Mia anywhere near that shit, but you should have warned her.”
“If I’d have warned her, she’d have looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes and told me why she should stay on the case.”
“Because she’s got a perfect, clean record that represents us well. There’s logic there.” I open my mouth to lay into him and he holds up his hands. “But it’s a danger to Mia. I get it. She’d still be dealing with a mobster, defending a mobster. She’d still end up with that reputation of aligning herself with that man.”
“Not to mention my father and his damn rule. You lose your first lead case, you’re out. And we’re going to lose this case.”
“The future mother of his grandchildren? Surely not.”
“You’ve known my father since we were both at Harvard. You know his mentality, so yes, even Mia, who he loves, hell, more so because he loves her. He calls it tough love. And let’s face it. If she was made an exception, that would ruin her here at the firm. She’d be my woman and nothing more, and that’s not what she is or what she wants. It’s not what I want for her.”
“You gave the case to Becky. She hates Becky. They’re rivals.”
“I handed that decision to Mitch. He’s the lead partner over the associates. I didn’t take that decision from him, nor did I make it for him, but yes, I approved his choice. Becky is cutthroat and disposable. Mia is not.”
“A choice that’s not in your favor with Mia.”
He’s right. I don’t want him to be, but he is. I scrub my jaw, glancing at my watch, and tick off the four hours since Mia left the office furious. It’s seven now and so far the doorman hasn’t seen her at the apartment, which means she has to be at her best friend Courtney’s house or her father’s place. “I need to find her, but I have a conference call with the Lugo Corporation in fifteen minutes.”
“I can handle Lugo,” Eric says. “I got it. You go.”
And because this is Eric, who I trust like a brother, I take his offer. I head for the door and waste no time making my way to my private office. Once I’m inside, I step behind my desk with the intent of gathering my work to take home with me when Becky steps into my office. “I need to talk to you about the case you put me on.” She shuts the door and flattens herself against it, her blouse cut low, her red hair free of the clip she normally wears it in and I don’t like it any more than I do her style of sexual manipulation. “I heard you’re the reason I got the lead on the Pitts case.”
“Don’t come into my office and shut the door without my permission. Open it.”
“I need to talk about this case in private.”
“I’m not your supervisor. Mitch Rivers is. Talk to him about who, where, why, and what case. I have someplace to be.”
“This case is tricky.” She races forward and stops in front of my desk. “The client involved is a mobster.”
I do not have time for this woman right now. “If you’re over your head Becky, talk to Mitch.”
“I’m not over my head and I appreciate you believing in me. I can handle this case. I’m not backing out.”
The phone on my desk rings. “Open the fucking door,” I say, and hoping the call is from Mia and that she’s back in her office, I grab the line without even looking at the extension. “Davis says he needs to see you before you leave,” Eric says. “It’s urgent.”
I give Becky my back. “Define urgent.”
“He says the feds want documents you aren’t going to want to give them.”
My jaw sets hard. “What documents?”
“Do you really want to talk about this on the phone?” Eric asks.
“I’ll be right there.” I hang up and when I set the receiver back on the desk, I realize that my door is still shut but Becky is no longer in front of my desk.
I rotate to my right to find her on my side of the desk, naked from the waist up. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Thanking you for the case.” She steps into me and I grab her arms, holding her back. “Get dressed. Now.” I set her back from me.
My door opens and Mia gasps. “Oh my God,” she whispers, and my heart is thundering in my ears, adrenaline surging through me. “It’s not what it looks like, Mia. I swear.” I release Becky and the stupid bitch wraps her arms around me and presses her breasts to my chest. “Fuck. Get off me.” I shove her back and rotate toward the door, but Mia is already turning away. “Mia! Fuck. Mia.” Becky comes back at me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Get the fuck off of me, Becky.” I untangle her from my body and I’m around the desk in a blink, chasing after Mia, and I don’t give a fuck who knows.
“Mia!” I shout watching her round a corner and damn it, I pray the elevator is shut and slow to reach her.
I race in her direction, but I’m too late. She’s in the elevator and I reach the doors right before they close; just in time to see the stricken look on her face, in time to look into her eyes and see the pain, but unable to get to her. “It’s not what it looks like!” I call out as the doors shut and immediately head for the stairs. I’m in the stairwell in another blink and I start the run down thirty flights. I exit to the lobby and search for Mia, but she’s not there. I charge for the front door and burst onto the street and again, she’s not fucking there. I head back inside and scan my surroundings before going back outside. Nothing. I grab my phone from my pocket and I dial Mia.
“Answer, baby. Answer the damn call.” But she doesn’t answer. I dial again. I send her a text: It’s not what it looked like. I turned my back and she undressed. I swear to God, Mia. It was not what it looked like. She flung herself at me. I love you. You’re everything to me.
I pace the lobby and call the security for our building. “If Mia gets there, I don’t care what it takes, you call me, and you keep her there. There’s a thousand dollars in it for you. No, five. Five thousand dollars.” I hang up and anger takes over the panic.
I walk to the elevator and punch the button, dialing Eric while I wait. “Meet me in Becky’s office with the security guard in three minutes.” I don’t give him time to respond. I hang up and step into the car.
Once I’m insi
de, I inhale and force out a breath, forcing myself to calm. The floors tick by and I exit, entering the office lobby, but I don’t stop. I cut left and walk past the bullpen of cubicles to an office on the right where Eric and the guard are waiting. “Is she in there?” I ask.
“She is,” Eric says.
I start forward, step inside and Eric and the guard flank me, then step to my side. Becky is behind her desk, her hair now neatly pulled back at her nape, a look of shock crosses her face, rocketing her to her feet. “What is this?” she demands.
“Pack up and leave,” I say. “You’re fired.”
She blanches. “What? No. You can’t fire me.” Her voice lifts and takes on a desperate quality. “I’ll claim sexual harassment.”
I lean on the desk, my fists on the wooden surface. “If you just made me lose Mia, I’ll destroy you and enjoy it. Hell, I’ll destroy you and enjoy it just for making her feel what she’s feeling right now. So you want to sue me? Bring it the fuck on, but get out.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mia
The past, a year ago…
I don’t know how I make it out of the office building without crying. I don’t even know how I get blocks away on foot. I search the area around me and I don’t even know where I am. A cab with a light on drives by and I chase after him. He stops. For once a New York City cab driver actually stops for me. I climb inside. “Just drive,” I say. “Just drive and there’s a big tip in it for you. And ignore me back here.” The minute the car starts moving, the inevitable happens. I burst into tears, a fierce, body-quaking explosion. I cry and cry and I don’t even try to hold back.
“Big tip,” I call out when the driver looks back at me. “Just drive.” My phone starts ringing again and I know it’s Grayson. Of course it’s Grayson. He’s busted. He’s so very busted. I don’t look at my phone. I want to throw it out of the window. I have nowhere to go. I can’t go home. It’s his home that was clearly never mine. That’s what I get for moving in with a man at three months and then accepting a proposal at nine months. “Out—out of the city,” I sob to the driver. “A hotel. Queens or Brooklyn. I don’t care which. Just take me. A hundred dollars on top of your fare.”
I sink back against the cushion and look at my gorgeous special ring that seemed to have so much thought behind it. It meant something. Now it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean anything. I squeeze my eyes shut and the image of Becky pressed to Grayson, no, her breasts pressed against Grayson, twists me in knots. He fired me from the case and gave it to her. Now I know why. My phone rings again and I grab it, stare at Grayson’s number and turn it off. It’s off. We’re off. We’re over forever.
I start to cry all over again and curl up against the door behind the driver’s seat. I lose time inside the tears until finally, the driver stops. “Holiday Inn, sweetheart,” the driver says. “That’s as good as it gets right now. I’m done driving.”
I open my purse, glance at the meter and toss him cash; I always have cash because Grayson always worries I might need it. Or he did. Those days are over. Maybe he didn’t worry at all. I exit the car and try to pull myself together. I have to walk into this hotel and get a room without blubbering. I shut the cab door and it races away. I glance around and the airplane overhead tells me I’m close to the airport. Maybe I’ll just fly away and go somewhere. It’s not like I have a job now. Grayson owns that, too. I think I let him own everything I am and that was okay when I thought I had everything he was, but I was wrong. I didn’t have all of him. I had nothing and I have nothing.
I swipe at my cheeks and walk into the hotel lobby. I actually hold it together. I’m proud of myself. I grab my key and once I make it into the room, I’m done holding it together. I melt down right there at the door. I sink to the floor. I lie there. Time passes and passes and I just don’t stop hurting. I don’t even know when I come to enough to realize that I’m in the dark. I don’t care, though. I dig in my purse and turn my phone back on. Grayson calls immediately and I hit “decline” and dial my friend, Courtney, because now I have to admit my hell to someone, and who better than my best friend since childhood?
“Mia!” she says. “Grayson is looking for you. He’s worried sick. What’s happening?”
“I need you to come to me. I need you.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not dying or anything, even if I feel like it. Just come.”
“Where are you?” she asks, urgently.
“I don’t know. Hold on.” I push to my feet and flip on a light.
“You don’t know?!” she asks incredulously. “Were you kidnapped? Do we need the police? Are you okay?”
“If only those things were true.” I sit down on the king-sized bed with a stupid orange comforter, when orange happens to be Grayson’s favorite color. Or not. I don’t know what is real anymore. “I’m in a Holiday Inn in Queens. I just told the cab driver to take me wherever.” I give her the address.
“I got it. Mia, what is going on?”
“Just come here and do not, and I mean do not, tell Grayson where I am or you aren’t a friend.” I hang up and walk to the window, pulling open the basic cream-colored curtains to spy the “liquor” sign. I’m not a drinker, but I need to be sedated right now.
I glance down and realize I’ve smartly settled my purse over my chest and it rests at my hip. Smartly, because I’m really barely hanging on right now. I find the key to the room on the floor by the door and grab it, sticking it in my purse. A short walk down the hallway and I’m exiting onto a street in what looks like a crappy neighborhood, but hey, I grew up in a crappy neighborhood. I’m just fine in this one. I cross the street, enter the store and walk to the counter. “Where’s the cheapest bubbly you have?”
The lady behind the counter, who has dark hair speckled with gray and seems to be missing a front tooth, looks me up and down. “You don’t look like you need cheap. That’s an expensive purse at your hip which means your outfit is expensive, too.”
“Yeah, well, I’d tell you I had a rich guy that fucked around on me and now I’m alone, but I bought these clothes and the purse on my own. And you bet your ass they’re expensive. I worked for them, not him, because I don’t need his damn money. It was never about his money.”
“Wow, honey. Fridge. Far right. Buy two. Spumante. It tastes good when everything else tastes bad.”
“How much?”
“Ten dollars a bottle.”
I yank a hundred out of my purse and stick it on the counter. “Keep the change. He’s buying the booze.”
She hands me a paper bag and two plastic cups. “One for now and one for later,” she says.
A few minutes later, I enter my room, struggle to get the stupid bottle to pop and then sit down on the loveseat against the wall where I guzzle the bubbly right from the bottle. My phone starts ringing, on the nightstand where I apparently left it, and I take my bottle with me to check it just in case it’s Courtney. It’s not. It’s Eric.
I answer. “What do you want, Eric?”
“He didn’t do it, Mia. He’s devastated. He’s freaking out. It was a set-up. He was—”
“Stop. Just stop. You’re his best friend. You’re like brothers. You’d say anything to protect him.”
“I would, but I’m not. He didn’t do this. He loves you. He needs you.”
“I’m not coming back. I’ll send the ring. I’ll send my credit cards he gave me. I don’t want his money. I don’t want him or that job either.”
“Mia, be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?! Did you really just say that to me? Go away and take him with you.”
“Mia. Mia.” Suddenly, I’m not talking to Eric anymore and it’s not him saying my name.
At the sound of Grayson’s voice, I can’t breathe. I hurt so badly. So very badly. “Go away,” I whisper, but I’m not even sure he can hear me. I hang up and throw my phone. I start to cry again and I don’t stop until my phone rings like ten
times in a row.
“Courtney,” I whisper and I force myself to get up, kicking off my heels to pad across the carpet. My phone confirms Courtney has called four times. I call her back.
“Which room?” she asks.
I open my door and look at the number. “331.”
“I’m on my way up.”
I flip the lock to prop the door open and walk to the sofa, where I sit down. I’ve downed another drink and I’m starting to feel the blessed buzz when Courtney appears in the doorway, her blonde hair in disarray, her red dress ripped. “What happened?”
“Don’t ask.” She shuts the door and drops her purse on the floor. “He called me. He says—”
“I walked in on him with Becky’s naked breasts pressed against him.”
“He says she—”
“Don’t. Don’t you too. I saw it. Do you not understand that I saw it?” My phone rings in my hand and I toss it. “Just help me plan the rest of my life without him.”
“Right now. We’re going to order pizza, you need food because that bottle is half empty and you don’t drink. As in, you get drunk at half a glass.”
Her phone rings in her hand and she glances down at it. She answers the line. “Yes. She’s—”
“Are you talking to him?” I demand.
She stands up and holds up her hand. “Mia.”
“You are. I can’t believe you took his call. Hang up.”
“Hold on,” she says into her phone and punches a button. “She’s on speaker.”
“Mia, I didn’t do this,” Grayson says. “I swear on my mother, my father, and to God.”
“Stop talking, Grayson, because you see, I’m stupid. I listen to you. I want to believe you. Or I did. I trusted you. I would have died for you. No more. No more!”
“Baby, I’ll do anything—”
“To get your baby-making machine back? So you can look perfect and have your heir? No. I’m not her. I’m taking off the ring and Courtney will bring it to you. Maybe you can put it on her. She can be—”
“Stop, Mia,” Courtney says. “Stop.”
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