“He fired me off my case and put her on it, Courtney!” I shout. “Did he tell you that?”
She pales. “What?”
“Yes. Fired me and then fucked her. Or fucked me and fucked her. I don’t know. Hang up.”
“Mia!” Grayson calls out. “Listen to me. I—”
My stomach rolls and I rush to the bathroom and end up on my knees at the toilet. I heave and I am so sick I want to die. When I finally fall back on the tile, Courtney kneels beside me. “Honey, I hung up. I didn’t know about the case. That’s—”
“Damning?”
“Yeah. It kind of is.”
I curl up in a ball and let the ring in my hand settle on the tile. “Take it to him and try to get my things. I need to be alone.”
“I’ll deal with all of that tomorrow. I’m staying with you tonight, but let’s go to my place.”
“He’ll find me there.”
“Well, we have a friend who’s a realtor. I’ll see if she can get you into a place tomorrow, but you need to be somewhere where you can deal with paperwork. Let’s go back to the city.”
I sit up and pull my knees to my chest. “Right. Because I need a home and a new job.”
Because I don’t live or work with Grayson anymore.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mia
The present…
I’m still standing on the patio of Grayson’s Hamptons home, in nothing but a silk robe I bought when he was mine and I was his. I’m staring at him and he’s staring at me, and there are steps and space between us that reach beyond the physical. The night we broke up is right here with us, a wedge that won’t collapse. Images of Becky pressed against him pound at my mind, driven home by that damn text message I’d read the night of his father’s funeral. It zaps that blame I’d put on myself. It says that I’m not the one who betrayed us. It says he did. It’s the message that could catch him in a lie. I don’t want him to lie, but I need to know if he will. Emotions rush at me hard and fast. I need the truth once and for all, but I can’t do this in this robe. I can’t be that vulnerable.
I rotate and exit the patio, hurrying through the living room and I don’t stop until I’m in the bedroom. I hunt down my clothes and sneakers, scoop them up and retreat to the closet. I’ve just managed to fully dress when Grayson appears in the doorway, and he too now wears a T-shirt with his sweats and sneakers. “Leaving again, Mia?”
“Not yet, but you’re right. If I leave this time, it will be for good. Tell me,” I order, my voice cracking. “When did you start fucking her?”
He curses and runs his hand through his hair, his dark waves left in disarray as his hands settle on his waist. “Really, Mia? That’s where we’re still at right now?”
“Tell me,” I order again. “Just say it all. Say it all.”
He is in front of me in a snap, pulling me to him, his body absorbing mine and not gently. “There is no when, Mia. I was not, and have not been with Becky. She came into my office. She shut the door. I told her to leave. The phone rang. I thought it was you. I was hoping it was you since you’d shut me out over pulling you off the case. I turned my back and took the call. It was Eric with a problem. When I turned around, she’d stripped and rounded my desk. She flung herself at me and then you opened the door. I don’t know how the hell it was planned that well, but it was planned.”
“Mitch,” I say, my throat going dry, my hand flattening on his chest, heat rushing up my arm. “He called me and told me that there was a blowup on the case and that it was critical I get to your office right then.”
“And you took Mitch’s call, but not mine?”
“I was furious with you, Grayson.” I twist out of his arms and move to the opposite side of the dresser that sits in the middle of the closet. “You pulled me off the case and didn’t talk to me about it in advance. Me. The woman lying naked next to you in bed every night”—I hold up a hand—“but that’s another subject. Mitch still works for you. Mitch clearly made sure I saw you and Becky together, which means he’s working against you.”
“Becky and I were not together, Mia. Holy hell, woman. What do I have to do to get you to understand that?”
“You can’t,” I say, emotions welling in my throat. “You can’t.”
“Then why are we even here right now?”
“Right. Why? I’ll leave.” I round the dresser, but he catches my arm and pulls me to him.
“Are you really going to do this to us over a lie?”
“Ask why I left after the funeral?”
“I take it that’s a yes. A lie that isn’t mine destroys us.”
“I read your text message that day. You went to the bathroom and it was under my arm on the bed and I read it: Grayson, I saw Mia with you. I didn’t want to come up to you and start a war. Thinking of you. Love, Becky.”
He blanches and I’ve never seen Grayson blanch. “First, Becky never had my number. I have no clue how she would get it. I have no relationship with her. And the day of the funeral, the whole weekend of the funeral, I had hundreds of messages and barely glanced at any of them. I was focused on my father and you.” He releases me and reaches for his phone, snagging it from his pocket. “She signed it Becky?”
“Yes,” I whisper, hugging myself.
He types in the name in the search bar and pulls up the message. “And there it is,” he says, his lips thinning. “That little bitch. I didn’t read it or respond to it.” He hands me his phone. “I didn’t respond to most of the messages I got that day. You know how this goes. People use everything, including death, as an excuse to try to get a piece of me. I didn’t have it in me to deal with any of that. I didn’t respond to anything for days after you left and I didn’t try to catch up. You can see her message and all the rest that are unread and without response.”
I blanch, shocked by the idea of such a complete shutdown. “None of them?”
“I wouldn’t even talk to Eric for a week after my father died and you left. Leslie had to come knocking on the door because I didn’t respond to her either. And when I did come out of the haze, anyone that mattered had already found another way to talk to me. The last thing I wanted to do was read the damn messages. Go through my phone, Mia. There is no interaction between me and another woman. Nothing. Because there is no other woman.”
I start to shake and I drop his phone without meaning to, but neither of us reach for it. “You really didn’t do it?”
“No, baby. How could I want anyone but you? We were, we are, in love and it’s a passionate love.” He pulls me to him. “The kind of love most people never find.” He strokes hair from my face. “Tell me you believe me.”
Air lodges in my throat and I press a hand over my mouth, holding back a sob. I hurt him. I hurt him in a way that’s unforgivable. “I left you the night of the funeral. I’m such a horrible bitch.”
“No,” he says, pulling my hand from my face, his fingers tangling in my hair, tilting my gaze to his. “There were devious people at play here. People who meant to break us up to hurt me. And I promise you, Mia, they will pay for the pain they caused you, caused us.”
“I left you after your father died. You can’t forgive me for that. How can you even consider trying?”
“We were fighting when this happened. And it was a big fight. You already felt betrayed. I’m not blind to my part of this. I made mistakes that made this possible.”
“Yes. I was angry. And yes, there are reasons we were fighting. The case you pulled me off of. The timing. It was everything at once. It was—it was more than Becky and things we need to talk about, but those things weren’t me leaving you after your father died. I betrayed us.”
“No, baby. You didn’t. I did. I let us be that vulnerable. I did things that day that I didn’t explain. I allowed us to be that exposed and it won’t ever happen again. I’ll protect us. I’ll protect you. And Ri will pay in blood for what he’s done.”
Anger quakes i
n his voice and Grayson is not a man who allows such emotions to control him. Anger that I know is not all about Ri and what he perceives his role to be in our breakup. It’s about me leaving him, me walking away. No matter what he says otherwise, we’ve betrayed each other in ways that have led us to where we are now. We can’t just kiss and make up. We have to fight through the emotional storm to follow. We have to fight for each other.
“We’re going to be okay,” he promises, and I wonder if he’s trying to convince me or him, or both of us. It doesn’t matter though. I want him to be right. I want him to be right so badly that when his mouth comes down on mine, I am instantly clinging to him the way I would a ledge for dear life. I can’t let go or I’ll cease to exist. I won’t let go. Not this time. Not ever. No matter how fierce that storm becomes. No matter how brutal the fight I know is to come.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mia
“Stop kissing me like it’s goodbye, Mia,” Grayson orders, pressing me against the closet wall in between a row of his clothes and mine. His fingers tangle roughly in my hair. “There is no goodbye. Not this time. Not ever again. You’re mine and just to be clear, I’m yours. I was always yours.”
“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. Things happened. Those things change us.”
He kisses me, a deep, drugging kiss. “Do we taste different to you?” His hand slides down my back and he cups my backside, molding my hips to his hips, his erection pressed to my belly. “Do we feel different? How do we feel, Mia?”
“Perfect,” I whisper. “But we aren’t perfect. We can’t pretend that we are.” Emotions overwhelm me, the idea that I left him after his father died cutting me into a million little pieces. “Grayson—”
“We’re back together. That’s what matters. We can talk, fight, fuck, and repeat to get past this, but we have that opportunity for one reason and one reason only. We’re here. We’re together.”
“We’re together,” I whisper, my hands sliding under his shirt, palms pressing against his taut flesh in an effort to confirm those words that don’t yet feel real.
“I don’t want to be without you again,” he says, his voice low, raspy, affected, as his mouth closes down on mine and the minute our tongues connect, we’re desperate all over again. Our hands are everywhere and clothes are shoved, pulled, and pushed until we’re standing there in the closet, naked, and it’s still not enough.
Grayson pulls my leg to his hip and his thick erection presses along the wet seam of my sex. I moan with need and satisfaction because he’s here, we’re here, doing this. He presses inside me and lifts me at the same time. It’s just like beside the car the day of the funeral. He’s holding me and his hands squeeze my ass, pulling me away from the wall and down on top of him even as he’s pushing into me. I hold onto his shoulders, my nails digging in, my lips finding his as his hand settles between my shoulder blades. And when we can’t kiss for the force of our passion, I bury my face in his neck, inhaling that delicious woodsy scent of him that I want to roll around in, get drunk on.
It’s as if we both feel like we have to hold onto each other, to get closer to survive and perhaps that’s where this leads; we do have to hold onto each other, we do have to get closer to survive all the damaged places we’ve been and now we cannot fully escape. I don’t want this to end, and yet when my back hits the wall again and he drives into me, I welcome the tumble into bliss that follows. I welcome the shudder of his body around mine. I revel in the deep, guttural groan that escapes his lips in pleasure with me and no one else. Our bodies tremble and ease, seconds ticking before Grayson eases back and says, “How about that pizza?”
I laugh, “Yes. Please. I’m officially starving.”
He kisses me, a quick brush of our mouths before he settles me on the ground, but when we would pull on our clothes, he cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “We’re together, Mia. Everything will work out.”
“I want it, too. I really did hurt without you, Grayson.”
“Me too, baby. Me, too.” He strokes my hair. “Let’s eat in the kitchen where we can heat up the pizza and talk. Really talk. I owe you a few more explanations.”
He means about why he fired me off my case the day we broke up and I dread this conversation. I’m not even sure I can have it now. I don’t want to fight with him and yet I know we need to clear the air. I know I’ve avoided conversations that I shouldn’t have avoided. I think he feels the same thing, the dread, the wish that we could just go back to where we started. I sense it in the air, I see it in his eyes. He doesn’t want to fight, but we have to have tough conversations. We have to deal with this.
As soon as we’re both back in our sweats, tees, and sneakers, Grayson takes my hand and leads me forward, out of the bedroom. Once we’re on the stairs, he bends our elbows, pulling me next to him. “Talk, fight, fuck,” he says softly, and the new ball of dread in my belly softens when we enter the kitchen and seem to fall into old habits. He kisses my hand before he releases me to place the pizza in the oven. “Do you remember the first time we ate this pizza?” he asks, turning up the temperature.
Do I remember?
So very well.
“How can I forget our first date?” I ask, settling onto a barstool. “It was a week after our meeting for drinks, and I still hadn’t called you on Friday night, so you took matters into your own hands.”
“I had no choice,” he says, joining me to sit on the barstool next to me, both of us facing each other, his hand settling on my knee. “I wasn’t letting you run from me.”
“I wasn’t running.”
“You were, Mia. You were running scared. I saw it in your eyes.”
I cut my stare and think back to that night, to where I was in my head when I met Grayson because it feels a lot like where I am with him now. And I know Grayson. I know that’s the point in this conversation. He knows that, and he wants me to tap into that memory, into those feelings, and the way he freed me from them. No. The way we freed me from them.
Grayson cups my head, and kisses me. “How about some wine, baby?”
“Yes. Please. Do you have that one—”
“Of course I have that one. It’s what you like.” He stands up and crosses the room to another bar at the end of the kitchen while I let my mind go where he wants it to go. To our first real date:
It’s seven on Friday night and the cubicles beyond my office door are all empty. I gather my work and slide it into my briefcase. My cellphone rings and I grab it to find my father calling. “Hey, dad.”
“You still at work?”
“I am. You?”
“Not tonight. I’m headed to a baseball game with my new foreman, Cameron, and then we’re going to the casino in Connecticut.”
“The casino? You don’t like to gamble.”
“That’s what they make penny slots for,” he says. “And I need a break. I’m burning it at both ends. What about you? The new job burning you out?”
“No,” I say. “I love it. It’s—interesting.” As is the boss, who I keep thinking about way too much, but thankfully haven’t seen again since our bar meet-up.
“We need to meet up for dinner. I know the job is new, but come to Brooklyn, honey. I need to hug my daughter. How about next weekend?”
“I’d like that. We’ll make it work.”
We chat a minute more, then disconnect and I’m bothered by the call. My father gambling? That makes no sense, but that home builders show he went to a few months back did earn him lots of new woodworking business. Maybe his money situation has eased up. I need to talk to him next weekend, but it must have if he’s taking time off.
Relieved by this idea, I grab my briefcase and head for my door. I’m about to exit when Grayson steps in front of me and I do what I did once before. I smash right into him. I gasp and he catches my waist. “I do like the way you keep running into me,” he says, those green eyes piercing mine. “You haven’t called.”
&nbs
p; I should step back. I should push away from him. “No, and I won’t.” I inhale and try to step back.
He holds onto me. “Do you want me to let you go?”
“That’s a trick question,” I answer honestly.
“Explain, Mia.”
“If you weren’t my boss—”
“I’m not your boss, Mia. I’m just a man who can’t stop thinking about you. Have dinner with me.”
“I can’t.”
“You want to.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“Then you can,” he counters.
“I can’t get by the fact that you’re Grayson Bennett.”
“To most people, that’s not a problem.”
“I’m not most people,” I say. “I told you that.”
He stares at me several beats and then his hand falls away. “I’ll see you soon, Mia.” He backs out of the office and disappears.
I sink against my wall just inside the doorway and try to catch my breath, but my God, my entire body is on fire. He’s just so damn—perfect. The way he looks. The way he smells. The way he feels. Those green eyes. I breathe out and force myself to move.
I exit my office and scan for Grayson but he’s nowhere around, and a punch of disappointment grinds through me. He’s my boss, no matter how he tries to frame it otherwise. I can’t go out with him. I can’t even sleep with him. It sucks. I hurry forward and enter the elevator, my body humming a tune that Grayson wrote. I need a workout. A long, hard workout. And chocolate. It’s not Grayson Bennett, but it will do. My weekend plans set, I exit the building and start walking. I’ve made it one block, with one to go to reach the subway, when a black Porsche pulls up next to me.
The window rolls down. “Get in,” a male voice calls out and I suck in air when I realize it’s Grayson. It’s a moment of decision. I know this. I should say no. I try.
I walk to the window and lean in. “I’m not getting in.”
“No one else knows what happens between us unless we make that decision together. It’s just you and me tonight, Mia.”
Dirty Rich Betrayal Page 8
