Just me and him. I don’t know why those words, all of them spoken together, hit all the right notes, but they do. “I don’t want to regret this,” I say, in a last bid for resistance.
“And if you walk away, will you regret that? Because I can tell you, I will.”
I tell myself he’s a man that already controls my job. I can’t allow him to become the man who controls my heart and yet, I don’t know what happens. I just—I get in the car.
Grayson sits back down next to me and hands me my glass of wine. “What are you thinking, Mia?”
“About you showing up in your fancy sports car and telling me to get in.” I reach up and stroke his cheek, the rasp of his whiskers on my fingers. “And then you brought me here, to your mansion in the Hamptons, in a chopper. But we had pizza as your way to prove to me that you were just a man. That we weren’t worlds apart.”
“We were never worlds apart,” he says. “From the day we met, we were a team.”
“And yet you fired me off that case without talking to me first,” I say, the words spilling out of my mouth of their own accord. “I don’t understand how that made us a team. It made you the man in control of my heart and my career.”
“And so instead of fighting with me, instead of giving me a chance to explain, repent, regret, make it up to you, you used Becky as an excuse to run.”
“I didn’t run.” I try to stand up.
He catches my arm. “What are you doing right now?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mia
“What am I doing right now?” I demand, still on the barstool with Grayson holding onto my arm. “Giving myself room to fight. I don’t want to be trapped in my seat right now.”
He studies me for several unreadable seconds and then lets me go, but there’s something in the way he does it, in the way he withdraws beyond the physical that keeps me in my seat. “I’m not even thinking about leaving. I wish I never had. I wish I could turn back the clock and get back our lost time.”
He doesn’t immediately respond. He doesn’t agree. He doesn’t offer me the forgiveness I don’t deserve for leaving, and some part of me really needs to be forgiven, perhaps because I feel he never really will. Which makes the fact that he’s the one who stands up now and walks away, appropriate. He offers me his back and presses his hands onto the counter opposite the island by the sink. I’ve hurt him again, and in turn, I’ve pushed him away when I want him close. I stand up and quickly slide between him and the sink, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t touch me. “Is that how it is, Mia?” he asks. “I suffocate you? I make you feel trapped?”
My hand settles on his chest. “No. God no. You always made me feel safe in too many ways to name. In us. In the rest of the world. In my desire to go bigger and further. You made me feel so many things, good things that I have missed. I just—”
“You just what?” he demands, his voice low, taut, and still he doesn’t touch me.
“I felt like that safe feeling was a lie. I was so hurt when I left that I think it’s hard to let down my guard again.”
“I didn’t cheat on you, Mia. I don’t deserve to have you put up that kind of guard again.”
“I know, but I pulled up a guard to protect myself and now I have to pull that wall down. I am pulling it down. The problem is that when I pull it down, what’s left is me leaving you over a lie that wasn’t yours. That makes us unsteady.”
“To me, unsteady was when we were apart. Steady is here, now. Together.”
“It is, but you own your world in a way that most do not. You own my world and me when I’m with you. With my heart on the line, that’s more than scary. It’s terrifying.”
“And you own mine, Mia. You are my world.”
He says the words with deep, guttural passion, but he still doesn’t touch me. “I think it’s hard to feel like your equal,” I admit, just wanting to say it, to get it all out once and for all.
“When have I ever made you feel less than me?” He pushes off the counter, his hands settling at his hips, withdrawing even further. “I talked to you about everything. I trusted you with everything. I needed you with me through it all.”
“But you have to know that there are few human beings on this planet that can stand next to you and not compare themselves and judge themselves unworthy. I always wanted to deserve to be by your side. I wanted to have more depth to what I offer when you do ask my opinion.”
“And you thought you didn’t? Aside from being beautiful and intelligent, Mia, you, like my father, have a moral compass that keeps mine in line. He loved that about you just like I do. You keep me solid.”
“You don’t need me for that. Your father carved right and wrong into your very being. I want to be more than that for you and for me. That was something I was working toward when we broke up and it felt good. I need my own successes, so when you pulled me from that case without talking to me, I felt—owned, in the wrong way.”
“Mia—”
I hold up a hand. “Before you respond, I need to say a little more. You handled pulling me from that account wrong, but I had insecurities that probably made me handle it just as wrong. Had Becky not pressed her damn naked breasts against you that day, I would have talked it out with you. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m talking it out with you. Not running.”
“I was protecting you,” he says. “That is what the man who loves you should do.”
“If I was at risk of your father firing me to set an example, I should be making the decision about taking that risk.”
“It was more than that. I get that you were next in line, but we pulled the lead counsel because he was in bed with the mob. That’s how we ended up defending a dirty mobster we thought wasn’t dirty. You didn’t see all of the facts and when I did, I pulled a favor with the judge. I asked to have the opportunity to pull you. He made me do it on the spot. It was then or never and I didn’t want you on the feds’ or the mob’s radar. The end. That wasn’t happening. I love you too damn much for that.”
“You should have told me you were making the call. I don’t know a woman who would be upset that her man was trying to protect her. I just don’t get why you didn’t talk to me. That isn’t us. Not the us I knew.”
“I had to make a snap decision and I know you, Mia. You would’ve said you could take the heat off with the feds.”
“I could have. I’m squeaky clean. I would have if it protected you and the firm.”
“That’s what I mean. You would have tried to protect me. I would have pulled you, and the fact that I ignored your pleas would have made it worse.”
“No. It would not have because I wouldn’t have felt betrayed. Just pissed.” I step to him again and press my hand to his chest. “Don’t do that to me again because we will need a weekend and a rubber room for the war that will ensue.”
“If I ever have to make a snap decision to protect you, Mia, I’ll make it and I’d expect you to do the same in reverse.” He shackles my arm and pulls me to him. “Like you came here to protect me. That’s what we do. We protect each other. That’s what you would have tried to do.”
I reach up and brush my fingers over his jaw. “Yes. We protect each other, but next time, you don’t get to go around me.”
“You’re right, but just know this, baby. When I look into your eyes and you ask for something, it’s hard as hell to deny you.” The buzzer on the oven goes off.
“Even pizza? Because I’m really hungry.”
He cups my face, and he’s not focused on pizza. “If you hold back, if you get ready for me to leave you, then you’ve already left me again. Or just never came back. All in, Mia, or all out.”
“All in,” I say, despite the fact that I am unreasonably afraid of being hurt. He didn’t betray me. I betrayed him. I hurt him. I need to be vulnerable. I owe him that. And I have to trust him not to hurt me, the way I should have trusted him a year ago.
“How about that pizza
?” Grayson asks, kissing me. “It’s been far too long since we shared one together.”
“Pizza with you sounds like everything.”
Tension eases from his body, and the hard lines of his handsome face soften. He’s back. He’s here with me and relief washes over me. I need him. I need him in ways I tried to deny and failed every time.
He walks to the oven and pulls out the pizza and I turn to watch him return. He sets it on the island counter. “How’s your dad?” he asks, flipping open the lid.
My eyes go wide. “Going out of town this weekend and I don’t have my phone. What if he calls?” I dart away toward the bedroom and hunt down my purse and my phone. Once I’ve located it, I check my missed calls and go cold. Ri has called not once but three times.
I glance at my text messages and there’s one there from him as well: Mia. We should talk. Immediately. Call me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mia
I’ve barely read the message from Ri when Grayson appears in the closet doorway. “Is everything okay?”
I don’t even consider anything but honesty with Grayson, not now, not ever before. “I have missed calls from Ri.” I offer him my phone. “And a text message.”
He steps forward and takes it, glancing at the message. “Fuck Ri. Let’s go eat our pizza.” He grabs me and starts to walk with my phone still in his hand.
I catch his arm and dig my heels in. “Wait.”
“You are not working for him if that’s what you’re about to say,” he says, rotating to face me. “You don’t need him, his job, or his money. You have me.”
“I know that, but until we hear more from your team about whatever he’s up to, I think we need to hear what he has to say. Just let me do some information-grabbing.”
“I’ve had about all of you with Ri that I care to handle, Mia.”
His voice vibrates with anger, the kind of anger I deserve considering I left him over a lie that wasn’t his. The kind of anger that tells me he’s affected by my leaving, we’re affected, no matter how much we both just want to go back to the old, untainted us.
“I can’t take back what I did,” I say, “but I can make it work for you and us. I’m protecting you, and as you said, that’s what we do. We protect each other. It’s a call. That’s all, and you already know he’s up to trouble. Let me find out what I can with you right here with me.”
His lashes lower, his expression all hard lines and angles, seconds ticking by before he looks at me and says, “Make the call. Get it over with.” He looks down at my phone and I swear there is this moment when he realizes he’s holding it captive as if he didn’t even know he’d done it. And that’s not Grayson.
I push to my toes and kiss him and it feels really good to have him right here where I can do that. “Getting it over with now,” I say, settling on my feet and taking my phone from him. Grayson leans on the dresser in the center of the closet, his back pressed to the wooden surface. I do the same next to him, making sure my legs are aligned with his, making sure he knows that I’m right here with him.
Only then do I hit the callback button for Ri. He answers on the first ring.
“Mia,” he says.
“Ri.”
“I called you an hour ago.”
“I didn’t hear it ring,” I reply, glancing at Grayson with a question in my eyes. Can he hear?
He gives a nod.
“Word is that you’re looking for a job,” Ri snaps.
I don’t play coy, which is another form of a lie and I hate lies. “You’ve been an ass to me since that incident, Ri. I haven’t been feeling exactly secure.”
“It’s against your employment contract to hunt for a job without offering notice first,” he replies, no denial of the incident or his treatment of me since. “That bonus I gave you when you signed on. I could strip it.”
I glance at Grayson who smirks, because obviously money isn’t exactly a good threat to use against me right about now. I assume I’ll move in with him again. I assume I’ll have a job with him should I so choose. I assume we’ll get married, but—what if those things don’t apply? Grayson must see the questions in my eyes because he steps in front of me, his legs caging me. His eyes hold mine and there is pure possessive heat in his stare, and with it, a promise that I am his and he is mine.
“Mia?” Ri snaps.
I force myself to focus on the call and Ri’s threat, which may or may not mean he knows I’m back with Grayson. Ri is sneaky. He’d test me. He’d trick me. “I’m just trying to digest what you just said to me. Come on, Ri. You know how awkward it’s been and that’s personal, not professional. Only it’s become professional because I now fear for my job.”
He inhales sharply. “I gave you a job. I gave you a sign-on bonus. I waited for you to get over him. Why the fuck can’t you just forget him like he has you? He’s all over the papers with that model.”
That cuts and I look down, afraid I won’t control my reaction to Ri as well if I look into Grayson’s eyes right now. I left him. He thought I was with Ri. He hasn’t lied to me about being with other women. “I have won every case I’ve taken since joining the firm, two of which went to trial, the rest I settled otherwise. I’ve done a good job for you and if that’s not enough, I need to find another job, and you need to consider this my official notice, which I’ll follow up in writing.”
He’s silent a beat. “We should meet. Now. Tonight.”
“I’m not meeting you, Ri. Not unless it’s at the office Monday morning.”
“Jesus, woman. You’re still so fucking hung up on Grayson that you can’t see how good I could be for you. He’s gone. Leave him in the grave where he belongs.”
In the grave. I don’t like those words and my gaze jerks to Grayson’s, anger burning in the depth of his stare. “Did you hire me for my skills or because I was Grayson’s scorned woman?”
“I wouldn’t have hired you if you didn’t have skills, and it’s not my fault that Grayson was stupid enough to fuck around and lose you, personally and professionally. We need to meet.”
“Monday morning,” I say. “If that’s not good enough, fire me.”
“You have another job offer,” he assumes. “That’s why you’re pushing back.”
“I don’t have another job, but I can’t take the way you’re treating me. It’s been an eyeopener. I finally woke up and saw the writing on the wall. I’m not a token in a game you and Grayson are playing. I want to do my job and do it well.”
He’s silent several beats. “Monday morning. Seven a.m. in my office.” He hangs up.
Grayson takes the phone from me and sets it on the dresser behind me. His hands shackle my waist. “I have never wanted to cause someone harm until Ri. He’s using that model, who I didn’t fuck, by the way, to push your buttons. To push mine.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“But it still upset you.”
“The idea of you with someone else—yeah. That’s what even got me to the point of that date with Ri that resulted in a knee.”
“Just like Becky sent you to his doorstep,” he says as if that’s a fact before he pushes off the dresser, withdrawing.
“No,” I say quickly. “That’s not what happened. That’s not even close to what happened.”
His jaw clenches. “Do you intend to meet with him Monday morning?”
“I think, under the circumstances, with him going after you, that’s a decision we should make together.”
“You going anywhere near Ri again is not a smart decision for us, Mia.” He turns and walks out of the closet, leaving me trying to catch my breath.
There it is and it didn’t take long. Already, we’re there, peeling back the layers that reveal his resentment over my stupid actions and he’s justified. I quickly follow him, ready to fight for the man I love. I find him in the bedroom, sitting in an oversized black leather chair in the corner of the room, a chair where we have fucked many t
imes. A chair where I’ve fallen asleep in his arms while we talked afterward. I cross and sink down next to him, but he doesn’t turn to look at me.
“I need to know how you ended up with him, Mia.” He looks at me, those green eyes turbulent, and yet unreadable. “I didn’t think I needed to know, but I do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mia
I don’t deny Grayson his request. If he wants to know how I ended up working for Ri, I’ll tell him. I want him to know. I need him to know. I move out of the chair we’re sharing and sit on the ottoman in front of him. And I go back in time, taking him there with me…
Two weeks and seven pounds lost since Grayson and I split, I stand at the window of my new apartment, watching rain pound the Manhattan streets. I should be relieved to have this place, considering it came fully furnished, with a one-year lease, and a fabulous price, but it’s just so damn empty, like I am right now. I miss Grayson so much and every time he calls I just want to talk to him, but I miss him too much to do that right now. I’ll believe anything he says. I need to believe he’s innocent, but every time I travel down that rabbit hole, I wake up from a nightmare involving him and Becky’s stupid naked breasts.
My cellphone rings and I walk to the basic wooden kitchen table in the corner of the loft-style space and grab my phone to find my father calling. “Honey, you haven’t been out to see me in weeks.”
“I know. Sorry. It’s been crazy.”
“You and your billionaire fiancé are up to fun things, I hope. Are you two in the city by chance? I had to come in for business.”
“I’m here. Where are you?”
He gives me a location which isn’t far from here. I suggest the coffee shop on the corner because I figure inviting him here would shock him. I have to tell him about Grayson. We hang up and my cellphone rings with Grayson’s number. God. I want to take the call. I want to just hear his voice. I hit the answer button. “Mia, baby. Please. Mia, I need to see you. This is killing me.”
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